Hate crimes and forms of solidarity in contemporary Hungary

Abstract

My study seeks to answer how different forms of solidarity function in Hungary today through interviews with victims of hate crime and representatives of organisations and groups who aid and support these victims. To develop the theoretical framework I employ social theories that concern the problems of late modern societies. Along these theories I’m on the one hand interested where the solidarity gestures of the helpers meet the needs of the victims, where these acts miss their mark, and where solidarity voids develop leaving victims on their own and unaided. On the other hand I aim to identify factors that hinder or facilitate the development and stabilisation of solidarity channels and networks. In my study, I pay special attention to how public institutions align with solidarity networks, since according to my hypothesis, owing to the peculiarities of power structure and to the distortion of the structure of public sphere in contemporary Hungarian society, it is especially important to reveal the cooperation between the state and the civil society might be particularly important to understand the mechanisms of solidarity.