Creţan Remus

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• PhD
• Professor at West University of Timişoara

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine souvenir sellers as unconventional micro-entrepreneurs, focusing on non-economic motives for selling. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative methodology was used. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 20 souvenir sellers in the Romanian city of Timişoara. These were analysed using themat...

Geographers have studied memory for decades, but there is currently a renewed interest in places of postmemory: sites to which memories of a past are connected, that engage those who have no living memory of the past in question. By combining a process-tracing approach to several post-communist surveys with in-depth interviews with members of the y...

As a result of historical racism and stigmatization for Roma people, living their lives spatially segregated in extreme poverty, opportunities for individual, vertical social mobility are limited by a myriad of structural factors. In addition to this stark reality, no studies deal specifically with the vertical social mobility of extremely poor, st...

For over three decades the states of East-Central Europe have negotiated the transition from state socialism in a way that reshaped every aspect of politics, economy and society. However, the impacts of post-socialist restructuring on the evolution of tour-ism places have received limited attention. We contribute to this debate by examining how pro...

This is a special issue proposal on spatial development strategies in multi-level systems of political governance.

This paper explores the issue of Romanian women migrants in Western Europe and the drivers of their socioeconomic adaptation in their new countries. We set out to understand what processes facilitate the adaptation of migrant women to Western European societies. Basing our empirical analysis on data gathered through online surveys targeting Romania...

Our research examines a unique case of the complex interplay between two wealthy brothers and their actions of gender-based violence. In presenting the case of the Tate brothers, British influencers who settled in Romania, we explore how they gained notoriety through their wealth, their online presence, and controversial ideas that promote misogyny...

This is a book review on Erin McElroy's 'Silicon Valley Imperialism: Techno Fantasies and Frictions in Postsocialist Times', Duke University Press: Durhamand London, 2024, 280pp., ISBN: 978-1-4780-3021-8.

Urban and peri-urban forests serve as significant drivers, conferring benefits to humans through engagement with their ecosystems. These benefits encompass recreation, cognitive development, introspection, the acquisition of knowledge systems, social relations, and aesthetic values. The aim of this study is to examine the urban and peri-urban ecosy...

In a world increasingly dominated by mass food production and global food chains, the search for sustainable and locally sourced alternatives is crucial. This study investigates the impact of alternative food networks (AFNs) in Romania, focusing on their potential as sustainable counterpoints to the global fast-food economy. Existing global food re...

Recent studies have demonstrated the significance of mental maps in facilitating a more comprehensive understanding of how individuals perceive and mentally represent physical spaces. It is of great importance to consider discrepancies between real and perceived environments when utilising mental maps as instruments. The objective of this paper is...

The post-communist period has strongly impacted the former communist Romania's urban industrial areas. Recent debates regarding urban industrial towns in Central and Eastern Europe reveal that their governance hasbeen prone to neglect and that a lack of jobs has led to depopulation, seasonal migration, and a change in locallabour skills. Drawing on...

Recent studies in rural heritage tourism have highlighted that watermills could stand as an important part of the pre-industrial tourism heritage. We contribute to rural heritage tourism by basing our study on the perceptions of tourists and local officials on the Rudăria Watermills, Romania. Based on survey and interview data, we document the stre...

In contemporary narratives, rural landscapes and identities, as judged by the inhabitants’ sense of belonging, continue to be important points that need to be (re)considered when discussing places as instruments for local development. This paper pushes forward these debates and explores the construction of rural and regional identity in Romania wit...

There has recently been discussion regarding how heritage rural areas are culturally affected by recent urban-to-rural migration. However, little research has been conducted on the form this process takes in post-communist contexts. Taking a geography approach to some Romanian heritage sites, this study foregrounds narratives based on interviews wi...

Although souvenirs have received considerable academic attention, their role and significance for domestic tourists are less researched. This paper focuses on the souvenir-purchasing practices of domestic tourists, and the post-holiday role of their souvenirs. Interviews were undertaken with 49 tourists in Romania at the point of souvenir purchase,...

We contribute to rural heritage tourism by basing our study on perceptions of tourists and local officials on the Rudăria Watermills, Romania. Based on survey and interview data, we document the strengths and limits of local watermills for tourism and describe the entrepreneurial agents involved in path development. Our findings point to the import...

There has recently been discussion regarding how heritage rural areas are culturally affected by recent urban – rural migration. However, little research has been done into the form this process takes in post-communist contexts. Taking a geography approach to some Romanian heritage sites, this study foregrounds narratives based on interviews with l...

