Culture over Structure: The Heritage of Lifestyle Research in the 1970s in Hungary and Poland
Culture over Structure: The Heritage of Lifestyle Research in the 1970s in Hungary and Poland
Author(s): Piotr Filipkowski, Judit Gárdos, Éva Kovács, Vera SzabariSubject(s): History, Social Sciences, Sociology, History and theory of sociology, Social Theory, Sociology of Culture
Published by: Wydział Socjologii Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: culture versus structure;everyday life;history of Hungarian sociology;history of Polish sociology;holistic approach;interpretive analysis;lifestyle research;multi-method research;socialism
Summary/Abstract: In our article we will present two Eastern European examples of how sociological research on everyday life in the 1970s has been influenced by political and cultural circumstances and particular scientific traditions. From the early 1970s, sociology flourished in some countries of the Eastern Bloc, institutes were refounded, and research projects were heavily subsidised. Research into daily life – the so-called “socialist lifestyle” – was one of the main foci of sociological inquiry. Recently, similar data collections from two such projects were discovered in the archives of academies of sciences in Hungary (HAS) and Poland (PAS). In both cases, we can see that the researchers stand decisively on the side of “high” culture, while taking a normative view of “low”cultural consumption. Even though there was no direct cooperation or interdependence between Hungarian and Polish “lifestyle” researchers, we can observe similar structures of thinking about socialist society. Western influence, mostly implicitly, is also visible.
Journal: Stan Rzeczy
- Issue Year: 2017
- Issue No: 13
- Page Range: 147-170
- Page Count: 24
- Language: English
