Paper short abstract:

This proposal reflects on a particular situation that surfaced during the research I conducted at the beginning of the 2000s in Cluj-“Napoca” (Romania), a multiethnic and multi-religious city, inhabited by a Romanian majority and Hungarian minority: it is the silences of my interviewees.

Paper long abstract:

This proposal reflects on a particular situation that surfaced during the research I conducted at the beginning of the 2000s in Cluj-"Napoca" (Romania), a multiethnic and multi-religious city, inhabited by a Romanian majority and Hungarian minority: it is the silences of my interviewees. The city is renown for the exacerbated ethnic gestures of the local administration dominated by Romanian nationalist politicians between 1992 and 2004 (for example, the installation of national flags on the main boulevards, the painting of benches and dumpsters in Romanian flag's colors (Coman 2008).

When questioned regarding the changes supervened during the postsocialist period, most of my interlocutors kept being silent and avoided answering. Why do they choose to stay silent, speak minimally? What is the tension behind their shrugs? How to deal with and address these silences? How to understand the speechless "responses"? The interviews had a retrospective character involving a mix-up of a subjective selection of the facts and events of the socialist periods, an interpretation "a posteriori" of the events, and a past still present through the urban landscape marked by the signage of the postsocialist events.

My proposal focuses on formulating a methodological response to the uncertainty interview situation considering both my role as a researcher and my social status (professional, geographical origin, etc.). Furthermore, I will propose an analysis of the tension produced by the particular silences and its underlying meanings. In the end, I will advance an interpretation of the reasons that determine or justify this type of responses.