- Povernei 6-8, National School of Political Studies and Public Administration of Bucharest (Department of Sociology)
This article investigates the legacy of state socialism and the post-socialist transformation inside the Romanian Carpathians by reviewing sociological literature on new inhabitants of the Alps and anthropological literature on ruralism... more
This article investigates the legacy of state socialism and the post-socialist transformation inside the Romanian Carpathians by reviewing sociological literature on new inhabitants of the Alps and anthropological literature on ruralism in Romania. Today, after a period spent adapting to socialist agricultural and industrial policies, several rural communities of the Carpathians are facing growing waves of amenity migrants and urban tourists. In 2015, in order to investigate the potential role of these dynamics relative to the resilience of mountain dwellers, we collected qualitative data by means of in-depth ethnographic interviews with Romanian academics, tourist entrepreneurs, residents of and immigrants to the mountain village of Fundata in Transylvania. We recognise amenity migration and rural tourism as important but also ambivalent and as driving change with respect to the interrelated socio-demographic local change. Whereas the Carpathians have been losing population dramatically since the 1990s, and the remaining population has aged, rural tourism has brought new permanent and temporary inhabitants (often young people) and significant economic resources. Together with accommodation infrastructure, tourism has transformed several mountain villages’ physical and cultural landscape. As cultural brokers and economic resource bearers, amenity migrants and tourists represent both a threat to and an opportunity for post-socialist territories, which are facing long-term socio-economic and demographic crises. As we will discuss in the conclusions of the paper, also with regard to ongoing transformations in the Alpine regions, it seems clear that one cannot ignore the relevance of these urban actors (nor of the renewed urban-rural connection) to the revitalisation of mountain areas.
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Obviously, any list that tries to map in condensed form the most significant dynamics to have marked such a long period—twenty-five years of post-communism; almost everybody knows when it began, but almost nobody knows when it might end... more
Obviously, any list that tries to map in condensed form the most significant dynamics to have marked such a long period—twenty-five years of post-communism; almost everybody knows when it began, but almost nobody knows when it might end or what descriptive meanings it might have—must accept some limits. The limits of the bestiary I here propose are circumscribed by the topics I have researched and about which I have written over the last ten years in my doctoral thesis and in Martor, Tataia, and Dilema Veche magazines. For the sake of minimal coherence, I have tried to strike a balance between the key processes that have affected the public and the domestic space and which have reshaped them materially and socially.
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In what follows, we explore the scenography envisioned by various actors involved in the production of cultural landscapes, which are grafted onto far-flung territories that they colonise with decorative elements and which consumer... more
In what follows, we explore the scenography envisioned by various actors involved in the production of cultural landscapes, which are grafted onto far-flung territories that they colonise with decorative elements and which consumer mechanisms tend, through rhetorical attribution, to promote as specific. Drawing on a number of ethnographically researched cases as well as the scenography used in various film productions, we illustrate the processes of selection and attribution of the basic ingredients comprising these colonising projects, as well as the emerging forms of discursive engagement in the activation of local material and symbolic resources.
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Cercetarea își propusese să investigheze expresiile contemporane ale patrimoniului imaterial conturat în jurul procurării, preparării și servirii hranei. Aria de interes a cercetarii s-a lărgit, depăşind obiectivul iniţial (acela de a... more
Cercetarea își propusese să investigheze expresiile contemporane ale patrimoniului imaterial conturat în jurul procurării, preparării și servirii hranei. Aria de interes a cercetarii s-a lărgit, depăşind obiectivul iniţial (acela de a închega o arhivă a practicilor gastronomice trecute şi prezente), prin documentarea prezenţei peştelui în peisajul economic local şi surprinderea transformărilor care se circumscriu acestui peisaj.
