Entrevistas realizadas a las personas afrodescendientes

The collapse of the industry in the post-socialist period left thousands of people unemployed. Comparing the number of employees in factories around Brașov, we find that a weapons factory that had 12,000 workers in 1991 (Dabija, 2005) only employed 499 people in 2008 (Bursa 2009). Between 1999 and 2012, the restructuring or closing down of three other large factories specialised in the production of bearings, trucks and tractors left a total of 47,200 people without a workplace (Cojocar 2013). According to statistical data available for Bran, in 1999 there were 920 unemployed people in the commune. In search for alternative sources of income, for a short while soon after 1989, many local women from Bran and Moieciu started knitting jumpers and selling them to non-local merchants who were re-selling them abroad. Unemployment gradually dropped, as the industrial sector was restructured and new independent ventures started to emerge in the area, with logging and tourism being two of the most lucrative sectors.

In 2014 there were only 37 people registered as unemployed in Bran (INS Tempo). According to the local administrations, currently about 35% of the active local population is employed in the manufacturing industry and many of these workers commute to work (Gal Transcarpatica 2013:31). The same source shows that another 30% of the locals work in the services sector while 20% of the workforce is found in agriculture and 15% in the trade sector (Gal Transcarpatica 2013:31). Apart from what is recorded by the official statistics, there are many people who earn an income without being formally employed. Popular unregistered activities Ð apart from tourism - include small trade with dairy products, casual work in restaurants and guesthouses, construction work or scything.

In Albac the dissolution of the communist regime was followed by forest restitution and by an expansion of private timber enterprises (Vasile 2010a). Alongside registered businesses, the informal economy that developed in socialist times has gained momentum. As Vasile found in her fieldwork in Apuseni, wood was often exploited illegally by bribing foresters who were supposed to monitor and limit the cutting of trees, while most of the sawmills functioned without authorisation (Vasile 2010a: 9, 19). In mountain villages such as Bran, Moieciu, or Albac locals own parts of the forest and they are shareholders in a property system called composesorat. In theory, this institution is supposed to represent the collective interests of its members and manage the exploitation of wood, selling the timber and returning the revenue to the villagers. In reality, transactions are often arranged for the benefit of those who are responsible with the administration of the composesorat and the legal owners of the forest have little to gain.

2.5. Farming

Throughout all the political and economic changes, cattle and sheep remained the most constant and reliable resource for the majority of villagers living in Bran, Moieciu or Albac. Animal husbandry has been at the heart of these local economies for a very long time and the way farming is organised has not changed much during the past decades, if not centuries. From June until October, people leave their animals in the care of herders who take them up to the mountains to graze. The cheese is prepared in these mountain sheepfolds and later given to the animal owners. Herders charge a fee for their services and they also get to keep a quota of the dairy. During the summer, people scythe the grass from the hilly meadows surrounding their villages making hay to feed their livestock in the winter. Increasingly over the more recent period, day labourers from

other villages are hired to do the scything. Often this is because people have other work commitments or they are too old for the difficult task of haymaking and their children have migrated from home, no longer being able to help. People also need to pay the shepherds, the veterinarian and the people guarding the sheepfolds, rising the overall costs of farming. This would not be a problem if people had the certainty that they would sell their products. However, because of the growing number of legislative barriers, commercializing dairy and meat is not as easy as it used to be. Products sold in the market must come from a certified farm and for many sheepfolds and cattle-pen the sanitary and veterinary constraints imposed by the European Union are hard to comply with22_{. In remote meadows located high in the mountains, it can be very difficult to have}

electricity and to set up mechanised milking and separate rooms for various stages of milk processing. Even for most village households this is a daunting and costly task. The alternative to local production would be to have the raw milk collected and processed in a factory. However, the few schemes that existed in the past proved unprofitable and largely disappeared. The price of milk produced in industrial farms was no match for the high costs and time consumed to collect milk by travelling long distances on winding roads, some of which were unpaved and dotted with potholes. Competition is also a problem. After Romania joined the European Union, an increasing number of foreign companies entered the market, absorbing smaller, locally owned enterprises and turning to cheaper sources of dairy from large factories in other countries. Milk is now imported from Hungarian or Dutch farms instead of being collected from local producers, leaving villagers to use their surplus of high-quality organic products as food for pigs. Wool too is no longer on demand and accounts circulate of shepherds abandoning large quantities of it in the forest or burning it as a waste product. Under these circumstances, many argue that the profit made from farming does not justify all their hard labour and expenses.

