What Anthropology for which Society?
The “anthropological” disciplines of ethnography and folklore have historically been seen in Romania as being part of the “national ethnologies,” and even as “national sciences” in the service of the nation. In keeping with this view, it was the Peasant rather than the Primitive that was the subject of study. With the exception of a brief internationalist period, this approach was never called into question by the communist regime, which was content to take advantage of it. Nor was it subjected to critical analysis after the fall of communism, simply being incorporated into a “long-term view” that is an issue in itself. For all intents and purposes, anthropology arrived in Romania with the fall of communism, spreading the good word of a noble Western discipline that was unsullied by local nationalism and communism and that had no intention of becoming mixed up with these somewhat undesirable academic practices. Folklorists and anthropologists, who initially kept their distance from each other, eventually became entirely focused on their separate fields, the end result being an almost complete rupture in communication. Knowledge about “real Romanian society” was likewise fractured, and came to serve as a tool in power struggles. This article looks at the future possibilities for the discipline (disciplines?) and its relationship with Romanian society in a context where the national ethnology seems to have reached its end, where European integration has legislated the “death of the Peasant,” and where the Western discipline of anthropology has not yet been able to adopt a clear position on these two not-yet-entirely-accepted deaths.