Th e ethnographic negative Capturing the impress of boredom and inactivity

Bruce O’Neill

Abstract: Outside the main railway station in , , otherwise un- employed day laborers hustle for small change as informal parking lot attendants (parcagii). While their eff orts yield numerous ethnographic observations of en- trepreneurial activity, these attendants report “doing nothing” day in and day out. Th is article explores the tension between etic observations and emic feelings in or- der to ask a methodological question: how can “not doing” and “absent activity” be captured within an ethnographic method primed to observe activity constantly? In response, this article takes inspiration from photography to develop “the negative” as a technique for bringing the impress of absent activity on social worlds into ethnographic view. Th e intent of this methodological intervention is to open new theoretical lines of fl ight into the politics of inactivity. Keywords: boredom, parking lots, photo-ethnography, postsocialism, unemploy- ment, urban space

“What boredom,” Dani sighed. “And every day Now in their mid-twenties, Dani and Razvan is like this.” His friend Razvan nodded slowly spent their mornings looking for day labor off in agreement, drawing deeply on his cigarette. the books. In the aft ermath of the 2008 global fi - “Th ere’s no work. Th ere’s no money. Th ere’s nancial crisis, however, there was little demand nothing to do but sit here.” We sat atop a shallow for it. On the majority of days when they could fl ight of stairs overlooking the parking lot of the not land a gig on a construction site in the capi- Gara de Nord railway station in Bucharest, Ro- tal city, or clearing a fi eld just outside of it, they mania. Dani, Razvan, and Razvan’s partner, Io- joined Ioana in the parking lot, where the crew ana, met at “the Gara” a decade earlier as young hustled pocket change as informal parking lot teenagers. Th ey had fl ed deepening poverty attendants (parcagii). Considered a nuisance, the and immiseration in the countryside as Roma- city police criminalized their entrepreneurial ef- nia made its painful transition from socialism forts as begging. “You don’t make much money toward the global economy. Without formal here,” Ioana explained, “but you get by. And it’s qualifi cations (muncitor necalifi cat), however, safer than prostitution or picking pockets.” Raz- the crew did not get very far from the station. van nodded in agreement. He had, aft er all, been

Focaal—Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 78 (2017): 23–37 © Stichting Focaal and Berghahn Books doi:10.3167/fcl.2017.780103 24 | Bruce O’Neill

Figure . Doing nothing (© Bruce O’Neill). in and out of jail for petty theft . “You just have to of work and on the streets. Pressed to the mar- keep waiting,” Ioana carried on, “for the police gins of the city, newly homeless like to leave, for a space to open up, for drivers will- Dani, Razvan, and Ioana stood around emp- ing to pay you …” When Ioana fi nished ticking ty-handed. Time appeared to slow, and the road off the various pieces that must fall into place before them extend endlessly into the distance before the slow accumulation of money could as the crew insisted there was no work to be commence, Dani added with a chortle, “Th ere’s found, no wage to spend, nowhere else for them nothing left for us to do in this country. Th ere’s to go, and ultimately, nothing to do. just boredom.” Th e crew continued to wait.1 Th is claim to be “doing nothing” cuts against Two decades aft er the fall of communism, an ethnographic sensibility. As the craft of par- and in the aft ermath of the 2008 global fi nan- ticipant observation has shown time and again, cial crisis, downwardly mobile Romanians are people cannot help but be engaged in doing bored. Th e introduction of market pressures something. Sitting, pacing, or staring at a park- intended to propel this once isolated commu- ing lot are, aft er all, forms of activity. To be nist country into a heightened state of market- truly inactive makes no ethnographic sense. driven production and consumption had, for Such mundane activities may very well evoke many, the opposite eff ect. Communist-era guar- boredom, but as Bronisław Malinowski attests antees to work, housing, and a minimum of ([1922] 2003: 4), boring moments nevertheless food rations gave way amid eff orts at neoliberal contain a wide array of documentable people, reform to intensifi ed competition. Th ose unable practices, and relationships. Ethnographers have, to compete successfully found themselves out furthermore, shown the various ways in which Th e ethnographic negative | 25 even idle moments add up and contribute to in Bucharest (O’Neill 2017), but also in similarly larger processes. Rather than being inert, those precarious societies grappling with the growing claiming to be “doing nothing” are in fact ac- problem of what has been described as “wage- tively doing something, such as generating social less life” (Denning 2010), from Africa (Ferguson networks (Ralph 2008), undertaking entrepre- 2015; Mains 2013) to Asia (Allison 2013; Jeff rey neurial schemes (Simone 2004), or participating 2010; Li 2014) and to the Americas (Millar 2014; in political projects (Schielke 2008). Th e ethno- Stewart 1996). People oft en fi nd themselves do- graphic imperative to understand social worlds ing nothing and for reasons well beyond their through the lens of activity lays bare social rela- control. Again, this article asks: how can inactiv- tionships engaged and ever productive, even if ity be brought into ethnographic view? that productivity is not readily apparent on the ground. From such a perspective, boredom and inactivity become thinkable as a form of social Stalled out production (Dunn 2014). While such etic lines of analysis bend toward optimism by reframing A sense of troublingly absent activity has framed (maybe even rescuing) those claiming to be “do- the rhythm of everyday life in Bucharest since ing nothing” as actually active and even creative, the waning years of Romanian communism. the ethnographic move to foreground produc- Brutal communist austerity left ordinary Roma- tive agency has a way of obscuring deeply felt nians with a diffi cult-to-shake feeling of having emic concerns about a growing set of practices “nothing to do” (stau degeaba). Th is emergent that are not, or are no longer, happening, par- politics of inactivity crystalized in the early ticularly among the economically vulnerable. 