Péter Berta
Biographic Data
| ID | 3584014 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Péter Berta |
| GIVEN NAMES | Péter |
| FAMILY NAME | Berta |
| SIGNATURE | BERTA P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Hungarian Academy of Sciences |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7540-4718 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 10 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Is sciencepreneurship the 21st century’s new skill? Understanding the complex interplay between business and science from the perspective of university students studying economics
The global economy is exposed to radical technical, technological, and managerial advances causing revolutionary changes in functioning of enterprises. Companies seem to have a growing demand for fusion-teams of workforces where different scientific fields are composed to ensure the complex but diversified analysis and solution of business problems. In striving for business success, firms are demanding a new, resolute attitude and mindset of thei…
Why Interactions Between Things and Subjects Matter: On the Explanatory Power of the New Material Culture Studies
The article aims to provide an insight into the analytical approach that has emerged over the last four decades, known as new material culture studies. The first section, drawing primarily on the overviews by Miller (1994a) and Buchli (2002a), delineates the most important stages and turns of the interest of social sciences in material culture. The second section enumerates some of the distinguishing features characterizing (most of) the research…
The political economy of family life among Romanian Roma: Re-discovering politics in economy-related family-level decision-making processes (introduction to the theme section)
The contemporary omnipresence of political economy as an analytical framework or perspectivePolitical economy as an analytical framework or perspective has not lost its academic significance, popularity, or explanatory power since the turn of the millennium.For example, analysis of the complex impact of political goals, opportunities, and constraints on economic agency, decisions, and processes has been a focus of attention for researchers who ha…
The interconnectedness of marriage politics and luxury consumption: A marital biographical perspective
The article examines how two symbolic arenas of Gabor Roma politics – the accumulation of wealth (with a special focus on competitive luxury consumption centred around beakers and roofed tankards made of antique silver) and marriage politics – are intertwined and interact with each other. The first part introduces Roma politics, describes the most important features of luxury consumption and marriage politics, and delineates the main types of int…
Forced divorce: A neglected global practice at the intersections of gender, power, culture, and politics
Materializing Difference: Consumer Culture, Politics, and Ethnicity among Romanian Roma
Materializing Difference reveals the inner dynamics of the complex relations and interactions between objects and subjects and investigates how these relations and interactions contribute to the construction, materialization, and reformulation of social, economic, and political identities, boundaries, and differences
Recreating and Materializing Social Differences through Patina-oriented Consumption: The Post-socialist Ownership History of a Second-hand, Luxury Commodity
The study examines the post-socialist ownership history of an extremely valuable Gabor Roma prestige object: a silver-footed beaker. The resulting object biography sheds light on the role of the prestige economy constructed around silver objects in the creation, materialization, and renegotiation of social differences among the Gabor Roma in Romania. The analysis also reveals that this economy is a contemporary, second-hand culture based on patin…
Proprietary Contest, Business Ethics, and Conflict Management: A Multi-Sited Commodity Ethnography
Purpose This paper delineates the proprietary contest developed around a highly valued prestige item: a silver roofed tankard owned by a Romanian, Gabor Roma man. Design/methodology/approach The author applies “methodological fetishism” (Appadurai, 1986, p. 5), the perspective of things-in-motion, as well as the biographic method to interpret data collected during 31.5 months of multi-sited anthropological fieldwork carried out in the Transylvani…
Intermediate trade, migration, and the politics of ethnicity. Economic strategies among Romanian Gabor Roma
The study summarises the author’s field experience regarding the most widespread livelihood strategies among the Romanian Gabor Roma. Through a series of examples, it demonstrates how Gabor traders adapt — most of them successfully — to the new economic and social challenges that have emerged in the post-socialist transformation. The study also outlines and analyses how the politics of ethnicity is employed in their livelihood strategies. It aims…
Roma in Central and Eastern Europe: Ethnicising, performing, and commodifying social differences
Classification struggles, moral criticism and the interethnic trade of prestige goods between two Romanian Roma groups
This article analyses the politics of consumption through contesting discourses rationalizing the interethnic trade of silver beakers and tankards carried out between two Romanian Roma groups. The members of these groups regard such objects as scarce prestige goods and political trophies imbued with emotional and identity value. The examined discourses focus on consumer practices and value preferences attributed to the negatively defined, ethnic …
Constructing, Commodifying, and Consuming Invented Ethnic Provenance Among Romanian Roma
This article deals with contemporary examples of fraud in the trade of silver beakers and tankards that are defined as valuable prestige goods by two Roma groups living in central Romania-the Gabor Roma and the Cărhar Roma. It demonstrates how some Gabor Roma construct an invented ethnic provenance for silver objects purchased on the European antiques market to sell them for profit to wealthy Cărhar Roma as precious Gabor family heirlooms. I disc…
