Hedonic hybridization: suburbanized ruralities in Romania and Switzerland
Hedonic hybridization: suburbanized ruralities in Romania and Switzerland

Summary/Abstract: The process of suburbanization of formerly rural villages is common to many places in developed and developing countries. This paper, in an attempt to overcome methodological nationalism, explores whether common patterns can be found between rural suburbanization in Romanian and a Swiss case study regions. Interviews with several key persons in the Gilau and the Vorderthal regions and the analysis of some sequences by objective hermeneutics reveal the patterns of what we call hedonic hybridization. A wide variety of different social realities assemble and merge in suburbanized ruralities, more often co-existing rather than creating commonalities. This process is strongly driven by individual utility maximization. It is therefore suggested that hedonic hybridization is a general phenomenon of our society but can be found in suburbanized ruralities in a very strong form.

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