‘I partied my way to [my] Hungary’: The agency-driven engagements of Hungarian-Australians to shape feelings of place and belonging outside their diaspora tourism programme

ABSTRACT

The Balassi Institute is Hungary’s cultural diplomacy organisation. The Institute’s 10-month ‘Balassi program’ invites Hungarians from the diaspora to participate in a culturally immersive and educational experience in Hungary. This paper draws on interviews with 17 Hungarian-Australians who attended the programme between 2001 and 2018. Bourdieu’s Habitus, capital and ‘field of possibles’ are used to analyse their experiences of belonging during their time in Hungary, particularly everyday engagements where they partied, danced, and formed friendships in nightclubs, folk bars, and community groups. The paper highlights that while the Balassi programme’s curriculum aims to habituate national consciousness, the defining elements of belonging were agency-driven. By manoeuvring their capital and prioritising everyday social engagements, participants constructed ‘relationships with the nation’, while maintaining a minimum commitment to the programme. Thus, when exploring the aims of State-led diaspora tourism programmes, participant choices outside these programmes must be considered a prominent force in shaping belonging.

KEYWORDS:

• Diaspora tourism
• belonging
• home
• Hungarian-Australian
• agency
• field of possibles

Introduction

Diaspora engagement is not a new phenomenon, and the Hungarian government’s prioritisation with strengthening diaspora relations and policy has grown significantly since the turn of the twenty-first century. Since the election of the second conservative Orbán Government in 2010, Hungarian State diaspora engagement with communities all over the world, including Australia, has intensified. The Balassi Institute forms part of the State of Hungary’s overall diaspora engagement strategy, responsible for the sharing of Hungarian culture, language, and education abroad (see Kantek et al., 2021). It does so by running numerous diaspora programmes¹ ranging from 2 to 4 weeks up to 10-months. These programmes aim to promote a diasporic understanding of nationhood among Hungarians from the diaspora, with all programmes having a key focus on Hungarian language learning. The programme of interest in this paper is the Institute’s 10-month Hungarian Language and Cultural Studies programme (the ‘Balassi program’).

This paper draws on the experiences shared by 17 Hungarian-Australians who participated in the Balassi programme between 2001 and 2018. It aims to contribute to recent calls for an understanding of how diaspora engagement initiatives are received and experienced by those they target (Brinkerhoff, 2019; Délano & Mylonas, 2019). The paper highlights that while the formal curriculum of the programme aims to habituate national consciousness, partying and other everyday social engagements were significant in shaping their sense of ‘being’ and ‘feeling’ Hungarian. The paper therefore reveals that the defining elements of belonging were agency-driven; the result of manoeuvring capital to enact their own personal preferences for everyday social engagements, all while maintaining a minimum commitment to the programme’s curriculum. We therefore argue that when exploring the aims of State-led diaspora tourism programmes, participant choices and practices ‘from below’ outside these programmes must be considered prominent forces in shaping feelings of belonging.

The Balassi Programme

The ‘Balassi program’² exists as part of a growing number of diaspora programmes embraced by governments (e.g. in Israel, Morocco and Croatia) which function as explicit cultural diplomacy practices and diaspora engagement strategies aimed at later generations abroad. Offered in Budapest, the programme invites people of Hungarian origin aged between 18 and 35 years born outside of Hungary to improve their Hungarian language skills and cultural knowledge through experiencing contemporary Hungarian life. The programme welcomes Hungarians from diaspora communities all over the world including Australia, Canada, England, Brazil, Argentina, America, Germany, Russia, and Croatia. Scholarships are provided to eligible participants by the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Training to cover basic living expenses and on-campus dormitory accommodation. The programme draws on approaches like those used by Israeli pilgrimage programmes, drawing on a ‘combination of formal and informal educational approaches to facilitate an experiential learning environment’ (Kelner, 2013, p. 103). These approaches are known by Abramson (2017, p. 18) as ‘primary mechanisms’ which have been used especially by Taglit-Birthright Israel to assist in the construction of diasporic identity. The four mechanisms include rituals, physical engagement, group crystallisation and story-telling which ‘teach participants about the territory, make the trip emotional and personal, [and contribute to] construct[ing] a collective memory’ (Abramson, 2017).

While sharing some similarities in approaches, the length of the Balassi programme and commitment to a formal curriculum marks it as different to other, shorter diaspora programmes. The curriculum reflects the nation-building efforts to inculcate national ideals and values onto participants. It is organised into two semesters including a study period of 13 weeks, involving class attendance (28 hours per week) as well as a requirement to attend two fieldtrips. Key subjects in the programme include language training, history, geography, poetry, and folk culture. As according to Kantek et al. (2021), the curriculum design and knowledge gained from the programme intends to foster dispositional changes for participants, stressing their training – and responsibilities – as ‘good-will ambassadors’ who are expected to contribute to shaping the diaspora consciousness and enhance the sense of belonging among young people in their communities.

