The Measurements of Boundary Kin in an Inheritance Bubble in Romania

Bibliographic Data

ID18998331
AuthorsL Chelcea (0000-0002-7629-3933, Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Bucharest, Romania [email protected], corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume65
Issue4
Pages131-150
Publication date2021-12-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Analysis (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0155-977X • E-ISSN: 1558-5727
PublisherBerghahn Books (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.3167/sa.2021.650407
OpenAlexW4226316321
LanguageEN
References cited23

Struggles between current tenants and the heirs of former owners over property rights in post-socialist housing restitution in Romania often unfold through kinship measurements. I use the notion of ‘boundary kin’—relatives who in different situations may be considered as either near or distant—to capture the role that kinship measurements play in these conflicts. Expanding ties to the past, a large number of persons are seeking restitution. In this ‘inheritance bubble’, the importance of the material basis of measurements in documenting and certifying kinship increases. In an effort to limit restitution, tenants question the genealogical, geographical, and temporal proximity between potential heirs and original owners, embedding kinship measurements instead in care, past suffering, and material engagements with, and knowledge of, the restitution object

Boundary object · Epistemology · Fictive kinship · Genealogy · Kinship · Negotiation · Political science · Restitution · Sociology · History · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Law · Turkey's Politics and Society · Urbanization and City Planning

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