Autori: ULB

Editorial: PUB, ULB, in Vivre ensemble au XXIe siècle, Actes du colloque international de l’Institut de Sociologie de l’U.L.B., p.pp.457-470, 2007.

Rezumat:

Since 1989, the emergence of a certain flux of pendular migration can be observed in Belgium. The community pole generating these movements is the village Bosanci, in Bucovina (Romania); the Romanian migratory pole of Brussels is mainly made up of Bosanceni (inhabitants of the named village) who came here to work in the building field. Among them there is an important number of young people (even if migration is not a phenomenon defined exclusively by this youth feature, as we commonly believe); the migration is justified as a necessary voyage with the purpose of earning money to consolidate the social status of a young man preparing to get married.

In the context of this pendular migration, the young villagers have formed a group, in order to find more easily a job or a place to live, to keep a certain feeling of “proximity” to their village, but also to be able to celebrate “as people do”.

The last issue draw my attention within my work of research on the juvenile rites during the masked party for the New Year in Bucovina, more precisely in Bosanci. That is because, in order to celebrate “as people do” and respect the rites of the community, some of the migrants return to their homes during the cycle of the twelve days in order to show their solidarity with their families, with the other young people from the village, but also their solidarity with their village community which, at this precise moment of the year, is an entirely different universe from the other villages of the same region. Others remain in Brussels and, to manifest their solidarity to their age group, but also with their native community, they try to make a celebration similar to that from home. Some do this passively, getting together to recollect the celebrations of the previous years and watch the videos they have made themselves on the occasion and whose protagonists they often are. Others have a more active attitude and make the effort of recreating a “traditional” ceremonial behaviour within their group, using masks and dances which show their difference from the group of Others (Belgian people or of other origins, including other Romanians) or using “wishes” and rhyming puns that they have invented, being the only addresés of the message and the only ones having access to the code.

Could this type of manifestations be the sign of a new kind of rite of passage? How could one explain the male behaviour in this complex environment of the Romanian migration in Belgium? Are we the witnesses of the creation of a group identity based on common origin?

Cuvinte cheie: migratie, rituri de trecere // migration, rites de passage

URL: dev.ulb.ac.be/crt/mam/documentsenligne/BROCHURE.pdf