From State-Socialist Ambitions of Romanian Rural Indutrialisation to Post-Socialist Rural Deindutrialisation: Two Case Studies From Romania

• Authors: Ioan Sebastian Jucu
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The post-socialist changes in Romania’s communities profoundly changed the rural settlements with similar, contrasting and tensioned trends in the local rural development. The purpose of this study is to focus on the post-socialist rural dereliction. The paper unveils the post-socialist rural transformation in Romania, from the state-socialist interventions in rural industrialisation, to the post-socialist rural identity formation, using both quantitative and qualitative methods. During this process, two sampled case studies were thoroughly analysed, namely the Tomeşti and Margina communes – two rural settlements intensely industrialised under the former state-socialist political regime and with multiple consequences during the post-90s period in their local development. According to recent theories on economic changes reflected in local rural spatial development, the idea of rural dereliction remains peripheral and, at the same time, a hot-spot issue in the contemporary research on rural restructuring. In addition, recent theories on social and economic changes provide useful frameworks in studying the production of rural ruins. With post-socialist deindustrialisation, and under new post-90 capitalist rules in local rural development, rural communities faced multiple problems in creating their own post-socialist identity. Accordingly, this study highlights the local problems of rural deindustrialisation in the inner rural pattern of the investigated sites. While some rural communities embrace slow rural spatial regeneration trends, others remain ruined, marginalised and declined. The findings of the study confirm the presence of derelict abandoned places, thus highlighting the need for further proper interventions in local rural development, and for further fertile scientific dialogues to promote suitable strategies in Romanian rural regeneration on the local scale.

Keywords

EN

industrialisation; deindustrialisation; rural space; dereliction; Margina; Tomeşti; Romania

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Eastern European Countryside
• Year: 2016
• Volume: 22
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 165-195

