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Accepted Paper:

Local and tourist representations in the Danube Delta Romania  
Ioana Bursan (KU Leuven)

Paper short abstract:

In the C.A. Rosetti commune from Danube Delta Romania, tourism takes paradoxical forms. My purpose is to analyze tourist-locals encounters while considering tourist and self representation of the area. Tourism is perceived as a failure yet the only solution for a future.

Paper long abstract:

Despite a rich culturally complex history, social researchers have brought focus on the status of the marginal population living in the Danube Delta. The recent promotion of the Danube Delta takes interesting forms, attracting (different types of) tourists with poor living conditions of the inhabitants mixed with beautiful landscapes; all lost in a land of a "paradise" at "the end of the world". Danube Delta is a site of interwoven paradoxes, including the ways tourism evolves. I have started analyzing the media representation on deltaic communities and ways of self representation in C.A. Rosetti commune, the most isolated region of the Romanian part of the Danube Delta and one of the most ethnically mixed areas: Romanians, Ukraininans and Lipovans also known as 'old Russians" live in the commune. C.A. Rosetti commune is one of the least visited areas from Danube Delta. It represents at the same time a strong attraction point because of the famous "wild horses" roaming freely in the protected Letea forest. Still, tourists coming to see the forest and the sand dunes are usually accommodated in other villages of the Delta, outside C.A. Rosetti commune. My purpose is to explore and present the tourists representation in comparison with the self representation, in this area. After 20 years from the falling of the communist regime, people perceive tourism as the only chance for a future of deltaic communities.

Panel P19
Anthropology and tourism
  Session 1