Return Migration: Rurbanization and Social Inequalities in Romania

Half of Romania's population lives in rural areas, despite heavy industrialization processes during the socialist period before 1989. The rural-urban dichotomy has lost meaning over the last two decades as the urban has begun to "invade" the rural, a process known as peri-urbanisation. The country was originally migrant-sending and remittance-receiving in the EU, but recently, new mobility processes have changed the Romanian social landscape and created new inequalities.

Former international migrants are returning to Romania's rural areas, regardless of their previous places of origin or experiences in villages. These people may have spent decades in several European metropolitan areas and are now seeking healthy living conditions, proximity to nature, relaxing pensioner days, and cheaper and autonomous activities.

Additionally, the Covid-19 pandemic has caused a massive relocation of urban dwellers to more or less remote villages, mostly in the mountainous regions of Transylvania

Both processes have impacted local social relations, hierarchies, and processes. While international migration replaced traditional "naveta" (commuting) and mobility to local urban agglomerations, the pandemic has moved the urban praxis into the rural, contributing to creating a specific rural super-diversity that combines local and global urban practices and expectations.

These changes have brought about new inequalities that can be captured on diverse dimensions, such as urban-rural dwellers, ethnic lines, socio-economic status, and so on. These inequalities are also a source of tensions and conflicts on a local level, challenging the local authorities, both locally and nationally.

This proposal focuses on two questions: what motivates people to move into rural areas and what are the effects of their mobility on the local level? The presentation draws on ethnographic fieldwork in Transylvanian villages and the results of a recent quantitative survey in Romania.