Available via license: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Content may be subject to copyright.
HorákoVá boscoboinik sMiTH, r. (eds�) (2018) Utopia and
Neoliberalism: Ethnographies of Rural Spaces, Berlin: Lit-Verlag
th conference of
the held in Zagreb in June
Utopias, Realities, Heritages: Ethnographies for the 21st
based on imaginary notions of rurality on the one hand, and neoliberal
policies of a structural nature on the other�
In the opening and closing chapters, Hana Horakova and Andrea
Boscoboinik discuss the volume’s general theme and thus provide the
and gives them a reciprocal coherence that is perhaps not immediately
be conceived in geographical terms, i�e� as an objective reality in contrast
as a social representation, i�e� as a reality resulting from the collective
Arxiu d’Etnograa de Catalunya, n.º 18, 2018
Ressenyes
various groups that make up this neo-rurality�
In her introduction, Hana Horáková also includes further theoretically
current political success throughout Europe of populist, sovereigntist,
secessionist and separatist parties, movements and governments�
dystopia� Andrea Boscoboinik underscores that utopian representations
of the contributions analyze social realities in the Mediterranean and
southeastern Europe (Catalonia, Sardinia, Romania, Macedonia and
Arxiu d’Etnograa de Catalunya, n.º 18, 2018
Ressenyes
in the Pyrenean mountain range, is the volume’s pièce de résistance� Yet
this apparent arbitrariness or randomness cannot be ascribed to either
seek to preserve their traditional animal welfare practices in opposition
incorporate the neoliberal development strategies introduced by the
rural utopia�
In the second chapter, Montserrat Soronellas-Masdeu and Gemma
Casal-Fité analyze the practices of another rural utopia that aims
agroecological and is particularly strong in the Catalan Pyrenees� Its aim
food production because the advocates of this agroecological utopia also
concerning Pyrenean Catalonia, namely capitalization processes in the
the capitalization of tradition present a semantic contradiction because
Arxiu d’Etnograa de Catalunya, n.º 18, 2018
Ressenyes
regarded as negative and should be stigmatized� In short, tradition and
policies�
In the fourth chapter, Viviane Cretton cogently presents the rural ideal
past this rural mountain area has been represented as dreadful if not
and analyzes the unusual and particularly interesting phenomenon of
areas� As the author aptly highlights, these social practices are hardly
solastalgia, i�e�
Yugoslavia�
Arxiu d’Etnograa de Catalunya, n.º 18, 2018
Ressenyes
the current situation in a marginal and peripheral area of present-day
dominated by a nostalgic vision of a peaceful rural past on the one hand,
Yugoslavia�
In the eighth chapter, Vintila Mihailescu and Virginia Dumineca deal
these agro-pastoral societies have had to open up their farms and homes
important counterpoint to the other contributions because the author
presents her ethnographic research carried out in highly socially and
conceptions of rurality, i�e� that of the Han majority and that of the
members of a rather marginal and marginalized ethnic minority� Despite
the book’s overall structure because its theme is linked to that of other
contributions (such as those by Viviane Cretton and Karolina Bielenin-
Arxiu d’Etnograa de Catalunya, n.º 18, 2018
Ressenyes
thoroughly enough as a secondary issue�
presentism� Aside from some brief references in Hana Horakova’s
phenomena and processes presented and, rightly or not, ascribed to the
Greco-Roman pastoral poetry these utopias/dystopias have been a literary
constant and, in some instances, have actually been practiced in real life�
by Henry
civilization and syphilization
of pure Aryan Germans� Both of these ideologically opposed attempts
in tragic collective suicide in 1978�
Returning to more recent phenomena regarding attempts to escape
entkommen by Ina-Maria Greverus and Erika Haindl published in 1983�
from the philosopher Ernst Bloch, highlighted the close connection
Arxiu d’Etnograa de Catalunya, n.º 18, 2018
Ressenyes
I therefore believe that Utopia and Neoliberalism: Ethnographies of Rural
Spaces
to the outstanding and encyclopedic book by Ernst