Furthermore, the structure of the programme is such that participants have ample personal, ‘free’ time outside the curriculum allowing everyday engagement with people and places as they wish. The participants detailed everyday activities which included partying in folk bars and engaging in community groups, embracing opportunities to mingle with the local people, as well as programme participants. The ‘free time’ existing outside the curriculum, paired with government scholarship, has made the programme a popular and pragmatic option for Hungarian-Australians to consider as a gap year in Hungary. As this paper will show, this ‘free time’ opened ‘fields of possibles’, enriching and impacting senses of belonging and home throughout the diaspora.

The Hungarian diaspora

Diaspora is understood as a ‘contested concept with multiple meanings’ (Grossman, 2019, p. 1263). Since the 1990s, new conceptualisations of diaspora have emerged which embrace transnationalism, justifying broader approaches to the concept. Traditionally, diaspora was understood as bounded group(s) consisting of entire populations impacted by socio-political conflicts and subsequently forced geographical dispersion from their original ‘homeland’ (Safran, 1991; Tölölyan, 1996). However, confining diaspora to forced dispersions is no longer pragmatic given new forms of migration and cross-border mobilities, which justify broader approaches to the concept. The diaspora is now commonly understood as a transnational community based on a shared identity or consciousness sustained by a range of ‘modes of social organization, mobility and communication’ (Vertovec, 1999, p. 4). The diaspora is an ‘ongoing transnational network’ which extends beyond forced migrants, including later generations. The Hungarian diaspora follows this conceptualisation, defined as communities of Hungarian-born or Hungarian descendants residing outside of Hungary, described in Hungarian State policy as the ‘Hungarian diaspora communities abroad’ (Kovács & Trencsényi, 2019). It is estimated that about 2 million Hungarians live in diaspora communities around the world, compared to the 2.1 million Hungarians who neighbour the borders of Hungary as part of the ‘transborder’ diaspora (Pogonyi, 2015).³

The Hungarian diaspora communities abroad formed as the outcome of key migration waves sparked by drastic political regime changes and economic crises that forced millions of Hungarians to escape, both as forced emigrants (displaced, stateless persons) and as political refugees in the post-war era, to areas including North and South America, Canada, Western Europe, and Australia. After Hungary’s transition to democracy in the late 1980s, new patterns of migration saw smaller groups of Hungarians move abroad for lifestyle and economic reasons. Currently, the largest diaspora communities abroad can be found in Sao Paulo (Brazil), Toronto (Canada), Chicago and Cleveland (United States), and Sydney (Australia) (Ludányi, 2011).

The Hungarian-Australian community

The Hungarian-Australian diaspora grew out of several waves of forced migration during the decades of Hungary’s communist dictatorship (Kantek et al., 2019). The Hungarian-Australian diaspora is a heterogeneous and diverse community, consisting of people born in Hungary who have migrated to Australia, but also those from neighbouring countries, including Austria, Sovakia, Romania, Ukraine, Croatia, and later generations. In Australia today, there are approximately 67,000–69,000 Hungarians living in the diaspora, primarily in the cities of Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide (Andits, 2017; Gazsó, 2016). Andits (2017, p. 361) has estimated a ‘multi-generational total’ of 69,159 people in Australia claiming Hungarian ethnicity/ancestry, of whom 19,089 are recorded as having been born in Hungary.

Since the 1950s, post-war Hungarian migrants in Australia have developed various Hungarian community organisations which functioned to maintain their personal images of Hungary and build social networks, and became hubs for performing and maintaining Hungarian language and culture. These included Hungarian social clubs, church groups, scouts, community language schools, and folkdance groups. Despite facing challenges as membership declines, some of these organisations remain active and attract later generations (Kantek et al., 2021). While the local community was key in maintaining the Hungarian diaspora consciousness in Australia for a long time, the intensification of diaspora policies by the Hungarian government since 2010 has seen a greater embrace of a more deterritorialised conception of Hungarian belonging. The Balassi programme – and work of the Institute – has been a key contributor to maintaining a diaspora consciousness, seeing small, yet consistent groups of young Hungarian-Australians annually travel to Hungary since 2001.

The Balassi programme as a ‘field of possibles’ for senses of belonging, home, and habitus

A key focus of this paper is to explore the research participants’ engagements in Hungary during their time in the Balassi programme – how their encounters and experiences in a ‘field of possibles’⁴ – impacted their sense of belonging as Hungarian-Australians. For this paper, the concept of belonging concerns shared values, connections, and practices, and relates to feeling accepted as part of a community (Anthias, 2009). In the diaspora context, the concept of home is often a metaphor for emotional belonging. Home concerns emotional attachments which generate a feeling of connectedness and comfort. This emotional belonging may include attachments to places, spaces, memories, and relationships. For some communities like the Hungarian-Australian diaspora, while transnational in scope and character, the ‘homeland’ is still promoted as a ‘solid’ and ‘territorial’ construct tied to conceptions of ‘roots’, where an emotional belonging is anchored in place and shaped by myths of common origin. As such, diaspora tourism can be considered as both a vehicle enabling individuals to experience the ‘homeland’ as a ‘place’ in which they are somehow connected, and as a resource enabling them to transnationally move between multiple ‘homes’ (like Hungary and Australia).

