Have people lost their sense of civic duty?

Gabriela Nicolescu interviews architecture lecturer Ilinca Păun-Constantinescu about the loss of community and the demise of civic duty in post-socialist Bucharest. In the sixth episode, postdoctoral researcher Gabriela Nicolescu talks to Ilinca Păun-Constantinescu, lecturer at the University of Architecture and Urbanism in Bucharest. In her work on shrinking cities Păun-Constantinescu focuses on cultural, social and infrastructural phenomena that have occurred during the transformation of Bucharest from a socialist to a post-socialist city. She describes how contemporary residents have lost not only their sense of ‘community’ and civic duty but also vital public facilities, services and green spaces. How do dysfunctional buildings and the infrastructure of cities impact residents experience of urban life?

Om Podcasten

Disobedient Buildings (disobedientbuildings.com) is a multi-sited research project about housing, welfare and wellbeing based at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, part of the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography (anthro.ox.ac.uk), at the University of Oxford. It is funded for four years by the Art and Humanities Research Council. Launched in January 2020, the project employs a multi-disciplinary team of researchers and visual practitioners to study the impact of neoliberal reforms over the past three decades on the everyday lived experiences of inhabitants of ageing tower blocks in different European welfare states: the UK, Romania and Norway. The Disobedient Buildings podcast is conceived and presented by Inge Daniels, the project's principal investigator, and the project’s two postdoctoral researchers: Gabriela Nicolescu and Anna Ulrikke Andersen. In Season One, the team scrutinises key themes guiding their research such as disobedience, inequality, urban development, welfare and health. The 10 episodes feature interviews with local experts and highlight commonalities and differences experienced by residents in the three field sites of London, Bucharest and Oslo. The podcast asks, what is a disobedient building, why is home ownership promoted, and will the State look after you?