Tuesday, April 13, 6-8 p.m
1219 International Affairs Building

Forgotten People, Forgotten Places: the Cases of Bulgaria, Poland and Romania

Panel discussion

• Gerald Creed (Hunter College)
• David Kideckel (Central Connecticut State University)
• Michal Buchowski (Columbia U-Poznan University, Poland)
• Mona Momescu (Columbia U./ Ovidius University, Constanta, Romania)

Are the rural and other marginalized people and communities an obstacle for progress in the process of liberal forms? What has the politics of "blaming the victims" brought in those countries?

Four anthropological insights into the processes of creating 'the Others' of the so-called transformation in the respective countries should show that 'nothing is obvious' on the ground and that dichotomous images shared by the general public are invented in order to legitimize inequalities. Created representations result rather both from the relations of power between groups competing for symbolic hegemony and from actual post-socialist practices. Complex processes of making hierarchies involve social (class), ethnic as well as religious dimensions.

Followed by a reception