1980s, when then communist dictator Nicolae How, this article asks, can the impress of “not Ceaușescu undertook an aggressive plan to pay doing” and of “absent activity” on social rela- off Romania’s $11 billion foreign debt within a tionships and on inner worlds be brought into decade (Petrescu 2002). Ceaușescu believed this ethnographic view? aggressive fi scal policy was necessary to limit Th is article, in response, experiments with a foreign interference in the development of so- methodological technique for documenting inac- cialism in Romania. To drum up the necessary tivity in an eff ort to open up new theoretical lines cash reserve, central planners heightened the of fl ight. Rather than taking inactivity as a mode exportation of food and durable goods while of unrecognized social production, as the eth- severely limiting imports. Th ese planning and nographic record is so primed to do, this article policy decisions led to the development of what instead takes seriously the parking lot attendant’s liberal economists call a “shortage economy,” claim to be doing nothing. My analysis proposes which left ordinary Romanians with little to do to record an impression of inactivity—under- but idle around work, the store, and at home stood here as the troubling absences of activity— (Kornai 1986). Workers, for example, reported on individual and collective worldviews through to factories where production stalled because the production of what I call “an ethnographic of a systematic lack of the necessary raw ma- negative.” Drawing inspiration from photogra- terials (Verdery 1996). Stalled output resulted phy, this article takes the negative in its ethno- in a scarcity of everyday consumables. As store graphic form to be a kind of inverted record. Th e shelves ran bare, Romanians spent hours each ethnographic negative, as it is developed below, day waiting in breadlines in order to carry out captures observable actors and activities so that their household provisioning (Kligman 1998). they might serve as the dark backdrop against Once home, shortages of electricity and light which the aff ect of inactivity may be brought to bulbs further impinged on daily practices, leav- light. It is a methodological intervention suited ing people to spend their nights sitting in the for studying capitalism’s undoing of everyday life dark (Chelcea 2002).2 26 | Bruce O’Neill

Shortages not only foreclosed activities at Ghinea and Mungiu-Pippidi 2010). Th e explo- work, home, and the store, but also troubled sive growth of newspaper and television helped movement between these spaces. Insuffi cient to introduce new objects and lifestyles around automobile production rendered private car which postcommunist peoples could imagine ownership rare in communist Romania (Găte- their future (Berdahl 2005; Patico and Caldwell jel 2013). To move about the city, Romanians 2002). While Romania’s transition toward the at that time relied almost exclusively on public global marketplace was both brutal and slow,3 transportation. Energy conservation policies, pending accession into the European Union in however, caused Bucharest’s extensive constel- 2007 opened up a rising quality of life. Between lation of trams, trolley buses, and the Metro 2000 and 2007, for example, Romania’s econ- to run irregularly (Banister 1981: 261). Severe omy grew 6.5 percent annually, providing the overcrowding ensued. Rather than sending pas- country with the kind of sustained development sengers into motion, would-be riders waited in necessary to pull 30 percent of its population long lines to board public transit, and instead out of absolute poverty (World Bank 2009: 6). of reading or working through the commute, Consumption drove much of this economic passengers stood cheek by jowl inside buses and growth, with foreign banks providing Roma- trams if not left to cling precariously onto the nian households with cheap credit serviced on outside of them (Verdery 1996: 47). the euro (Yesin 2013). Romanian households Communist austerity took its toll. In Decem- used this credit to voraciously consume im- ber 1989, angry crowds gathered in the central ported goods inside newly constructed shop- square of Bucharest and other major Romanian ping malls (Brown and Haas 2012), and rather cities to protest widespread deprivation (Tisma- than rely on public transportation to shuttle neanu 2006). Th e movement culminated with the between work, home, and the store, Romanians execution of Ceaușescu and his wife, Elena, on instead bought personal cars, increasing the rate Christmas Day. Th e abrupt end to communism of car ownership since 1990 by three and a half raised hopes among Romanians that daily life times (Nicolae 2013). Where once Romanians might no longer be chronically stalled by per- waited for overcrowded and underserviced vasive shortages, instead propelled by market- trams, they now sat in slow-moving traffi c (Nae driven production