"Peripato" Research Centre for Social Dynamics

Overview

The PERIPATO Quantitative Social Dynamics Research Group was created in April 2008. 

2018-2023 

Living perforce in a foreign country. The case of Greek political refugees and their descendants in Hungary. Contemporary memories and assessments. 

2017- 2022

Workshop and Summer School titled „Compulsive coexistence. The integration processes of refugees in the Cretan society” at the University of Crete with Aristeidis Tsantiropoulos. 

2018 - 2021 

Within the framework of ELTE Higher Education Institutional Excellence Programme we employed an adapted version of the classical comparative approach by Buchanan and Cantril. The analyses build on a two-mode network approach of attributes attached to six nationalities, highlighted emotional and competence dimensions and skills/knowledge styles in an attribute/nation perspective. 

Eventually as the next stage of our research we also sought to reconstruct how Greek and Hungarian mass media contributed to the construction of the national stereotypes and more generally to the construction of the public images concerning the studied nations. 

2013-2019 

The Peripato Research Group has won the Hungarian Academy of Sciences applications and in the frame of newly founded MTA-ELTE Peripato Research Group we started to analyse the social and political impact of 2008 financial crisis in a comparative manner in Greece and Hungary. 

We examined how the consequences of the debt crisis of 2008 affected: ideological divisions, political cleavages, social movements, the construction of crisis in the mass media, and the public opinion concerning the refugee crisis. 

In 2014, we elaborated a parallel face to face and online surveys which dealt with values, national stereotypes and the patters of the radius of trusts. 

At the beginning of 2016 we started to elaborate a new survey to compare the public opinion concerning the refugee problem. In a collaboration with the National Centre for Social Research (short name: EKKE) in Athens we performed two parallel online survey in Hungary and in Greece on a 2 x 1000 sample of adult internet users. 

In order to grasp the public-discourse imagery from other perspectives beyond the 2016-17 comparative survey, we also conducted a socio-semantic network analysis of media contents. This examination covers political dailies spanning the years 2004-2016 in the Greek and the Hungarian press. 

Research group members

• Nikos FOKAS, professor emeritus, Head of Research Group, Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, ELTE, Budapest, Hungary
• Péter BODOR, Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, ELTE, Budapest, Hungary
• Irene LAGANI, Professor of History, Department of Political Science and History, Panteion University, Athens, Greece
• Nikos MARANTZIDIS, Professor of Political Science, Department of Balkan, Slavic & Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece
• George PLEIOS, Professor of Sociology, Department of Communications and Media, National & Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece
• Aris TSANTIROPOULOS, Associate Professor of Social Anthropology, Department of Sociology, University of Crete, Rethymno, Greece
• Kostas TSIVOS, Charles University, Prague, Faculty of Arts, Institute for Greek and Latin Studies, Modern Greek Studies Prague, Czech Republic
• Róbert TARDOS, Visiting Fellow, Faculty of Social Sciences, ELTE, Hungary
• Gábor JELENFI, Doctoral Candidate, Doctoral School of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary

Keywords

social dynamics, complex systems, stereotypes, comparative studies of Hungary and Greece, refugee problem

Outputs 

CONFERENCE ORGANIZING

2023. Trauma and Appeasement, 75 years after, Fehérvárcsurgó, International Conference, with Greek Institute in Hungary
2021. Τραύμα και Κατευνασμός (Trauma and Appeasement) International online Conference with Greek Institute in Hungary

FIELD WORK

May 2022. Rethymno, Crete, „Compulsive coexistence.” 
October 2021. Athens, Epirus, Thessaloniki “Living perforce in a foreign country.” 
July 2019. Rethymno, Crete, „Compulsive coexistence.” 

SELECTED CONFERENCE PARTICIPATIONS, LECTURES

Fokas, N. (2023, April 23). Το μεγάλο ταξίδι 1948 - … Προσωπικές μαρτυρίες για την φυγή, την άφιξη και την εγκατάσταση των προσφυγόπουλων στην Ουγγαρία. [The long journey 1948 - ... Personal testimonies about the escape, arrival and settlement of refugee Greek children in Hungary.] Greek Institute, Fehérvárcsurgó, Hungary

Fokas, N. (2023, March 2). Προσωπικές μαρτυρίες για την εγκατάσταση και η πορεία ένταξης των Ελληνόπουλων στην Ουγγαρία. [Personal testimonies about the settlement and the integration process of Greek children in Hungary] Department of Modern Greek Philology, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

Fokas, N. (2022, September 21-23). Greeks in Hungary, Conference Greeks in Central Europe between the 15th and 20th Century, OZ IKONY Gallery of Icons, Žilina, Slovakia

