Search

Our paper presents a series of theoretical reflections generated by the task of conducting anthropological research on food traditions and practices in a network of villages in Romania, in the context of restrictions on movement and social interaction during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research was carried out as part of the Digital collection of Romanian food heritage and transfer to society - FOODie project. The pressure to respect both contractual deadlines in relation to the funder and health safety rules led us to the solution of online interviews. Due to the specific nature of our research, the people targeted by the interviews were aged and had minimal digital skills, which led us to call on a second member of the interviewed community, a PC user, who was ready to moderate the relationship with the informant and provide technical assistance. Based on these research experiences, we will discuss (a) the advantages and disadvantages of remote fieldwork; (b) the dynamics of the relation between the researcher and the respondent in this new methodological context; (c) the collaborative nature of the ethnological document, which is the result of the intersection of the researcher's thematic interests, her/his availability and skills and, in this case, the flair, intuition and persuasiveness of the actor mediating the meeting between the two. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The products of popular culture represent the milestones of an industrialised society, driven by demand and supply, which finds in consumerism a real engine of development. As literature is open to social movements, ideological oscillations and cultural tendencies, it embodies and reflects the rise of popular culture. Consumerism comes to shape or even resize identity and social representations. The novel, as an eclectic literary form, makes up concepts and describes them even before they have been theorized by the thinkers of the modern world. Allex Truscă’s novel, I put a spell on you, creates a fictional exploration of a fantasy world filtered through the images of pop culture. The scenario chosen by the novelist relativizes the imaginary proportions of the concept of authenticity, as it combines familiar thematic horizons, conventional literary techniques and references to a colourful popular culture. The harmony with which these elements complement each other demonstrates that their apparent irreconcilability is originated in the “aura” theorized by Walter Benjamin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the concept of queer becomes more pervasive in the Romanian academic and activist spaces, the question concerning its conceptual content in relation to other critical notions from feminist and gender theories, as well as from critical thought in general, turns out to be quite central to the discussion. In this article, I propose a way of understanding this concept by employing the Deleuzian critical approach to philosophy and critical thought processes and formation as a starting point for elaborating future political and resistance strategies în progressive social movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proliferation of critical perspectives in the movement and the proposals for struggle questions the normalization of certain feminist discourses and the assimilation by certain means and institutions against the discourses excluded by them. Given this reality, this article starts from the need to return to the founding texts by contrasting Simone de Beauvoir's second sex with "The Dialectic of Sex" of Shulamith Firestone (also called Shulie, or Shuloma), an essential figure in the development of the so-called radical feminism, to analyze the peculiar relations of the movement with society and the dilemmas it faces. The idea is to study its constant redefinition, its action in the social field and the tension between the individuality of women and their gender identity, establishing a dialectic based on the wake of the most paradigmatic authors. Finally, after drawing a vision of plural and critical approaches to the social conflict that implies all subordination and inequality, the above-mentioned and timid normalization or institutional approach to the movement is questioned, both positively and negatively, while deepening the need for critical training in the face of the new challenges of feminism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the relationship between music and social movements, focusing on the role played by music, seen as a powerful form of cultural expression, in some of the protests that took place in Romania's recent history. From the selected examples we can observe how artists, most of them active protestors, have succeeded in encouraging protesters and keeping them involved in their actions through their music and manifesto-songs. Music serves as an important resource for protests for expressing messages, conveying social complaints or appealing to action, and can be effectively used to mobilize participants and generate solidarity or attract media attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is about a new temporary exhibition dedicated to a hard-to-tell subject, the Romanian national movement in 19th century and the beginning of 20th century for political and national rights, struggle ended with the Great Union of Romania from 1 December 1918. The memorial museum of Mureşianu family has the largest family archive from Romania, with more than 17.000 documents and newspapers from this period. The role of Mureşianu family in national Romanian movement from 19th century is now presented in a new fashion, more connected to modern technological devices, in order to be more appealing to younger generation, the millennials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study realizes a typology of the social movements that took place in the Romanian Lands during the Middle Ages and at the beginning of the Modern Age. Based on a structural analysis, the significant conclusions of the study disclose the causes, outbreak and development of the social movements. At first they aimed to stabilize the feudal relationships and the misuses of the landlords, but later, beginning with the 18th century, the social movements - and this is the case, in particular, of Horea 's Uprisal in 1784 - intended their abolishment, as well as the eradication of serfdom, as the majority of the peasants was made up of the serfs living on the noble, boyar, church and state domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social movements emerge as part of and in response to the prevailing relations of power. They emerge to make visible identities rendered invisible, abnormal or excluded by these relationships, to challenge currently dominant ideas as to how society should be organized, to draw attention to needs not currently attended to under existing social arrangements, or to argue that existing arrangements need protecting and deepening. The scholars agree that relatively few social movements emerge specifically