Description
Book SynopsisThis book explores the multiple effects of globalization on urban and rural communities, providing anthropological case studies from postsocialist Bulgaria. As globalization has been studied largely in urban contexts, the aim of this volume is to shift attention to the under-examined countryside and analyse how transnational links are transforming relations between cities, towns and villages. The volume also challenges undifferentiated notions of ‘the countryside’, calling for an awareness of rural economic and social disparities which are often only associated with urban environments. The work focuses on how the ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ have been reconfigured following the end of socialism and the advent of globalization, in socioeconomic, as well as political, ideological and cultural terms.
Trade Review‘I would recommend this book to anyone researching within the fields of post-socialism, neoliberal restructuring, rural and urban transformations […] [T]he diversity of research contexts offers a broad spectrum of recent research that does justice to the complex and complementary roles that rural and urban localities play in our current global climate.’ —Aneliya Kuzmanova, ‘Martor – The Museum of the Romanian Peasant Anthropology Review’
Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgements; Note on Transliteration; Chapter 1: Introduction – Ger Duijzings; Chapter 2: Rural–Urban Relations in a Global Age – Deema Kaneff; Chapter 3: Every Village, a Different Story: Tracking Rural Diversity in Bulgaria – Gerald W. Creed; Chapter 4: Smugglers into Millionaires: Marginality and Shifting Cultural Hierarchies in a Bulgarian Border Town – Galia Valtchinova; Chapter 5: Rural Decline as the Epilogue to Communist Modernization: The Case of a Socialist ‘Model’ Village – Lenka Nahodilova; Chapter 6: No Wealth without Networks and Personal Trust: New Capitalist Agrarian Entrepreneurs in the Dobrudzha – Christian Giordano and Dobrinka Kostova; Chapter 7: Inheritance after Restitution: Modern Legislative Norms and Customary Practices in Rural Bulgaria – Petko Hristov; Chapter 8: Rural, Urban and Rurban: Everyday Perceptions and Practices – Daniela Koleva; Chapter 9: The Koprivshtitsa Festival: From National Icon to Globalized Village Event – Liz Mellish; Chapter 10: Fashioning Markets: Brand Geographies in Bulgaria – Ulrich Ermann; Chapter 11: Greek (Ad)ventures in Sofia: Economic Elite Mobility and New Cultural Hierarchies at the Margins of Europe – Aliki Angelidou and Dimitra Kofti; List of Contributors
