A SPIRITUAL AMUSEMENT VILLAGE: MANUFACTURING DIFFERENCE IN THE WALLACHIAN COUNTRYSIDE
A SPIRITUAL AMUSEMENT VILLAGE: MANUFACTURING DIFFERENCE IN THE WALLACHIAN COUNTRYSIDE

Summary/Abstract: This paper presents an enthnographic snapshot of the religious field in the Wallachian countryside at the turn of the millennium. It examines how three local groups, Romanian villagers, Orthodox nuns and Rudari villagers made use of fields of social action newly opened by the collapse of socialism, such as democratic politics and religious devotion, to gain access to power and economic resources during a period characterised by accelerated social differentiation. It is argued that issues of morality and social justice, economic interests and cosmic concerns became inextricably interwoven as rights and entitlements were claimed and contested on the basis of both historical ‘evidence’ and religious notions and practices, with the latter often being used to offset the unreliability of the former. As the three groups grew apart under the new economic and political conditions, the interplay of memory and amnesia, interwoven official and alternative local histories and a newly found Orthodox religiosity became the tools of choice for articulating difference.

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