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Paper short abstract

This paper examines how, in the decades following 1990, ethnology, and anthropology have been rearticulated through institutional reforms, curriculum development, funding regimes, and shifting epistemic hierarchies.

Paper long abstract

Since the 1990-ies, the meanings, boundaries, and institutional locations of ethnology, and anthropology in the Romanian academic milieu have been profoundly reshaped by post-socialist transformation and by increasing engagement with transnational scholarly networks. The post 1990 period enabled the circulation of theories, methodologies, and ethical debates that had previously been marginal or inaccessible, particularly those associated with Western social and cultural anthropology. Rather than producing a linear disciplinary “transition,” these processes have generated layered and sometimes uneasy reconfigurations of existing traditions.

This paper examines how, in the decades following 1990, ethnology, and anthropology have been rearticulated through institutional reforms, curriculum development, funding regimes, and shifting epistemic hierarchies.

Drawing on institutional histories, disciplinary debates, and the trajectories of individual scholars, the paper explores how these distinctions have produced both productive encounters and new forms of polarization-particularly around questions of legitimacy, methodological authority, and the politics of knowledge production. Attention is given to how language choice, publication practices, and transnational mobility have become central to post-1990 disciplinary identity-making.

By situating the Romanian case within broader European and post-socialist contexts, the paper argues for moving beyond dichotomous framings. Instead, it proposes an understanding of ethnology and anthropology as historically entangled and potentially complementary practices, whose future relevance depends on sustained dialogue rather than disciplinary boundary-making.