The rehabilitation of abandoned mining sites is an increasingly pressing issue in the context of sustainable development. Recent research has emphasized the need for a holistic approach to the abandoned mining sites and their environmental rehabilitation. Based on field analysis, environmental assessments, satellite imagery processing and geographi...

There has been a debate recently on how the population in traditional mining areas of Central and Eastern Europe faces precarity and marginalization. A spatial approach was employed in a Romanian context using available statistical data on a south Carpathian area (i.e., Gorj County). We also conducted surveys and in-depth interviews with residents...

This study explores religious diversity in Romania and how the trends of indices of religious fractionalization and polarization manifest at the county level in a post-communist period. The county level was selected as the relevant level for analysis due to its more clearly visible spatial dynamics with regard to religions. Recent studies have reve...

In contemporary narratives, the rural and regional identities of a place, as judged by its inhabitants’ sense of belonging, continue to be important points that need to be (re)considered when discussing places as instruments for local development. This paper pushes forward these debated and explores the construction of rural and regional identity i...

There has been debate recently on how the population in traditional mining areas of Central and Eastern Europe face precarity and marginalization. A spatial approach was employed in a Romanian context using available statistical data on a south Carpathian area (i.e Gorj County), surveys and in-depth interviews with residents in one of the rural com...

Dear Colleagues, Over the last decades, studies have established that ecosystem services could be applied in both urban areas and peri-urban spaces. However, such studies have mainly included separate visions on the urban and the peri-urban, rarely analyzing them together. Urban and peri-urban landscapes include a diversity of areas with the potent...

The rehabilitation of abandoned mining sites is an increasingly pressing issue in the context of sustainable development. Recent research have emphasized the need for a holistic approach to the abandoned mining sites and their environmental rehabilitation. Based on field analysis, environmental assessments, satellite imagery processing and geograph...

The post-communist period has had a strong impact on Romania's former communist urban industrial areas. Recent debates regarding urban industrial towns in Central and Eastern Europe reveal that their governance has been prone to neglect and that a lack of jobs has led to depopulation, seasonal migration, and a change in local labour skills. Drawing...

his study explores religious diversity in Romania and how the trends of indices of religious fractionalization and polarization manifest at the county level in the post-communist period. The county is selected as the relevant level for analysis due to its spatial confessional dynamics being more clearly visible. Recent studies have revealed that er...

Simple Summary This research focuses on the perception of residents and tourists from the tourist resorts in Prahova Valley, Romania, on human–bear interactions. As a foundation for an integrative analysis of the presence of bears in this space, we used questionnaires, interviews, mass media, and the local toponymy including bear-related names and...

This study is based on a comprehensive bibliographic analysis of existing literature on PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), with a focus on face masks as a primary component. The aim of our research is to highlight the significant environmental impact of increased usage and improper disposal of PPE, leading to plastic pollution. In addition to con...

Sustainable innovation through temporary installations is a more and more visible process in the neoliberal city. Recent literature on sustainable and innovation futures could launch differentsolutions aimed at bringing profit to local administration by promoting natural environment inthe most visible and representative spaces of the city. Our stud...

Construction of the Iron Gates I hydroelectric project on the Danube River between 1966-1972 was the result of collaboration between Romania and Yugoslavia. The scale of the project resulted in the permanent displacement and relocation of several communities along the river. The aim of this article is to consider how vulnerability among the displac...

The COVID‐19 pandemic exposed the persistent problem of gender, class and racial inequality that has been neglected or poorly addressed globally. The effect of the lockdowns and other pandemic restrictions on the home cannot be undermined. Additionally, investigations on the relationship between Roma migrant women, household practices and the COVID...

The issue of intercultural negociation among ethnic minorities in border areas has been widely debated in the social sciences, but the roles played by spatial vicinity and cultural proximity in influencing ethnic membership in borderland areas is still under-researched. This article addresses the role of geographic vicinity among ethnic minorities...

Recent studies have indicated that residents’ perceptions on urban neighbourhoods are a multidimensional indicator that refers to an individual’s perception of their own position in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards and concerns in various social contexts. Our art...

Recent research indicates that there are critical physical, psychological, verbal and economic issues that shape the types of violence to which women are subject. This study analyses how Roma migrant women fall victim to domestic abuse, both in their home country (Romania) and abroad (Spain). Drawing on literature regarding violence against women,...

Recent research indicates that there are critical physical, psychological, verbal and econom- ic issues that shape the types of violence to which women are subject. This study analyses how Roma migrant women fall victim to domestic abuse, both in their home country (Ro- mania) and abroad (Spain). Drawing on literature regarding violence against wom...

This article addresses the uneven territorial growth of the smart city phenomenon and how the national and local spatial politics of urban smart projects work out in practice. While in previous decades the concept of smart city referred mainly to the digital and technological realm as an indicator of the performance of cities, today it is taking on...

