Parallel Lives: An Empirical Exploration of the Concept of Generation

This book explores the articulation between macro-social historical transformations and the opportunities and constraints that the resultant political and property regimes presented for villagers. It builds on ethnographic analyses of rural Eastern Europe by adding an historical analysis of the configurations and reconfigurations of life trajectories across three successive generations. The villagers studied lived a succession of property and political configurations: democratic and authoritarian regimes grounded in free market and private property until 1947, a totalitarian regime of state-socialism until 1989, and a liberal democracy re-building a free market economy from 1990 until today. It also brings forward an empirical exploration of the concept of generation, grounded on a re-reading of Karl Mannheim. The book is distinctive in its historical breath, covering a century via a detailed, rich ethnographic study, that includes a diversity of social positions (from the richest members of the community to those of very poor means) and a diversity of three ethnicities and religions.

Calin Goina is Associate Professor in the Sociology and Social Work department of Babes-Bolayi University, Romania. He holds a BA in Sociology from the University of Timisoara, Romania, an MA in Political Science from the Central European University, Budapest, Hungary and a PhD in Sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles. His work combines ethnographic work with an interest in historical sociology with publications on the politics of memory and commemoration (Goina 2015, 2018), on social history during the ’short’ XXth century (Goina 2009; Goina 2009b), as well as on the performative dimensions of 2011 Romania’s protest movements, as a participant-cum-researcher (Goina 2012).