The Politics of Hope and Disappointment: Ambivalence in the Post-1989 Homeland-Related Discourses among Hungarians in Australia

Abstract

In this article, I look at the ways in which the homeland-related discourses among Hungarians in Australia have shifted as a result of the political and social transformations in Hungary around and after 1989. In order to disentangle this question, I place a specific emphasis on the dynamics between identification, emotions and politics. I demonstrate that the aftermath of regime change produced a sense of ambivalence in discourses about Australian-Hungarians' relationship with the homeland. The desire for inclusion into the new democracy became dialogically intertwined with the simultaneous feelings of distrust and disappointment, producing what Bakhtin calls ‘double voiced’ homeland-related discourses. I examine how these contradictory emotions are evoked and expressed in the post-1989 Australian-Hungarian discourses. I argue that they became powerful moral forces which affect diaspora members' understanding of their selves and enable and constrain the diaspora's political actions towards the homeland.

Keywords:

• Emotions
• Diaspora-Politics
• Australian-Hungarian Diaspora
• Democratic Transformation
• Hungary

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to the many Australian-Hungarians who took time to share their opinions and assisted in my research. Thanks also go to Maruška Svašek (Queen's University), Denise Cuthbert (Monash University), Guy Doron (Inter Disciplinary Center—Herziliya), Philip Martin (University of Melbourne), Bruce Missingham (Monash University) and the anonymous JEMS reviewer for their extensive comments on a previous version of this paper. This research was made possible by the Postgraduate Publication Grant from the Arts Faculty at Monash University.