Eastern Europe has seen considerable social, economic and political upheaval since 1989. Migration has been an important element of this change, with the removal of restrictions enabling individuals to move in search of opportunities. Resulting patterns of internal migration rest on a longer history of movement, linked to the communist-era pursuit...

- Humanities & Social Sciences Communications: Call for Papers - Toponymy and Toponomastics at the Intersection between Language Contact and Historical Geography - The academic journal "Humanities & Social Sciences Communications", https://www.nature.com/palcomms/, published by Springer Nature, is currently welcoming submissions of original resea...

Scholars have shown a special interest in discovering and studying the role of ethnic diversity and spatiality at the country and region levels. This study contributes to the theoretical debate on the spatial dynamics of ethnicities, with the aim of (1) determining the evolution of ethnic dynamics in post-communist Romania and (2) applying ethnic f...

The issue of otherness in the social construction of ethnicities and rural multiculturalism has long attracted the attention of scholars. By following a postcolonial background, this paper investigates the social construction of Roma as ‘other’ in a multicultural landscape (the Romania-Serbia border) using interviews with participants of different...

Plans to open a globally significant gold mine at Roşia Montană, in the Transylvanian region of Romania, have led to decades of controversy and struggle. This paper explores different understandings of extraction amongst advocates for and opponents of the mine over the last two decades. We discuss the shifting roles of capital, the state, civil soc...

Roma discrimination and stigmatization in Europe are well-documented with urban scholars emphasizing pervasive prejudices and stereotypes alongside negative policy outcomes. However, the focus on Roma marginality has tended to centre on punitive state and urban governance to the neglect of everyday urban relations. This article focuses on the micro...

Many Central and Eastern European countries elected nationalist parties after the collapse of communism: a phenomenon often attributed to a combination of socioeconomic crisis and political instability. In 2010s, after the decay of other nationalist parties, Romania was seen as an exception to this rule, but the Covid-19 pandemic times have witness...

Abstract: Many Central and Eastern European countries elected nationalist parties in the wake of the collapse of communism: a phenomenon often attributed to a combination of socioeconomic crisis and political instability. In 2010s, after the decay of other nationalist parties, Romania was seen as an exception to this rule, but the Covid-19 pandemic...

This is a book review on Andreas Eckert and Felicitas Hentschke's Corona and Work around the Globe, DeGruyter, 2021. It was published in Comparative Southeast European Studies, 69 (2-3), 429-432.

Policymakers are eager to create socially mixed neighbourhoods, even though evidence for the positive impact of social mixing is patchy. In this paper, we examine the relationship between social mixing, social capital, and the lived experience of residents affected by the desegregation of an urban Roma area. Using qualitative data from a participat...

Memorial museums are frequently established within transitional justice projects intended to reckon with recent political violence. They play an important role in enabling young people to understand and remember a period of human rights abuses of which they have no direct experience. This paper examines the impact of a memorial museum in Romania wh...

ABSTRACT: Plans to open a globally significant gold mine at Roşia Montană, in the Transylvanian region of Romania, have led to decades of controversy and struggle. This paper explores different understandings of extraction amongst advocates for and opponents of the mine over the last two decades. We discuss the shifting roles of capital, the state,...

The relationship between tourism and transitional justice is little-researched. This paper explores the importance of domestic tourism for enabling citizens to encounter and engage with wider transitional justice projects. This issue is explored with reference to a memorial museum in Romania which interprets political violence and state repression....

The year 2020 will forever be marred by the global pandemic which spread around the world, locking us in our homes, hiding our faces behind masks and tragically taking hundreds of thousands of lives. As we enter 2021 the death toll continues to rise though the arrival of numerous vaccines has provided a much needed glimmer of hope. However, while a...

Stigmatisation of Roma people has long received attention in the academic literature but the internalisation of stigma among segregated urban Roma has been little researched. By adopting a theoretical perspective on collective identity and (urban Roma) racial stigmatisation, this paper aims to 1) understand the broader nature of urban Roma stigmati...

COVID-19 has played out in Romania in a similar way to that in many other European countries. The government implemented decisive early measures which were able to keep the infection and mortality rates relatively low. This paper considers three distinctive aspects of the situation in Romania. First, the situation was complicated by the influence o...

The fire in the Colectiv nightclub in Bucharest, Romania in October 2015 led to sustained, nationwide protests that forced the resignation of the government. These protests drew on deep-seated feelings of injustice due to rampant corruption among the political elite. The capital city location provided an opening for spontaneous actions to present c...