around the issue of poverty, in particularly poverty as defined by lack. However, if poverty is a product of prevailing relations of power, to the extent that different movements emerge to challenge or deepen these relations, then social movements are necessarily relevant to the existing status of poverty and the likelihood that it may change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to provide new insights into emerging forms of participatory democracy and civic militantism across the world, outlining relevant features, forms of manifestations and recurrent patterns. It attemtps to unravel existing links between the decline of the welfare state and the modelling of new forms of experiencing, performing and theoretizing democracy in the 21st century. It continues with a case study on the social features, forms of manifestation and narratives created by the Rosia Montana movement in Romania, highlighting those traits that place it in the avangarde of social activism at the current moment. Finally, the paper discusses the concept of multitudes and its implications, aiming to provide a glimpse into the future of participatory democracy and its potentially successful narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State evolution is not only a field with relevance under the aspect of resources, power of international relations, nor is it only representing the specific of peoples and societies. When trying to explain why a certain state is more successful than another, the answer doesn't completely lie in the historic moments or in the personalities that compose its hall of fame, nor in the resources of any kind that compose it. There are many moments in a state's and society's life when evolution doesn't depend mainly on the path both leaders and people choose to follow, but also on the trend that characterizes it. And when talking about the evolution trend specific to the last two or three centuries, the emphasis is on the evolution towards democracy. The problem is that, very often, democracy is misunderstood because it is being separated by another key concept, without which the evolution towards democracy is either hard and slow, either incomplete, or simply false - modernization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is devoted to the analysis of the postcommunist transition paradoxes in the Republic of Moldova with a main focus on the paradox of the state. The main feature of this paradox is that the essence of the communist state has changed dramatically. In particular its functions as main source of creating laws and as the guarantee for ensuring their implementation has, comparatively with other functions, substantially declined. This occurred due to the fact in conditions of transition from a totalitarian state to democracy have disappeared its coercive tools which made him during communism times as a „comprehensive” state, while other mechanisms and instruments have been developed and applied very slowly. In the article have been also analyzed the state's social assistance functions, which became extremely important, due to a significant increase in the number of population living below the poverty line. Furthermore, the article present the institutional deficiencies which had adverse impacts on the modality of state's functioning that caused a series of distortions in the market functioning mechanisms, created economical problems, as well as reoriented public funds towards the aims of narrow interests of the political elite. It was specified that the paradox of the state consists also in the fact that during transition period the state functions been reduced, especially when it was the biggest need in the state, as the deficiencies of the newly created political institutions, which are much more democratic in their intentions and objectives than previous ones, couldn't ensure its role in guiding and implementing social changes and transformations. Furthermore, the article emphasizes that the weaknesses of the state system and its institutions have affected the fulfilment of democratic functions, and that the state, quiet often, has acted in the favour of certain particular interests rather than of public ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neofit the Cretan spent most of his life in Valachia, where he came as a teacher to Constantin Mavrocordat's children. His ascent is very rapid as he benefits from the lord's total support, who deeply appreciates his high culture and interferes to promote him Metropolitan of Mirele Lichiei, and then Metropolitan of Valachia, from 1738 until 1753. He has an essential role in the process of introducing Romanian language into church, as many books are printed into Romanian during his time. Cultivated, practical and very active, he is no less a stimulating voice to his parishioners, his actions taking sometimes the form of social reforms [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the multiple dimensions of the concept of "experience" in the late works of Walter Benjamin. Three main scenarios use extensively this concept: the epistemological scenario (Kant being the main reference here), the theological scenario (centered on the problem of messianism) and the political one (oriented towards the justification of the revolutionary act). The thesis of the article is that these three are groundly linked together when Benjamin discusses the problem of modernity. The result is a multiple image of modernity as a metaphore of the urban world [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the tremendous ideological stakes of the issue both before and after 1989, the impact of the October Revolution on the Romanian socialist movement was either exaggerated or minimized. If communist literature naturally emphasized the influence of the events in Russia among Romanian socialists, the anti-communist narrative limited its hold to some few radical leaders and to their immediate followers. This article goes beyond these biased perspectives by restoring the topic in its historical environment. Eventually, it tends to corroborate the communist "side of the truth": the changes undergone by the Romanian "proletarian milieu" back in the early 1920s, i.e. the radicalization of the socialist discourse, the mobility of the socialist leadership or the reorganization of the Socialist Party, confirm the significant weight of the October Revolution in the economy of Romanian socialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Andrei Bodiu's study deals with the recent Romanian novel, continuing author's latest interest in the Romanian cotemporary prose. The present study debates a novel by Radu Mareş, When We Return, pointing out the main themes of the work and integrating it in the context of the recent Romanian history of novel .The study tries to debate different points of view regarding Mareş's work, underlining its qualities. At the same time the study shows how the extreme-right Romanian movement "Mişcarea legionară" is depicted in the novel [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]