Economy Meets Tradition. Construction and Use of Cultural Heritage within Economic Context Cover Image
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Икономиката среща традицията. Конструиране и употреба на културно наследство в стопански контекст
Economy Meets Tradition. Construction and Use of Cultural Heritage within Economic Context

Author(s): Ivanka Petrova
Subject(s): Anthropology, Social Sciences, Economy, Cultural history, Micro-Economics, Agriculture, Economic history, Economic policy, Culture and social structure , Human Ecology, Economic development, Marketing / Advertising
Published by: Институт за етнология и фолклористика с Етнографски музей при БАН
Keywords: cultural valualtion; narrative strategies; bread; master bakers; Crafts Fair

Summary/Abstract: The global consumption tendency leading to the increase of the share of natural and organic products could be illustrated by the growing internal attitudes and demands in Bulgaria for handmade bread prepared in small bakeries. The owners of such bakeries claim that in the course of their work and through their results they endeavor at filling a particular market niche – for healthy and environment-friendly nutrition. While focusing on the use of raw materials of the highest quality in the production of bread, they also apply cultural techniques to construct the image of bread as cultural value inherited from the past and conceptualize the technologies and ways of production as social actions signifying ‘return to traditions’. Thus the entrepreneurs stage the production and supply of a product with enormous symbol value exceeding its market price or even disproportionate to it and engage themselves in the production of cultural heritage. Of course, parallel to that the cultural valuation of hand-made bread also aims at its economizing. The text presents the narrative strategies of several bakers owning small bakeries in Bulgaria, who represent the process of production of hand-made bread by investing it with the characteristics of cultural heritage. The author analyses these strategies alongside with the examining of the self-representation of the members of Bulgarian Guild of Bakers branch organization during their participation in the Spring Fair of Crafts in Plovdiv between 23 and 26 April 2015.

  • Issue Year: XLIII/2017
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 231-246
  • Page Count: 16
  • Language: Bulgarian