and consumption. In pursuit and Turnock 2011: 218). With a hint of pride, of a materially richer life, Romanians turned in Romanians compared their congested roadways the 1990s toward the global marketplace. Under to those of global cities (Realitatea TV 2010). the guidance of Western economists (Demekas While life in Romania had been marked by and Khan 1991), the new Romanian govern- shortages for as long as anyone could remem- ment made an aggressive push toward privat- ber, acceptance into the European Union—and ization. Between 1990 and 1995, the Romanian the fl ow of trade, aid, and infrastructure that state sold roughly 4.3 million housing units to came with it—gave Romanians tangible cause private individuals (Stan 1995: 429–430). Th e to believe that the abundance of market-driven state also sold majority shareholder status in all production and consumption was within their of its nonessential industries, generating $964 reach. million in foreign investment (431–435). Ag- Th e economic surge did not last. Th e onset ricultural land was also completely liberalized of the 2008 global fi nancial crisis undid much (Verdery 2003). of the gains in individual consumption brought With foreign investment and privatization about by EU accession. By 2009, the World Bank came new invitations to consume. Neon bill- (2009: 9) reported that the Romanian stock boards took over cityscapes while advertising market had lost 65 percent of its value, while the extended into now-private homes by fueling currency, the (plural lei), depreci- the rapid proliferation of media (Berry 2004; ated 15 percent against the euro. Lines of credit Th e ethnographic negative | 27 that Romanians had inexpensively purchased those claiming, at times quite insistently, to be from foreign banks grew unmanageable over- inactive, inert, and “doing nothing.” Rather than night. Across the city, the once hot job market confronting the absence of activity in a social froze just as the state instituted a radical series world like that of Bucharest’s parking lot atten- of austerity measures in an eff ort to stabilize the dants, the ethnographic inclination is to over- economy (BBC 2010). Disposable income dried ride emic interpretations, shaping, to borrow the up. Personal cars that evidenced Romania’s at- words of Michael Taussig (2004: 60), all manner tainment of a European quality of life the year of narrative, paradox, and so-called data of the before became too expensive to run and main- ethnographic record so as to “jolt the emptiness tain, prompting the mass abandonment of two with meaning.” While such eff orts are oft en pro- hundred thousand automobiles in public park- foundly revealing, and at times even empower- ing spaces across Bucharest (Iancu 2014). Th e ing, what gets lost amid such eff orts is the now mass abandonment of unwanted cars clogged growing distance between people’s long-held parking lots and sidewalks and sent those driv- expectations about the social and material or- ers still in gear circling the block for an available ders that make up ordinary life and their undo- parking space. Th e parking crunch, created in ing under wrenched historical circumstances part by the fi nancial crisis, provided an oppor- (see Berlant 2011: 9). As Razvan, Dani, and Io- tunity for low-skilled workers, such as Razvan, ana’s sense of the ordinary became undone by Dani, and Ioana, who were otherwise displaced the global fi nancial crisis, they claimed to be in- from the contracting job market. No longer able active not because they failed to appreciate how to fi nd day labor in the city’s stalled construc- they were in fact active and the important con- tion sites, they worked instead as parcagii, oc- sequences of their activity, but because of their cupying and allocating available public parking overwhelming concern about the many prac- spaces to those drivers willing to pay a small fee tices they believed they should be engaged in (see Chelcea and Iancu 2015). Working as par- but were not. To bring into ethnographic view cagii, Razvan, Dani, and Ioana adamantly main- how this troubling absence of activity impresses tained, was profoundly boring, and it left them upon vulnerable actors such as the parcagii re- “doing nothing” day in and day out.4 quires, in the spirit of Michel Foucault, meth- odological experimentation, “decid[ing] which taps need turning, which bolts need to be loos- Th e ethnographic negative ened here or there” ([1988] 2013: 165). Rather than framing a picture of “the usual repertoire” Th e ethnographic record presumes an active sub- of life, an ethnographic treatment of inactivity ject. Th e recording of everyday actions, however requires, to my mind, a diff erent approach to mundane, allows the anthropologist to form a the image, one that works to make visible the picture of the usual repertoire of life (Cliff ord impress of processes with no visible presence 1995: 98). Visibility as much as meaning is tied (Hoff man 2007: 112). It requires an analysis of up in the ethnographic record of the things that the negative. people do (Geertz 1977: 5), so ethnography is When taking a snapshot, Walter Benjamin predisposed to reveal a world in constant mo- observed, one “manages only to register the neg- tion. It is a methodological disposition that ex- ative of that essence on photographic plates” tends agency to the most vulnerable population (2006: 227). Th e snapping of a photograph and segments and reveals the creative energy of life the production of its negative are inextricably at the margins. Th e ethnographer’s tendency to linked. Just as every photograph is said to be see productive agency everywhere, however, is a certifi cate of presence, so too is its