International Karl Polanyi Society

Sociologist, economist and historian Attila Melegh is a professor at Corvinus University, Budapest and a senior researcher at the Demographic Research Institute. His research focuses on the global social change in the 20th century, the care crisis and international migration. Professor Melegh is also an expert on the works of Karl Polanyi and was founding director of the Karl Polányi Research Center at Corvinus University. He is the author of over a hundred scientific publications, the renowned book ‘On the East/West Slope, Globalization, Nationalism, Racism and Discourses on Central and Eastern Europe’ published at CEU Press and a new 2023 book ‘Migration Turn and Eastern Europe’ at Palgrave Macmillan.

Prof. Melegh is also a Doctor at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and President of the Demographic Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. During his career he has been senior advisor at the Hungarian Central Statistical Office, professor at Pal Tomori College as the founder of international studies program and president of the European Network of Global and Universal History. He has taught in the United States, Russia, Georgia and Hungary. He has been the project manager of several major international projects including SEEMIG. Professor Melegh has been actively involved in many conferences, most recently in the conference series on “Non-Capitalist Mixed Economies: Theory, History, and Future” as well as “Transformative Change in the Contested Fields of Care and Housing in Europe” in Linz in December 2023. In May 2024 he will also hold a keynote and lead workshops in the conference “Imaginaries and Strategies for Good Care and Good Housing in Times of Transformation” in Vienna.

He does research on population discourses, migration, migration statistics, the care crisis, care migration and on global social change in the 20th century. His teachings include Economic Sociology, Migration Studies and Theory of Global Social Change. Professor Melegh’s aim for the conference series on “Non-Capitalist Mixed Economies” aim at “developing new perspectives on the history of forms of socialism as transitory, mixed economies, presenting new experiences with currently existing mixed and hybrid systems, and elaborating future possibilities beyond capitalism and, hopefully, capital itself.”