Gabriela Nicolescu
Biographic Data
| ID | 169254 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Gabriela Nicolescu |
| GIVEN NAMES | Gabriela |
| FAMILY NAME | Nicolescu |
| SIGNATURE | NICOLESCU G |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Oxford |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5342-9156 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 9 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 8 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 9 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Waste Management in Post-Socialist Bucharest from the Flat to the Rubbish Truck
Socialist fragments East and West: Towards a comparative anthropology of global (post-)socialism
This article initiates a comparative anthropological analysis of the legacies and endurances of socialism in two different European contexts. It draws on ethnographic and historical material relating to the UK and Romania, 40 years after the first efforts to privatize central elements of the welfare state in the UK and 30 years after the collapse of state socialism in central and eastern Europe. Rather than restricting our analysis to the 'East' …
Introduction. Visual Ethics after Communism
This special issue problematizes the often-uncritical use of images in publications and displays about communism. It poses a number of questions for anthropologists, historians, museologists and others: when does an image or a museum display present itself as problematic and for whom? Under what circumstances is it ethically justifiable to exhibit or publish such images or, conversely, to put images aside, leaving them undisplayed? When do argume…
The Hand at Work or How the KGB File Leaks in the Exhibition
The article tells the story of the use and perception of images of violence from an unusual trial against a group of believers, arrested in 1952 in Ukraine. Visitors to an exhibition held in 2019 at the Museum of Art in Cluj-Napoca were invited to look at two sets of photographs: originals and spruced-up copies coming from a recently opened criminal file retrieved from the SBU (former KGB) archive in Kiev. Through the reconstruction of the story …
Keeping the Elderly Alive: Global Entanglements and Embodied Practices in Long-Term Care in Southeast Italy
This article explores the success of the 'migrant in the family' model of care for the elderly in southeast Italy and the mechanisms that bond the caregivers and their patients in a mutual dependency. I describe this model as a meeting place between endurance and vulnerability, and between the fragility of the elderly and the fragility of most of the women who work as migrant care workers. I argue that migrant live-in care work for the elderly is…
From Border Fetishism to Tactical Socialism
This article discusses the meeting point of two political systems with their distinctive value imprints on individuals’ everyday lives. It focuses on two stories of care, aesthetics and labor of Romanian women before the fall of the socialist regimes in Eastern Europe and in the first two decades after 1989. The first account comes from an expert, the head of the Union of National Cooperatives of Production (ucecom) during socialist Romania, the …
On ruination: Piercing the skin of communism in 1990s Romania
This article discusses the relation between aesthetics, politics and ethics in the case of the making of a new display in the National Museum of the Romanian Peasant, following the demise of the communist state in Romania. It shows how the museum’s innovatory aesthetics of display, believed to be ‘escaping history’, in fact cannot avoid being the very product of history. The new aesthetics of display in the museum aimed to objectify and externali…
Forging Folklore, Disrupting Archives: Curatorial Explorations between Tradition and Innovation
This article describes how artists, scholars and curators have used folkloric collections and exhibitions as tools to explore the relationship between tradition and innovation. Contemporary art practice has seen a growing interest toward the use of folkloric material. With this in mind, in our curatorial work on the Forging Folklore, Disrupting Archives exhibition, we experiment with new methods of ethnographic representation. The article highlig…
The museum's lexis: Driving objects into ideas
This article discusses how exhibition making can be seen as a creative method for building anthropological knowledge. Situations of conflict between social classes, curatorial practices and disciplines remind us of the existence of a very subtle and enduring museum lexis which governs how political ideas are put on display. Research was conducted in tandem with an exhibition the author curated in the National Museum of the Romanian Peasant 21 yea…
Socialist fragments East and West: Towards a comparative anthropology of global (post-)socialism
This article initiates a comparative anthropological analysis of the legacies and endurances of socialism in two different European contexts. It draws on ethnographic and historical material relating to the UK and Romania, 40 years after the first efforts to privatize central elements of the welfare state in the UK and 30 years after the collapse of state socialism in central and eastern Europe. Rather than restricting our analysis to the 'East' …
On ruination: Piercing the skin of communism in 1990s Romania
This article discusses the relation between aesthetics, politics and ethics in the case of the making of a new display in the National Museum of the Romanian Peasant, following the demise of the communist state in Romania. It shows how the museum’s innovatory aesthetics of display, believed to be ‘escaping history’, in fact cannot avoid being the very product of history. The new aesthetics of display in the museum aimed to objectify and externali…
