Knock knock. Hesitantly I open the door to my room in the hostel, the cheapest one in Žilina. It is 10 pm, freezing cold outside and the front door was locked – How did the person get into the building? In front of me: A […]

The community center is glowing with lights and a busy hustle; there are candles and lightning chains lining along walls and shelves; the promising scent of frying oil penetrates every corner of the half-parterre flat in the Bratislava center. Today is the Christmas celebration of […]

The sun barely penetrates the thick mist this early Thursday morning, but the spirits in a small blue minibus are light: Three activists, two musicians, a photographer and me are on a mission to the northernmost stretch of Slovakia, the Upper Orava region. „Azim dschan […]

During my first weeks of fieldwork, I found Facebook to be an invaluable research companion. Thanks to Facebook, I found my flat in Bratislava. Thanks to online discussions on news articles, I get a quite good grasp of the main arguments and reasoning schemes in public […]

  Ethnographic fieldwork often feels more like a conversation with friends than a scientific laboratory-style arrangement. But then, it might also happen that you encounter opinions and statements that leave you gasping for air – especially when dealing with current and controversial topics. I need […]

So the European Court of Justice rejected the legal action of Slovakia and Hungary against the refugee redistribution quotas. According to this European Union policy, Slovakia is required to take in 902 refugees from overburdened Italy and Greece. How did the press react to this […]

What is missing from all of today’s discussions about the (in)compatibility of cultures and the dangers of multiculturality in Slovakia is a memory of a time not so long ago when the capital was a crossroad of cultures, ethnicities, and languages.   More precisely: The […]

The Slovak National Gallery (Slovenská Národná Galerie) is currently showing an exhibition titled „Nech šije!“ which deals with fashion in socialist Czechoslovakia. Next to showcasing tons of wonderfully corny outfits, this exhibition allows a glimpse of the penetration of socialist ideology into such a banal […]

When I became a Ph.D. student, I thought I was quite prepared. After all, being a student was pretty much everything I’ve ever done. It’s my primary expertise. What does doing a Ph.D. entail other than reading, thinking, researching and writing it all down in […]

Has overuse turned „populism“ into an empty phrase?   A specter is haunting the democratic West – the specter of populism. And as you would expect from a proper specter, it lacks substance and is impossible to grasp, but that doesn’t make it any less […]