<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>Relying on an interview-based research conducted in Romania’s Szeklerland area, in settlements with a significant Roma population where the majority of the inhabitants are of Hungarian ethnicity, the present study investigates the non-Roma rural élites’ attitude towards the local Roma population. The regional relevance of the topic is indicated by the fact that the importance of the Roma population’s social integration is present in social publicity, while at the same time the three decades following the 1989 socio-political turn in Romania witnessed only a few attempts at the planning and launching of programmes aimed at the Roma population’s social integration. In the course of the past three decades, the regional institutions and élites have repeatedly shuffled off the professional thematization and practical addressing of this issue, whereas in principle they emphasized the importance of social integration. This study aims to explore some of the components making up the background of the above-outlined ambivalent attitude. With the script analysis method, we intend to look into what scripts rural elite actors adopt in building the narratives on the Hungarian–Roma attitude and what role this narrative creation has in the case of the élite belonging to the Hungarian ethnic majority.</p>
</abstract>

Relying on an interview-based research conducted in Romania’s Szeklerland area, in settlements with a significant Roma population where the majority of the inhabitants are of Hungarian ethnicity, the present study investigates the non-Roma rural élites’ attitude towards the local Roma population. The regional relevance of the topic is indicated by the fact that the importance of the Roma population’s social integration is present in social publicity, while at the same time the three decades following the 1989 socio-political turn in Romania witnessed only a few attempts at the planning and launching of programmes aimed at the Roma population’s social integration. In the course of the past three decades, the regional institutions and élites have repeatedly shuffled off the professional thematization and practical addressing of this issue, whereas in principle they emphasized the importance of social integration. This study aims to explore some of the components making up the background of the above-outlined ambivalent attitude. With the script analysis method, we intend to look into what scripts rural elite actors adopt in building the narratives on the Hungarian–Roma attitude and what role this narrative creation has in the case of the élite belonging to the Hungarian ethnic majority.

Scripts in Rural Élites’ Attitude as Narrative Barriers in the Hungarian–Roma Interethnic Relations in Szeklerland (Romania)

Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Social Analysis

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Relying on an interview-based research conducted in Romania’s Szeklerland area, in settlements with a significant Roma population where the majority of the...

Scripts in Rural Élites’ Attitude as Narrative Barriers in the Hungarian–Roma Interethnic Relations in Szeklerland (Romania)

Published Online: Dec 22, 2021

Page range: 116 - 131

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/aussoc-2021-0007

Keywords
scripts, narrative barriers, interethnic relations, Roma integration

© 2021 A. Zoltán Biró et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Scripts in Rural Élites’ Attitude as Narrative Barriers in the Hungarian–Roma Interethnic Relations in Szeklerland (Romania)

Published Online: Dec 22, 2021

Page range: 116 - 131

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/aussoc-2021-0007

Keywordsscripts, narrative barriers, interethnic relations, Roma integration

© 2021 A. Zoltán Biró et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
scripts, narrative barriers, interethnic relations, Roma integration