Etienne Balibar – Immanuel Wallerstein: Race, Nation, Classe. Les identités ambiguës. Edition La Découverte, 1988.

Immanuel Wallerstein and Etienne Balibar published a volume collecting their polemic essays on race and class. They highlight, for example, that certain doctrines of formal emancipation can easily be reconciled with the practice of social and national exclusion.

Csaba Gombár: Magammal vitázom. Nemzetről, etnikumról az egyes emberről. [I debate with myself. On nation, ethnicity and the individual.] Korridor könyvek. Politikai Kutatások Központja. Budapest 1996.

Not many dare to face the demon of ethno-centric social theory in the era of global Balkanisation, The leading political scientist Csaba Gombár tries to address the problem, discussing the complex questions of individualism and patriotism.

Human Rights Watch: Right Denied: The Roma of Hungary. New York, 1996.

 

The perils of the Hungarian roma population has been well known. A recent study by the American Human Rights Watch organisation presented a shocking summary of the suffering of the roma in Hungary.

State socialism consolidated the living conditions of the roma in many sense. They, however, become later the main victim group of the economic transformation following 1989. In recent years, the establishment of self-government has been a big step forward, the lack of resources however generated a fight between various roma groupings.

The authors discuss the flaws that result from the SSA theory's lack of attention to the role that race and gender play in the US post-World War II capitalist economy. They claim that incorporating race and gender more fundamentally into SSA analysis would offer both a more complete and robust theory and a better handle on strategy for social change.