The dialectics of disembedding and civil society in provincial Hungary

This essay applies Karl Polanyi’s concepts of embedding and countermovement to provincial Hungary during and after socialism. Comprehensive state socialist repression in the 1950s was a politics-led disembedding. An economy-led countermovement began in the 1960s, later augmented by elite discourses of civil society. The 1970s and 1980s were decades of socialist embeddedness. Neoliberal configurations after 1990 dislocated both economic and associational life. The illiberal democracy of Viktor Orbán is a more consequential countermovement than the earlier countermovements to state socialism. The argument is illustrated with data from long-term fieldwork in southern Hungary, in the region of the Danube-Tisza Interfluve

The Influence of Historic Violin Treatises on Modern Teaching and Performance Practices

Effective technique in violin playing evolved due to several historical pedagogical treatises written by knowledgeable masters. These treatises have greatly influenced the development of today’s pedagogical approaches. Unfortunately, many students may not know why a technique has been prescribed or how the various aspects of technique work together. Understanding why these techniques are used today, and even how they evolved, can help a student correctly apply and reach the desired result. The treatises of Francesco Geminiani (1751), Leopold Mozart (1756), L’Abbé le Fils (1761), and Pierre Marie François de Sales Baillot (1834) shaped performance practice and contributed to the development of today’s optimal Franco-Belgian violin technique. These masters understood effective technique. They had defined approaches to various performance matters including left hand dexterity, posture, bow hold, and the performer’s knowledge of theory and styles

An ethnographic study of family, livelihoods and women's everyday lives in Dakar, Senegal

This thesis explores competing meanings of being a woman in Dakar, Senegal. Above all, it is concerned with the relationship between livelihoods – how ordinary Dakarois make ends meet – and women’s gendered identities. It explores the full spectrum of Dakar women’s economic activities, all the while keeping the definition of what, precisely, qualifies as ‘economic’ or as ‘work’ as open as possible. Distancing itself from approaches that privilege the sexual aspects of gender, this thesis asks what kinds of gendered economic identities emerge in the context of the various roles and relationships that constitute women’s everyday lives. What do women do that enables people in this society to get by and to secure their day-­‐to-­‐day needs? How are these activities experienced, and what kind of values are they imbued with? Based on three years’ fieldwork in low-­‐income neighbourhoods across the Dakar region, the thesis advances an ethnographic analysis of women’s roles as wives and girlfriends, sisters and sisters-­‐in-­‐law, daughters, mothers and grandmothers, and members of extended family and community networks. It explores women’s activities as dependents, consumers, providers and informal-­‐sector workers. Together, the chapters shed light on the complexities and contradictions involved in being a woman in this particular part of the world. Building on the ethnographic findings, this thesis argues that it is possible to identify two distinct, even competing conceptions of being a woman in Dakar. One of these can be framed in terms of ‘materialism’, the other around the emic concept of ‘mothering work’. Dakar women, this thesis suggests, draw on both in order to create, defend and challenge the meaning and the value of their everyday experiences