Bourdieu’s concept of habitus⁵ assists in understanding how belonging, as well as attachments to the nation, are developed, performed, and negotiated based on different experiences across fields. Habitus becomes important for determining the durability of belonging and the impact of diaspora programmes, given their representation as enabling reflexivity and personal development through new cultural encounters. As mentioned earlier, all the programme participants interviewed developed a sense of Hungarian belonging from a young age. All range from being conversational to fluent in Hungarian as a second language, a skill developed from the efforts of their families and their memberships in different Hungarian community organisations predominantly located in Australia (including Hungarian language schools, Hungarian scouts, as well as dance and church groups). While some had experienced sporadic visits to Hungary with their families, for most, their engagement with Hungary – and Hungarian belonging – had been largely shaped by their cultural experiences and resources in Australia, where performances of Hungarian culture were structured, occurring on a weekly basis (i.e. through organisational participation), and at specific Hungarian celebrations. As will be outlined below, the experiences gained during their time in the programme – in their Hungarian ‘homeland’ – lead them to develop qualitatively different senses of belonging to Hungarian culture – and Hungary – compared to their parents and grandparents. It was their everyday in situ experiences in Hungary which led them to reflexively re-think their sense of belonging and relationships with the Hungarian nation. It is important to note that while the expressions of agency by participants are not guided by intentions to enhance their political engagements with the nation, there are potentially political consequences. While participants’ personal preferences may suppress the impact of the ‘top down’ curriculum orchestrated by the Institute, the rethinking of belonging and relationships developed with Hungarian people and places can be mobilised for numerous socio-political purposes and can to some extent, complement programme aims (see Kantek et al., 2021).

The modifying element of habitus therefore becomes essential in enabling multiple belongings and senses of home to be explored. Although habitus is largely enduring, modification can occur under specific conditions, such as being prompted by multiple, new experiences across fields. This approach meets the growing mobility structuring people’s lives, where habitus is called upon to adopt multiple dispositions and practices rather than undergo complete transformation or replacement. For most of the participants, Hungary was the first country (outside of Australia) where they spent considerable time making memories, forming relationships, and participating in ‘everyday’ routines – the defining elements for belonging and feeling ‘at home’.

The desire to engage with everyday places and people during diaspora and birthright programmes has been highlighted by a collection of works (Cohen, 2004; Graf, 2017; Herner-Kovács, 2014 among others). Overall, they suggest that ‘free time’ outside the planned activities of programmes provide participants the chance to experience the ‘ordinariness’ of everyday people and social life, having positive impacts on senses of belonging. The ‘banal’ and ‘everyday’ nature of national identity/nationhood has been understood by nationalism scholars like Billig (1995) and the concept of ‘Banal nationalism’. Banal nationalism suggests the existence of a less visible form of nationalism which is reproduced by people through their ‘easily overlooked’ everyday engagements with national symbols and signals. However, while useful in understanding the ‘taken-for-granted’ nature of nationalism initiated ‘from above’, the concept overlooks how individuals actively and often deliberately, ‘make’ nationhood’ on a daily basis ‘from below’ (Antonsich, 2016). Everyday nationhood thus emerged to recognise the importance that intention, sense-making and the choices of agents play in the reproduction of national belonging across transnational contexts. The concept recognises the intentional practices and decisions individuals make each day which affirm their relationship with the nation (or ‘homeland’) in their minds (Antonsich, 2016; Fox & Miller-Idriss, 2008). In this paper, we see ‘everyday nationhood’ through the daily routines and social activities actively chosen by the Hungarian-Australian participants while in Hungary, as well as their subsequent manovering of capital to enact these choices during their time in the programme. For the Hungarian-Australian participants, it was socialising in Hungarian folk bars and partying in Hungarian night clubs which exposed them to a more ‘effortless’ and ‘vibrant’ version of belonging, one that was in ‘ordinary’ places, where Hungarian cultural performance was less structured, more natural, and hence, more ‘everyday’.

As a result of their exposure to these new experiences – on an everyday basis – the participants’ Habitus became ‘subject to a diversification of the repertoire of social practices … ways of thinking and modes of behaviour’ (Schneider & Lang, 2014, p. 103). Their pre-existing cultural knowledge – developed predominantly from their Hungarian communities in Australia – were crucial to grounding their experiences in Hungary and contributing to their feelings of belonging. As Bourdieu (1986) has argued, while perceptions and interpretations of experiences are generated by habitus, they are also shaped by one’s possession of capital.⁶ For the participants, their Hungarian language competencies were integral in shaping their experiences and activities in Hungary. We can therefore interpret this competency as functioning as a form of capital determining their practices by shaping ways of thinking, seeing, and acting, as well as driving their agency and experiences of belonging. According to Bourdieu (1993) the scope of options and sense of agency experienced by agents is determined by the possession of the ‘right’ type of capital which can be mobilised to influence the ‘moves’ possible within a field – a ‘field of possibles’. For the Hungarian-Australian participants, knowing how to speak, read and write Hungarian influenced their interpretation of the Balassi programme – and by extension – their time in Hungary – as a space of numerous possibilities, triggering feelings of agency in being able to choose how they engaged with Hungarians and Hungarian culture outside the programme.

