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THE KÓSPALLAG OLD HOUSE PROJECT AS PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH... 253
Ethnographic research
Research using classical ethnographic methods has been a central part of our work
since the beginning in 2017. We have organized research camps lasting several
days, and we have been conducting interviews with villagers, mostly elderly people,
with varying intensity.
The concept of “local knowledge” has become a central element of our work
over the years. We approach the concept in a rather extended sense. Part of it is
what research calls “traditional ecological knowledge” (Berkes 2018), but more than
that, we also consider part of it the personal and historical memory of the local
population. A very significant part of it is closely linked to the local ecological
environment. Many aspects of life were once strongly linked to the natural
environment — not only ecological and agricultural knowledge in the strict sense
(such as extensive knowledge of medicinal plants and mushrooms, orchards,
livestock, and crops), but also folk industry and craft knowledge and even areas
such as architecture and costume (see Bali 2005). In local knowledge, however, the
knowledge of the peasant past is not sharply separated from elements of later times;
our interlocutors also refer to the agricultural knowledge learned during or since
the cooperative period. When we asked for local experts on growing fruit, native
residents often recommended our young, second-generation settler friend. Knowledge
forms a unity in the minds of its bearers. Only when viewed from the outside does
it have ‘ecological’ elements, those which, when separated, carry the idea of existing
in harmony with nature, but often these also exist in a hybrid form with other
elements. In Köspallag, for example, many of the later built ‘cube’ houses were also
constructed of adobe and the boundaries drawn in local knowledge are artificial
research constructions, not separated into such categories in the minds of its bearers.
In the course of our work in the village, we strongly experienced that the
indigenous inhabitants of the village speak of their own knowledge with a kind
of minority complex, not seeing it as knowledge: 0/, I dont know anything’. But
we are curious about everything and everyone, according to the anthropological
approach, so we listen to the knowledge of all local people and we convey this
approach in our events. Local knowledge is also fundamentally linked to community
building. We have often noticed, and feedback has shown, that the discovery,
sharing and dialogue of local knowledge has triggered human connections across
social groups. When our volunteers from Budapest spent hours with local elderly
people foraging for mushrooms in the forest behind the country house and then
listened to their guides life story until midnight, this is exactly what happened.
But local knowledge is also important for us because of its practical application.
Here too, we were guided by the needs of the local community. The research team
was invited to create a village museum where elements of local knowledge could
be acguired by those interested. Over the years, it became ever clearer that one of
the main motivations for the active local core of the country house is to learn to
apply elements of local knowledge appropriate to an ecological lifestyle in their
own daily lives, for example to expand their knowledge of farming and mycology.
While elements of local knowledge are also put back into practice, different layers
of knowledge also come together. Sometimes, of course, they clash, with elements
of permaculture farming being referred to as ‘scraping’, while in other cases the
agricultural knowledge of the newcomers is taken seriously as useful knowledge.