Sándor Borbély
Informality
Everyday economic and political practices in Transcarpathia, Western Ukraine
2026, Hungarian Ethnology Studies, Band 4, 284 pages, paperback, 39,90 €, ISBN 978-3-8188-0190-8
This volume offers an empirical study of everyday informal economic and political practices in Transcarpathia, a Hungarian-inhabited borderland region of Western Ukraine (Zakarpattia Oblast). Based on anthropological fieldwork and archival research conducted between 2007 and 2018, the book examines a wide range of everyday social practices, from small-scale cross-border trade, undeclared international labor, and workplace transgressions to various forms of symbolic occupation of public space and everyday practices of identity construction.
Focusing on the concept of “informality,” the book analyzes how these social and economic practices operated under two distinct political contexts: The Soviet regime after 1945 and the post-socialist Ukrainian nation-state after 1991. By tracing micro-level interactions between citizens and institutions, the volume provides an anthropological account of power, adaptation, and social change in a borderland setting.
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