The impact of cultural knowledge on the experiences of diaspora tourism by later generations has been observed in studies from scholars such as in Saxe et al. (2014) and their analysis of the ten day Taglit-Birthright Israel programme. The research highlighted participants who had little to no knowledge of Jewish culture were more likely to perceive the programme as an educational experience, compared to those who had participated in some form of Jewish education prior to their trip to Israel. In the Hungarian diaspora context, Andits (2020) has revealed that generational positioning shapes perceptions, expectations, and experiences among first and later generation Hungarian-Australians during return journeys to Hungary, especially related to views of dirt and decay. For Herner-Kovács (2014), generational positioning and pre-existing Hungarian cultural knowledge shaped outcomes of the 2-week Hungarian birthright programme, ‘ReConnect Hungary’. The first and second generation Hungarian-Americans who were less remote from their Hungarian culture appeared ‘less conscious’ of the programme’s value, less likely to remember the names of places visited, and more likely to enjoy the ‘fun’ social aspects. By comparison, the third and fourth generations who were less connected to Hungarian culture prior to the trip were more likely to have a greater appreciation of the educational aspects of the programme.

For the research participants in this paper, their capacity to read and speak Hungarian functioned as cultural capital enabling increased agency and, in some cases, allowing for minimal effort in meeting the requirements of the programme. It also provided them with a greater sense of confidence and venture into Hungarian society, including the nightlife scene. Hence, while Hungarian social and cultural life might be a ‘new field’ for most of the research participants, their cultural capital allowed ease of access – to people, places, spaces – and a confident exercise of agency – to engage with the Balassi programme as a ‘fields of possibles’ to shape their ‘homeland experience’.

Interviewing Hungarian-Australian Balassi participants

This paper draws from a larger project which explored Hungarian State-Diaspora politics between the Hungarian-Australian diaspora community and the Hungary’s leading institute of cultural diplomacy the Balassi Institute. The focus on the Hungarian-Australian community (and Hungarian-Australian programme participants) contributes to the overall paucity of research exploring the impact of Hungarian diaspora politics/policies on Hungarian identity in Australia – particularly among the age cohort the Balassi programme targets – those aged between 18-35. This cohort is important given the community’s self-defined challenges in sustaining critical mass and need for young future leaders (see Kantek et al., 2021). The project used Reflexive Sociology (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992) and integrated a Community-based Participatory Research (CBPR) design, given one of the author’s own identification as a Hungarian-Australian and member within the Hungarian community in Sydney. Alongside the interviews, focus groups with Hungarian community leaders from key Hungarian organisations in Australia were conducted, as well as document analysis of programme-related material including application forms and curriculum.

This paper analyses the interview data gathered in 2018 with Hungarian-Australians who had completed the Balassi programme between 2001 and 2018, aged between 18 and 35 at the time of their participation. Recruitment for the interviews began with the distribution of online flyers to various Hungarian Facebook groups and contacting of community leaders in Australia, facilitating snowballing. Seven of the interviewees were aged between 18 and 23 at the time of their interview, followed by four between 24 and 29, three between 30and 35 and finally three aged between 36 and 41. The participants came from Australian cities including nine from Sydney (New South Wales), three from Melbourne (Victoria), three from Perth (Western Australia), one from the Gold Coast (Queensland), and one from Adelaide (South Australia).⁷

Most interviews were conducted face-to-face, ranging between one and two hours in duration, providing the opportunity for participants to reflect on their experiences and feelings of Hungarianness during – and after – their 10-month time in Hungary. Participants were asked to detail personal highlights and challenges encountered throughout the programme, as well to reflect on their feelings of belonging upon return to Australia – and within their Hungarian communities. While the interviews were predominantly conducted in English, some Hungarian references from participants during the interviews were naturally occurring, especially in the context of expressing Hungarian places, cultural traditions, and events. The following sections explore the participants’ experiences:

‘We partied a lot’: Enhancing belonging through partying

Most of the 17 research participants interviewed claimed that partying was a central, memorable activity throughout their time in the programme in Hungary. Characterised by risk-taking and spontaneity which often included alcohol consumption and sneaking out of the dormitory after hours, partying became a social-bonding activity among participants. This was the result of new experiences which included living in shared accommodation and being without the direct influence of parents. Access to these new experiences served as an impetus for exaggerated behaviours and ‘no rules’ perspectives. A typical response shared by participants was demonstrated by Vivien

We partied a lot, like a lot of drinking … it’s like we don’t have any responsibilities and there’s no rules over there [Hungary], and everyone would stay up and party all night … we would leave the college at like 1am to go out and then come back at like 9am, go straight to class. It was just a lot of partying (laughs). (Vivien)