This is the trouble, you send them [cows] to the mountain, they stay in the cold, in the rain, they measure the milk on Saint PeterÕs Day and about three nipples go to the herder, and one they leave for you23 _{[É] If you give [the cow] with 15}

kg [able to give 15 litres of milk]É they say it [only] had 5 kg [É] they cheat.

22 _{In 2014, 39% of sheepfolds in one of the most farming-intensive districts of Romania did not have a}

sanitary and veterinary certificate (Autoritatea Națională Sanitară Veterinară și pentru Siguranța Alimentelor 2014).

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At the end of June, on St. PeterÕs day, herders measure the milk given by each cow. Based on this, they calculate how much cheese they need to give to the animal owners when they bring the herds back to the village. Saying that Ôthree nipples go to the herderÕ means that they keep 3/4 of the produce.

Then you pay for mating [the cows] one million [RON], you pay for the bladders and then you add the guarding five million [RON]. You donÕt get [enough] cheese in return to [sell] and recover the money. [É] You calculate, how much cheese you need to get in order to recover the money you invest in the cow. With what you pay for scything and for gathering the hayÉ [in the end] the cow is a ÔladyÕ (cucoană) and you are the cowÕs servant (Viorica Panciu, local from Moieciu who has three cows).

Since 2007 when Romania joined the EU, villagers have been receiving small government grants according to the number of animals and the surface of land that they have. Many argue that if it was not for these funds, they would keep fewer animals, or even none at all. Without adequate policies to help producers sell their goods, these subsidies contribute little to the long-term sustainability of local farms. Faced with more lucrative opportunities, villagers have started to direct some of their time and resources elsewhere. With farming becoming less profitable and with younger generations migrating to the city, land in Bran and Moieciu lost some of its role in the survival and reproduction of households. In parallel to this, a growing interest from urbanites in building holiday houses and accommodation businesses in the region triggered an increase in land prices. Although at first people were reluctant to sell, gradually the perspective of quick financial gain silenced the old conservative discourse regarding the inalienability of family plots. As prices went as high as 150 € m², many locals sold some of their properties, investing the profit into accommodation businesses24_.

Meanwhile, in Albac the inflow of urbanites was modest, prices stayed low and locals remained reluctant to sell their properties.

Although in Bran and Moieciu I heard worries being voiced over the fact that villagers sold their land and their animals, I never actually came across households that were struggling on this account and I am inclined to take these concerns as a way in which locals express their attachment to the land and to farming as part of their local identity. Indeed, people seem more connected to their identity as farmers, than to any other.

Always in our area the main occupation was animal husbandry, the area was not collectivisedÉ the love for the animalsÉ it is hard workÉ life is harsherÉ

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but people worked, they didnÕt give up and they kept their households. Look, for instance, in Moieciu de Sus many sold their lands (Ana Popa, pensiune owner, Bran).

ÔSince always, everybody here was with the animalsÕ (Dora Mihăilă, pensiune owner, Moieciu).

If you sold [land], what will you give to the children? (Elena Vasile, pensiune owner, Moieciu)

Now in Moieciu they sold, if tourism stops working, they have nothing to live from (Rodica Ilie, pensiune owner, Bran).

Undoubtedly, land and animals are still part of the economic base of these mountain villages. According to Gudeman, the base represents resources that are linked to a groupÕs identity and to the reproduction of the community. Along material resources, the base includes skills, knowledge, practices and values (Gudeman 2005:98). For a household, the economic base can be seen as the means of production (Gudeman 1990:60) necessary for its survival and reproduction. Parts of the base may be used on the market, but the base itself cannot be alienated in its entirety. This is because

often, the base has central symbols, ÔsacraÕ, that signify its power and continuance. Above all, persons in a community are connected to one another through and in relation to the base that lends them an identityÕ (Gudeman 2005:98).

