Rezumate Sociologie Românescă
- Detalii
- Scris de ARS
- Categorie: Rezumate Sociologie Românescă
- Accesări: 17374
Sociologie Românească, Vol. VII, no. 3/2009, pp. 91-108.
"Bani albi pentru zile negre": Nest Egg
"White Money for Black Days": Nest Egg
Narcis Tulbure
Abstract: The paper describes the practices associated with the sale of life insurance and private pensions through prieteni, cunostinte, rude ("friends, acquaintances, relatives") in contemporary Romania. Built on business schemes known as multi-level marketing (MLM), insurance brokerage companies as the one explored in this paper promise to offer security and a worriless future at a time of intense social and economic marginalization. Focusing on the deployment of particular rhetoric strategies and the use of graphic artifacts during the sales meetings (the central communicative event analyzed), this paper illustrates the reproduction of social networks and their repurposing by contemporary businesses. This facilitates the understanding of the social practices that mediate the insertion of late capitalism in former socialist societies.
Keywords: actor-network theory, life insurance, rhetoric of marginalization, sales sessions, social networks, MLM.
Cuvinte-cheie: Actor-Network Theory, asigurări de viaţă, retorica marginalizării, şedinţe de vânzare, reţele sociale, MLM.
- Detalii
- Scris de ARS
- Categorie: Rezumate Sociologie Românescă
- Accesări: 19707
Sociologie Românească, Vol. VII, no. 3/2009, pp. 73-89.
Building Families across Boundaries: Kinship Practices and Household Organization in Romanian/Egyptian Mixed Marriages
Ana Vinea
Abstract: This essay investigates some aspects of the everyday lives of thirteen Romanian/Egyptian mixed couples living in Cairo. It focuses on the intertwined aspects of household organization, gender relations and kinship practices. It also presents the circumstances in which the future couples met as well as the regulations of the states that are significant for understanding the lives of the spouses. The essay argues that for understanding a phenomenon such as transnational families one should place the investigation at the intersection between everyday practices and larger structures - political, economic and ideological. In addition, it tries to contribute to contemporary debates in the field of kinship studies and to discussion regarding the position of women in Middle Eastern societies.
Keywords: mixed marriages, Egypt/Romania, kinship, household organization and migration.
Cuvinte-cheie: familii mixte, Egipt/România, rudenie, organizarea gospodăriei, migrație.
- Detalii
- Scris de ARS
- Categorie: Rezumate Sociologie Românescă
- Accesări: 23305
Sociologie Românească, Vol. VII, no. 3/2009, pp. 37-49.
"Produsele de calitate" şi patrimonializarea gustului în România
"Quality Products" and Patrimonialization of Taste in Romania
Bogdan Iancu, Vintilă Mihăilescu
Abstract: 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.
Keywords: traditional and local food, patrimony, market, authenticity.
Cuvinte-cheie: produse tradiţionale, patrimoniu, piaţă, autenticitate.
- Detalii
- Scris de ARS
- Categorie: Rezumate Sociologie Românescă
- Accesări: 17389
Sociologie Românească, Vol. VII, no. 3/2009, pp. 51-71.
Evidence in the Museum: Subjects, Objects and Memories in Vrancea
Evidence in the Museum: Subjects, Objects and Memories in Vrancea
Oana Mateescu
Abstract: This article analyzes the uses of memory in the emergence of an irregular "evidentiary economy" paying attention to the ways in which objects are called upon to stand as proofs or witnesses in the disputes over the ownership of Vrancea's communal forests. I focus on some specific and relatively recent configurations of matter, meaning and temporality, which are locally identified by the paradoxical label of "personal museums". These are unusual arrangements of material objects (and less so of texts, in the strict sense) that mediate multiple forms of memory - personal, genealogical, regional - anchoring different and potentially overlapping communities of viewers. Their collections of things and persons precipitate not just the recollection of the past, but also the creation of newly meaningful representations of the collectivity. The article looks at three such museums in different villages of Vrancea, exploring some of the theoretical and practical questions that are raised at the intersection of memory and materiality.
Keywords: memory, materiality, evidence, museum, communal ownership, Vrancea.
Cuvinte-cheie: memorie, materialitate, evidenţă, muzee, proprietate comunală, Vrancea.
- Detalii
- Scris de ARS
- Categorie: Rezumate Sociologie Românescă
- Accesări: 20169
Sociologie Românească, Vol. VII, no. 3/2009, pp. 21-36.
The Rural Contribution to Emigration in 1990s Romania
Katherine Verdery
Abstract: The article analyzes the connections between three social phenomena that have shaped life in postsocialist rural communities: land restitution, agricultural policies and migration. The article starts with an overview of land restitution policies, with a broader, comparative coverage, and then discusses direct and indirect effects of these measures on emigration, with a focus on the German minority living in Romanian villages. Agricultural policies have shaped the effects of the new property arrangements, and, in particular, they have influenced migration decisions. The paper concludes with comments on possible future configurations of migration and agriculture work in Romania, after the European integration.
Keywords: property, land restitution, migration, agricultural policy.
Cuvinte-cheie: proprietate, retrocedarea terenurilor, migrație, politici agriculturale.