A Revelation for the History of Social Movements in Hungary: Engaged Researcher Bernadett Sebály on “The Story of Our Struggles” Database

The Review of Democracy, the online journal of Central European University’s Democracy Institute, recently published an interview with Bernadett Sebály, Research Affiliate at CEU’s Democracy Institute, about her role in assembling a groundbreaking database that provides crucial insights into the history of social movements in Hungary.  In the article, interviewer Cody James Inglis calls the database a “revelation” as it functions as a powerful digital humanities tool not only available to researchers but also to the community at large, providing valuable insight on how protest events shaped civil society and policy in Hungary.

The Story of Our Struggles: A Social Movement Database, which catalogs protest actions that emerged from eleven social movements in Hungary from 1989 to 2010, was developed as part of the Amplifying the Voices of Engaged Researchers initiative, a collaboration between OSUN and the Talloires Network of Engaged Universities at Tufts University. It was created for use by a training center for activist leaders at Hungary’s School of Public Life in a workshop designed to help them reflect on the history and outcomes of national social movements.

Amplifying Voices supports a community of practice (CoP) for scholars worldwide who pursue research with the cooperation of community partners. As a member of the initiative, Sebály says the CoP helped her to become more conscious of her role as an engaged researcher, which in turn enhanced the work she did on the database. “Seeing other projects use engaged research showed me that this method is a powerful approach for actively achieving social change,” says Sebály.

In the Review of Democracy interview, Sebály says the database can be used in academic research but also in pedagogical settings with students, activists, teachers, and everyday citizens. The database provides a helpful framework for analyzing protest events in Hungary following the end of communist rule in 1989 and leading up to the election of the second Orbán government in 2010.

“It is very crucial to reflect on the previous period that led to the emergence of the illiberal regime and juxtapose that with what happened before and after 2010,” says Sebály. Sebály says she considers The Story of Our Struggles a “living database” of social movements and an accessible tool for activists, researchers, and educators.

She explains: “What we saw is that there’s limited knowledge about the post-transition struggles, the last 30 years, which are so formative regarding how we think about democracy and…how we act in our democracy. And, of course, there is a lot of research out there—which may be known by historians, political scientists—but for some reason they did not become part of our mainstream knowledge and therefore they have limited capacity to provide us with a narrative that can guide us.”

As the database encompasses a range of social causes, including the labor, healthcare, housing, and agrarian movements, it accomplishes something that traditional social histories do not, according to Inglis. Its “digital humanities” approach demonstrates that there is a timeline of social movements that are not only conducted in parallel with each other but also in collective interaction with each other.

In an article published last year in a Hungarian weekly, Sebály said "Critical analysis of the past from the bottom up can help us continue to make sense of collective action, even across interest groups, and to develop a vision of the future that is attractive to many, and worth working for today.”

"This database is something every country should have! It is the result of heroic, long term team work and it is really inspiring to explore,” says Ildikó Bárányi, board member of the European Community Organizing Network.

Read the article in The Review of Democracy

Post Date: 10-08-2024