Problems and Perspectives: “What's Left” for Emerging Critical Geography to do in Hungary?

Abstract

The question of "What's left to do?" was asked by Dick Walker in 1989 sparking off an exciting debate in Antipode inspired by the collapse of state socialism in Central and Eastern Europe. Ön the one hand, the debate provided a new base for the dialogue on Marxism and post-Marxism in geography; on the other, it attempted to reconsider the possibilities of a future collective leftist project, on the other. It is a great pity that Central and Eastern Euro- peans, the subject matter of the debate, could not participate actively in that dialogue. It is doubtful, whether Antipode would have been able to find the right partners of "leftist voices" in this region. What seems to be certain is that in 2002, the 3rd International Conference of Critical Geography in Békéscsaba was hosted by a country where critical geography was just being born.

The basic question of the present paper is "What's left for international critical geography to do for us and with us in Central and Eastern Europe?" To prove the importance of the question, the paper begins by providing a historical perspective on the question of why a critical geography "movement" failed to evolve in Hungary. In confronting this question, the paper then looks not only to socialist and post-socialist socio-economic environment and the changes in the academic institutional system, but also to the responsibility of international critical geography. Finally, the paper concludes by putting forth a few proposals concerning the tasks that critical geographers face.