This Authoritarian Life

This Authoritarian Life explores how people experience, adapt to, and resist authoritarian politics in their everyday lives.

Each month, anthropologists Kristóf Szombati and Erdem Evren speak with guests from around the world to understand what authoritarianism looks like up close — and how it can be contested.

Group winner of the 2025 New Directions Award of the American Anthropological Association, TAL combines ethnographic insight with accessible storytelling to reveal the textures of life under authoritarian stress.

www.instagram.com/this_authoritarian_life

www.facebook.com/thisauthoritarianlife

Guest

Kristóf Nagy

Kristóf Nagy recently completed his PhD in anthropology on conservative cultural policy in Hungary. His ethnographic research at the Hungarian Academy of Arts, one of the flagship public institutions created after Viktor Orbán's Fidesz party came to power in 2010, offers a deeper insight into how right-wing cultural institutions are making an effort to integrate artists with very different and often clashing visions. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University.

Guest appearance on:

Defund, Co-opt, Replace: How Authoritarians Reshape Culture (Frontlines) #3