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- Convenors:
-
Anamaria Iuga
(National Museum of the Romanian Peasant)
Corina Sirbu (National Museum of the Romanian Peasant)
Bogdan Iancu (National School of Political Studies and Public Administration Bucharest Museum of Romanian Peasant)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Stream:
- ENVIRONMENT
- Location:
- Room H-207
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 15 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
Our panel invites papers that present good practices in the process of re-membering, re-framing and re-covering of the traditional ecological knowledge in Europe.
Long Abstract:
Traditional ecological knowledge is still an important aspect of the intangible heritage in many regions in Europe (especially in the Eastern Europe), connecting man with nature for centuries. In the general economy of the human-nature relationship, the full exploitation of nature without producing waste (difficult or impossible to reuse), is one of the characteristics of traditional peasant life. In the past centuries this knowledge is menaced by the quick modernisation that occurred in the whole continent. In different stages of societal modernization there has been constant recourse to the old craft, agricultural, orchard practices, or in general related to natural resources of all kinds. Thus, there is more and more active a process of re-membering, re-framing and re-covering, this knowledge, by means of researches (interdisciplinary usually) conducted in regions where it is still alive, but also in the local or national archives, or in the archives of the media, each of these researches focusing on its practicability.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 15 June, 2022, -Bogdan Iancu (National School of Political Studies and Public Administration Bucharest Museum of Romanian Peasant) Monica Stroe (SNSPA Bucharest)
Paper short abstract:
Based on ethnographic vignettes covering research conducted over the last ten years, we will illustrate how a number of environmental elements embedded in the local hayscape are become factors of disturbance under the subsidy regime, thus reconfiguring the local landscape.
Paper long abstract:
Over the last decade the centrality of haymaking in semi-subsistence highland farming in Romania has been witnessing a comeback, as EU agricultural subsidies meant to stimulate sustainable land management are an increasingly attractive source of income for marginal rural communities. Abandoned or temporarily unused land ("left to breathe" or "to rest") is rediscovered, reconfigured and included in the dynamics of an assisted pastoral landscape. Semi-subsistence peasants along with farmers who practice extensive agriculture in highland Romania are struggling to adjust to the system of agro-environmental subsidies promoted by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Under the subsidy provisions of EU’s CAP, hay practices become subject to standards and eligibility criteria. The legitimacy and sustainability of certain traditional uses of land and natural resources are challenged by the hegemonic normative discourse of “ecosystem services”, imposed through agro-environmental subsidies. Based on ethnographic vignettes covering research conducted over the last ten years, we will illustrate how a number of environmental elements embedded in the local hayscape are become factors of disturbance under the subsidy regime, thus reconfiguring the local landscape.
Alexandra Lulache (National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, Bucharest) Madalina Musca (Independent Researcher)
Paper short abstract:
A mapping of the behaviours elderly urban Romanians exhibit towards the resources in and around their homes, which could be seen as sustainable through the lens of environmentalist practice, with the potential to contribute towards a more ecologically and socially durable society.
Paper long abstract:
The research mapped the behaviours of the urban elderly in Romania towards resources and consumption that could be categorized as positive through the lens of the current environmentalist discourse. The processes of reuse, repair, and reduction of resources taking place in the apartments of the elderly are often treated with irony and associated with an experience of past precarity that should not be re-lived. Instead, the research aimed to understand three things: first, to map out which such behaviours could have a sustainable side-effect, starting with every room of their living quarters, and extending into the common spaces of their building units, and their neighbourhoods at large. Second, we sought to understand how these practices of improvisation and waste-avoidance came to be. Explanations partly relate to the past, such as the infrastructure of reuse and communal caretaking of public space prevalent in the communist period, or childhoods in rural areas which taught seasonality and the transformation of resources to extend their lifeline. Others relate to their present condition, of being pensioners in Romanian cities: old age signifies a deeper fall into financial precarity, forcing one to make their resources last; in parallel, reduced access to the city and public life greatly constrains their activities to the material environment of their apartments and green spaces that are not commodified. Thirdly, we explored the state of intergenerational relations today, and why potential allies in the fight against climate change are being excluded from current conversations and actions.
Corina Sirbu (National Museum of the Romanian Peasant)
Paper short abstract:
The transition from rudimentary agricultural practices to an mechanized agriculture can also be analysed through the media production. Political action of the emancipation process in the interwar Romania found a privileged medium of communication in radio production, itself in its infancy, in 1930.
Paper long abstract:
The transition from rudimentary agricultural practices specific to rural life to an emancipated (mechanized) agriculture can also be analysed through the prism of media production. This process is even easier to perceive in a country like Romania, which, in the interwar period, was still 80% an agrarian country, and its population was still mostly illiterate. The emancipation of the rural world that began in the mentioned period, and implicitly of the agricultural practices that characterized it, was one of the most important political projects of the time, and the Sociological School from Bucharest was involved in this project. Political action and the ideology of the emancipation process found a privileged medium of communication in radio production, which, in 1930, was itself in its infancy. It is an approach based on analyzing the structure of radio programs for the rural world, as well as the content and topics of this broadcastings.
Anna Varga (Environmental Humanities Research Group, University of Pécs)
Paper short abstract:
In abandoned landscapes, literary works could be used as a source for recovering the traditional ecological knowledge, not only through landscape descriptions or folk names of plants and animals, but also the introduction of the mentality and relationship of the people living there to nature.
Paper long abstract:
Recognizing contemporary environmental problems become uniquely evident in understanding the relationship between nature and human. In landscapes where traditional or historical farming has been abandoned or the countryside is depopulated, it is already more difficult to reconstruct this relationship and traditional ecological knowledge. In such cases, mainly autobiographically inspired literary works can be an indispensable source, not only by representing the traditional ecological knowledge but also by introducing the mentality and relationship of the people living there to nature. I analyzed two Hungarian writers, Gyula Illyés (1902-1983) and Ervin Lázár (1936-2006), who spend their childhood close to each other in Tolna county in Hungary. Besides that, I did fieldwork in the region, visiting the landscape and talking with local people. Both of them lived in a pusta, which is a manorial agricultural estate (it is not a steppe, but a similar name). Their childhood places were destroyed and abandoned after collectivization. In their works, they shared the landuse history of the region in the last 150 years and folk names of plant and animal species presented in their works, and the detailed and correct description concerning the use and occurrence of plants and animals. The information learned from the literature can serve as a support and starting point in field research. In addition, these literary works that authentically incorporate local, traditional ecological knowledge can ensure that knowledge is transferred using the traditional storytelling method. The project is supported by the ÚNKP-21-4-II-PTE-1134.