Troupeau de moutons pâturant dans un quartier du nord-ouest de Bucarest © Carmen Rafanell, 2019
Cultivating the Post-Socialist City
Urban Agriculture in Bucharest, Between Rural Heritage and Urban Transformations
Carmen RAFANELL (EHESS / Géographie-cités) will present her doctoral thesis in geography, supervised by Jean-Marc BESSE : “Cultivating the post-socialist city: urban agriculture in Bucharest, between rural heritage and urban transformation”,Jean-Marc BESSE.
Tuesday, November 26th
14h
École des hautes études en sciences sociales
54 boulevard Raspail
7e étage, salle A07_37
Jury
Jean-Marc Besse, Emeritus Research Director, EHESS Director of Studies, UMR Géographie-cités (thesis supervisor)
Jean-Noël Consalès, University Professor, Université Lumière Lyon 2 (rapporteur)
Béatrice von Hirschhausen, Research Director, UMR Géographie-cités (examiner)
Guillaume Lacquement, University Professor, Université de Perpignan (rapporteur)
Flaminia Paddeu, Associate Professor, Université Sorbonne Paris-Nord (reviewer)
Samuel Rufat, University Professor, CY Cergy Paris Université (thesis supervisor)
Bogdan Suditu, Associate Professor, University of Bucharest, Faculty of Geography (examiner)
Abstract
Bucharest, the capital of Romania, has a long agricultural heritage that has endured for several centuries through food self-provisioning practices, maintained within domestic spaces or in informally occupied areas. Gardening and livestock farming have served as a means for populations of peasant origin to maintain a connection with the rural world after moving to the city, but they have also represented a survival strategy to cope with shortages and crises, particularly at the end of the socialist period and during the post-socialist transition. This urban geography thesis aims to analyze these urban agricultural practices through the lens of an ever-changing post-socialist city—the capital of one of the last countries to join the European Union.
The thesis examines the residents’ ability to perpetuate and renew practices and ways of dwelling derived from the rural world in a context marked by significant land, social, and economic constraints. By analyzing how conflicts emerge around urban agriculture between distinct ways of conceiving, practicing, and inhabiting the city, the thesis contributes to a broader reflection on vernacular modes of appropriation of urban space. The thesis combines a qualitative approach inspired by ethnography, including interviews, observation, mapping, and GIS. From a critical perspective, this approach places central emphasis on the actors—residents, institutional bodies, and private entities—who shape the city, and on the multi-scalar dynamics generated by the transition to a market economy and the adoption of a neoliberal governance model.