negative not without its slippages. Such an ethnographic (Barthes [1980] 2010: 87). Th ey are both doc- gaze struggles to account for the worldviews of umentary spaces; however, the photograph and 28 | Bruce O’Neill its negative diverge in one critical aspect. While negative refocuses analytical attention on the the photograph mirrors its referent, the negative people and activities that are expected to be inverts it (80–81). Th e negative renders as dark present but are troublingly absent, suspended, what appears in the photograph as light and or foreclosed. Th e ethnographic negative ulti- renders as light what is dark. Th is documentary mately foregrounds that meaning is forged not inversion is what makes a negative so evocative only through the presence of people, things, for ethnographic thought, especially about in- and activities but also by their absence. Th is is a activity. Th e negative creates critical distance to technique for creating a kind of nonimage, one the photograph and its referent that defamiliar- that defamiliarizes the ethnographic gaze so izes one’s gaze and in the process, opens up a that the deeply felt forms of inactivity—of ac- space that invites new ways of seeing (Kendig tivity’s troubling absence—hovering around the 1993: 197). Th e negative does not simply bring penumbra of daily life can be brought into view. into view the basic spatial elements of the pho- Continuing in the spirit of Benjamin (2006: tograph and their relationships, but through its 227), the negative in its ethnographic form tries inversion of light and dark, the negative also not to index the world so much as to provide puts forward a kind of nonphotograph, one that an essence from which a presentiment can be brings into view all the other presences that extracted, one that provides a window into un- hover in a sort of penumbra around the image derstanding when certain moments qualify as (Sassen 2011: 438). What in a photograph ap- active and how and to what eff ect others do not. pears as dark, impenetrable, and without char- It is a method that begins with a snapshot. acteristics is made light, textured, and visible in unexpected ways through the space of the neg- ative, rendering palpable the essence of what Th e picture otherwise cannot be seen. As in photography, the negative in its ethno- “Th e state gave my parents an apartment. It gave graphic form is also entangled with the produc- them a job in a factory, but it shut down in the tion of the ethnographic record.5 Th ey are fl ip early ’90s. I don’t have that kind of opportunity,” sides of the same process. Both the record and Dani explained as he got to work. He lift ed him- the negative draw on familiar practices of car- self up and off his stretch of curb and stepped rying out participant observation, conducting into a newly vacated space in the Gara de Nord’s interviews, draft ing fi eld notes, and snapping free public parking lot. Ioana did the same mo- photographs, for example, to generate thick de- ments later when another car pulled out at the scriptions of everyday routines and their under- far end of the parking lot. “Instead, I have this,” lying moods and emotions (see Bourgois and Dani added. Schonberg 2009: 11). To be sure, the ethno- Th e two waited for the light to change at the graphic negative is a documentary space, but like intersection down the road, which sent a wave a photographic plate, the ethnographic negative of cars in their direction. Th e two then stepped inverts. It takes the present actors and activities forward into the road to meet them while Raz- that make up the ethnographic record and treats van continued to keep watch from his perch. them as a kind of dark background against which “You can’t just hold the space and demand the deeply felt absences that lead people to iden- money,” Ioana explained. “People get pissed and tify as bored, doing nothing, and being nowhere complain to the police, and then they shut us can be brought to light. Th e negative’s aim is to down for the day. Th at’s not good for anyone.” shift ethnographic attention away from the un- Instead, Ioana and Dani stood just clear of the folding practices and their potentially produc- turn-in, and with one outstretched arm point- tive eff ects that are, from an emic perspective, ing to the curb and the other waving encour- widely taken to be insignifi cant. Instead, the agingly toward drivers, the two signaled what Th e ethnographic negative | 29

Figure . Hailing drivers (© Bruce O’Neill). was already plainly obvious: the parking space rifi ed tone, “how could you suggest I would do was available. As cars pulled in to park, Ioana such a thing?” and Dani made a show of due diligence. Th ey While Ioana and Dani monetized the coming closely observed the margin between the turn- and going of cars, Razvan attempted to do the ing car and its parked neighbors, using their same with their packing and unpacking. Seated raised hands to illustrate the closing distance on the escalator steps, he scanned the lot for between the two to the driver. Th ey also called travelers with cumbersome luggage. At the site out when the trunk of the car was suffi ciently of a woman and an elderly traveler struggling to forward to be out of the way of oncoming traffi c. pull overstuff ed suitcases from car trunks, Raz- Once the engine was off and as those inside the van jogged over and off ered to carry the baggage car collected their things, they circled around onto their train platform. As with the vast ma- to the driver’s side door. At a distance, and in jority of instances, these travelers fi rmly declined the least threatening of tones, they asked for a Razvan’s earnest proposition and waited, visibly small payment