Urbanities,
Vol. 4
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No 2
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November 2014
© 2014
Urbanities
92
Such a transformation of Csepel’s sense of itself was accomplished in incremental stages
that invariably reshaped not only the town’s self-image but also workers’ own consciousness of
themselves. Local political processes followed immediately and communist leaders had to react
accordingly. Until the mid-1980s, there was in Hungary a single minor political opposition to the
socialist government known as the ‘democratic opposition,’ a loose coalition of two factions
often identified as including the ‘urbanists’ and the ‘populists’. Strange as it may sound to urban
anthropologists, that intellectual disparity, dating back to the 1930s, refers to the tension between
a more conservative political stance with regard to Hungary’s external relations, and a more
liberal one. For their part, the populists stress the importance of the country’s history and culture
as a mobilizing force and advocate a more gradual integration into a privatized, Western-style
market economy. On the contrary, the ‘urbanites’ have advocated a liberal, Western orientation
that emphasizes civil liberties, stronger political and cultural ties to the West, and complete free-
market liberalization.
The political economic turmoil has caused not only a complete rearrangement of party
politics locally, but wreaked havoc in the industrial structure of the entire country. This has been
reported by others as well, but I was able to participate in the very process of industrial closures,
factory sales and massive unemployment that followed in their wake. Many of my young
informants in the city of Csepel lost their jobs and were searching for other possibilities to earn
money. Disillusioned and without any institutional support, kids on the streets joined far-right
organisations and took up occupations outside their skills. It was not a pretty picture for sure, but
it was the reality of the 1990s in most of the industrial cities of Hungary (Kürti 1998). In the
cultural sphere the mindless international popular culture exacerbated some of the national issues
that I also reported on earlier (Kürti 2011). Such a manipulated political field soon made its way
to Csepel working-class neighbourhoods and the once proud ‘red heritage’ slowly was fading out
from conversations. By the late 1990s, when I conducted the last phase of my Csepel study, the
new left-liberal party was barely making a dent in the political tapestry of the district. It is not
surprising then that by 2010 a right-wing mayor was elected backed up by a majority of right-
wing councilmen on the local council.
Conducting fieldwork in an industrial area of a city involves many institutions that are
far from local. From day one, my fieldwork took an interesting turn as I had to navigate
between different institutions, both political and civic that transgressed district boundaries.
Contributing to the existing hierarchical politics that went up to ministerial level, was the
heterogeneity and size of various offices and agencies that seemed chaotic at first, but became
more and more manageable as my fieldwork progressed. One of the factories I studied was
the Machine-Tool Factory, the other the Non-Ferrous Metal Works, both with large
constituency of labour force and extensive export capabilities. Both factories were truly
global, an aspect that also ramified into various local civic events and symbolic actions. In
1986 for instance, Mikhail Gorbachev visited Csepel; less than ten years later, an American
group of executives came, but I saw even African businessmen trying to secure a deal with
the local government bent on privatizing various state factories. By the mid-1990s, several
Chinese shops, restaurants and laundries opened together with Turkish (Arab) fast-food
places. Extended networks are also an everyday reality that one has to face with. Although my
