Tuesday, June 25, 2013
2.04 (Binnengasthuis)
The management of new construction and real estate development in the periphery of the European Union has become a key economic and political challenge since the financial crisis of 2008. In the past several years, many have questioned the wisdom of peripheral urbanization as a key growth strategy in under-developed regions of the European Union. This paper uses conflicts over touristic development on the Black Sea coast in Bulgaria to better understand post-socialist urbanization and similar construction booms in Southern European countries. Through in-depth interviews and ethnographic research over two years, this project considers how European identity is managed and debated through conflicts over the best use of coastal lands. Post-1989 land reforms and a boom in the real estate sector have significantly altered Bulgarians’ perception of place and the ways in which they endow landscapes with political meaning. Contestations over construction, urban planning, and environmental impact during Bulgaria’s turbulent transition in the 1990s present a unique means to study how citizens invest aspirations in the changing physical landscape. By examining struggles over the use of space, particularly how activists and developers debate regulation and economic necessity, the project uses real estate and construction as means to better understand peripheral identity and European citizenship.