in exchange for their assistance. anxious, for him to leave. Th e Gara de Nord Although their service was neither necessary held a reputation for attracting pickpockets and nor requested, drivers occasionally obliged the scammers. “When you fi nd someone in need, request for fear of reprisal. “What will you do you can make a quick fi ve lei,” Razvan attested as if I don’t give you money?” asked one man in- he rejoined Dani and me on the stairwell. dignantly as he shut the door of his Volkswa- In between his solicitations, Razvan smoked gen. “Will you key my car?” While accepting cigarettes and chewed sunfl ower seeds while the fi ve-lei banknote ($1.25) from the man’s Ioana and Dani continued to direct traffi c. “We outstretched hand, Ioana fi rmly dismissed the can’t all work in the lot at once,” Razvan ex- accusation. “God forbid,” she gasped in a hor- plained. “It creates too much of a commotion, 30 | Bruce O’Neill

Figure . Cited (© Bruce O’Neill). and the police will shut us down. If we take crew followed the offi cers’ request, they would turns, though, we get left alone.” A commotion a lose half of their workday. Instead of foreclosing few days later evidenced Razvan’s point. A man the opportunity to continue earning, the group had returned from the station to his car in a lot went about their eff orts with heightened caution. adjacent to the one where the parcagii worked Ioana continued to direct traffi c as before while only to fi nd that the radio antenna had been Razvan and Dani kept watch over the entryways snapped off . With a red face and short of breath, of the station for offi cers making their rounds. the man hurried over to Ioana as she directed When an offi cer appeared in view, Dani gave a traffi c and incorrectly accused her of vandaliz- short, shrill whistle. Without turning around, ing his car. He raised his hand as though to slap Ioana promptly walked out of the lot and toward her. Razvan sprung from his stairwell perch and a park bench located opposite the station, where put his body between Ioana and the aggrieved she sat and waited for the offi cers to complete driver. In reassuring tones, Razvan explained their loop. About fi ve minutes later, aft er the of- that they did not work the lot where his car was fi cers had left , she resumed her duties. parked and knew nothing about what had hap- “You saw what I did?” Ioana asked me later pened to his antenna. Th e raised voices attracted that night. “We need to be defensive around the the attention of onlookers and, eventually, two police. Th ey give us fi nes, but they also beat us police offi cers working the station. and confi scate our money. We can’t aff ord for Aft er soliciting testimonies, the offi cers did that to happen. Because of this crisis, no one not ultimately hold the parcagii accountable gives money like before.” Razvan concurred. for the vandalism. Th e offi cers nevertheless is- “Back in ’92 you made three times what you sued Ioana and Dani fi nes and ordered the crew make now at the Gara. … Now you struggle like to stay away from the lot for the rest of the day. hell for fi ve or ten lei in the parking lot. Th ere It was, however, only the late aft ernoon. If the weren’t as many police back then as there are Th e ethnographic negative | 31 now. And people had more money back then, rent and gas and water and electricity … Your too. But this is how the world today works. I monthly expenses will go over €300. How do work longer, and I get paid less.” you get that kind of money when you work like To be sure, Razvan, Dani, and Ioana were us?” In response, I asked Razvan about the kind not the only ones working the parking lot. A of work he would rather be doing. Razvan fi n- half dozen other homeless men and women also ished his can of beer in three large, successive hustled for small change by directing traffi c. gulps before replying at length, Younger “street children” also ran errands for a small fee, buying bottles of soda or a candy bar Anything—if we don’t know, we adapt. from one of the kiosks inside the train station And I’m a good worker. I have legs, I have for those standing in parking spaces or other- hands—put me to work and you will see wise keeping watch. Th ere was, however, little how I do! But, man, pay me. Before the coordination or competition between these crisis, I cleared construction pretty regu- workers. “Th ere isn’t enough money changing larly. I made 70 lei a day. Now, when I can hands here to attract anything like a mafi a,” fi nd it, I’m only off ered a bottle of booze explained Dani, “and nobody wants trouble. and 20 lei. I can’t make a future with that. We all get shut down when there’s trouble.” What am I supposed to do? Raise chil- On the best of days, the three collectively earn dren in the sewer canals? Let them grow around a hundred lei (approximately $8 each) up and work the parking lot with me? No, in the parking lot. Typically, however, the group there is nothing for me here… earned about half of that. Th e income from the parking lot enabled the Razvan crushed his can of beer and then tossed group to squat in one of the many abandoned it into the corner of the room. properties not far from the station. Th ey re- ceived free heat and electricity by tapping into a nearby street lamp as their power source. Th ey also hacked into their neighbor’s cable televi- sion wire, providing them with access to several hundred channels. “Th e conditions aren’t good like in a ‘real apartment.’ Th ere’s no running wa- ter so it’s hard to keep clean,” Ioana explained while giving me a tour. While appreciating the building’s shortcomings, I noted that these con- ditions were not all that diff erent from other unrenovated properties on the lowest end of Bucharest’s real estate market. “But this place is just for sleeping,” Dani replied. “We don’t want to draw any attention to ourselves at the house if we can help it. If the neighbors called the police on us, we’d be thrown out instantly—we would have to fi nd a new place to live.” Nodding, Razvan added, “It’s fi ne for now, but it doesn’t let us raise a family. We can’t be here during the day, and we can’t make any noise at night. A real apartment costs €250 a month. You can do what you need to do in a real apartment. But you also have to pay Figure . Squatting (© Bruce O’Neill). 32 | Bruce O’Neill

