Project 1: The Role of Urban Kinship Networks in Bulgaria
Third Party Funding: Volkswagen Foundation 2003-2006
I am currently working on a 3 year project funded by the Volkswagen Foundation which is titled: Political, Economic and Social Inclusion and Exclusion in Poland and Bulgaria. The comparative project focuses on the role of kinship networks in marginalising people from, or providing them with access to, economic and political resources. The research is being carried out with Frances Pine and 2 PhD students: Zlatina Bogdanova and Nastka Pilichowska (see background project description below).
The Bulgarian part of the research will be carried out in the province of Plovdiv in both a rural and urban site. I will be conducting the urban part of the Bulgarian research in the provincial capital of Plovdiv , located in the southern-central region of the country. It is the second largest city in Bulgaria with a population of just under 400 000. Plovdiv seems to be a particularly appropriate site for researching the role of kinship practices in terms of economic and political inclusion and exclusion, for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is a transportation hub, located on the main corridor between Turkey and western Europe. The city also connects southern Bulgaria with the other major cities in the country. Thus Plovdiv is particularly suited to exploring issues relating to migration and kinship. I will focus on how important kinship is in determining migration patterns and in providing networks for new settlers to the city from the surrounding villages, or for city inhabitants who decide to migrate to another country in search of employment and economic security. Secondly, Plovdiv is also an economic and commercial centre (hosting an International Trade Fair twice a year). The city’s major industries include: breweries and textile manufacturing. It has also a growing tourist industry which was boosted by the city’s status as the cultural capital of Europe in 1999. The city is thus a trade centre making it especially interesting when looking at the role of kinship networks in economic and commercial practices: are kinship networks important in gaining local urban trading advantages? More specifically, Plovdiv is the chief market for a fertile agricultural region and its major industry is food processing. There is, therefore, an economic and social dependency between the provincial capital and the surrounding rural area that needs to be examined. I expect that many of the connections between Plovdiv and the rural villages are associated with this industry and played out through kinship and friendship networks. Finally, as an administrative provincial capital, Plovdiv remains a local power base. The role of kinship in terms of participation in and exclusion from civil society organisations and even in local politics is also a topic for investigation.
As with the rest of Bulgaria , 1989 reforms in Plovdiv have led to economic decline; the city suffers from high levels of unemployment and poverty. The study of kinship networks (in providing access to or exclusion from economic and political resources) is thus pertinent in understanding some of the fundamental and practical problems of everyday life, and how these problems are addressed, in postsocialist Bulgaria .
Project I: The Role of Urban Kinship Networks in Bulgaria
Background to project
Postsocialist reforms, initiated some 14 years ago across eastern Europe, have had a mixed degree of success, with considerable variation evident both between countries and between different regions of each country. Some states, such as Bulgaria and Romania , have fared much worse than others. But even in Poland , Hungary and the Czech Republic , the reforms have not been a resounding success. Serious social and economic problems throughout the region have led to widespread disillusionment and nostalgia for what is remembered as the more secure times of the socialist past.
This project seeks to identify and analyse some of the underlying causes of failure of postsocialist reforms in Bulgaria and Poland . It is well known that the two countries implemented the socialist project in quite different ways. Bulgaria was generally regarded as economically more successful and politically more stable than Poland . Since 1989 this situation has been reversed. At present, Bulgaria occupies a more marginal position in relation to Western Europe ; indeed Poland was regarded as more integrated into Europe even before its EU accession. However, both countries share serious socio-economic problems resulting from rising unemployment, increasing poverty, the erosion of social and public services and decline of key state institutions.
The project is concerned with local responses to the national restructuring processes. The research focuses on ways in which people are able to integrate successfully with, or are marginalised from, core social, economic, political and cultural institutions. Particular emphasis is placed on understanding the processes by which access to resources in these domains is determined. In this context, we highlight the importance of kinship practices and relationships in coping with everyday life and periodic crises. For instance, kinship ties may be used to consolidate and protect scarce resources, in part through a tightening and restricting of the circle of kin. On the other hand, kinship may also be a critical factor in gaining access to resources in a context of increasing impoverishment, thus expanding and extending the network. At the beginning of the 21st century and in the light of EU expansion, the long-term effects of political and economic uncertainties, and the coping mechanisms that ordinary people develop to counter them in the lived world, are of utmost concern everywhere in Europe .
Fieldwork is presently being carried out in each country in two sites: a village and an urban centre. Activities across the fieldsites have been carefully coordinated to maximise the scope for comparison and ultimately to develop analytical models for dealing with societies undergoing economic and political reform.
The detailed qualitative analysis provided by this project will help to bridge the gaps which so often exist between policy planning at the national or international level, and policy implementation at the local level. The research therefore has considerable practical relevance.