Re-territorialization of Space in South Slovakia – Visual Practices of Village Signs

Vol.12,No.1
Visual Studies

Abstract
This article examines a recent example of symbolic geography and attempts to analyse the practice of reterritorialization of space by stressing the cultural and national character of particular settlements. The author shows that with expanding business, work and study opportunities globalisation may be causing the disappearance of borders, but on the other hand it can cause the emergence of renewed symbolic borders based on cultural and national identity. The article is based on a limited research project in a number of south Slovakian villages containing substantial Hungarian populations, focusing on village signs written in the runic székely script, which is identified by the author as a national symbol transported from Transylvania, and which recently became an ideal representation of authentic Hungarian culture. The signs link the towns with the memory of Greater Hungary, manifest the cultural and historical supremacy of Hungarians living in the area, and signify the territory,or in other words reterritorialize the space. The reterritorialization process creates a mental map that unites the Hungarian nation and shows that meaning and territory are strongly bounded.

Keywords:
symbolic geography; space; de-territorialization; re-territorialization; national identity; cultural identity; performativity; visual representation
References

Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2003. The Meanings of Social Life: A Cultural Sociology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195160840.001.0001

Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2006. “Cultural Pragmatics: Social Performance between Ritual and Strategy.” Pp. 29-90 in, Social Performance. Symbolic Action, Cultural Pragmatics and Ritual, edited by Jeffrey C. Alexander, Bernhard Giesen and Jason L. Mast. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511616839.002

Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2013. “Afterword.” Nations and Nationalism 19(4): 693-695. https://doi.org/10.1111/nana.12041

Anderson, Benedict. 2006. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.

Brubaker, Rogers. 1994. “Rethinking Nationhood: Nation as Institutionalized Form, Practical Category, Contingent Event.” Contention 4 (1): 3-14.

Brubaker, Rogers. 1996. Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511558764

Brubaker, Rogers. 2006. Ethnicity without Groups. London: Harvard University Press.

Brubaker, Rogers, Margit Feischmidt, Jon Fox a Liana Grancea. 2008. Nationalist Politics and Everyday Ethnicity in a Transylvanian Town. Oxford: Princeton University Press.

Durkheim, Émile. 1995. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. New York: The Free Press.

Emmison, Michael and Philip Smith. 2007. Researching the Visual. Images, Objects, Context and Interactions in Social and Cultural Inquiry. London: SAGE. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781849209854

Feischmidt, Margit. 2005. “The Localization of Hungarian Discourses on Authenticity to Transylvania.” Pp. 5-28 in Deconstructing Transylvania, edited by Margit Feischmidt. Budapest: Ethnographic Museum - Dep. of Communication and Media Studies University of Pécs.

Gupta, Akhil and James Ferguson. 1997 “Culture, Power, Place: Ethnography at the End of an Era.” Pp. 1-32 in Culture, Power, Place: Explorations in Critical Anthropology, edited by Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson. London: Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822382089

Gupta, Akhil and James Ferguson. 1997. “Beyond ‘Culture’: Space, Identity, and the Politics of Difference.” Pp. 33-51 in Culture, Power, Place: Explorations in Critical Anthropology, edited by Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson. London: Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822382089-001

György, Péter. 2013. Állatkert Kolozsváron – képzelt Erdély [The Zoo in Cluj – Imagined Transylvania]. Budapest: Magvető.

Le Rider, Jacques. 2008. “Mittel Europa as lieux de mémoire.” Pp. 37-46 in A Companion to Cultural Memory Studies, edited by Astrid Erll and Ansgar Nünning. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co.

Nora, Pierre. 2001. “General Introduction.” Pp. vii-xxii in Rethinking France. Les Lieux de Memoire, edited by Pierre Nora. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Sándor, Klára. 2014. A székely írás nyomában [On the Search for the Székely Writing]. Budapest: Typotex.

Smoth, Anthony D. 2003. “Etnický základ národní identity [National Identity].” In Pohledy na národ a nacionalismus, edited by Miroslav Hroch. 1st ed. Prague: Sociologické nakladatelství.

Tsang, Rachel and Eric Taylor WOODS,eds. 2014. The Cultural Politics of Nationalism and Nation-building. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315886916

Wagner-Pacifici, Robin. 2010. “Theorizing the Restlessness of Events.” American Journal of Sociology 115(5): 1351-1386.Woods, Eric Taylor a Mira Debs. 2013. “A Cultural Sociology of Nations and Nationalism.” Nations and Nationalism19(4): 607-614. https://doi.org/10.1111/nana.12036

Zeidler, Miklós. 2007. Ideas of Territorial Revision in Hungary 1920-1945. Boulder: Social Science Monographs and Wayne, New Jersey.: Center for Hungarian Studies and Publications.

Zombory, Máté. 2011. Az emlékezés térképei. Magyarország és a nemzeti azonosság 1989 után [Maps of Remembrance. Hungary and the National Identity after 1989]. Budapest: L´Harmattan Kiadó.

Štatistický úrad Slovenskej republiky, Tab. 10, Obyvateľstvo SR podľa národnosti – sčítanie 2011, 2001, 1991, http://portal.statistics.sk/files/tab-10.pdf.

Metrics

0

Crossref logo

456

Views

276

PDF views

37

Mobi views

41

ePub views