Vihra Barova Current Project Vihra Barova Curriculum Vitae Current Project The focus of this research is strongly connected to the intense periods of urbanisation, following the Second World War and the collapse of socialism in 1989, which did not appear to cause a break up of relations between urban and rural residents of the same kin. My research work looks at family networks that operate between countryside and city and the kinds of social and economic strategies that are employed. Kinship solidarity appeared to be crucial in times of transition. Family network very often presented the main social personal network. It very often was working instead of or in collaboration with other institutions responsible for social security. Consequently, to investigate the network instead of the structure of institutions (Boissevain 1974) is more relevant to the postsocialist situation. In general, social network approach may give us an explanation for the peculiarities of the postsocialist Bulgarian society, which is still very fond of kinship ties. Main tasks and objectives: The main research interest focuses on family networks that operate between the countryside and the big city and the kind of social and economic strategies, which are observed. The research work looks at family networks with a different range and degree of embeddedness of a person with respect to kinship and descent. Research questions: The question is what do family members exchange (in a sense of economic, social, and cultural capital) in times of transition and insecurity in order to keep their social status? Or in general, what is done through kinship? Has socialism changed its meaning and how?

The fieldwork site: The town of Smolyan is made up of three villages. The mergence of the 3 villages into one town followed industrialisation, initiated by the Communist Party. At the time it was viewed as an underdeveloped, ‘conservative’, ‘religious’ and ethnical-mixed region of the country, where Bulgarians, Turks and Bulgarian Muslims (‘pomaks’) have lived together for centuries. Socialist efforts for industrialization of the region made Smolyan into the industrial center of the district, though the region was still regarded as underdeveloped. After 1989 things have changed with respect to economic and demographic processes. Many state enterprises were closed and growing migration to the cities of Plovdiv and Sofia drained the region of its population, especially of its younger people. Research methods: Fieldwork is done through recurrent short-term trips to the site and includes two stages with regard to the methods used. The first one is made by classic ethnography methods like participant observation and narrative and semi-structured interviews, while in the second stage gathering of specialized data (through questionaries) on personal networks is applied in order to discover the structure of the main object – the family network. Network approach will be used, in the final stage of investigation, to explain the social action. Development of the project: The thesis is made of 3 main parts including kinship and social networks theory and research work on kinship relations as meaning and practice. Here again there is two stages of presenting the problem. The first stage presents kinship relations, as a norm, in their regional ethnic and religious dimensions (the second part of the thesis). We can refer here to Campbell’s (1974) concepts for the social norm, which sets the boundaries of solidarity, and for so called ‘actual kinship” which determines the ways these norms function. In this sense, the second stage presents the actual kin. This stage is an attempt for innovation with putting into practice the network analysis method to find out the type or content of the existing kinship relations and the existing kinship roles (the third part of the thesis).