Vivien’s sentiments echo those highlighted in gap year literature which has suggested that ‘gappers’ and ‘backpackers’ have expressed an increased sense of anonymity during their travels. This anonymity often influences their likelihood in exploring opportunities and pro-social behaviours not often achievable at home including meeting people outside their usual social circles and increased illicit drug and alcohol consumption (see Mathews, 2014). Like a gap year, the programme is understood as a ‘once in a lifetime experience’ of heightened independence, whereby Hungary became a zone of intense leisure consumption. Participants were therefore more likely to take advantage of the possibilities of new, novel experiences offered by the field to express and satisfy their own self-interests. The reflexive agency in Habitus and possession of capital becomes imperative in decision-making and practice, as they equip individuals with a sense of how to confidently navigate the field for one’s own interest. Participant decisions to engage in pro-social behaviours were in part the result of their mastery of capital. Their language competency afforded them increased opportunities to navigate the minimum requirements of the programme with ease, as well as increased their sense of confidence to engage in excessive partying. For example, Tamás commented on the relationship traceable between practices of partying and ‘types’ of programme participants, delineated by their extent of language ability

People who were more proficient in Hungarian were more relaxed about it [the program subjects] because it was less work for them … whereas the people less proficient were really focused on their studies. So, the lower the level [of Hungarian language ability], the less they partied and the higher the level, the higher they partied, and because the majority of us were from a higher proficiency, there was a lot more partying. (Tamás)

From a Bourdieusian perspective, one’s position in the field and possession of valued capital shapes the range of possibilities and perception of the field as well as its stakes, or otherwise, their behaviours and the issues which are deemed worth fighting for. According to the observations from Tamás, it appears that those with a ‘higher’ language ability were more likely to invest their time and energy into new experiences which they deemed were of higher personal value and enjoyment. As opposed to ‘anonymity’ as a factor driving pro-social behaviours, it appears that extent of Hungarian language proficiency has been observed to have influenced the priorities among most participants to engage more frequently in partying. This proficiency enabled the participants to exercise their agency in negotiating programme requirements and their commitment to the curriculum. Their capital has provided most participants with a greater scope of options to choose which activities they perceived as personally meaningful, given that some of them were in positions to maintain the participatory requirements with little additional effort. These perceptions were shared among, as Tamás notes, the ‘majority of students’ taking part, thus likely to constitute a social milieu with shared habitus.

‘It would be like a ritual’: Folk-bars and dance-houses as spaces of belonging

The legitimacy of partying became clearer when participants discussed them with reference to specific cultural spaces and places including music houses, nightclubs, and bars. Hédi, like many other participants, began detailing the partying highlight of her time in Hungary with great laugher, later referring to the personal significance of this social practice in places like the Fonó Budai Zeneház (Fonó Music House in Budapest);

We partied a lot (laughs), like Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday (laughs). A lot of us would go to Fonó on Wednesday nights until late which was this Hungarian folk-dance house which was so cool. I really enjoyed that because I like néptánc, (Hungarian folk dancing) and I just did not think that cool stuff like that would exist … I went there every week, and it would be like a ritual. We would braid our hair and always wear a skirt so when you are spinning in the dance it looks good. I would have never done stuff like that if I were in Australia … those experiences left their mark on me. (Hédi)

Opportunities for néptánc are often found in táncház events (folk dance party events) typically held in nightclubs, bars, or music houses like the Fonó Budai Zeneház (Fonó Budai Music House) in Budapest. Hédi’s discussion of the repeated visits to the Fonó highlight her conscious attempts to ‘create nationhood’ through ritualistic performances which were not just confined to participating in folk dancing, but in embodying a folk dancer identity with her friends. This reveals the habitus in its embodied form and the feelings of nationhood which result from the collective engagement in routine activities, by providing a sense of commonality and feeling ‘as one’ with those who inhabit the space. The programme has provided the space to engage with these ‘possibles’, providing a series of ‘backstage’ Hungarian experiences at the Fonó Budai Zeneház on a routine basis and an opportunity to diversify performances based on new experiences of néptánc. The leisure time outside the programme has availed durable, repeated performances of Hungarian culture to be experienced over a prolonged period, to the point where visits to the Fonó occur a few times per week. The impacts of these routines can influence habitus, especially in the context of how practices and perceptions of Hungarian belonging are reimagined and translated upon return to Australia. It is through prolonged, repeated performances at nightclubs, folk bars, or music houses, with likeminded peers, where new modes of Hungarian expression became routine and thus, likely to be internalised. Apparently, the fact of partying – common among young people ‘abroad’ (and home in this context) – had some ‘unintended consequences’ when considering both new feelings of belonging and later ‘reconceptualisation’ of the Hungarian community back in Australia.

The extended time offered by the programme therefore allowed for new and/or changed practices to be adopted by participants in addition to those learnt in Australia – hence, a diversification of modes of behaviour. New ways in performing Hungarian culture were experienced by participants through their shared practices of partying and socialising in folk bar spaces, becoming an almost inevitable feature of programme participation. According to Bourdieu (2005) the doxicity of practice is achieved when the dominant group assigns specific behaviours with power to the extent that they appear natural and unquestioned. Here, practices of partying and routine dancing in folk bars and drinking together are not only shared activities but are mutually reinforced by others who have similar interests and capital, thereby legitimising these activities. Participants' perception of experiences in Hungary and of their own Hungarian belonging can be analysed in relation to their internalised perceptions, generated in Australia, or as Bourdieu would claim, their ‘local field’. In the case of most participants like Hédi, their understanding of Hungarian culture and performance from their experiences in Australia have shaped how they came to view their Hungarian identities – as shared only in specific places, within specific organisations, at specific times and in many cases, among specific groups. Numerous social experiences in Hungary prompt a critical re-thinking of belonging, due to experiencing Hungarian culture in a series of new performances within new places and spaces. For example, Jázmin, like Hédi, explains her experience of witnessing more ‘layered’ encounters of Hungarian cultural performativity in Hungary, unlike what she had experienced in her community in Perth

