DIFFERENCES IN THE ATTACHMENT TO AGRICULTURAL LAND PROPERTIES BETWEEN FORMER COLLECTIVIZED AND NON-COLLECTIVIZED COMMUNITIES IN ROMANIA

• Main Authors: Maria ARDELEANU, Birgit ELANDS, Rosalie VAN DAM
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, Bucharest 2012-01-01
• Series: Scientific Papers Series : Management, Economic Engineering in Agriculture and Rural Development
• Subjects: collectivisation; agricultural land properties; place attachment; NE Region; Romania
• Online Access: http://managementjournal.usamv.ro/pdf/vol.XII/art25.pdf

Physical, structural and social transformations during the period of collectivisation in Romania call for the need of understanding how these transformations have affected people’s attachment to their agricultural land properties (ALP). By studying the functional and emotional attachments of a former collectivized and a non-collectivized community, this paper addresses how people in the two communities nowadays are attached to the ALP’s and, if there are differences, to what extend these differences are related to the former collectivisation process It has been found that people in both communities are attached to the land both functionally, through social and economic benefits, and emotionally through various feelings such as feelings of identity, passion and indifference, but to a different extent. As a final conclusion, in the former collectivized rural areas, people are less attached to the agricultural land properties compared with the people in the non-collectivized rural areas and these differences can be linked to the transformations triggered by the former collectivisation process.