Gender, Ethnicity and the Construction of the Social Order: A View from Below in the Context of Romania
Gender, Ethnicity and the Construction of the Social Order: A View from Below in the Context of Romania

Summary/Abstract: This paper aims to understand the construction of the social order at the cross-roads of ethnicity and gender as performed by people in their everyday life. It views identities as subject positions and lived experiences involving social re-lations and cultural representations, but as well as processes of identification, and systems of classification, which organize differences and produce hierar-chies. The empirical analysis is based on a multidisciplinary investigation made in the city of Cluj from Romania in 2000. Statistical data and small nar-ratives reveal the differences and similarities between and within women and men. The paper eventually demonstrates that ethnocracy and patriarchy con-tinue to shape the Romanian social order. They are responsible for the ethnici-zation of inequalities, for favoring the occupants of masculine roles regardless of their ethnicity and eventually for the fact that Romani women suffer most of the shortcomings, which are produced at the crossroads of ethnicity and gen-der.

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