Folk dancing (in Hungary) for example isn’t like it is here (in Perth), like it’s part of the nightlife there, you would go and just watch some of the musicians which was really cool, and you’d go to pubs which were ‘half-folk dancey' and so it was a little more interesting to see it like that rather than just as practices and performances which is more the experience I had in Perth, so it was more layered I guess. (Jázmin)

Jázmin refers to ‘practices’ and ‘performances’ in the context of Hungarian community events in Perth where Hungarian dancing is experienced in small, scheduled dance classes and performances held only at special events, hence a very structured and regulated experience. However, through engaging with the everyday nightlife scene of Hungary, Jázmin’s dispositional presuppositions were questioned. The experience gave rise to a renewed way of understanding, by witnessing familiar performances of folk dancing within new, novel sites such as nightclubs and bars, highlighting the differences in Hungarian performance between Australia and Hungary. According to Edensor and Sumartojo (2018, p. 555) when undergoing travel to ‘unfamiliar realms, mundane features seem peculiar’. While dancing, drinking, and socialising at bars and nightclubs were not foreign to participants, their experiences of these social engagements in Hungary were indeed, unique. Partying in folk bars which were littered with Hungarian cultural performances (like folk dancing and folk music) offered a different meaning and provided an everyday sense of nationhood not previously experienced by participants, prompting reflexive moments. Jázmin’s realisation reinforces Bourdieu’s notion that when individuals are confronted with a series of new experiences, the habitus is subject to adaption (given its reflexive nature), all while being mediated by perceptions from previous experience.

Participants such as Nora also commented on the significantly different nightlife scene in Budapest in comparison to where she lived in Perth which formed part of her reflexive moment

I guess that’s where I realised how much I missed Hungary. Because here (Perth) if I go out clubbing or to bars or stuff, it’s not the same vibe … in Hungary I remember we would all go out in groups and you didn’t have to drink and you’d still have a good time … everything is close in Hungary so if you’re out late you know you’re going to get home, but in Perth, I never really felt that, and I still don’t. (Nora)

As Stephenson (2002, p. 417) argues, people’s personal engagements with the homeland ‘involve a complex process of learning or re-learning old practices, adopting new values and embracing changed circumstances’. Experiencing the nightlife in Budapest becomes a significant factor influencing senses of belonging, where Hungarian culture is performed by ‘ordinary’ Hungarians in places never experienced in Australia.

Some participants also compared the nightlife they experienced in Budapest to what they experienced in Sydney (Australia), in the context of their disappointments with the City’s lock out laws.⁸ For them, experiencing the vastly different party culture in Budapest increased the symbolic value attached to this practice throughout their time in Hungary, becoming a personally worthwhile and memorable experience. Referring to the interrelationship between specific sites with people, Vivien, spoke affectionately about one particular bar – the Hintaló Iszoda (Rockinghorse bar) which she frequented regularly, becoming a site embodying community

There was this bar called ‘Hintaló’ … it was like a tiny hole in the wall bar but everyone that worked for them and everyone that went there became friends … that was one of the biggest highlights of my trip just being in this little community … there was a band called ‘Pálinka Republic’ (laughs) and they would have concerts at the Hintaló all the time and everyone in the crowd would just chill out and I’ve never seen people dance like this before, there was just so much energy and so many good vibes … this little community was one of my favourite things. (Vivien)

Vivien reveals the Hintaló as representing a key site where participants can make sense of their relationship with the nation. Like Hédi and her weekly visits to the Fonó dance house, Vivien repeatedly returned to the Hintaló as it became a space where she could perform her Hungarianness with locals and friends in a less coordinated, ‘chill’ way. The Hintaló and Fonó are thus characterised as ‘national hangouts’, or ‘activity spaces’ (Massey, 1995) where new forms of participation in Hungarian culture with others could be achieved and foremost, routinised, enabling feelings of community to be felt as a result. As a once in a lifetime event for these participants, away from their day-to-day routine lives in Australia, participants encounter and make sense of their temporary perception of feeling part of a coherent national community through common practice in a foreign space. While such experiences are temporary, ‘their impact on the national sensibilities of the ordinary people who engage in them can be more durable’ (Fox & Miller-Idriss, 2008, p. 545).

