Paper short abstract:

The paper aims to describe and interpret the relatively new "rustic style" emerging in Romanian countryside by which the locals are trying, as they say, to bridge "past and present" and "tradition and modernity" by re-rooting themselves in a "simulacrum" of local tradition.

Paper long abstract:

The locative momentum that followed the fall of communism in most of the countries was oriented mainly toward Western-like ostentatious buildings. In the countryside, most of the migrants invested their money in "pride households", breaking through with the past and the local and seeking more for "social recognition" (Honeth, 2000) then comfort. Recently, more and more rural inhabitants shift toward an explicit rustic style, trying to bridge, as they say, "past and present" or "tradition and modernity" by re-rooting themselves in some imagined local traditions and explicit aesthetic claims. The peasant household turns thus to a simulacrum (Baudrillard, 1988) of itself that makes sense for its lodgers and expresses a new identity discourse. Based on a case study, the present paper aims to describe these emerging style and practice and to interpret it in its broader historical and socio-cultural context.