Ghimes-Faget, Transylvania, Romania is a complex region where ethnic identity is not clear. The area has been going through a continuing process of change. In the past century, history has been an important aspect in the daily lives of the residing individuals. With the constant changes in history, this has impacted ethnic identity in the region. This region is posed to be “the Csango” region in Transylvania and continues to increase in tourism. However, when examined in detail of how people in Ghimes-Faget ethnically identify themselves, a number of factors influence their decision. This thesis will examine the factors and the elements that I have found to be essential when discussing ethnic identity in the Ghimes region. I will provide examples from field research that was conducted in Ghimes-Faget in the summer of 2008. / Theoretical discussion -- Historical perspective -- Fieldwork in Ghimes-Faget -- Ethnic identity in Ghimes-Faget -- Factors affecting Csango ethnicity. / Department of Anthropology

This dissertation explores the transformation of a small town in South East Transylvania, Sighisoara, historically defined through a strong German presence. Despite the small number of Germans remaining in the region after the massive migrations of the last decades, historical German privilege (made visible through and materialized in the long-lasting architecture) is reformulated and re-configured in the present precisely through processes connected to valuing and producing this built landscape as historical heritage. Claims for stakes in the development of the area become entangled with an interest in heritage preservation publicly performed by a diverse set of (mostly foreign) actors. By analyzing a failed development project, the gentrification of the historical citadel, transformations in public spaces, and NGO and historical preservation funding, I argue that Germanness offers a discursive space in which local desires for a developed West are able to articulate, productively, with Western nostalgias for a developmental do-over, as well as with fears for an endangered European heritage at the 'margins' of Western civilization. This dissertation contributes to the anthropology of post-socialist transformations in Eastern Europe by drawing attention to the relationship between ethnicity and participation in a global capitalism. It shows how a continuous, living engagement with the "outside," the "West," with consumer capitalism has been part of local quotidian subjectivities and understandings of the world, all mediated by desire and access to mobility and possibility. Understandings of people's current relationship with development, consumption, the idea and reality of capitalism cannot be disentangled from these continuities, and I argue for locating analysis precisely in these relationships. This dissertation also brings a critical native voice to the body of English language Eastern European anthropology. At the same time, it attempts to both build on and disrupt historical approaches to the region by forging analytical and substantive continuities with discipline-wide approaches to ethnicity, development, and heritage tourism. / text

Doctorat en sciences sociales, politiques et économiques / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished