Formalizing commons, registering rights: The making of the forest and pasture commons in the Romanian Carpathians from the 19th century to post-socialism

Formalization of property rights is usually understood as process that empowers communities and right holders, but does formalization really reach intended results? The recognition of rights to the commons that occurred in the Carpathian Mountains since the 19th century has proved to be vital to their restitution and continued existence. However, in the course of history, the processes of formalization produced negative consequences, shrunk the peasant entitlements to the commons, fueled conflicts, cemented existing inequalities and favored opportunistic behavior. This essay examines two waves of formalization of rights to the commons in the Carpathians: 1) the modern delineation and recognition of commons, and the division of shares in the commons – first in the region of Transylvania, under the Austro-Hungarian rule after 1848 and second in the region of Wallachia, under the Romanian Principalities; and 2) in 2000s, the post-socialist restitution of the commons to groups of former owners. It shows how in Transylvania, the division of shares was based on former feudal class relations and in Wallachia on segmentary lineage techniques, and the impact on the contemporary commons. The focus is on past and present politics of quantification embedded in property formalization, as enacted by social actors and material devices, such as official and unofficial registers and lists. The findings are based on primary and secondary historical sources, ethnographic fieldwork and surveys conducted over the past two years.

Abstract licence: CC BY

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