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Paper Short Abstract:

The paper examines the emerging wellness economy of rural Southern Transylvania, analysing recreational and healing practices as classed practices and discussing how they are embedded in the Transylvanian rural idyll.

Paper Abstract:

In the past years rural Southern Transylvania has been the site of a revivalist movement centred around the enactment of a projected local heritage, shaped by the exonostalgia (Berliner 2014) of a Western European imaginary for an ‘unspoilt’, bucolic Arcadia to be found in the remote foothills of Transylvania. The revivalism is mobilised by a complex and cosmopolitan network of social actors engaged in an entanglement of globalised practices and values associated to lifestyle experiences including back-to-the-land movements, retreat tourism, ecotourism, New Age spirituality. The leisurescape is doubled by a foodscape defined by locavorism, mindful eating, and an emerging New Transylvanian cuisine repertoire.

The paper examines how the fluxes of cosmopolitan knowledge extract value from local symbolic socio-ecological resources and explores the resulting hybrid practices of projecting the local value onto a global market of sustainability and restoration, in which 'slow', 'mindful', 'eco-consciousness', 'locavorism', 'clean eating' and 'wellness' are touted as buzzwords feeding middle-class taste and morality. Based on ethnographic research on a femininity retreat with Ayurvedic menu, a yoga workshop in a biodiversity-rich meadow and a herb-based healing barn retreat, the paper examines the emerging wellness economy of rural Southern Transylvania, analysing recreational and healing practices as classed practices and discussing how they are embedded in the Transylvanian rural idyll.