From “Kinship Gatherings” to “Shopping”: Dynamics of the Relations between the Regions of Petrich, Republic of Bulgaria, and Strumica, Republic of North Macedonia Cover Image

От „роднински срещи“ до „пазаруване“: динамика на взаимоотношенията между граничните региони на Петрич, Р. България, и Струмица, Р. Северна Македония
From “Kinship Gatherings” to “Shopping”: Dynamics of the Relations between the Regions of Petrich, Republic of Bulgaria, and Strumica, Republic of North Macedonia

Author(s): Violeta Periklieva
Subject(s): Anthropology, Social Sciences, Economy, Customs / Folklore, Ethnohistory, Local History / Microhistory, Oral history, Recent History (1900 till today), Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology, Culture and social structure , Family and social welfare, Sociology of Culture, Migration Studies, Globalization, Socio-Economic Research, Identity of Collectives
Published by: Институт за етнология и фолклористика с Етнографски музей при БАН
Keywords: Bulgarian-North Macedonian border; trans-border

Summary/Abstract: The article presents a case study of a particular part of the Bulgarian-North Macedonian border – the border regions of Petrich, Republic of Bulgaria, and Strumica, Republic of North Macedonia. The study is focused on the level of everyday experience. Its aim is to study how in their everyday life and transborder experience the people from the border regions adapt to the changing border regime and do this alter their“traditional” forms of contact. After the setting of a state/political border between the regions of Petrich and Strumica, the people adopt a pragmatic approach to this border and the life in the context of borderness. The pragmatism in the transborder contacts is not a particular form of relations rather one of their features which expends its range and significance in the course of time. The various layers of relations transform into tools for solving pragmatic issues in everyday life in the border regions, i.e. the pragmatisation turns into a peculiar form of adaptation to the border. At the same time, the pragmatic attitude towards the border rearranges to a certain extent the different layers of the traditional relations putting the family, kin, friend and cultural ties aside. Nevertheless, as long as they function as tools for solving pragmatic issues, they remain and revitalize.

  • Issue Year: 2020
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 260-274
  • Page Count: 15
  • Language: Bulgarian