Materialising ethnicity: Commodity fetishism and symbolic re-creation of objects among the Gabor Roma (Romania)
The study deals with the prestige economy of a Transylvanian Roma ethnic subgroup known as the Gabors. It highlights how these Roma construct prestige items and symbols of ethnic identity by de‐ and re‐contextualisation, that is, by commodity fetishism and symbolic re‐creation of silver beakers and tankards purchased from non‐Roma antique dealers, auction houses, museums etc. Focusing on a transitional period of the ‘social history’ of these obje…
Ethnicisation of value–the value of ethnicity: The prestige-item economy as a performance of ethnic identity among the Gabors of Transylvania (Rumania)
The study analyzes some of the ideologies and practices related to the silver beakers and tankards which are defined as highly valued prestige items by a Romani ethnic subgroup (known as Gabors) living in Transylvania, Rumania. After describing some features of the Gabors's prestige-item economy, the article demonstrates that for the members of this ethnic subgroup these items constitute the elite register of consumption concerning material cultu…
The Social Construction of Death: Pastoral Power, Death Concept, and Normativity in the Hungarian Peasant Culture
A number of recent anthropological studies focus on the contribution of beliefs and rites connected with death to the reproduction and legitimization of this-worldly social and moral order. The present paper conceptualizes some observations concerning the this-worldly normative character of Hungarian peasant death concept, with special attention to the relations between Christian “pastoral power” (Foucault 1988, 1994) and normativity. The author …
The Functions of Omens of Death in Transylvanian Hungarian Peasant Death Culture (Examples from Csíkkarcfalva and Csíkjenöfalva)
European peasants' culture of death has evolved a number of rites and systems of folk beliefs during the past hundreds of years that aim at coordinating and reducing the near-death crisis situations. Recently, many researchers dealt with the ethnographic and descriptive analysis of the systems of folk beliefs and directions of behavior related to transience; however, the investigation of societal and psychological significance of these rites and …
Ethnicisation of value–the value of ethnicity: The prestige-item economy as a performance of ethnic identity among the Gabors of Transylvania (Rumania)
The study analyzes some of the ideologies and practices related to the silver beakers and tankards which are defined as highly valued prestige items by a Romani ethnic subgroup (known as Gabors) living in Transylvania, Rumania. After describing some features of the Gabors's prestige-item economy, the article demonstrates that for the members of this ethnic subgroup these items constitute the elite register of consumption concerning material cultu…
Classification struggles, moral criticism and the interethnic trade of prestige goods between two Romanian Roma groups
This article analyses the politics of consumption through contesting discourses rationalizing the interethnic trade of silver beakers and tankards carried out between two Romanian Roma groups. The members of these groups regard such objects as scarce prestige goods and political trophies imbued with emotional and identity value. The examined discourses focus on consumer practices and value preferences attributed to the negatively defined, ethnic …
Constructing, Commodifying, and Consuming Invented Ethnic Provenance Among Romanian Roma
This article deals with contemporary examples of fraud in the trade of silver beakers and tankards that are defined as valuable prestige goods by two Roma groups living in central Romania-the Gabor Roma and the Cărhar Roma. It demonstrates how some Gabor Roma construct an invented ethnic provenance for silver objects purchased on the European antiques market to sell them for profit to wealthy Cărhar Roma as precious Gabor family heirlooms. I disc…
The Functions of Omens of Death in Transylvanian Hungarian Peasant Death Culture (Examples from Csíkkarcfalva and Csíkjenöfalva)
European peasants' culture of death has evolved a number of rites and systems of folk beliefs during the past hundreds of years that aim at coordinating and reducing the near-death crisis situations. Recently, many researchers dealt with the ethnographic and descriptive analysis of the systems of folk beliefs and directions of behavior related to transience; however, the investigation of societal and psychological significance of these rites and …
The Social Construction of Death: Pastoral Power, Death Concept, and Normativity in the Hungarian Peasant Culture
A number of recent anthropological studies focus on the contribution of beliefs and rites connected with death to the reproduction and legitimization of this-worldly social and moral order. The present paper conceptualizes some observations concerning the this-worldly normative character of Hungarian peasant death concept, with special attention to the relations between Christian “pastoral power” (Foucault 1988, 1994) and normativity. The author …
Ethnicisation of value–the value of ethnicity: The prestige-item economy as a performance of ethnic identity among the Gabors of Transylvania (Rumania)
The study analyzes some of the ideologies and practices related to the silver beakers and tankards which are defined as highly valued prestige items by a Romani ethnic subgroup (known as Gabors) living in Transylvania, Rumania. After describing some features of the Gabors's prestige-item economy, the article demonstrates that for the members of this ethnic subgroup these items constitute the elite register of consumption concerning material cultu…
Materialising ethnicity: Commodity fetishism and symbolic re-creation of objects among the Gabor Roma (Romania)
The study deals with the prestige economy of a Transylvanian Roma ethnic subgroup known as the Gabors. It highlights how these Roma construct prestige items and symbols of ethnic identity by de‐ and re‐contextualisation, that is, by commodity fetishism and symbolic re‐creation of silver beakers and tankards purchased from non‐Roma antique dealers, auction houses, museums etc. Focusing on a transitional period of the ‘social history’ of these obje…
