Principal Investigator: Judit Durst
Participants: Benedek Bozó, Fanni Dés, Balázs Gosztonyi (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology), Márton Gosztonyi (ELTE TÁTK), Judit Juhász (SZTE GTK), György Málovics (SZTE GTK), Boglárka Méreiné Berki (SZTE GTK), György Molnár, Zsanna Nyírő, Gergely Pulay, Orsolya Udvari (KSH), András Vígvári
Funding source: NKFI K-143543
Project duration: 2022–
Research objectives, questions:
Moral economy, livelihood and dependence; through these three concepts, we aim to contribute to the rethinking of dependent relations in the sphere of economic life. The context of our inquiry is a prolonged state of crisis that the Covid-19 global pandemic has only exacerbated. Following the bottom-up approach of new economic anthropological thinking, our research team will carry out comparative ethnographies through 5 interrelated case studies on dependent relations. By investigating 1. debt, 2. rent and housing relations, 3. informal labour relations, 4. NGO’s helping relations to their beneficiaries, and 5. physical dependency (substance abuse and self-help groups for addicts-in-recovery), we focus our attention on how ordinary people make economic decisions, embedded in various regimes of value. Our main research questions: how are dependent relations constituted between different people with conflicting socio-economic interests? What factors contribute to sustaining and reproducing dependencies? What are the consequences of dependent relations to the social reproduction of the marginalised poor? And how are racial hierarchy and dependent relations intertwined?
Dependence is an uncomfortable topic to many social scientists as they represent the opposite pole to the pursuit of freedom, autonomy and self-determination. At the same time, many of the communities we study are organized hierarchically. In fact, hierarchical social organization can even be desirable if it fosters the creation of the pursuit of a good life. We argue that the approach of moral economy offers a heuristic device to understand how these hierarchical dependent relationships are perceived, negotiated, or contested.
Publications:
Gosztonyi, M. (2026). Be lucky!? – the interrelations of luck, success, and dependency relationships in the context of a disadvantaged community. Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, 1–27.
https://doi.org/10.1080/13511610.2026.2636832
Kosztopulosz, A., Málovics, G., Berki, B., & Creţan, R. (2026). Conversion Factors in the Financial Capabilities of Extremely Poor and Segregated Roma Families. Economics of Transition and Institutional Change.
https://doi.org/10.1111/ecot.70027
Berki, B., Málovics, G., & Creţan, R. (2025). Aspirations versus reality: Factors influencing the vertical social mobility of urban Roma mothers living in extreme poverty. Habitat International, 158, 103334.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2025.103334
Molnár, Gy. (2025). Szabadság, függőség, biztonság. Socio.hu Társadalomtudományi Szemle, Vol 15. No 3, 33-46.
https://doi.org/10.18030/socio.hu.2025.3.37
Kosztopulosz, A., Méreiné, B. B., & Málovics G. (2024). Pénzügyi képességek és a mélyszegény, szegregált roma családok pénzügyi helyzete. Közgazdasági Szemle, 71(7-8), 850–874. Elérés forrás https://ojs3.mtak.hu/index.php/kszemle/article/view/17730
Gosztonyi, M. (2023). Metamorphosis: The credit market of low-income households in a semi-peripheral country. Journal of Systems Science and Complexity, 36, 1–33. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11424-023-1472-x
Gosztonyi, M. (2023). Credit and debt market of low-income families – ABM model [Computer software]. https://doi.org/10.25937/k9g9-ze27
https://www.comses.net/codebases/957e771d-975d-4e61-a158-21311a14a013/releases/1.1.0/