Torsello, Davide - Pappová, Melinda: Social Networks in Movement. Time, interaction and interethnic spaces in Central Eastern Europe - Nostra Tempora 8. (Somorja-Dunaszerdahely, 2003)
Time and social networks
84 Davide Torsello norms of behaviour within the community. In this point resides the strength of Banfield’s (1958) approach that allowed his work to remain influential in spite of its shortcomings. The ethos that allegedly lead Montegrano’s people in their daily struggle to survive and make the best of their "backwardness" is grounded in the crucial importance, recognized by actors, of dealing with patterns of social interaction. Widespread mistrust in persons and institutions is one of the responses that villagers create in the course of their everyday existence in conditions of "poverty" and economic distress. Trust is at stake in everyday aspects of the social life of individuals because the scarcity of economic means leads them to stick to social interaction as the main channel through which the survival of the family can be assured. There is, in this situation, no space for “blind" and absolute trust, because its (social and economic) benefits are absent from the life of individuals. On the other hand, mistrust operates to build obligations between actors, not as a form of apathy or inactivity, but as an active way of dealing with uncertainty and general conditions of scarcity. This attitude is exemplified in Királyfa’s case on two different levels. On one level, people say and do different things. Ambiguity is created and reproduced in the course of everyday practices and permeates all spheres of social action (from the family to the state). Following the paradigm proposed by Grabher and Stark (1997), it can be maintained that ambiguity is intentional and strategic, because it helps diversify the scope and aims of action. On a second level, in contrast to what Banfield (1958) postulates, outspoken mistrust does not necessarily entail the absence of patterns of collective action and the creation of intermediary forms of associations. The case of Királyfa illustrates that, even though people seem to indicate mistrust as one of the most tangible problems and features of the postsocialist transformation, the kind and degree of their involvement in (civil and religious) collective life and the ambiguity of their choices suggest that there is no such thing as a "creeping" amoral familism. As in the case of Montegrano,
