DEUX MARCHÉS, DEUX VILLES : ALTÉRITÉ ET VIVRE ENSEMBLE FRAGILE EN BULGARIE POST-SOCIALISTE
TWO MARKETS, TWO CITIES: ALTERITY AND THE FRAGILE COEXISTENCE IN POST-SOCIALIST BULGARIA
Author(s): Velislava PetrovaSubject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Politics, History, Anthropology, Social Sciences, Sociology, Local History / Microhistory, Recent History (1900 till today), Rural and urban sociology, Post-War period (1950 - 1989), Transformation Period (1990 - 2010), Present Times (2010 - today), Post-Communist Transformation, Ethnic Minorities Studies, Sociology of Politics, Politics of History/Memory, Politics and Identity, Identity of Collectives
Published by: Институт за балканистика с Център по тракология - Българска академия на науките
Keywords: open-air markets; post-socialism; alterity; urban anthropology; Bulgaria;
Summary/Abstract: Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2005 and 2009 at two open-air markets in post-socialist Bulgaria: the flea market in Sofia and the Nedelen Pazar in Dimitrovgrad; this article analyses how markets produce fragile forms of living-together through symbolic, moral, and ethnicized hierarchies. The markets are approached as liminal spaces where social bonds, symbolic boundaries, and urban imaginaries of the post-socialist transition are simultaneously reconfigured. The article shows how alterity becomes a structuring principle of market relations and a mechanism for the displacement of stigma in contexts of social downgrading. The comparison between Sofia and Dimitrovgrad reveals twodistinct configurations of urban marginality, while highlighting the central role of the market in the material and symbolic reconfiguration of the post-socialist city.
Journal: Études balkaniques
- Issue Year: 2026
- Issue No: 3
- Page Range: 542-562
- Page Count: 21
- Language: French
- Content File-PDF
