Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Making of Urban Spaces and the European Vision of Development in Post-Socialist Romania

密歇根大学博士生拉夫兰蒂亚·卡拉马尼奥拉在Alaina Lemon博士的指导下，将对城市中心与大量流浪动物共享这一日益增长的全球现象进行社会生态学研究。今天，世界上超过一半的人口生活在城市，流浪动物的存在及其对公共安全的威胁在城市对生态的理解中占有重要地位。流浪动物既是城市发展的结果，也是不断扩大的城市空间中社会经济发展的障碍。了解增长如何改变人们居住在城市空间的方式，对于解决许多社会和经济问题至关重要。卡拉马尼奥拉的研究将在罗马尼亚首都布加勒斯特进行，布加勒斯特目前有近200万人口。她将采用一系列社会科学方法来收集数据。布加勒斯特流浪动物数量的增长据称是20世纪城市重建项目的直接结果。因此，研究人员将首先在不断变化的政治经济背景下调查布加勒斯特的空间历史。她将在三个不同的档案馆收集历史信息，并将与建筑师、城市规划师和市政委员会成员进行采访。为了调查当代城市社会关系，卡拉马尼奥拉将在一个非政府组织的员工和公民志愿者中进行人种学研究，该组织与城市动物合作，并在城市社区进行参与者观察。访谈还将被用来调查充满边缘动物的城市生态与国家对后社会主义经济和社会发展的渴望之间的象征性紧张关系。这项研究具有重要意义，因为它将为新的城市社会科学理论做出贡献。这些发现还将有助于对社会主义和后社会主义历史的洞察，就像通过城市中心的改造所经历的那样。资助这项研究还支持研究生的教育。

University of Michigan doctoral student Lavrentia Karamaniola, supervised by Dr. Alaina Lemon, will undertake socio-ecological research on the growing worldwide phenomenon of urban centers being shared with very large numbers of stray animals. Today, more than half of the world's population lives in cities, and the existence of stray animals and the threats that they produce to public safety figure significantly into urban understandings of ecology. Stray animals are viewed simultaneously as both a result of urban development, as well as an impediment to the socioeconomic development in the expanding urban spaces. Understanding how growth changes the ways that people inhabit urban space is of critical importance to solving many social and economic problems. Karamaniola's research will be undertaken in the Romanian capital of Bucharest, currently home to almost 2 million people. She will employ a range of social science methodologies to collect data. The growth of the stray animal population in Bucharest is alleged to be a direct result of twentieth century urban renewal projects. Therefore, the researcher will commence with an investigation of Bucharest's spatial history in a context of a changing political economy. She will collect historical information in three different archives, and she will conduct interviews with architects, urban planners and members of the Municipal Board. To investigate contemporary urban social relations, Karamaniola will carry out ethnographic research among employees and citizen volunteers in a non-governmental organization that works with urban animals and do participant observation in urban neighborhoods. Interviews will also be used to investigate the symbolic tension between an urban ecology full of marginal animals and national aspirations for post-socialist economic and social development. The research is important because it will contribute to new social science theory of cities. Findings will also contribute insights into socialist and post-socialist history, as experienced through the transformations of urban centers. Funding this research also supports the education of a graduate student.