REFLECTIONS ON FATALISM IN THE STREETS OF THE ROMANIAN POST-SOCIALIST CITY. A CASE STUDY OF EROILOR DE LA TISA STREET, TIMIŞOARA
REFLECTIONS ON FATALISM IN THE STREETS OF THE ROMANIAN POST-SOCIALIST CITY. A CASE STUDY OF EROILOR DE LA TISA STREET, TIMIŞOARA

Summary/Abstract: This paper presents reflection and analysis about the ways in which public spaces in contemporary Romanian cities have been evolving, highlighting a concern with the alarming growth in gambling facilities over the last decade. In order to understand the gambling environment, and its implicit discourse, I used participative observation over a span of ten years and interviews with gamblers and their relatives. This qualitative data is analysed through the lens of Mary Douglas’ Cultural Theory, with special accents on fatalist way of life, which characterizes the group of gamblers. Gambling facilities act like codes deciphered by different groups of players, in turn enacting a kind of control upon their social and private lives. In this process, the players become fatalists, who rely on fate or perceived chance, limiting their autonomy and controlling the choices they make. Betting shops and pawn shops replaced the once traditional community shops, promoting the gambling industry, which prospers on the players’ addictive behaviour. Addiction is responsible for criminality in different forms and for substance abuse. With the almost daily exposure to this environmental and social setting, adolescents and youth internalize gambling as part of their social capital and their identity. In the absence of any local policies, the implicit message sent by local authorities to the public is that profit maximization prevails against all odds.

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