‘Becoming local’: Routine community engagements

The choices made by participants during the programme also became ‘important occasions for the enactment and reproduction of national sensibilities’ (Fox & Miller-Idriss, 2008, p. 545). Additional efforts to create a sense of everyday nationhood outside the nightlife scene in Hungary were highlighted in the routines and schedules established by participants – some of which included joining Hungarian community dancing and sporting groups arranged independently from the Balassi programme. Endre for example, spoke of the highlights of his time in Hungary, in terms of joining a dance group just outside of Budapest, attending táncház (folk dance events) and participating in tánc táborok (dance camps) during the week and throughout the 4-week summer break. These choices were made with the intent to continue to practice and improve his existing Hungarian folk dancing skills learnt within his diaspora community in Perth. Endre shared

I joined a dance group and I practiced with them twice a week … I knew there was always a táncház on Wednesday, I’d have dance practice Tuesday and Thursday and by Friday I was always off somewhere, and Monday would usually be the one night to recover (laughs). (Endre)

Endre’s pre-existing passion for Hungarian dancing prior to attending the programme has influenced his decision to choose specific activities and groups which can continue to enhance his dancing practice and friendship connections while in Hungary. Habitus is pivotal in this process of decision making as it becomes the ‘selective perception of a situation which generates a response according to the practical potential of satisfying the actors desires’ (Hillier & Rooksby, 2002, p. 8). Endre has taken advantage of the opportunities provided in the new field to satisfy and express his passion, which, unlike other participants discussed, have reinforced his habitus. His belonging is then the outcome of participating in everyday Hungarian community groups which foster performances of Hungarian culture. Endre has used his agency to engage in social practices he is accustomed to, while also doing so among local Hungarian dancers who support and can contribute toward this performance.

The duration of the Balassi programme is crucial in participant experiences, as it provides the opportunity for them to realise the feasibility of establishing routines. Nora’s sentiments below show the impact of prolonged practices on her self-identity and renewed positionality in the field. After conducting some prior research on Hungarian sporting groups before her arrival, Nora points to the significance of the everyday routine she developed between the programme and her sporting group on her perception of belonging in Hungary

I got in touch with a (sporting) group there, so I started training with them three times a week and that was straight away. Between doing the Balassi (program) and the sporting group, I do remember slowly feeling as if I were a Uni student there so for me, even just going to Pest from Buda each day across the river, it was surreal and a serene kind of experience. (Nora)

The very act of regularly maintaining and performing her commitments to both the sporting group and the programme impacted on how Nora began to position herself during her time in Hungary. Routine practices enable individuals to imagine themselves as part of a ‘social collectivity that shares in simultaneous activity’ (Fox & Miller-Idriss, 2008, p. 553). The duration of the programme itself has enabled individuals like Nora, through time, to adjust to everyday life in Budapest, to the point that they develop a ‘sense’, or a practical ‘feel’ for life in Hungary, having transformative effects on one’s national consciousness and relationship to the nation. This is traceable in Nora’s own perceived embodiment of the local university student identity given that she partook in similar habitual enactments through her performance of an ‘everyday’, familiar commute.

László refers to the more embodied aspects of routine practices in his habitus diversification during his time in Hungary

I picked up some slang and it was nice to see some városi (city-like) life and after a while I knew Budapest like the back of my hand which was awesome because I was born there but didn’t know anything about it, like where and what the cool places were. (László)

It appears that László has experienced an ‘internalisation of the external’ (Bourdieu, 1984). Diversification is seen in the adoption of additional cultural skills including new ways of speaking (i.e. slang) and navigating through the city which become embodied and thus, ‘second nature’. These everyday experiences, and their repetition, provide opportunities to feel comfortable in social space due to the repeated exposure and training they have experienced from their frequent social encounters and routines. Dancing in folk bars and maintaining membership in community groups run by local Hungarians become opportunities to engage in shared ritual and ‘feel at home’.

Embracing new ways of seeing, being and acting: The durable impact of Hungarian belonging on habitus

The performances and partying practices shared by the Hungarian-Australians are not to be underestimated, having impressive effects, as they ‘are not simply sharing in the immediate experience but will carry away with them memories that can be re-lived’ (Skey, 2009, p. 46). Most participants shared experiencing some feeling of personal growth during the Balassi programme, most in the context of having new, novel experiences which involved feeling an increased sense of agency in Hungary. The everyday experiences of Hungarian culture and nationhood in Hungary were significant in prompting moments of reflexivity: the internal dialogues within oneself regarding how one feels, thinks about, and performs, their identity. The ‘internal dialogues’ of some of the research participants like Hédi reveals change in her habitus, especially when reflecting on her experience returning to Australia after the completion of the Balassi programme.

Before Balassi I feel like I was (pause) living in a bubble and during Balassi I got like new pair of eyes in a way, to the world, to Hungary and what it means to be a Hungarian … even though I already had that very strong Hungarian foundation and upbringing, I feel like because of that personal experience at Balassi I came out of it as a different person. It’s like putting on glasses for the first time, you can see clearly … You come back and you’re the same person, but it’s the way you perceive things and your attitude, those things change. (Hédi)

A dispositional shift – through a changed perception and attitude – is detected in Hédi’s account, with her experiences abroad providing her with a strengthened personal attachment and changed perspective of Hungary and her Hungarian identity which, as she states, exists in combination with her previous, ‘strong’ Hungarian upbringing. This reveals both the durable aspects of habitus which are deeply informed by the active presence of past experiences, while accentuating the malleability of dispositions which are initiated by new, everyday ones (Bourdieu, 1990). Similarly, Gábor’s ‘internal dialogue’ after the programme shows the impact that an ‘expanded’ outlook can have on one’s decision-making and practice upon return to Australia.

