Relational place-making in Maramureş, Romania A case-study about landscape transformation, cultural heritage protection, migration and tourism; and the role of the politics of place, connectivity and practices in this re-making of place Anthonet Baijense 2 3 Relational place-making in Maramureş, Romania A case-study about landscape transformation, cultural heritage protection, migration and tourism; and the role of the politics of place, connectivity and practices in this re-making of place Anthonet Baijense November, 2013
[email protected] Wageningen University – Department of Social Sciences MSc International Development Studies (Research Master Variant - Specialisation Sociology of Rural Development) WUR student registration number: 88090439080 MSc Thesis for the Rural Development Group and the Environmental Policy Group Thesis Supervisors: dr. ir. D. Roep and dr. ir. P.J.M. Oosterveer Thesis Codes: RDS-80436 and ENP-80424 4 5 Abstract Since the 1990s, authors like Doreen Massey started to think space relationally rather than in structuralist terms. In a relational approach to place, places are seen as products of practices and interrelations. As Michael Woods stresses, it is necessary to overcome the urban bias in globalization studies and study the relations between globalization and ruralities. Such bias enables myths about globalization, like the belief that globalization is an abstract, unlocated and homogenising force. A relational approach to place does away with such myths, stressing that globalization is emplaced, rooted in and co-constituted by the ‘local’, in practices and places. Such a relational approach to place, is illustrated in this thesis with a case-study from Maramureş, Romania. Maramureş is formally represented and branded as a traditional region, but its architecture exemplifies that modernization is part of Maramureş as well.