An Ethnography of Disappearing Forests. On Power, Politics, and Scapegoats in a Village of Argeș County, Romania - Ștefan Dorondel

This piece looks at how Romania’s forests were destroyed by illegal logging after the Revolution of 1989. Based on my book Disrupted Landscapes. State, Peasants and the Politics of Land in Postsocialist Romania (2016)*, this piece sheds light on the actors involved in illegal logging activities, the political and economic mechanisms at work, and the devastating effects on the forests.Rudari, a traditionally poor, marginal minority population that is becoming increasingly so in the postsocialist context, take on the role of scapegoats for large-scale logging done by Romanians. The majority Romanian population—the owners of the disappearing forests—fail to acknowledge that the true economic beneficiaries of deforestation are the local bureaucrats and politicians. The piece draws on extensive research in the village of Dragomirești, Argeș County (the names of the village and the interlocutors quoted were changed to ensure their protection), from 2014 to 2016—over twelve months of fieldwork in total—and a research methodology that combines ethnography, archival research, and satellite imagery. * Ștefan Dorondel, Disrupted Landscapes. State, Peasants and the Politics of Land in Postsocialist Romania, Oxford and New York, Berghahn, 2016Read by actor Daniel Popa , with an illustration by Kadna Andahttps://theanthro.art/an-ethnography-of-disappearing-forests/