The fire in the Colectiv nightclub in Bucharest, Romania in October 2015 led to sustained, nationwide protests that forced the resignation of the government. These protests drew on deep-seated feelings of injustice due to rampant corruption among the political elite. The capital city location provided an opening for spontaneous actions to present c...

This special edition examines various aspects of urban tourism in the post-communist cities of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). It begins by examining the nature of tourism restructuring in the region since the end of communism and the way that this unfolds in cities. It then examines major global changes in the nature of tourism and their impacts...

This paper examines the role of education within post-communist transitional justice. It focuses on the ways in which young Romanians negotiate the communist past during an educational visit to a memorial museum. The museum enabled these visitors to better understand the repression of the communist era, had limited impact in changing their attitude...

The post-communist period has seen the rise of far right movements and parties in the states of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), drawing on nativist and ethnic claims to call for a return to an imagined past. In Romania, the group Noua Dreaptă (New Right) has emerged as a key actor in this field, playing on historically negative feelings towards t...

Post-communist Central and Eastern Europe has seen far right movements and parties gain considerable ground by drawing on nativist and ethnic claims to call for a return to an imagined past. In Romania, far right groups have been able to capitalise on a sense of injustice while also playing on historically negative feelings towards the Roma communi...

This paper aims to deepen current understandings of the ways in which historical power differentials and stigmatization shape the injustices faced by urban Roma populations. It argues, firstly that spatial segregation cannot be analytically separated from social and environmental factors that marginalize and disempower this vulnerable community; an...

Recent scholarship in critical toponymy has raised questions about the impacts on urban residents of selling naming rights and about the possibility of contesting the commodification of urban place names. This article examines these issues using Poli Timişoara, the major football team of Timişoara, Romania, as a case study. The cashstrapped local a...

By connecting the literature on urban development processes in post-socialist cities with debates from the area of place branding, this paper critically examines recent narratives of city branding in Timișoara, Romania. The aim is to investigate one specific case in the reproduction and adaptation of global urban development policies and to examine...

Shepherds have a particular place in the history and culture of Romania. For centuries they have had rights to graze their sheep in public pastures and manage their flocks using traditional methods. Changes at the national and European level have threatened this way of life and provoked protest, most recently in December 2015 over plans to limit sh...

Recent research in segregated areas has shown that Romani people are marginalized in Central Eastern Europe and that desegregation has become an important part of the agenda in local development policymaking. This paper aims to push forward this issue and to better understand how Roma living in segregated urban areas relate to the places and commun...

Post-socialist memories recalling the communist past in Central and Eastern Europe have risen to importance in recent decades, but there is still a scarcity of literature dealing with the post-socialist ‘post-memory’. By adapting a social-spatial narrative methodology to memory studies and by promoting the current theories on the spatial politics o...

Many states in post-communist East-Central Europe have established memorial museums which aim to tell the story of suffering under the communist regime. They also seek to encourage visitors to develop empathy for the victims of communist repression. This paper explores the responses of a group of young people to a memorial museum in Romania (Sighet...

Recent research on Roma stigmatisation has tended to focus on the marginal socioeconomic and spatial position of Roma within European societies with poverty, persistent inequalities and sub-standard housing conditions (e.g. ghettoization) emphasised in highlighting their differential treatment. Central to such accounts are group images and stereoty...

This chapter is part of David Turnock's Foreign direct investment and regional development in East Central Europe and the former Soviet Union: a collection of essays in memory of Professor Francis 'Frank' Carter, Ashgate Publishers Limited, Abington, 2005. The book was republished by Routledge in 2017.

This paper proposes a critical discussion of the political economy of hydropower construction in the communist space. We use political economy, economic history and political ecology literature in order to reveal the economic and political relations in which hydropower is embedded in socialist states. The case analysed is the Iron Gates, a joint Ro...

Even more emphasis is set on social capital in understanding, analyzing and planning poverty alleviation measures and policies. However, our understanding of the role of social capital in alleviating extreme poverty, enhancing social mobility and fighting spatial segregation, is still inadequate. Within the present study, we aim to examine and unde...

The cultural politics of attributing names and the popular responses to the naming process of the urban landscape are core issues in “critical toponymies”. In many Romanian cities there are place names which articulate a collective memory agenda in respect to the 1989 Revolution and Timişoara stands at the forefront of streets bearing martyr names....

This paper presents a critical discussion of Romania’s south-west, analyzing the proposal that the Timiş-Cerna Corridor should be systemically considered anisotropic. The aim of our paper is to test the possible anisotropic matrix system by using a methods approach based on interpreting human and material mobilities in the area. We use the theoreti...