Urbanites who moved to Bran and Moieciu comment about the strong normative element involved in animal husbandry and they suggest that locals keep their animals not because it is profitable, but because it would be shameful to give them up. Villagers in other parts of Romania have also been described as keeping up labour intensive practices that are rendering almost no material gain, only to safeguard their image as gospodari Ð good householders (Mihăilescu 2000:10). Returning to Bran and Moieciu, a number of anecdotes come to illustrate how far locals go in expressing their strong sense of ownership and attachment to the land. I heard the first story from a foreigner who settled in Moieciu and married a local woman. Wanting to park his car in front of

the gate instead of driving it onto the lawn, the Frenchman had moved his fence a couple of meters towards the inside of the yard. Since his garden was quite big, this posed no problem at all and the ÔlostÕ space seemed negligible. Not, however, according to several of his well-intended neighbours who came to warn him that he is losing land. Another frequent advice he received from the locals was to build something new and big, instead of keeping the old small house. Similar to the first story, a couple of urbanites who moved in the area and opened a guesthouse sought to solve the problem of their very narrow access road by moving the fence with half a meter inward. The plan had to be abandoned, as there was no way of convincing their neighbours to do the same. Even more, each time the fence needed repair after being knocked down by heavy snow, locals were said to actually have a tendency to move it a little bit outwards, gradually incorporating the sides of the road and making it narrower. Perhaps the most surprising is the story of a biologist who was doing research for her PhD and needed to collect flora growing in a villagerÕs meadow from a surface of exactly one square meter. When politely asking for permission from the owner of the land to cut and take the plants, to her dismay, he refused to allow her. Seeing how much locals value their land, it may seem surprising that so many of them agreed to sell. However, most only parted with small surfaces that were contributing little to their farming. For feeding either one cow or five sheep, the surface needed is one hectare, while for a house with a small garden, about 0.2 hectares are enough. If we imagine villagers had a choice between having the material base for raising one sheep, and earning 25,000 € to 300,000 €, land sales seem very sensible decisions. Moreover, in-migrant buyers were interested in land in the valley, closer to the main road, while locals preferred to hold on to their allotments up on the mountain, which are more suitable for haymaking and for keeping animals. For the new urban owners, land was only a base and the location became more relevant than the biological qualities of the soil.

Looking at regional statistics there is little evidence that farming gave way in the face of tourism. The data shows that at least between 1996-2003, animal numbers in Bran did not fluctuate much, staying just a little above 20,000 for sheep and 2,500 for cattle (Bran City Hall 2008:3). Later, in 2010, another source published by the Brașov district council shows that in Bran there were 2,157 cattle and 20,050 sheep, suggesting a small drop in cattle numbers (Brașov Town Hall 2010). A slight decrease in cattle numbers was also registered in Moieciu, but it was paralleled with a growth in the number of sheep. If in 1994 official statistics registered 2,121 cattle and 11,141 sheep (General Urban Plan Moieciu 1999), in 2010 the numbers changed to 1,512 cattle and

14,520 sheep (Brașov Town Hall 2010). These fluctuations may be related more to the growing difficulties faced by people in selling their products, and less to a direct impact of tourism. In fact, tourism is more likely to encourage farming. As the opportunities to sell farm products diminished, people needed alternatives and tourists were a welcomed group of buyers. Pensiuni that offer full board or have a restaurant open to the public actually intensified their farming. Even owners of smaller guesthouses or those who are not providing accommodation can benefit as they sell some of their surplus to the larger businesses or directly to tourists.

While homes were the target of constant investment and improvement, farming facilities and techniques saw little change. In the winter, the animals and the hay are kept up on the hills in stables called odăi, some of which can be located as far as one hour away from villagersÕ homes. People go there every day to feed their animals and since there is usually no water source around, they climb the steep slopes carrying heavy canisters of water. They also collect the manure from their cattle and sheep and invest a lot of work into spreading it across their pastures in order to fertilise them. Although I noticed a case where someone had build a trolley to help carry things up and down, others did not imitate this model. Villagers were not very interested in the technological improvement of their farming activities. Indeed, investment in the equipment and certification of micro-farms was very rare. I believe that turning farming into a profitable business, able to sustain an entire household, is in fact more challenging and demanding than combining different activities, including tourism. I met one family that after too many encounters with problematic tourists25 _{decided to give up}

tourism and concentrate their efforts on making and selling dairy products. This business was more labour intensive than catering for tourists and it involved the husband and wife spending a long time away from home. The man was running a sheepfold in the vicinity of Moieciu and he spent most of the day there, while the woman had to process the diary at home and commute to town to sell the products.