The post-socialist school camp: a story of dereliction at Bogda, Romania

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the condition of post-socialist derelict spaces. We discuss the case of a school camp from Bogda, Romania, and thus indicate a category of cases missing from the academic literature. Besides mapping the spatial condition of a derelict post-socialist school camp, we also examine broader political processes that followed the fall of socialism. In doing so, we seek to bridge the gap between the study of derelict and abandoned spaces and the critical perspectives on the neoliberalisation of space. Our case draws attention to the consequences of translating neoliberalism to Eastern European societies, especially on spaces deemed to be economically unproductive and socially obsolete. We have also discovered how a derelict school camp becomes a site where spontaneous and unexpected uses can proliferate. Our aim was to include in the ongoing conversations about the politics of derelict spaces a new category from a less examined geographical area.

KEYWORDS:

• School camps
• derelict spaces
• post-socialism
• neoliberalisation
• politics of space
• Romania

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers and to the editors of Landscape Research for their careful reading of the manuscript and for generously contributing with thoughtful suggestions for improving our paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lucian Vesalon

Lucian Vesalon is Reader in Political Studies at West University of Timișoara, Romania, in the Department of Political Science, where he teaches courses on international development, globalisation and political ideologies. His general research interests are related to political ecology and development studies, with a focus on Eastern Europe. Lucian Vesalon has published articles on environmental movements, protests against industrial development, politics of natural resources and urban development in Romania. Recent work is related to the political ecology of post-socialism.

Ciprian Nițu is a Lecturer at the Political Science Department, West University of Timișoara, Romania. He teaches political theory and international governance. His main research interests are in the area of critical governance and social development.