Lisa Pope Fischer
Symbolic Traces of Communist Legacy in Post-Socialist Hungary: Experiences of a Generation that Lived During the Socialist Era
In Symbolic Traces of Communist Legacy in Post-socialist Hungary, Lisa Pope Fischer shows how personal practices symbolically refurbish elements from the Communist era to fit present-day challenges. A generation who lived through the socialist period adapt to post-socialist Hungary in a global context. Life histories weave together case studies of gift giving, procurement strategies, harvest ritual, healthcare, and socialist kitsch to illustrate turns towards mysticism, neo-traditionalism, nostalgia, nationalism, and shifts in time-place. People’s unrequited past longing for future possibilities of a Western society facilitate desires for a lost way of life. Not only does this work gain understanding of an aging population’s life experiences and the politics of everyday practices, but also social change in a modern global world.
Lisa Pope Fischer, Ph.D. (2001), University of California, Los Angeles, is an Anthropology Professor at New York City College of Technology (CUNY). She has published articles on Post-socialist Hungary including a chapter ““Talking Back: Reflections of a Researcher’s Experience and Identity Construction” in Identity and Self Respect. (Debrecen University Press, 2015).