Dates

published

2016-12-01

online

2016-09-18

Contributors

author

Ioan Sebastian Jucu

• Department of Geography, West University of Timişoara,

References

• Artemov, V. & Novokhatskaya, O., 2014. ‘Everyday activity of rural employees in Siberia’, Eastern European Countryside, Vol. 20, pp. 189-210. Available at: [Crossref]
• Arunas, J. & Arunas, P., 2010. ‘Conceptualising the rise of the rural community movement in Lithuania: A framework for analysis’, East European Countryside, Vol. 16, pp. 65-88. Available at: [Crossref]
• Bečicova, I. & Blažek, J., 2015. ‘Is there a credit-gap in a periphery? The perception of this problem by small entrepreneurs’, Journal of Rural Studies, Vol. 42, pp. 11-30. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.jrurstud.2015.09.006
• Baum, S., 2011. ‘The tourist potential of rural areas in Poland’, East European Countryside, Vol. 17, pp. 108-135. Available at: [Crossref]
• Bradea, M., Marin, I., Morodan, I., Minda, L. & Bălan, R., (eds.) 1981. Timiş. Monografie [Timis Monograph], Bucharest: Ed. Sport Turism.
• Bucher, S. & Nováková, S., 2015. ‘Territorial aspects of regional identity and respondents’ identification with the region and place: case study of Slovakia’, Eastern European Countryside, Vol. 21, pp. 81-109. Available at: [Crossref]
• Ceauşescu, N. & Ceauşescu, M., 2004a. Monografia comunei Margina, Vol. 3 – 225 de ani de învăţământ românesc stimă dascălilor de ieri şi de azi [Monograph of Margina Commune, Vol 3, 225 Years of Romanian education, honor to the teachers from now and yesterday], Lugoj: Nagard.
• Ceauşescu, N. & Ceauşescu, M., 2004b., Monografia comunei Margina, Vol. 4 – Viaţa spirituală şi sfintele biserici [Monograph of Margina Commune, Vol. 4, The cultural life and local churches], Lugoj: Nagard.
• Ceauşescu, N. & Ceauşescu, M., 2006a. Monografia comunei Margina, Vol. 1 – Spaţiul geografic şi etnografic [Monograph of Margina Commune, Vol. 1, The geographic and ethnographic space], Lugoj: Nagard.
• Ceauşescu, N. & Ceauşescu, M., 2006b. Monografia comunei Margina, Vol. 2 – Un colţ de ţară: o pagină din istoria naţională [Monograph of Margina Commune, Vol. 2, A part of the country a page of the national history], Lugoj: Nagard.
• Chelcea, L., 2008. Bucurestiul postindustrial. Memorie, dezindustrializare si regenerare urbana [The Post-industrial Bucharest. Memory, deindustrialization and urban regeneration]. Bucharest: Polirom.
• Chelcea, L., 2012. ‘The ‘Housing Question’ and the State-Socialist Answer: City, Class and State Remaking in 1950s Bucharest’. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Vol. 36 No. 2, pp. 281-296. Available at:
• Chelcea, L., 2015. ‘Postindustrial Ecologies: Industrial Rubble, Nature and the Limits of Representation’. Parcours Anthropologique, Vol. 10, pp. 186-201. Available at:
• Čikić, J. & Petrović, M., 2015. ‘Rural families and households in post/socialist transition. Serbian experience’, Eastern European Countryside, Vol. 21, pp. 35-62. Available at: [Crossref]
• Clark, A. N., 1998. Dictionary of Geography, London: Penguin.
• Cloke, P. & Little, J. (eds.), 1997. Contested cultures: otherness, marginalization and rurality. London: Routledge
• Cloke, P., 2014. ‘Rurality’, in: P. Cloke, P. Grang & M. Goodwin (eds.) Introducing human geographies, Third Edition. Abingdon & New York: Routledge, pp. 720-737.
• Cloke, P., Crang, P. & Goodwin, M. (eds.), 2014. Introducing human geographies, Third Edition. Abingdon & New York: Routledge.
• Cloke, P., 2014. Rurality, in: P. Cloke, P. Grang & M. Goodwin (eds.) Introducing human geographies, Third Edition. Abingdon & New York: Routledge.
• Creţan, R., 2006. Etnie, confesiune şi comportament electoral în Banat [Ethnicity, religious confessions and electoral behaviour in Banat], Timişoara: Ed. Universităţii de Vest, Timişoara.
• DeSilvey, C. & Edensor, T., 2013. ‘Reckoning with ruins’, Progress in Human Geography, Vol. 37 No. 4, pp. 465-485. Available at: [Crossref]
• Edensor, T., 2005a. Industrial ruins. Space, aesthetics and materiality. Berg: Oxford.
• Edensor, T., 2005b. ‘The ghosts of industrial ruins: Ordering and disordering memory in excessive space’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, Vol. 23 No. 6, pp. 829-849. Available at: .[Crossref]
• Esparcia, J., Escribano, J. & Serrano, J. J., 2015. ‘From development to power relations and territorial governance. Increasing the leadership role of LEADER local action groups in Spain’, Journal of Rural Studies, Vol. 42, pp. 29-42. Available at: [Crossref]
• Ghinea, E. & Ghinea, D., 2000. Localităţile din România [Localities of Romania], Bucharest: Ed. Enciclopedică.
• Ghinea, D., 2000. Enciclopedia Geografica a Romaniei [The Geographic Encyclopedia of Romania], Bucharest: Ed. Enciclopedică.
• Gorlach, K., Klekotko, M. & Nowak, P., 2014. ‘Culture and Rural Development: Voices from Poland’, East European Countryside, Vol. 20, pp. 6-26. Available at: [Crossref]
• Hedlund, M. & Lundholm, E., 2015. ‘Restructuring of rural Sweeden Employment transition and out-migration of three cohorts born 1945-1980’, Journal of Rural Studies, Vol. 42, pp. 123-132. Available at: [Crossref]
• H. G. 1245, 1990. Government Decision 1245,, Romanian Parliament, Bucharest: Romania.
• Ianoş, I., 2005. Geografie urbană şi rurală [Urban and rural Geography], Bucharest: MEdC.
