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
Managing instability 85 but in different tones, the instability that came as a product of the historical (postsocialist) transformation has deeply affected the manner in which villagers build their social confrontation. On the one hand, the pace of the overall changes instills in people a strong concern for how social relations are shaped in the village. This depends on the fact that interpersonal relations and social ties are seen as vital assets both in the village and outside. As a result, villagers seem rather cautious in the process of daily interaction and, even in the case of family and kinship relations, unconditional trust seems to be lacking. On the other hand, people’s ideas may not coincide with their practices simply because they deliberately choose to do so in order to keep open venues of choices and to create reciprocal expectations and obligations. This brings villagers to the point in which patterns of behaviour need to be strictly regulated by norms of reciprocity in order to avoid the worst outcome, i.e. the elimination of any social relation. Mistrust therefore provides scope for these obligations because it is not accompanied by practices in which no relation takes place among individuals. In this sense, mistrust becomes strategic, just like the fact of doing one thing and saying something different. References Banfield, E. C. (1958), The Moral Basis of a Backward Society. Glencoe, III.: Free Press. Blok, A. (2001), 'Explaining south Italian agro towns'. In A. Blok (ed.) Honour and Violence. Malden, Mass.: Polity (136-154). Colby, B.N. (1967), 'Psychological orientations'. In R. Wauchope (ed.) Handbook of Middle American Indians, Vol. 6. Austin: University of Texas Press (416-431). Grabher, G.; Stark, D. (eds.) (1997), Restructuring Networks in Post- Socialism: Legacies, Linkages and Localities. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Misztal, B. (2001), Informality. Social Theory and Contemporary Practice. London: Routledge. Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic. Census 2001. Population and Housing Census. Bratislava: Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic.
