University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Anthropology Department Faculty Publication Anthropology Series January 1999 Citizens or Consumers?: Environmentalism and the Public Sphere in Postsocialist Hungary Krista Harper University of Massachusetts - Amherst,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/anthro_faculty_pubs Part of the Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Harper, Krista, "Citizens or Consumers?: Environmentalism and the Public Sphere in Postsocialist Hungary" (1999). Radical History Review. 74. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/anthro_faculty_pubs/74 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Anthropology at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Anthropology Department Faculty Publication Series by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Citizens or Consumers?: Environmentalism and the Public Sphere in Postsocialist Hungary Krista Harper INTRODUCTION Much of the most vital activism of the post-1989 environmental move- ment in Hungary addresses the development of consumer culture and the expansion of transnational corporations in East-Central Europe. In actions against McDonald's conquest of the urban landscape and the ubiquitous presence of advertisements for transnational corporations, activists contrast cherished notions of decentralization and local control with the emergence of an imperialistic, global consumer culture. These issues came to the forefront of environmental debates while I was living in Hungary from 1995 to 1997, conducting ethnographic research on environmental groups. This paper will present several cases of Hungar- ian activism against well-known transnationals, examining how issues of the public sphere-public space, public access to information and debate, and public participation-are redefined as "environmental" struggles.