Nationalist Politics and Everyday Ethnicity in a Transylvanian Town

Very interesting book about the Hungarian minority in the Romanian city Cluj.

This book is nationalism studies at its best. It firstly stands out with its commitment to ensuring that a constructivist approach to ethno-nationalism does not betray itself by still falling back on the idea of nations and the ethnic groups as assumed actors; the distinction Brubaker maintains between categories and groups being particularly pertinent here.Secondly, in a book about nationalism and ethnicity, Brubaker goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid arbitrarily reading those topics into all of life, which would contribute to the very process that he is seeking instead to observe, describe, and understand. This care is admirable and it pays dividends.With these conceptual commitments, Brubaker and his fellow researchers try and identify how and when ethnicity and nationhood becomes relevant and is utilized in daily life among regular people in the city of Cluj/ Kolozsvár, as well as - more commonly - when it is not relevant or utilized. The point is not that these concepts are unimportant, but that studying the topic in this way gives us a more accurate view than merely universalizing political discourse as the opinion of, for example, "the Hungarians".By looking for how ethnicity and nationhood is both used and produced in normal activity and discourse, rather than overtly asking for it, and thereby producing it, the book increases our understanding of both the limits as well as the enduring strengths of ethno-national ways of thinking. As the author sums up, ethnicity "is a way of understanding and interpreting experience, a way of talking and acting, a way of formulating interests and identities."Lastly, while many academics would drop us into the minutiae without much orientation, Brubaker and co. exert considerable effort in providing the reader with a thorough historical context for investigating this multi-ethnic city in the diverse borderland that Transylvania has typically been. Gradually focusing the lens, from empire to nation-state to region to city, Brubaker makes sure that, by the time he gets down to the nitty-gritty of his study, we are ready and eager for the new perspective he has to offer.