Negotiating agency, choice, and ethnicity: A narrative study of volunteerism in Hungary

Type of Abstract (select): Individual Presentation

Abstract (max. 250 words):
In 2025, 35 years after the fall of state socialism, Hungary faces deep social and economic fragmentation, with one-fourth of the population living in systemic poverty. One of society's biggest challenges is the lack of social solidarity as a resource for building bridges and tackling brokenness from within. Amid this crisis, voluntary organizations, such as the Hungarian Charity Service of Malta, play a crucial role in fostering social solidarity by providing daily help to those in need. This study examines how volunteers engaged in community service negotiate their experiences and identities through personal storytelling, with a focus on the issue of social solidarity. It presents findings from an analysis of 6 focus group interviews with 17 members in three local, small-town chapters of the Hungarian Charity Service of Malta. The study explores how volunteers co-construct their experiences, negotiate their ethnic belonging to build personal agency, and frame the meaning of choice in volunteer work. The focus group setting fosters the co-construction of personal experiences and foregrounds how one’s decision to engage in volunteer work affects their own lives just as profoundly as the lives of their clients. These narratives construct and reinforce storytellers' identities by mapping and reimagining the social and cultural context of remembered experiences. Findings suggest that voluntary community help emerges at the intersection of community narratives and personal stories, enabling volunteers to understand their own life experiences and mentalize and interpret their clients' socially contextualized needs.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Mónika Fodor is an Associate Professor in the Institute of English Studies at the University of Pécs. Her research focuses on narrative meaning-making, memory, trauma, identity and narrative, and the narrative ramifications of reconstructing and digitalizing memories. She has published on the conversational and discourse analysis of narratives, identity, ethnicity, oral histories, narrative, memory, and trauma in identity construction. She also researches the forms of adapting and using culture as content in the EFL classroom. Her most recent work has been published in the journals Memory Studies and Narrative Inquiry.