Keeping the Elderly Alive: Global Entanglements and Embodied Practices in Long-Term Care in Southeast Italy
This article explores the success of the 'migrant in the family' model of care for the elderly in southeast Italy and the mechanisms that bond the caregivers and their patients in a mutual dependency. I describe this model as a meeting place between endurance and vulnerability, and between the fragility of the elderly and the fragility of most of the women who work as migrant care workers. I argue that migrant live-in care work for the elderly is…
From Border Fetishism to Tactical Socialism
This article discusses the meeting point of two political systems with their distinctive value imprints on individuals’ everyday lives. It focuses on two stories of care, aesthetics and labor of Romanian women before the fall of the socialist regimes in Eastern Europe and in the first two decades after 1989. The first account comes from an expert, the head of the Union of National Cooperatives of Production (ucecom) during socialist Romania, the …
The museum's lexis: Driving objects into ideas
This article discusses how exhibition making can be seen as a creative method for building anthropological knowledge. Situations of conflict between social classes, curatorial practices and disciplines remind us of the existence of a very subtle and enduring museum lexis which governs how political ideas are put on display. Research was conducted in tandem with an exhibition the author curated in the National Museum of the Romanian Peasant 21 yea…
On ruination: Piercing the skin of communism in 1990s Romania
This article discusses the relation between aesthetics, politics and ethics in the case of the making of a new display in the National Museum of the Romanian Peasant, following the demise of the communist state in Romania. It shows how the museum’s innovatory aesthetics of display, believed to be ‘escaping history’, in fact cannot avoid being the very product of history. The new aesthetics of display in the museum aimed to objectify and externali…
Forging Folklore, Disrupting Archives: Curatorial Explorations between Tradition and Innovation
This article describes how artists, scholars and curators have used folkloric collections and exhibitions as tools to explore the relationship between tradition and innovation. Contemporary art practice has seen a growing interest toward the use of folkloric material. With this in mind, in our curatorial work on the Forging Folklore, Disrupting Archives exhibition, we experiment with new methods of ethnographic representation. The article highlig…
From Border Fetishism to Tactical Socialism
This article discusses the meeting point of two political systems with their distinctive value imprints on individuals’ everyday lives. It focuses on two stories of care, aesthetics and labor of Romanian women before the fall of the socialist regimes in Eastern Europe and in the first two decades after 1989. The first account comes from an expert, the head of the Union of National Cooperatives of Production (ucecom) during socialist Romania, the …
Keeping the Elderly Alive: Global Entanglements and Embodied Practices in Long-Term Care in Southeast Italy
This article explores the success of the 'migrant in the family' model of care for the elderly in southeast Italy and the mechanisms that bond the caregivers and their patients in a mutual dependency. I describe this model as a meeting place between endurance and vulnerability, and between the fragility of the elderly and the fragility of most of the women who work as migrant care workers. I argue that migrant live-in care work for the elderly is…
Introduction. Visual Ethics after Communism
This special issue problematizes the often-uncritical use of images in publications and displays about communism. It poses a number of questions for anthropologists, historians, museologists and others: when does an image or a museum display present itself as problematic and for whom? Under what circumstances is it ethically justifiable to exhibit or publish such images or, conversely, to put images aside, leaving them undisplayed? When do argume…
The Hand at Work or How the KGB File Leaks in the Exhibition
The article tells the story of the use and perception of images of violence from an unusual trial against a group of believers, arrested in 1952 in Ukraine. Visitors to an exhibition held in 2019 at the Museum of Art in Cluj-Napoca were invited to look at two sets of photographs: originals and spruced-up copies coming from a recently opened criminal file retrieved from the SBU (former KGB) archive in Kiev. Through the reconstruction of the story …
Socialist fragments East and West: Towards a comparative anthropology of global (post-)socialism
This article initiates a comparative anthropological analysis of the legacies and endurances of socialism in two different European contexts. It draws on ethnographic and historical material relating to the UK and Romania, 40 years after the first efforts to privatize central elements of the welfare state in the UK and 30 years after the collapse of state socialism in central and eastern Europe. Rather than restricting our analysis to the 'East' …
Waste Management in Post-Socialist Bucharest from the Flat to the Rubbish Truck
Political science (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Art (4 works) · Communism (4 works) · Politics (4 works) · Aesthetics (3 works) · Ethnography (3 works) · Exhibition (3 works) · Law (3 works)