Reading the negative which these activities unfold.6 Rather than be- ing engaged, the parcagii claimed emphatically Th e picture that emerges from this snapshot of that they were bored, and instead of seeing a life the parcagii’s usual repertoire of life is decidedly organized around all of the creative energy of active and clearly productive. Ioana, Dani, and their earning and what could be interpreted as Razvan, for example, monetized a public amen- homemaking, the crew insisted they had neither ity in order to generate a cash fl ow. As a part a job nor a home, much less a routine organized of their scheme, each member of the crew con- around the two. Instead of being caught up in stantly evaluated travelers in order to identify the hustle, time slowed and boredom abounded their potential needs, whether a parking space, for the crew as they claimed they were left with assistance with luggage, or information about nothing to do (stau degeaba). the coming and going of trains, for example. Th is emic sense of inactivity—of a troubling At the same time, they negotiated the temper absence of activity—only begins to make sense of both the traveling public and the police. Th e ethnographically when the picture of the usual crew also cultivated a strategic relationship with repertoire of life is viewed as a negative. As an the latter in an eff ort to curb nes,fi harassment, inverted documentary space, the ethnographic and at times beatings. Th ey even networked negative reveals a set of what Lauren Berlant with other crews of parcagii, taking turns work- calls “attachments” to reasonably expected, but ing the lots to prevent crowding and to manage absent and foreclosed, activities that inform the aff ect of ticketed patrons so they would not “the subject’s sense of what it means to keep on raise a complaint to the police of having been living on” (2011: 24). In the case of the parcagii, harassed. Th e hustle demanded constant im- these attachments pertain to a particular kind of provisation and an industrious eye for how the work and home life, as well as to a certain level hustle could be expanded in ever more lucrative of participation in consumerism. When work, ways. At the end of the day, their earnings, low home, and consumption do not conform to the as they may be, nevertheless enabled the group crew’s most modest expectations, the remain- to participate as consumers in global chains of ing realm of possibilities before them empties commodities, from beer and cigarettes to sug- of positive meaning. Th e crew interpret their ary snacks and cable television programming. eff orts at keeping on living on not as adapting Over and above the crew’s insistence that to an alternative order so much as collapsing they had nothing to do, the ethnographic re- entirely. cord reports an entrepreneurial subject, one Th e crew, for example, may spend their day whose inventiveness and craft might even draw working the parking lot, but these eff orts at get- into question their claim to being homeless. ting by on the occasional tip, when viewed from While the crew is without question precariously the negative, only foreground their detachment housed, they nevertheless occupy a building from regular work in the formal economy. As with a secure roof that, through their ingenu- Dani noted, his parents’ generation had enjoyed ity, comes with free utilities and a comprehen- not just stable but guaranteed employment sive media package. One would be justifi ed in during communism. To be insecurely employed concluding from the picture formed in the eth- was unthinkable, while being unemployed was nographic record that the parcagii’s usual rep- outright illegal. Th e Romanian government, ertoire of life is organized around a consistent during the communist era, actively and publicly rhythm of shuttling between home and their celebrated the daily grind of manual labor, ce- creative hustle at the Gara de Nord. menting the daily trip to work as an integral part Such an etic analysis, however, stands com- of Romanians’ sense of masculinity (Kideckel pletely at odds with the everyday aff ect under 2008). While Razvan and Dani’s gigs as day la- Th e ethnographic negative | 33 borers did not exactly conform to this model and Ioana are not active entrepreneurs. Th ey are of a working life, it at least resonated within it. inactive construction workers. Displacement While underpaid and off ering no guarantees from the formal economy prevented them from about tomorrow, day labor at a construction site carrying out the manual labor they expected off ered clear and familiar indicators of accom- to do. plishment: debris dissipated, equipment moved, Th e negative reveals a similar detachment and bags of cement turned into foundations and from home life. While the crew benefi ted from walls. Th ey left the site physically tired and with a sound roof overhead, one that was heated and enough money to drink a beer that they felt in serviced by utilities, they insisted they were their bodily aches and muscular pains that they homeless. Th is makes sense given the precari- had earned. When