• Iosa, G., 2015. ‘A murit încercând să fure fier vechi. Tragedie la fabrica de oţet din Margina’ [‘Dead in the attempt to steel scrap. Tragedy at the vinegar factory from Margina’], Redeşteptarea, January, 2015, Lugoj. Available at: .
• Jakimovski, J., 2010. ‘The socio-demographic context of rural poverty’, East European Countryside, Vol. 16, pp. 131-155. Available at: [Crossref]
• Jucu, I. S., 2011. Analiza procesului de restructurare urbana in municipiul Lugoj [The analysis of the process of urban restructuring in the Municipality of Lugoj], Timisoara: West University of Timisoara Publishing House.
• Jucu, I. S., 2015. ‘The post-socialist urban restructuring at the local scale. Evidence of simultaneous process of de-/reindustrialization in the Lugoj municipality of Romania’. Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 17 No. 4, pp. 408-426, Available at: [Crossref]
• Kaplan, D., Wheeler, O. J. & Holloway, S., 2009. Urban Geography, Second Edition, London and New York: Wiley.
• Kerekes, K. & Pakucs, B., (2013), ‘Occupational Choices of Romanian Rural Youth’, East European Countryside, Vol. 19, pp. 57-76. Available at: [Crossref]
• Kideckel, D. 2008. Getting by post-socialist Romania: labor, the body and working-class culture’, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
• Kiss, E., 2007. ‘The evolution of industrial areas in Budapest after 1989’, in: K. Stanilov (ed.) The post-socialist city: urban form and space transformations in Central and Eastern Europe after socialism, Springer, Dordrecht, pp. 147-172.
• Kovács, K. 2010. ‘Social and Administrative Crises Interlocking: The Misery of Rural Peripheries in Hungary’, Eastern European Countryside, Vol. 16, pp. 89-113. Available at: [Crossref]
• Law, No. 15, 1990. Romanian Parliament, Bucharest: Romania.
• Law, No. 31, 1990. Romanian Parliament, Bucharest: Romania.
• Lukić, T., Penjišević, I., Đerčan, B., Đurđev, B. Živković, M. B. & Armenski, T., 2014. ‘Politics in the Balkan countryside’, sEastern European Countryside, Vol. 20, pp. 99-124. Available at: [Crossref]
• Mah, A., 2012. Industrial ruination, community and place landscapes and legacies of urban decline, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
• Manea, G., Matei, E., Vijulie, I., Marin, M., Cocos, O. & Tiscovschi, A., 2013. ‘Tradition and Modernity in the Romanian Rural Space. Case Study: the Arges Sub-Carpathian Foothills’, Eastern European Countryside, Vol. 19, pp. 127-151. Available at: [Crossref]
• Matei, M., (ed.) 2007. Monografia comunei Tomeşti [The Monograph of Tomeşti Commune], Lugoj: Nagard.
• Mǎjerová, V., 2009. ‘Local Initiatives Functioning as a Condition of Rural Development of the Czech Countryside’, Eastern European Countryside, Vol. 15, pp. 127-149. Available at: .[Crossref]
• McKee, A. J., 2015. ’Legitimizing the Liard? Communicative action and the role of private landowner and community engagement in rural sustainability’, Journal of Rural Studies, Vol. 41, pp. 23-36. Available at: .[Crossref]
• Munteanu, I. & Munteanu, R., 1998. Timiş. Monografie [The Monograph of Timiş County], Timişoara: Marineasa.
• Mihalache, D. & Nini, V., (eds.) 1971. Localităţile judeţului Timiş [The localities of Timiş County], Timişoara: CPJ Timis.
• N. I. S., 2013. National Institute of Statistics. Tempo Online Databasis, Bucharest, Romania. Available at INSEE, .
• Norton, W., 2004. Human Geography, London and New York: Oxford.
• O’Brien, D., Españo, E., Grigsby, M. & Patsiorkovsky, V., 2011. ‘Entrepreneurial Attitudes in a Post-Communist Transitional Rural Economy: The Case of Moldova’, Eastern European Countryside. Vol. 17, pp. 73-86. Available at: [Crossref]
• Pacione, M., 2009. Urban Geography. A global perspective, London and New York: Routledge.
• Paddison, R. & Hutton, T., (eds.) 2015. Cities and economic change. Restructuring and dislocation in the global metropolis, Los Angeles: Sage.
• Preda, M., Vijulie, I., Manea, G. & Mareci, A., 2015. ‘The customary identity of the Coopersmiths Clan in Oltenia. Between tradition and Modernity’, Eastern European Countryside, Vol. 21, pp. 63-80. Available at: .[Crossref]
• Rey, V., Groza, O., Ianoş, I. & Pătroescu, M., 2005. Atlasul României [Atlas of Romania], Bucharest: Rao Publishing Group.
• Róbert, T. & Levente, A. B., 2014. ‘Appearance of European employment policy in the rural areas of Hungarian-Croatian border region case study in Serbia’, Eastern European Countryside, Vol. 20, pp. 55-71. Available at: .[Crossref]
• Stanilov, K., (ed) 2007. The post-socialist city: urban form and space transformations in central and eastern Europe after socialism, Dordrecht: Springer,
• Srisomyong, N. & Meyer, D., (2015), ‘Political economy of agritourism initiatives in Thailand’, Journal of Rural Studies, Vol. 41, pp. 95-108. Available at: .[Crossref]
• Şandru, I. & Aur, N., 2009. Geografia aşezărilor rurale [The Geography of rural settlements], Bucharest: CD Press.
• Voiculescu, S., 2004. Orasele din Campia de Vest. Structuri si functionalitati urbane [The cities of Western Plain of Romania. Urban structures and functionalities], Timişoara: Ed. Universităţii de Vest, Timişoara.
• Voiculescu, S. & Jucu, I. S., 2014. ‘Producing urban industrial derelict places: The Case of the Solventul petrochemical plant in Timişoara’, European Urban and Regional Studies. Available at: [Crossref].

Identifiers

DOI

10.1515/eec-2016-0009