The protests against recent proposals for exploring and extracting shale gas in Romania are analysed. Examining the specific demands formulated by protesters, we investigate the articulation of a counter-discourse on the social control of natural resources and on the ecological risks involved in the shale gas industry. At the same time, the protest...

This article discusses a unique case in recent Romanian history of an identity shift from Carasovans to Croats and the complex socio-political context which made it possible. Given their debated ethnic origins, the identity of Carasovans is considered an “ethnic enigma”. The aim of our research is to offer a critical interpretation of the dynamics...

The aim of this study is to provide a perspective on the Romanian place-names in the southern Danubian areas.. The study is based on a collection of works from the interwar period to the present day, mainly those written by the Romanian academician Theodor Capidan. Even though most of his works concentrated on Aromanians and Meglenoromanians, his l...

This study proposes a critical discussion of a recent gold-mining project at Roşia Montană, Romania and of the alternative development solutions for the area. The aim of the research is to examine the socio-economic consequences of the mining project proposed by the multinational company Roşia Montană Gold Corporation and the struggle of the resist...

This study examines the issue of environmental risk involved in a proposed gold-mining project at Roşia Montană, Romania, as it was articulated in the discourses and strategies of the environmentalists protesting against it. We base our paper on the idea that environmental risk has a socially constructed horizon and that counter-discourses on risk...

This paper proposes a critical discussion of the population displacement processes involved in the Roşia Montană gold-mining project within the theoretical framework of development induced displacement (DID). We begin with an overview of the geographical context of the rural community, focusing on the social and economic structure of Roşia Montană....

Air transport has been one of the most dynamic branches of the Romanian economy in recent years. After slow progress in the 1990s when there were many years of negative economic growth, the years of relative prosperity in the run-up to EU accession in 2007 have boosted passenger numbers, along with the availability of economy fares linked with the...

After providing a historical context covering the salient features of the last two centuries which have seen great changes in socioeconomic fortunes and political subordination, this article attempts a conceptualisation on Roma's exclusion which constitutes an important part of the 'poverty problem' accompanying Romania's transition from communism...

Air transport has been one of the most dynamic branches of the Romanian economy in recent years. After slow progress in the 1990s when there were many years of negative economic growth, the years of relative prosperity in the run-up to EU accession in 2007 have boosted passenger numbers, along with the availability of economy fares linked with the...

La minorité tsigane en Roumanie: une étude dans la marginalité. Les études sociales présentent souvent les tsiganes comme un groupe défavorisé avec un niveau de vie relativement faible et accès réduit au système de santé. Les tsiganes en Roumanie n'en représentent pas une exception et cet étude examine la situation du groupe minoritaire, se référan...

Among several groups vulnerable to discrimination in 21st century Europe, Roma loom large because the poorer, traditionally-minded elements continue to resist integration and remain on the margins of society. Most of the people involved have become EU citizens as a result of recent accession by East Central European countries where marginalisation...

It is common for people to maintain an attachment to their native settlement or county but there are also wider regional identities which may not be fully reflected in official administrative hierarchies. The province of Banat was established by the Habsburg authorities on the southeastern edge of the Pannonian Plain as an experiment in mercantilis...

This book is part of a national interest researches as far as place-names dictionaries are concerned. Lately, there have been written important toponymic (V. Frăţilă et all, 1984-1989) and geographic dictionaries (G. Erdeli et all, 1999; M. Ielenicz et all, 1999; P. Urdea, 2003), but this dictionary is the first work which gathers the historical-ge...

Timiş county’s settlements are very interesting as far as their toponymic origin is concerned. There are names belonging to Latin or to other languages (Serbian, Hungarian, German and Romanian). All these show a strong historical background for each settlement. Some names express anthroponyms (Belinţ, Lugoj etc.), others came from hydronym chara...

In 1990 one could notice that it was a strong electoral pulse for the presidential candidate Ion Iliescu, reducing then slowly in favour of the opposition candidate, Constantinescu who won even from 1992 in most of the the fiefs from Banat. The causes of the decreasing in fondness for Iliescu was the high rate of unemployment, a high level of price...

The Danube-Kris-Mures-Tisa (DKMT) Euroregion has its roots back to 1992, when Timiş and Csongrád counties began the first discussions for a cross-border cooperation. Till 1997 the Euroregion needed to develop its institutions for greater effectiveness, so the period 1992-1997 could be considered a background of fruitful public and scientific discus...

This second edition of ’Ethnicities, confessions and electoral options of the Banat population: territorial structures, traditions and the present’ updates the first detailed scientific study of its kind, based on very wide reading combined with material gleaned from both both questionnaires and documents. Historical-geographical evolution of the B...