I came back and within a few months I completely ditched my entire friends circle, they were all insulated and lived in the bubble … after living in a college with dozens of people from countries all around the world, I definitely had my eyes opened to the fact that there are so many cultures and interesting things and the vanilla people of [my area] just didn’t cut it anymore … . I mean, I came back to Sydney with a music taste full of genres people had never heard of and they weren’t interested. (Gábor)

Gábor similarly shares the bubble metaphor to describe the close-mindedness he experienced in his Australian friendships upon return from the Balassi programme. Through his experiences of an everyday, effortless form of nationhood in Hungary, his habitus had expanded, embracing new values and different ways of seeing, being and acting. The ‘mind-broadening effect’ can be attributed to the accumulation of social and cultural capital he gained in Hungary which expanded his network of friends and diversified his cultural tastes. The misalignment of values and taste with his friends in Australia ultimately influenced Gábor’s decision to distance himself from them. His experience represents how his habitus had expanded, shaped by his affinities toward his Hungarian friends due to the multiple layers of social experience shared throughout the Balassi programme. As a result, he feels more comfortable being with others who occupy similar positions – and thus, a shared habitus – in social space.

Conclusion

Overall, the novelty of experiences like partying in Hungary (indirectly facilitated by the Balassi programme) promoted new ways of feeling and being Hungarian. Cultural knowledge and language competency shaped feelings of confidence to navigate the minimum requirements of the programme, in favour of everyday social engagements, thus functioning as a form of capital exchanged for access to a ‘field of possibles’. These engagements enabled relationships with various places and people within Hungary to occur, and a greater Hungarian national consciousness to be felt. They also provided participants the opportunity to take a more active role in shaping their own emotional attachments to the nation. The paper has highlighted that the agency exercised outside the Balassi programme exposed participants to forms of everyday nationhood and prompted moments of reflexivity, producing both new feelings of belonging and a later ‘reconceptualisation’ of the Hungarian community back in Australia. Importantly, the duration of the programme was key to this outcome, influencing the extent of routine exposure participants had to various people, places, and cultural performances in Hungary, as well as the durability of the affinities the Hungarian-Australian participants felt to them. It is also important to acknowledge the possibility that opportunities for ‘free time’ and increased ‘choice’ afforded to participants function as part of an unintended, yet extremely valuable opportunity for the State to create an image of a ‘multifaceted curricular’ which promotes an overwhelmingly idealised experience of Hungarian social life and positive feeling of attachment to Hungary – a feeling which can enhance future transnational engagements and be mobilised for a myriad of socio-political and economic purposes. Lastly, this paper has challenged the assumption that recipients of diaspora policies are passive subjects to the nationalistic motivations, intentions and strategies enacted ‘from above’. By drawing on Bourdieu’s ‘field of possibles’ the impact of a range of everyday, agency-driven engagements on shaping national belonging has been emphasised, as well as the significance of participant agency which exists outside State-led strategies in shaping feelings of place. Therefore, the dynamic connection between motivations ‘from above’ as well as experiences and motivations ‘from below’ require continued investigation. Practices of partying and various forms of everyday community engagements should not be discounted in their impact on enhancing emotional attachments to place, facilitating some diversification in habitus, and in many ways complementing the nationalistic aims and strategies of State-led diaspora programmes.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 We use this term to describe this program (along with similar birth-right and homeland education tours) which invite people from the diaspora to experience life in the homeland and receive government or partial-government sponsorship throughout their stay. This description draws from the ‘from above’ perspective of transnationalism which interprets diaspora engagement as initiated by governments and carefully planned to reflect their ideological and political intentions.

2 ‘Balassi program’ is a term used in this paper to describe the program offered at the Balassi Institute and reflects how the programme was named by interview participants.

3 Numerous difficulties exist in determining the total number of current Hungarian diaspora members given their sheer diversity and the lack of sufficient evidence (see Gazsó, 2016; Gazsó et al., 2019).

4 The authors recognise the great richness of literature and research on birth-rights programs, diaspora and later-generations homeland tourism, and gap-year experiences, they wish to narrow their focus through the lens of Bourdieu’s analytical concepts including the analogy of a ‘field of possibles’ (1984, 1993).

5 Bourdieu (1990, p. 53) defines the habitus as ‘a system of durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures, that is, as principles which generate and organise practices and representations that can be objectively adapted to their outcomes’.

6 Capital refers to a variety of value-laden resources and assets within a field. The main forms of capital include economic, cultural, social and symbolic capital. See Bourdieu (1986) and Hillier and Rooksby (2002) for further information.

7 In Australia, New South Wales has the largest Hungarian born population (6,420) followed by Victoria (4984), Queensland (3432) and South Australia (1274) (ABS, 2018).

8 The ‘lock out’ laws were introduced by the New South Wales government (Australia) in 2014 to reduce the perceived concentration of alcohol-fuelled violence in the Central Business District of Sydney. A series of curfews on entry and drink service were enforced in all nightclubs and pubs in this area.