Paper short abstract:

This paper considers village revitalization projects in rapidly depopulating Bulgaria as a mode of resistance. I investigate rural revitalization as a generational project with ethical implications, and how resistance for some raises concerns for others.

Paper long abstract:

Bulgarian villages have experienced numerous transformations throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries following transitions from Ottoman rule, socialism, and European Union integration. The effects of these transformations yield drastic population and cultural shifts for villages, which correspond to changing meanings of place for different generations. This paper considers project-based village revitalization interventions which imagine the village as an experimental alternative to contemporary urban life for young Bulgarians. These projects position depopulation as a symptom of broken relationships between generations and place, enabled by corruption, failed transition, and policies that disenfranchise marginalized places. In order to better understand ambivalence toward urbanization, globalization, and westernization, I suggest 'the project' as a complex genre and site of analysis which provides insight into how broader concerns find solutions in the rural, and what these solutions offer young people. Of course, such initiatives are complex and ethically murky in the solutions they offer to generations coming of age in contemporary Bulgaria. As young people find respite and new meanings in villages through short-term residencies, questions of belonging, right to space, and the balance between tradition and change arise. Thus, my paper will also consider the ethical entanglements of revitalization projects. What are the implications of renewed attachments to place? My paper tries to understand and investigate rural revitalization as a generational project with ethical implications, and how resistance for some raises concerns for others.