On Change and Adaptation: Rural Inhabitation during the Romanian Post-Socialist Transition

This article examines the Romanian rural environment after twenty years of never-ending transition toward the promised land of capitalism. Since the end of the dictatorial regime that lasted nearly half a century, changes in rural building have challenged the condition of Romania's traditions. New social phenomena like migration and tourism now overlap a confused , ambiguous search for greater comfort and the desire for social exposure. The article suggests that the apparently malformed visions of the new vernacular are just one of many intermediate phases that a tradition goes through in times of transition. Adapting and improvising have always best defined the spontaneous Romanian rural spirit. Without being seized by a fascination (or obsession) with " ends, " as discussed by Nezar AlSayyad in his essay " The End of Tradition, or the Tradition of Endings? " it is important to acknowledge that Romanian rural society is presently in an extremely delicate situation. 1 In a relatively short span of time, the post-socialist transition has brought a brutal series of alterations to a way of life that the former totalitarian regime would have preferred to have abolished. 2 This social and moral transfiguration — a " disfigurement " in many meanings of the term — has obviously involved the building process. Indeed, this process is nothing but the reflection of a rural way of life that is still deprived of socioeconomic catalysts, or that has, at best, been recatalyzed. The consequence is that much new vernacular building in rural areas seems disoriented, ambiguous, and even grotesque, a degradation of what has previously been considered " authentic " in the " traditional " environment. 3 This article argues that, although the vernacular may not " look " like it used to, what matters is its potential for reinventing itself and its capacity for inheriting and spreading a certain meaning of and connection to place.