Fokas, N. (2021, June 11). Παιδιά του στρατώνα; Οι πραγματικότητες των αρχείων και αφηγήσεων, [Children of barracks? Realities of archives and oral reports], „Τραύμα και Κατευνασμός” (Trauma and Appeasement), Online Conference of Greek Institute

Fokas, N. (2020, October 23.). Citizens or free riders, Complexity in nature and society, Philosophical and Interdisciplinary Conference about Complexity, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj (Kolozsvár), Romania

Fokas, N., Jelenfi, G., & Tardos R. (2019, October 17-18.). Cognitive maps, social distance and national stereotypes in times of crisis, The case of Greece and Hungary, “Migrations: Interdisciplinary Challenges”, University of Crete Research Center, Greece

Fokas F. (2019, September 20-21). Δράσεις φιλελληνισμού στην Ουγγαρία 2003-2019, [Actions of philhellenism in Hungary 2003-2019], Conference Όψεις του Σύγχρονου Φιλελληνισμού στην Ευρώπη [Aspects of Modern Philhellenism in Europe], Thessaloniki, Greece

Jelenfi G., Fokasz N. & Tardos R. (2018, 26 June - 1 July). Cognitive maps, social distance and national stereotypes in times of crisis, A semantic network approach to how Greeks and Hungarians see themselves and others, XXXVIII. Sunbelt Conference, Utrecht, The Netherlands  
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339292429_A_semantic_network_approach_to_how_Greeks_and_Hungarians_see_themselves_and_others

Fokas, N., Jelenfi G., & Tardos R. (2017, 29 August – 1 September). Facing the refugee crisis in Greece and Hungary, Cognitive maps, social distance and national stereotypes, 13th Conference of the European Sociological Association, (Un)Making Europe: Capitalism, Solidarities, Subjectivities, Athens, Greece
http://esa13thconference.eu/ 

Bodor P., Előd Z., & Fokas, N. (2016, July 10-14). From Lesbos to Budapest and Beyond – The construction of the refugee problem in the Greek and Hungarian dailies, 3rd ISA Forum of Sociology, Vienna, Austria

Bodor, P., & Fokas, N. (2016, June 10-12). The construction of “crises” and the “refugee problem” in the Greek and Hungarian dailies ICCONSS, Crete, Rethymno 

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Fokas, N., Jelenfi, G., & Tardos, R. (2022). Mapping Cultural Distances in a Catnet Approach: How Greeks and Hungarians See Themselves and Others. Comparative Sociology, 21(1), 1-42.
https://doi.org/10.1163/15691330-bja10047

Fokas, N., Jelenfi, G., & Tardos, R. (2022). Cognitive maps, cultural distances and national stereotypes in times of crises: Comparing Greece and Hungary. In  Kousis-Aspasia Chatzidaki, M., & Kafetsios, K., (Eds.). Challenging Mobilities in and to the EU during Times of Crises: The Case of Greece (pp. 113-135). Cham: Springer International Publishing. 
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/364139972_Cognitive_Maps_Cultural_Distances_and_National_Stereotypes_in_Times_of_Crises_Comparing_Greece_and_Hungary

Fokas, N., Görög, A. (Eds.). (2020). Trauma és megnyugvás [Trauma and Appeasement], Görög Intézet, Budapest

Fokas, N. (Ed.). (2018). … És jövőre Görögországban  [… and next year in Greece], ELTE Eötvös Publishing Co., Budapest

Fokas, N. (Ed.) (2017). Δύο πατρίδες, μια ταυτότητα,Νήσος [Two home countries one identity], Publishing Co., Athens 

Fokas, N., Raptis, I., & Haralambosz V. (2017). Απρόβλεπτες διαδρομές, Εικόνες για τη ζωή των Ελλήνων Ουγγαρίας  – Időfonal, Képek a magyarországi görögök életéből [Unforeseen routes, Pictures about the life of the Greeks in Hungary], ASKI, Athens - Új Mandátum Publishing Co., Budapest

Contact information (leader)

Nikos FOKAS 
professor emeritus 
Department of Sociology 
Faculty of Social Sciences, Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest (ELTE)
fokasz.nikosz@tatk.elte.hu 
Blog (in Hungarian): 
https://peripato.blog.hu/

Other Essential Information

RELATIONS WITH GREEK INSTITUTIONS:

• Department of Communication and Media Studies, University of Athens
• Department of Balkan, Slavic & Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia
• Department of Philosophy and Social Studies, University of Crete
• Department of Sociology, University of Crete

INTERNSHIPS

• 2023 (scheduled for autumn) Maria Eleftheria Chatzara 
• 2021-2022 Aikaterini Meliou, Department of Philosophy and Social Studies, University of Crete
• 2018 Maria Spourdalaki, Department of Philosophy and Social Studies, University of Crete