The Anthropologist Inversed Laudatio: for Distinguished Professor Katherine Verdery, City University of New York, Graduate Center, on the Occasion of the Award of the Doctor Honoris Causa Title of Babeş-Bolyai University

Speech Given on the 12th of October 2017 on the Occasion of Being Awarded the Doctor Honoris Causa Title of the Babeş-Bolyai University Cluj-Napoca

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Turnout decline in former communist countries has attracted a great deal of scholarly attention. In this paper, I re-test some of the previous hypotheses on new data and I propose a new hypothesis that considers the impact of external migration. Using multivariate regression models on a dataset of 272 presidential and parliamentary elections held in 30 post-communist countries between 1989 and 2012, I have found strong support for the “migration hypothesis”: other things being equal, an increase of migration rate by 1 percentage point reduces voter turnout by around 0.4 percentage points. Most of the previous hypotheses related to causes of turnout decline are supported too.</abstract>

Explaining Turnout Decline in Post-Communist Countries: The Impact of Migration

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">This paper looks at a set of documents produced in the early 1950s in the Gold Coast to establish land boundaries in a region and to contribute to the crystallization of customary law for future reference and use. The material is placed in a longer historical flow and seen as one of the results of transformations in the metropole, in the colony, and in their relationship over the first decades of the century, and as a significant landmark collection that has been used in land transactions ever since. The analysis pleads for treating the archives in an ethnographic and not just in an extractive manner (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_subbs-2017-0011_ref_019_w2aab3b7b4b1b6b1ab1ac19Aa">Stoler, 2002</xref>, <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_subbs-2017-0011_ref_020_w2aab3b7b4b1b6b1ab1ac20Aa">2009</xref>), suggesting that the making, the form, the authors’ stances and the use of the documents can be useful supplementary tools in making sense of the already heavily edited representations of the past that we have access to. The focus on this particular archival material contributes to the discussions about the pitfalls of basing land management on, as Sally Falk Moore would put it, “customary” law.</abstract>

How Foreign of a Country is the Past? Colonial Archives, Customary Law and Land Transactions in Ghana

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The present article is focusing on hegemonic masculinity represented and expressed by the professional footballers. Based on the empirical study using text analysis of leading articles published in central Romanian sport newspapers I draw the ideal-typical picture of the normative model of Romanian hegemonic masculinity in which the domestic coaches play a determinant role. Their personal-individual and collective-professional features like <italic>determination, steadiness, honesty, pride, mutual respect, knowledge, tenaciousness, sense of vocation, solidarity, spirit of fighting</italic> are the corner points of the constructed Romanian manhood, or hegemonic masculinity during social change. The manliness is traced along the inner characteristic of the coaches but in strong contradiction with the foreign trainers. In this respect I can state that football is connected not only with masculinity but in some respect also with the national characteristics embodied by the Romanian coaches especially those working home.</abstract>

Football and Romanian Masculinity. How it is constructed by the Sport Media?

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The aim of this article is to discuss the character of regularities occurring in informal social bonds, be they friendships, romantic partnerships, competitions or rivalries. Since Simmel’s work is emblematic for the theme of social norms involved in durable informal bonds, I take his original concept of forms of association as my point of reference. The argument I propose challenges several of Simmel’s assumptions, namely his objectivist stance, his formal sociology and the autopoiesis of systems of reciprocal effects. Based on this critical rereading of Simmel, I introduce the concept of “socially constructed typical bonds” as a more dynamic and versatile alternative to the static patterns of forms of association. By bringing a subjectivist turn (inspired by Berger, Luckmann and Butler) to Simmel’s forms of association, I argue for the recognition of the blurry, diverse and contradictory understandings of the typical social bond as the ground for relational normativity.</abstract>

The Dimension of Normativity in Informal Social Relations

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Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai Sociologia

The journal welcomes multidisciplinary and comparative approaches in the fields of sociology, social work, social policies, anthropology, urban and rural studies. Articles that address social issues from Central and Eastern Europe from a global perspective, develop historical comparisons or critical reflections, are particularly appreciated. The core of each thematic issue is composed of research articles with empirical grounding. Methodological discussion papers and book reviews compose distinct sections. A special section entitled Romanian Sociology Today publishes recent research papers relevant for the state-of-art of sociology in Romania.   Why subscribe and read  Studia UBB Sociologia was one of the first Sociology journals in Romania, fully published in English since 2008. The majority of articles are authored by Eastern European scholars who embrace a theoretically informed, empirically grounded, comparative and critical perspective on social changes in the region.  Archiving  Sciendo archives the contents of this journal in Portico - digital long-term preservation service of scholarly books, journals and collections.  Plagiarism Policy  The editorial board is participating in a growing community of Similarity Check System's users in order to ensure that the content published is original and trustworthy. Similarity Check is a medium that allows for comprehensive manuscripts screening, aimed to eliminate plagiarism and provide a high standard and quality peer-review process. 