Социални неравенства в трансформиращото се пространство на един постсоциалистически софийски квартал (случаят Драгалевци)
Social Inequalities in the Changing Space of One Post-socialist Neighbourhood of Sofia (the Case of Dragalevtsi)

Summary/Abstract: The article presents the analysis of part of the empirical information gathered in a study of social inequalities of one post-socialist Sofia neighbourhood. The main aim of the study is to test, on a Bulgarian field, Bourdieu’s theoretical construct regarding the interaction between structures of social space and those of physical space. The challenge for the research team was to establish and understand how social space is objectified in a physical space that is interrupted by closed streets, is broken down and distorted in its scale in the ‘prestigious’ neighbourhood of Dragalevtsi, what the relations are between the inhabitants of the new luxurious houses, the refurbished country houses from socialist times, and the small, tumble-down houses, which serve as a reminder that Dragalevtsi was once a poor village. Are these seemingly drastic social differences experienced dramatically as relations of inequality, to what extent do these experiences generate critical discourse and action for restructuring the established order of differences? The authors understand ‘social inequality’ as a practical discourse by which a given society criticizes itself, hence as one of the key tools of modern society for practical critique and self-critique of the established structures; the authors argue that this is a case of an order of differences that draws its legitimacy from the fact that the people excluded from access to public goods and services voluntarily forgo to use one of the tools of critique and self-critique provided by modern social orders.

• Details
• Contents