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Istoria socială a locuirii în case naționalizate își are începuturile în anii ’50, când o parte din cetățenii României au fost relocați din propriile locuințe de către autoritățile socialiste iar locul acestora a fost realocat unor... more
Istoria socială a locuirii în case naționalizate își are începuturile în anii ’50, când o parte din cetățenii României au fost relocați din propriile locuințe de către autoritățile socialiste iar locul acestora a fost realocat unor familii sau persoane, de cele mai multe ori străine foștilor proprietari. La câteva decenii distanță, naționalizarea și ulterior retrocedările, continuă să infl uențeze experiența de locuire pentru diverse categorii de oameni. Articolul de față își propune să investigheze aspecte ale locuirii în case naționalizate a foștilor proprietari și a noilor locatari (împreună sau separat, de la caz la caz) și implicit reconfi gurarea relațiilor sociale și a culturii materiale pe parcusul celor două procese, naționalizare și retrocedare, urmată uneori de evacuări și locuirea în proximitatea imobilelor luate ca spații de analiză. Vom descrie procesele de reconfi gurare și negocierea geografi ei spațiului domestic de după naționalizare, formele de socializare structurate în timp între diferiții actori implicați, modurile în care procesele și, în cele din urmă, restituirile de facto, i-au împins pe unii dintre interlocutorii noștri la adoptarea unor strategii de supraviețuire, de la locuirea în vecini sau la rude și până la bricolarea unor locuințe pe stradă
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The current number of MARTOR journal focuses on the social history of hay, collecting original contributions and multidisciplinary approaches regarding the biocultural heritage of hay. The articles gathered in this issue explore the roles... more
The current number of MARTOR journal focuses on the social history of hay, collecting original contributions and multidisciplinary approaches regarding the biocultural heritage of hay. The articles gathered in this issue explore the roles and different understandings attributed to traditional hay knowledge; the role of policies and public incentives in reshaping farmers’ vision of nature and land management practices; the moralities behind hay production; biodiversity and hay production; but also, how hay features in art and museology.
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In recent years the centrality of haymaking in semi-subsistence highland farming in Romania has been witnessing a comeback, as EU agricultural subsidies meant to stimulate sustainable land management are an increasingly attractive source... more
In recent years the centrality of haymaking in semi-subsistence highland farming in Romania has been witnessing a comeback, as EU agricultural subsidies meant to stimulate sustainable land management are an increasingly attractive source of income for marginal rural communities. However, semi-subsistence peasants in highland Romania are struggling to adjust to the system of agro-environmental subsidies promoted by the Common Agricultural Policy. Te legitimacy and sustainability of certain traditional uses of land and natural resources are challenged by the hegemonic normative discourse of “ecosystem services” imposed through agro-environmental subsidies.
Research Interests: Traditional and subsistence agriculture, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Political economy of subsistence agriculture, Social and Environmental Accounting, Transfer of technology for agriculture and livestock farming, and 2 moreAgricultural Subsidies and EU agriculture and rural development policy
The present article is the result of ethnographic research in the counties of Covasna and Harghita, developed in two stages (June 2011 - January 2012) and discusses the methodological challenges posed by the project of an exhibition... more
The present article is the result of ethnographic research in the counties of Covasna and Harghita, developed in two stages (June 2011 - January 2012) and discusses the methodological challenges posed by the project of an exhibition dedicated to childhood at the Székely National Museum of Sfântu Gheorghe (Covasna) and, in particular, of a collection of toys gathered following a collection contest. I am going to highlight the manner in which children’s domestic bricolage becomes crucial in the Károly Kós experiment, an approach of contemporary archaeology, focusing on common objects whose biographies are continuously transformed by the various socio-cultural contexts in which they are placed
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The paper is addressing the social imagery and motivation behind the recent momentum of an alternative market of "quality food" in Romania, mainly expressed by a search for "traditional" and/or "local" products. After a symbolic bulimia... more
The paper is addressing the social imagery and motivation behind the recent momentum of an alternative market of "quality food" in Romania, mainly expressed by a search for "traditional" and/or "local" products. After a symbolic bulimia incorporating all kinds of Occidental food and thus providing ways of identification with an idealized West, food consumption in Romania slowly turned to autochthonism, especially after the European integration, and mainly via an aggressive publicity naming and crystallizing a growing but diffuse public demand. The paper is describing the kind of imagery this publicity was shaping as well as the motivations claimed by both producers and consumers. It is stated that we assist to a patrimonialization of test, food and gastronomic know-how becoming thus part of the immaterial patrimony of the nation, more and more re-rooted in local or regional specificity – and thus forcing also a political decentralization and reinvention of the local. In their turn, multi-national food consortiums are using more and more "traditional" references in order to root back their "unidentified eatable objects" (Fischler, 1990) in local appetite. Professionalization of this emerging market is still to be expected.
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The emergence of double-glazed windows in Romania had the coordinates of a troubling event not only for the local window market but also for the domestic environment, turning from a mundane accessory into an item of consumption whose... more
The emergence of double-glazed windows in Romania had the coordinates of a troubling event not only for the local window market but also for the domestic environment, turning from a mundane accessory into an item of consumption whose nature tends to be fetishized. This article discusses an ethnographic material about the transformations triggered by the emergence of the "termopan" in the local material culture and its social significance, configuration of the market and of the local "termopan" consumption.
