Cementing Secession?
Transnational Big Business, Identity, and Politics on Moldova’s Frozen War Front
a presentation by Rebecca Chamberlain-Creanga
Tuesday 3 November 2009
19.00-21.00, The Ratiu Foundation / Romanian Cultural Centre, Manchester Square, 18 Fitzhardinge Street, London W1H 6EQ; Tel. 020 7486 0295, ext 108; e-mail: bookings@romanianculturalcentre.org.uk ; Entry is free but booking is essential.
Moderator: David Webster, Director of the Anglo-Romanian Economic and Political Forum
“This presentation examines competing political-economic forces and identity formations dividing and uniting the newly independent, post-Soviet country of Moldova, torn apart by separatism. It is based on new field research conducted in the Republic of Moldova in spring 2009 (March-June) on the relationship between identity formation and political process in and between Moldova and its separatist region of Transdnistria. It addresses how democratic processes and political transformations articulate with and affect the diverging Moldovan-Transdnistrian identity formations discovered during my 2005-06 doctoral fieldwork.
Will burgeoning democratization – just beginning in Transdnistria and yet solidifying in right-bank Moldova – bring both warring sides together, the study asks? The topic is timely in that it covers Moldova’s April and July 2009 parliamentary election. It looks at the impact of elections, political crisis and coalition-building on the Moldovan-Transdnistrian conflict settlement process, as well as Moldova’s relationship with Romania and the European Union. The paper speaks to policy-relevant debates about the interplay between citizen and elite interests, as well as raises questions about whether small, newly independent countries like Moldova can decide their fate”. – Rebecca Chamberlain-Creanga
Rebecca Chamberlain-Creanga is a PhD Candidate in Anthropology at The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), specializing in the ethnographic study of governance and the political-economy of conflict, including transnational dimensions and local-level sources of separatism. As a former British FCO-sponsored Marshall Scholar to Great Britain, she holds MSc and MA degrees from the LSE and the School of Slavonic and East European Studies/UCL. Her Bachelors degree training is in International Relations. Chamberlain-Creanga worked as a US Department of State (IREX Title VIII) Embassy Policy Specialist at the US Embassy Chisinau in summer 2007. Chamberlain-Creanga lived on both of Moldova’s river banks, including in the separatist Transdnistrian region, for almost two years in 2004-06 for the study Manufacturing Separatism: Transnational Economy, Identity, and State Formation on a Post-Soviet Frozen War Front, supported by several US Department of State/Title VIII academic fellowships. She will be a Research Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. in 2010, supported by the US Department of State’s Program for Research and Training. She is a contributor to Weak State, Uncertain Citizenship: Moldova (Heintz ed., Frankfurt & New York: Peter Lang, 2008). Prior to her research on the Republic of Moldova, Chamberlain-Creanga investigated issues of ethnicity and conflict in Bosnia and Croatia as a Rotary Foundation Scholar, writing opinion-editorials on the Kosovo conflict for several major American newspapers. She has been married over 8 years to Romanian Ovidiu Creanga (PhD Religion).
Organised by The Ratiu Foundation / Romanian Cultural Centre in London
www.ratiufamilyfoundation.com; www.romanianculturalcentre.org.uk
Culture Power is a programme initiated by the Ratiu Foundation, consisting of a number of presentations and constructive dialogue with an invited audience.
