Metamorphoses of Territory

Abstract

This paper, based on field research in Bulgaria, presents the reshaping of the national territory under the influence of the application for EU accession. The traditional North–South coordinates of modern/oriental are turned upside down and what used to be seen as the backward part of the country is now the vanguard of liberal, trade-centred capitalism. The century long battle between the national centre and the countryside has been fuelled by European projects and money used by the centre to reconstruct the nation state, but also by the periphery to acquire independence from the capital. After half a century of communist efforts to establish absolute control, the territory is honeycombed by traffic and increased human mobility, some denounced as illegal, others celebrated as an expression of new global forms of citizenship. These developments may add to our understanding of the paradoxes of the new multiperspective European space.

Keywords:

• Bulgaria
• Eastern Europe
• European enlargement
• mental maps
• transition
• national territory