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Provocarea metodologică pe care o aduce volumul de faţă - fără ca asta să însemne asumarea unui pionierat eroic - constă în încercarea de a pune laolaltă două tipuri de demersuri, în aparenţă greu de conciliat: pe de o parte... more
Provocarea metodologică pe care o aduce volumul de faţă - fără ca asta să însemne asumarea unui pionierat eroic - constă în încercarea de a pune laolaltă două tipuri de demersuri, în aparenţă greu de conciliat: pe de o parte colectarea/arhivarea de elemente patrimoniale gastronomice locale, pe de altă parte conturarea pe baza experienţei directe a geografiei recente a practicilor culinare cotidiene şi festive ale locuitorilor Deltei, influenţată masiv de politici naţionale şi trans-naţionale şi de tendințe globale, după cum vom vedea; pe de-o parte încercarea de a arhiva şi restitui, pe de altă parte un demers de investigare a unor procese sociale care au modelat semnificativ peisajul gastronomic local.
Textelor de analiză li se adaugă interviul cu unul dintre cei mai fini - şi mai participativi- observatori locali, canotorul Ivan Patzaichin, seturi de reţete locale şi fragmente din scrierile celui mai minuţios cercetător al regiunii, biologul Grigore Antipa şi din jurnalul de călătorie al lui Radu Anton Roman în perioada în care a fost ghidul echipei de cercetători conduse de Jacques–Yves Cousteau în documentarea Deltei Dunării, la începutul anilor ‘90.
Textelor de analiză li se adaugă interviul cu unul dintre cei mai fini - şi mai participativi- observatori locali, canotorul Ivan Patzaichin, seturi de reţete locale şi fragmente din scrierile celui mai minuţios cercetător al regiunii, biologul Grigore Antipa şi din jurnalul de călătorie al lui Radu Anton Roman în perioada în care a fost ghidul echipei de cercetători conduse de Jacques–Yves Cousteau în documentarea Deltei Dunării, la începutul anilor ‘90.
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The first post-socialist decade witnessed an explosion in the number of hip-hop bands which, amid the neurotic convulsions of “transition”, turned the neighbourhood into an icon marked by the community dissolution between the wise guys... more
The first post-socialist decade witnessed an explosion in the number of hip-hop bands which, amid the neurotic convulsions of “transition”, turned the neighbourhood into an icon marked by the community dissolution between the wise guys and the losers, Inside the post-industrial landscape, behind the gray blocks. In the meantime, the grey blocks have been coated with
polystyrene and painted compulsively in bright colours, while most of the industrial platforms have made room for malls and sumptuous office buildings. The hip-hop bands have vanished or, at any rate, have become irrelevant, and along with them, the neighbourhood itself has been evicted from the imaginary
of the musical texts carrying social messages. This toponimic "extinction" is relevant, to me, for the actual metamorphosis of the social universe discussed herein.
polystyrene and painted compulsively in bright colours, while most of the industrial platforms have made room for malls and sumptuous office buildings. The hip-hop bands have vanished or, at any rate, have become irrelevant, and along with them, the neighbourhood itself has been evicted from the imaginary
of the musical texts carrying social messages. This toponimic "extinction" is relevant, to me, for the actual metamorphosis of the social universe discussed herein.
Research Interests:
The study of objects and human-object relations enjoyed a growing popularity during the last years through the work of scholars such as Jean Baudrillard, Daniel Miller, Arjun Appadurai or Don Slater. Ulf Hannerz (1997, Flows, Boundaries... more
The study of objects and human-object relations enjoyed a growing popularity during the last years through the work of scholars such as Jean Baudrillard, Daniel Miller, Arjun Appadurai or Don Slater. Ulf Hannerz (1997, Flows, Boundaries and Hybrids) and Marilyn Strathern (1995, The Relation) have noticed, that, in a curious way, the current surge in the study of objects, technology and globalization has similarities with the anthropology of the early 20th century, through the focus on technology and diffusion. Recent anthropological work in field of material culture and science and technology studies, among other things, have changed the way we understand nature and culture, consumption and production, human-non human divide or the relation between culture and economy.
The volume brings together a selection of the papers present during the SASC 8th annual conference.
The volume brings together a selection of the papers present during the SASC 8th annual conference.