WHAT IT TAKES TO BECOME A SELF-ENTERPRISING HOUSEHOLD IN THE RHODOPE MOUNTAIN, BULGARIA
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Nov 5, 2019
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Abstract
Part of the transformations in rural Bulgaria after the fall of socialism in 1989 can be described as the implementation of neoliberal policies, shaped by general trends such as shrinking welfare state, the introduction of markets in public and private spheres and the view that self-enterprising individuals are best equipped to live successful lives in such environment. The latter characteristic can be summarized as the crafting of neoliberal personhood. However, studies from postsocialist settings show that such personhood is always rooted in history and social relationships.This article takes this analysis further by training a spotlight on a form of domestication of Bulgaria’s neoliberalization, whereby the household, the home and the family’s energy became, to certain extent, market assets. It draws on ethnographic fieldwork conducted since 2009 in the southern part of the central Rhodope region. It traces the trajectory of a family who tried to establish a family hotel by extending their house, offering in priority their home-grown food to tourists and harnessing the energies of the household members to this end. Their attempt to receive money support from a programme of the European Union failed. As a result, they found themselves heavily indebted and obliged to work as migrants in the United Kingdom. This case study illustrates how the idea of the marketable self and home have met certain local conditions, thus giving birth to a locally cherished ideal of the commercial home and how difficult is to make this ideal come true.
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Tocheva, Detelina. 2019. “WHAT IT TAKES TO BECOME A SELF-ENTERPRISING HOUSEHOLD IN THE RHODOPE MOUNTAIN, BULGARIA”. EthnoAnthropoZoom/ЕтноАнтропоЗум 17 (November), 61-99. https://etno.pmf.ukim.mk/index.php/eaz/article/view/EAZ18170061t.
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Bethmann, Carla. 2013. Clean, Friendly, Profitable”? Tourism and the Tourism Industry in Varna, Bulgaria. Berlin: LIT.
Brunnbauer, Ulf. 2002. ‘Families and Mountains in the Balkans: Christian and Muslim Household Structures in the Rhodopes, 19th-20th Century’. The History of the Family 7 (3): 327–350.
Cellarius, Barbara A. 2000. ’You Can Buy Almost Everything with Potatoes”: An Examination of Barter During Economic Crisis in Bulgaria’. Ethnology 39 (1): 73–92.
Clayer, Nathalie, Xevier Bougarel. 2013. Les musulmans de l’Europe du Sud-Est. Des Empires aux États balkanique. Paris: IISMM – Karthala.
Creed, Gerald W. 1998. Domesticating Revolution: From Socialist Reform to Ambivalent Transition in a Bulgarian Village. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Duijzings, Ger, ed. 2014. Global Villages: Rural and Urban Transformations in Contemporary Bulgaria. London, New York: Anthem Press.
Ganev, Venelin I. 2007. Preying on the State: The Transformation of Bulgaria after 1989. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Ghodsee, Kristen. 2005. The Red Riviera: Gender, Tourism, and Postsocialism on the Black Sea. Durham: Duke University Press.
Gudeman, Stephen, Alberto Rivera. 1990. Conversations in Colombia: The Domestic Economy in Life and Text. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hann, Chris, Keith Hart. 2011. Economic Anthropology: Histоry, Ethnography, Critique. Cambridge: Polity.
Hart, Keith, Jean-Louis Laville, Antonio David Cattani, eds. 2010. The Human Economy: A Citizen’s Guide. Cambridge: Polity.
Harvey, David. 2005. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hatziprokopiou, Panos, Eugenia Markova. 2015. ‘Labour Migration and other Forms of Mobility Between Bulgaria and Greece: The Evolution of a Cross-Border Migration System’. Migration in the Southern Balkans: From Ottoman Territory to Globalized Nation States, edited by Hans Vermeulen, Martin Balwdin-Edwards, Riki van Boeshoten. 183–08. Cham: Springer Open2.
Junghans, Trenholme. 2001. ‘Marketing Selves: Constructing Civil Society and Selfhood in Post-socialist Hungary’. Critique of Anthropology 21 (4): 383–400.
Kaneff, Deema. 2002. ‘The Shame and Pride of Market Activity: Morality, Identity and Trading in Postsocialist Rural Bulgaria’. Markets and Moralities: Ethnographies of Postsocialism, edited by Ruth Mandell, Caroline Humphrey. 33–51. Oxford: Berg.
Kaneff, Deema. 2014. ‘Rural – Urban Relations in a Global Age’. Global Villages: Rural and Urban Transformations in Contemporary Bulgaria, edited by Ger Duijzings. London. 33–51. New York: Anthem Press.
Lynch, Paul A., Alison J. McIntosh, Hazel Tucker, eds. 2009. Commercial Homes in Tourism: An International Perspective. London, New York: Routledge.
Makovicky, Nicolette, ed. 2014. Neoliberalism, Personhood, and Postsocialism: Enterprising Selves in Changing Economies. Farnham, UK: Routledge, Ashgate Publishing.
Ong, Aihwa. 2007. ‘Neoliberalism as Mobile Technology’. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 32 (1): 3–8.
Rose, Nikolas. 1996. Inventing Our Selves: Psychology, Power, and Personhood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Stenning, Alison, Adrian Smith, Alena Rochovská, Dariusz Świątek. 2010. Domsticating Neo-Liberalism: Spaces of Economic Practice and Social Reproduction in Post-Socialist Cities. Oxford: Wiley.
Tocheva, Detelina. 2015a. ‘They Work in a Closed Circle”: Self-Sufficiency in House-Based Rural Tourism in the Rhodope Mountains, Bulgaria’. Oikos and Market: Explorations of Self-Sufficiency after Socialism, edited by Stephen Gudeman, Chris Hann. 137–161. New York: Berghahn Books.
Tocheva, Detelina. 2015b. ‘Kurban: Shifting Economy and the Transformations of a Ritual’. Economy and Ritual: Six Studies of Postsocialist Transformations, edited by Stephen Gudeman, Chris Hann. 107–136. New York: Berghahn Books.
Tocheva, Detelina. Необјавено. Building a House with Unpaid Labour: The Changing Meaning of a Fictitious Commodity.
Umbres, Radu Gabriel. 2014. ‘Building on Trust: Open-ended Contracts and the Duality of Self-interest in Romanian House Construction’. Neoliberalism, Personhood, and Postsocialism: Enterprising Selves in Changing Economies, edited by Nicolette Makovicky. 127–143. Farnham, UK: Routledge, Ashgate Publishing.
Wilk, Richard R. 1997 (1991). Household Ecology: Economic Change and Domestic Life among the Kekchi Maya in Belize. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press.