the 2008 fi nancial crisis ous claim the crew had to occupying that space. foreclosed day labor as a dependable source of Th ey neither owned nor rented their room but income, Razvan and Dani did not understand were squatting in an abandoned property. Much themselves as switching careers from construc- like their time in the parking lots, their eff orts tion to parking lot attendants. With their sense at homemaking had been coded illicit. Subse- of masculinity tied up with the expectation of quently, they were subject to eviction at any steady manual labor, keeping watch over the moment. While their renting neighbors were parking lot failed to register as activity of any aware of the crew’s general presence, the crew kind, much less working. was invested in their presence not being inter- To be sure, in the heat of the summer, the preted by these neighbors as burdensome. To position of parcagii is not without a sense of that end, home life for Razvan, Dani, and Ioana sweat. However, unlike the construction site, turned into a project of living in such a way as where Dani and Razvan spent their days lift ing, to give the impression that no one lived there at pushing, and pulling, work as a parcagii asked all. Th ey avoided the property during daylight little more than sitting on stairs or standing in hours, and they minimized their coming and vacant spaces. Th is sitting and standing, fur- going at night. Music and conversations were thermore, did not appear to Razvan and Dani relegated to the basement, where subterranean to add up to something bigger. Travelers ebbed walls absorbed what sound they did make. Th e and fl owed with the train schedule independent crew also limited interactions in and around the of the crew’s eff orts. Clocking in an additional other parts of the property to the barely audible. hour in the lot did not add value or effi ciency to Rather than a safe place to relax, the crew’s hous- the processing of ticketed passengers. Nor did ing was a precarious space of hyper self-regula- an extra hour in the lot ensure a rise in income, tion, one in which the crew constantly sought as clocking an hour of overtime would on a con- to curtail activity in the present for the sake of struction site. As the crew glibly acknowledged, avoiding future eviction. some people pay, but most do not. Days can Th e precariousness of the crew’s housing pass without accumulating much more than the also foreclosed plans of developing a home life public’s ire. Th ese acts of sitting, standing, and that would unfold along longer time horizons. waiting, furthermore, do not link the crew to Although Razvan and Ioana wanted to have a historically celebrated tradition of hard work children, raising them under the constant threat as does routinized construction; instead, the of eviction was unthinkable to them. Razvan’s crew’s eff orts were criminalized and subjected inability to start a family only further dented his to police fi nes. When caught by the police in the sense of masculinity and heightened his sense of wrong moment, the extra hour on the job re- inactivity. Razvan was neither productive at work sulted in the confi scation of the day’s earnings. nor reproductive at home. As the view from the When viewed from the negative, Razvan, Dani, negative illustrates, the crew interpreted their 34 | Bruce O’Neill living space through its gaps, absences, and fore- a beer, a soda, whatever we can aff ord when we closures rather than its presence, leading them can, because we have to live,” Razvan explained, to conclude it was “not a real home.” connecting consumer stimulation with the liv- In between work and home life, the limited ing of life. “But here in Romania, we can’t live money earned in the parking lot prepared the much of a life at all. No, without a job and a crew to participate in only the most marginal home, we just sit around all day doing nothing.” dimensions of consumption. While the crew earned enough to split bottles of Coca-Cola and packs of Marlboros at the end of the day, Conclusion these purchases did not leave the group feeling incorporated in global consumerism. Instead, Th is article proposed a methodological shift these moments called to mind the extent to in the ethnographic study of inactivity away which they were excluded from a city organized from the picture of the usual repertoire of life around routine consumption. Th ey shopped at captured by the ethnographic record to instead the station’s corner store rather than Carrefour, refocus attention on its negative. It is a meth- and they split the odd item rather than fi lling odological shift with consequences for how up a shopping cart (and ultimately a cupboard). ethnographers theorize inactivity. Whereas the Th eir consumerism, acts they may be, call to ethnographic record is primed to capture a Razvan, Dani, and Ioana’s attention the extent world in constant motion in ways that inter- of their detachment from the pleasures and pos- pret inactivity by recasting it as a quiet mode sibilities taking shape around them. of production, the negative opens up a space to Detached from steady work, stable housing, think ethnographically about inactivity as the and the consistent consumption a regular in- actual absence of activity. To that end, the neg- come makes possible, the rhythm of everyday ative takes the present people, things, and ac- life failed to register with signifi cance. Inactivity tions that make up the ethnographic record and abounded as troublingly absent attachments to views them as a dark backdrop in order to bring reasonably expected acts of labor, homemaking, to light the absences, gaps, and foreclosures that and consumption overshadowed the remain- hover around