Powerful Recollections: The Memory of Romanian Rural Socialism as a Fieldwork Journey

How does the memory of socialism emerge through a fieldwork journey? In this book talk Raluca Mateoc, Senior Lecturer at the University of Fribourg, will give an insight into the research processes behind her recently published book "The Memory of Romanian Rural Socialism (1949-1989)". Moving between individual testimonies, archival documents, commemorations, and museums in Romania, her talk will reflect on the researcher’s positionality and on the dialogue between official and vernacular sources. At its center are the sensuous, intimate, and fragile recollections through which the socialist past is given meaning in the present. The materiality of deportation, women’s memories and experiences, and Roma economies are among the themes that arise from these micro-worlds of everyday socialism.

The talk and discussion will be followed by an apéro.