DPhil Student
St John's College
Working title of research: Home-stage ideologies and the cultivation of diaspora subjectivity amongst Hungarian and Venezuelan migrants in London
Research summary: Within the framework of my PhD degree at the University of Oxford, I focus on migrants from Venezuela and Hungary to understand experiences of the home state in the context of migration. The two groups in the centre of my study have migrated from a socialist state and a nationalist state of a socialist past, respectively, both of which tend to resist globalising tendencies in a world that is increasingly defined by transnational processes. As previous subjects of the two, these people have different ideas of the life they should stive for, mutual responsibilities with their home state and are subject to different claims made by them. Within the frames of my research, I would like to explore what are the diverging ways people encounter and reconstitute the home state in their lives post-migration and in what ways they embrace or contest the claims made on them or alternatively, how do they craft ways to make a claim on the state themselves.
Research interests: migration, diasporas, transnationalism, anthropology of the state, European processes
Previous Education:
Master of Arts (MA) in Cultural and Social Anthropology, University of Vienna (2018)
Master of Letters (MLitt) in Cultural Studies, University of St Andrews (2014)
Bachelor of Arts (BA) in English and Portuguese Studies, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary (2011)
Awards and grants
My research is jointly funded by the ESRC Studentship, the St John’s College ‘Lamb and Flag’ Scholarship and the Scholarship of the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography
Duveen scholarship for visiting migration organisations in the United States (2023)
Peter Lienhardt Memorial Fund and Philip Bagby Fund Scholarship for fieldwork research (2022)
CEEPUS ‘freemover’ grant for a study stay at the University of Primorska, Slovenia (2017)
Erasmus+ mobility grant for a research stay at Maynooth University, Ireland (2016)
Darmasiswa Scholarship offered by the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture for the study of Indonesian Language and Culture at the State University of Yogyakarta, Indonesia (2014)
Grant of the Italian State for a study stay at the University of Bergamo, Italy (2013)
School of Modern Languages Grant of the University of St Andrews (2012)
Outstanding Thesis Award awarded by the Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary (2011)
Erasmus+ mobility grant for a study stay at the New University of Lisbon, Portugal (2008)
Publications
Molnár, Judit. 2022. Review of Jennifer Erickson's Race-ing Fargo: Refugees, Citizenship, and the Transformation of Small Cities. Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford 13/2: 204-205.
Molnár, Judit. 2018. Sprememba Tradicionalnega Kmetovanja in Pojav Ekoturizma na Krasu: Pogledi, Precepcije in Osebnosti [The Transformation of Traditional Farming and the Emergence of Ecotourism in the Slovenian Karst Region: Views, Perceptions and Identities]. In Človek in Živali v Bisosfernem Območju Kras in Porečju Reke [Humans and Animals in the Biosphere Reserve of the Karst Region and Reka River], edited by Katja Hrobat Virloget, Alenka Janko Spreizer, Petra Kavrečič, Klara Lukan and Vanja Debevec. Škocjan: Javni Zavod Park Škocjanske Jame: 6-14.
Molnár, Judit. 2016. Home is Calling: Hungarian Emigrants’ Response to the Home Country’s Return Campaign. Grafo Working Papers 5: 49-60 (https://ddd.uab.cat/pub/grafowp/grafowp_a2016m11v5/grafowp_a2016m11v5p49...).
Molnár, Judit. 2011. The Importance of Motivation in Language Learning: A Study on the Motivational Profiles of High-Achieving Students. OverSEAS 2011.
Conference contributions
Delivery of the talk ‘The Cultivation of Diaspora Subjectivity and Post-Migration Experiences of the State: A Comparative Study amongst Hungarians and Venezuelans in London’. June 2022. ‘Reimagining Social Science’, Oxford, United Kingdom.
Delivery of the talk ‘From Traitors to Heroes: An Analysis of the Hungarian State’s Narratives on Emigration Over the Last Century’. May 2022. ‘Politics of History and Memory Conflicts in Post-Communist Europe’, Poznan, Poland.
Discussant of roundtable presentations on ‘Histories and Cultures of Migration’. August 2021 ‘Imagining Europe: Migration, Borders and the (Re)Making of ‘Europe’, Oxford, United Kingdom.
Panelist on the discussion ‘Scapegoating: Why Racism Could Gain So Much Ground and How It Feels to Be a Migrant in Contemporary Europe’. December 2017 ‘European Angst: A Conference on Populism, Extremism and Euroscepticism in Contemporary European Societies’ Conference, Brussels, Belgium.
Delivery of the talk ‘The Construction of Home and Community – A Study on Hungarian Immigrants in Ireland’. July 2017 ‘European Anthropology under Construction: New Approaches, Methodologies, Theories and Challenges for the 21st Century’ Conference, Barcelona, Spain.
Email: judit.molnar@sjc.ox.ac.uk