the penumbra of social settings. ing repertoire that animated the parcagii’s days. When viewed from the negative, the problem of “Th e future is black—we have nothing,” Dani inactivity gets posed anew. Rather than prompt- insisted on another night spent drinking in ing inquiries into how idle moments add up to their basement. Razvan nodded in agreement, something productive, if only unintentionally, adding, the ethnographic negative draws attention to the powerful social aff ects derived from what Yeah, life here is incredibly boring. Like is not, cannot, and likely will not happen. It is when you have a job, you wake up in the a methodological intervention that seeks to morning, and you know everything you clarify when certain moments register as active need to do and you do it. Aft erward you as well as how, why, and to what aff ect others can go home and say, “Th is is what I did.” do not. As a method, the negative’s intent is to But when I wake up and ask, “What can I better attune ethnographic theorization to en- do today?” I don’t know—I arrive at the gagements with a moment of globalism that, for station and ask people if I can carry their many, is marked materially, socially, and aff ec- baggage? tively by displacement and loss. Th e negative, Walter Benjamin noted (2006: Razvan shook his head and sat silently for a 27), allows the viewer “to extract from the neg- moment before continuing. “We spend all of atives of essence a presentiment of its real pic- our time at the Gara trying to get by. We drink ture.” When directed on the parcagii at the Gara Th e ethnographic negative | 35 de Nord, the negative in its ethnographic form is illustrative. Th e photographs were shot, ed- brought into clear relief the impress of being ited, and published in black and white in an detached from socialist-era expectations of eff ort to capture the material conditions, em- regular work and a steady home, but also cast bodiment, and mood of the fi eld. Second, while aside in the present by a city organized around taken in a documentary style, the photograph is as much an interpretation of the fi eld as is consumer practices. Th ere was also little cause the accompanying text (see Sontag [1973] 2011: for hope that better times were awaiting on a 6–7). Th e included black-and-white images distant horizon. Th e negative, in this instance, serve to complement and extend the meaning foregrounded a set of historical and ethnograph- of the ethnographic negative developed in this ically observable circumstances that allowed for article’s text. boredom and a sense of “doing nothing” to pre- 2. As Krisztina Fehérváry importantly argues, dominate the everyday life of a group of park- “scarcity” is a comparative term. Socialist-era ing attendants over and above their observable perceptions of scarcity make sense only in com- hustle. parison to the enormous waste of Western capi- Th e negative, ultimately, draws attention to talism (2009: 434–435). the social, aff ective, and material mechanics 3. Just four years into Romania’s transition to cap- that shape global capitalism’s undoing of ordi- italism, real gross domestic product fell by 15.4 percent and industrial output fell by 23.3 per- nary life. As a complement to an ethnographic cent; around one million workers—a quarter record primed to reveal what continues to en- of the industrial workforce—exited the labor dure at the margins of global capitalism, if only market (Harris 1994: 2861). Romania’s infl a- as collateral damage, the negative provides a tion rate hovered around 300 percent, and real parallel invitation to think creatively about what income had dropped 40 percent against 1989 more might be done to incorporate and enrich levels (Verdery 1995: 631). By 1999, the share the economically vulnerable. of the population living below the national pov- erty line doubled from 20 percent to 41 percent (Petrescu 2002). Bruce O’Neill is an assistant professor in the 4. Th e discussion of postcommunist Romania in Department of Sociology and Anthropology this section is a revised and updated version of a more extended discussion (O’Neill 2014). and in the Center for Intercultural Studies at 5. Others have noted a formal similarity between Saint Louis University. Since 2006, he has been the production of a photograph and of the eth- conducting fi eldwork in Bucharest, Romania, nographic record. As Christopher Pinney ob- that explores the social and spatial dimensions served, “Th e anthropologist’s exposure to data of inequality. He is the author of Th e Space of occurs during a period of inversion from his Boredom: Homelessness in the Slowing Global normal reality, a stage that is formally identical Order (Duke University Press, 2017). to the production of the photographic negative” E-mail: [email protected] (1990: 53). 6. Th is research takes a phenomenological ap- proach to aff ect and is situated most clearly within the approaches of Kathleen Stewart Notes (2007), Lauren Berlant (2011), and Sara Ahmed (2010), rather than the ontological line of af- 1. Ethnographic fi eldwork with these parking fect theory, which begins with Gilles Deleuze attendants occurred from the winter of 2010 (1988). From this phenomenological perspec- through 2011 and continued during shorter re- tive, aff ect promises a way of theorizing how search trips in the summers of 2012, 2014, and individual bodies and historical processes come 2015. Pseudonyms are used throughout the ar- into contact, revealing how the body mediates ticle. Th e accompanying images are by the au- between what is sensed and what is known thor and serve two purposes, the fi rst of which (Schaefer 2013). 36 | Bruce O’Neill

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