Paper short abstract:

In my paper, I aim at disentangling the thread of material and social transformations of the Romanian post-socialist landscape.

Paper long abstract:

Anthropologist Katherine Verdery (1999) noted powerful processes of "reconfiguring space": "Raising and tearing down [socialist] statues gives new values to space (re-signifies it), just as does renaming streets and buildings" (Verdery 1999, pp.39-40). In my paper, I will argue that this process of remaking urban space and landscape under post-socialism is not as comprehensive as is sometimes portrayed in the literature (Light and Young 2010). I will build on ongoing anthropological debates about (post-)socialism, but my aim is to disentangle the thread of material and social transformations of the Romanian post-socialist landscape, while being wary of exaggerations on the degree of transformation. While some changes are quick and easy to achieve and have a high symbolic impact - such as pulling down statues or renaming streets and buildings - other changes are much more difficult to make. Based on a long-term ethnography inside a block of flats in Piatra-Neamt in Romania, I will argue that landscapes are also changed from within. I will particularly focus on Polystyrene insulation processes, an energy saving measure that was implemented chaotically and thus turned the city into a puzzle of colour and texture. In this context, landscape can be viewed as a social process, reflecting and constituting depictions of rapid change in the apparent stability of place (Berdahl 2000, p.6).