GABRIELA BOANGIU, The Study of Narratives on Property – ‘The Growing Machine’ of Real Estate in Suburban Area. Theories and Methodology

GABRIELA BOANGIU
3rd degree Scientific Researcher Dr., Institute for the Socio-Human Researches „C.S. Nicolaescu-Plopsor”, Craiova, Romanian Academy;
E-mail: boangiu_g@yahoo.com

Abstract
The folkloristic research must integrate the exercise of constant movement between observation and conceptualization, conducting an open dialogue with the field of research and incorporating actively its mobility. Thus, the oral history opens a new research space for folkloristic studies because it gives access to personal interpretation of social events and the discourse on cultural identity is being shaped in this process of constant construction and re-evaluation.
The present paper intends to challenge the exploratory process of oral history as an ‘open’ document, in its double capacity of method and document, of inquiry instrument and archive constituent that can be constantly questioned. Its flexibility must respond to the guiding researcher’s interrogation-hypothesis, thus the status of property and the dynamic of mentalities in a specific context such as the post-socialist Romania may benefit of the use of oral history both as method and document. Questions regarding the use and configuration of folkloric documents are raised by the present study, focusing on innovation in the interpretation and theorizing process, on the use of mixed-methods and on the challenging aspects of folkloric archives as responses to certain interrogations and constant configuration. Some of the aspects that will be investigated are the relation between the juridical norms on property and its practice, the imaginary of property in different folkloric categories and the methods’ shaping and adjustment according to different social Romanian contexts regarding property as central subject.

Keywords
everyday life, post-communist Romania, migration, property, oral history, ethnological document.