Constructing, Commodifying, and Consuming Invented Ethnic Provenance Among Romanian Roma
This article deals with contemporary examples of fraud in the trade of silver beakers and tankards that are defined as valuable prestige goods by two Roma groups living in central Romania-the Gabor Roma and the Cărhar Roma. It demonstrates how some Gabor Roma construct an invented ethnic provenance for silver objects purchased on the European antiques market to sell them for profit to wealthy Cărhar Roma as precious Gabor family heirlooms. I disc…
Classification struggles, moral criticism and the interethnic trade of prestige goods between two Romanian Roma groups
This article analyses the politics of consumption through contesting discourses rationalizing the interethnic trade of silver beakers and tankards carried out between two Romanian Roma groups. The members of these groups regard such objects as scarce prestige goods and political trophies imbued with emotional and identity value. The examined discourses focus on consumer practices and value preferences attributed to the negatively defined, ethnic …
Proprietary Contest, Business Ethics, and Conflict Management: A Multi-Sited Commodity Ethnography
Purpose This paper delineates the proprietary contest developed around a highly valued prestige item: a silver roofed tankard owned by a Romanian, Gabor Roma man. Design/methodology/approach The author applies “methodological fetishism” (Appadurai, 1986, p. 5), the perspective of things-in-motion, as well as the biographic method to interpret data collected during 31.5 months of multi-sited anthropological fieldwork carried out in the Transylvani…
Intermediate trade, migration, and the politics of ethnicity. Economic strategies among Romanian Gabor Roma
The study summarises the author’s field experience regarding the most widespread livelihood strategies among the Romanian Gabor Roma. Through a series of examples, it demonstrates how Gabor traders adapt — most of them successfully — to the new economic and social challenges that have emerged in the post-socialist transformation. The study also outlines and analyses how the politics of ethnicity is employed in their livelihood strategies. It aims…
Roma in Central and Eastern Europe: Ethnicising, performing, and commodifying social differences
Recreating and Materializing Social Differences through Patina-oriented Consumption: The Post-socialist Ownership History of a Second-hand, Luxury Commodity
The study examines the post-socialist ownership history of an extremely valuable Gabor Roma prestige object: a silver-footed beaker. The resulting object biography sheds light on the role of the prestige economy constructed around silver objects in the creation, materialization, and renegotiation of social differences among the Gabor Roma in Romania. The analysis also reveals that this economy is a contemporary, second-hand culture based on patin…
Materializing Difference: Consumer Culture, Politics, and Ethnicity among Romanian Roma
Materializing Difference reveals the inner dynamics of the complex relations and interactions between objects and subjects and investigates how these relations and interactions contribute to the construction, materialization, and reformulation of social, economic, and political identities, boundaries, and differences
The political economy of family life among Romanian Roma: Re-discovering politics in economy-related family-level decision-making processes (introduction to the theme section)
The contemporary omnipresence of political economy as an analytical framework or perspectivePolitical economy as an analytical framework or perspective has not lost its academic significance, popularity, or explanatory power since the turn of the millennium.For example, analysis of the complex impact of political goals, opportunities, and constraints on economic agency, decisions, and processes has been a focus of attention for researchers who ha…
The interconnectedness of marriage politics and luxury consumption: A marital biographical perspective
The article examines how two symbolic arenas of Gabor Roma politics – the accumulation of wealth (with a special focus on competitive luxury consumption centred around beakers and roofed tankards made of antique silver) and marriage politics – are intertwined and interact with each other. The first part introduces Roma politics, describes the most important features of luxury consumption and marriage politics, and delineates the main types of int…
Forced divorce: A neglected global practice at the intersections of gender, power, culture, and politics
Is sciencepreneurship the 21st century’s new skill? Understanding the complex interplay between business and science from the perspective of university students studying economics
The global economy is exposed to radical technical, technological, and managerial advances causing revolutionary changes in functioning of enterprises. Companies seem to have a growing demand for fusion-teams of workforces where different scientific fields are composed to ensure the complex but diversified analysis and solution of business problems. In striving for business success, firms are demanding a new, resolute attitude and mindset of thei…
Why Interactions Between Things and Subjects Matter: On the Explanatory Power of the New Material Culture Studies
The article aims to provide an insight into the analytical approach that has emerged over the last four decades, known as new material culture studies. The first section, drawing primarily on the overviews by Miller (1994a) and Buchli (2002a), delineates the most important stages and turns of the interest of social sciences in material culture. The second section enumerates some of the distinguishing features characterizing (most of) the research…
Sociology (13 works) · Political science (11 works) · Law (9 works) · Politics (9 works) · Romani and Gypsy Studies (9 works) · Law (7 works) · Anthropology (6 works) · Gender Studies (6 works) · Epistemology (5 works) · Prestige (5 works)