Laborer Communities

The text analyzes the lifestyle of laborers settled in colonies in Northeast Hungary, both in terms of tradition and changes. The research focuses exclusively on laborers living in small settlements, called colonies. In the given northeastern area there are several colonies or settlements that have colonies. For the description I have chosen the views of ethnography, ethnology and sociology to produce an interdisciplinary analysis of the topic. In order to find the facts I have carried out a traditional cultural anthropological fieldwork. Beside the classical methods like interviews (lifeway-, genealogical-, and ethnographical interviews), visual documentation and the analysis of material culture I also used the modern computer techniques to work with my collected data. Of course the work couldn t be finished without focusing also on archival materials, which were found in local collections and the county archives. With the questionnaire I gained access to 310 informants, I taped and videotaped 207 hours of interviews in 17 colonies with 79 informants.