Corporations have always had the power to demand their rights: their freedom often clashes with the freedom of others to protect their needs and their lives. The article analyzes the arbitration over Roșia Montană brought by Gabriel Resources against Romania in 2015. Beyond Romania’s unexpected victory, we want to highlight that this controversial legal mechanism is a form of perpetuation of structural injustices. Between January and July 2024, our research aimed to analyze how this topic is being discussed by key actors in Romania: we examined public statements by government officials and mainstream media, as well as carried out interviews with residents of Roșia Montana.

Article by Irina Velicu and Ionuț Codreanu, illustrated by Mina Mimosa

https://theanthro.art/do-no-harm-to-investors-rosia-montana-arbitration-and-structural-injustice/

This article explores how migration from urban to rural areas influences dietary habits and promotes the adoption of more sustainable food practices. The research is set against the backdrop of increasing counterurbanization, where individuals are leaving cities in pursuit of healthier, more balanced lifestyles in rural settings. The connection between food and nature is examined in this context, highlighting shifts towards local, seasonal produce, self-sufficiency, and sustainability. The aim of the study is to understand how the dietary habits of people who have relocated from urban to rural areas have evolved in terms of sustainability. Based on semi-structured interviews with seven families who moved from cities like Bucharest, Cluj, and Craiova to nearby villages, the research investigates topics such as changes in food preferences, challenges in adapting to rural life, food sourcing strategies, and levels of awareness and commitment to sustainable practices. The findings show that the transition to rural living led participants to rethink their relationship with food, with many adopting sustainable practices such as composting and growing fresh vegetables in their own gardens. This shift reflects a deeper connection with nature and an enhanced commitment to sustainability, something that participants had not necessarily prioritized before moving.

Article by Alexandra Leca, illustrated by Amandine Bănescu

https://theanthro.art/from-block-to-garden-how-are-food-practices-changing-alexandra-leca/

The itinerant project Ri-Ver: another look at the city, is a nature-right based observatory of urban transformations. RI-VER means river, but also stands for re-ver, revise, see again, see from a different angle. The central idea of the project is that thinking through the river shifts the anthropocentric and short-term focused understandings, thus we can move stagnant conversations and understand the conflictive transformations in our cities. How do the emotional – including memories and values – political, economic and social landscapes change if we put the river in the centre of them? This conceptual frame is both a base for multimodal ethnographic research and works as a curatorial concept. Participants impersonate the river to learn, understand and imagine possible presents and futures and understand the transformations in course from a different angle. In the spring of 2024, the project started with workshops mostly with children who attend the Bairro Horizonte Residents’ Association’s afternoon activities. The project since then has worked with different age groups, and recently integrated activities with artists and cultural professionals. The proposed article explores the potential of doing urban anthropology through the lens of rivers and critically interrogates the concept of Sustainability.

Article by Rosalina Kitti Baracsi, illustrated by Michaela Jones

https://theanthro.art/ri-ver-another-look-at-the-city-periferias-dibujadas/

It is necessary to reflect on the role of the anthropologist in denouncing realities that are often subalternised, with the role of changing them through initiatives and solutions proposed by the anthropologist, allowing us to reflect on the porosity between the spheres of activism and anthropology. To realize the implications and interconnections between different contexts, it is necessary to take a multi-scalar and multi-sited approach. One of the fields most concerned with the interconnections between local, national, and international scales is environmental studies, and it is on this theme that the article focus, mobilising former research to reach this goal.

Article by Rosalina Pisco Costa, illustrated by Juliana Penkova

https://theanthro.art/room-242-and-the-portraits-that-do-not-speak-unveiling-gender-and-leadership-in-higher-education-contexts/

This study investigates the challenges and strategies for incorporating sustainability into the social control of municipal School Feeding Councils (CAEs) in Minas Gerais within the National School Feeding Program (PNAE). The research aims to understand the performance of CAEs in promoting sustainability and evaluates the impact of an educational intervention on counselors’ intentions to act. The methodology involves action research with qualitative and quantitative analyses, including workshops and discussion groups. Key findings highlight the importance of family farming, school gardens, and reducing food waste as strategies for sustainability. The study also identifies obstacles such as lack of support and negative interference from teachers. The educational intervention appears to have raised awareness and fostered partnerships among CAEs, suggesting the need for intensified training initiatives to enhance counselors’ skills and competencies in sustainability.

Article by Lucas Daniel Sanches, Ana Carolina Ratti Nogueira, Monique de Oliveira Sant'Anna, Jaciara Reis Nogueira Garcia, Bruno Martins Dala Paula​, illustrated by Guilia Cavallo

https://theanthro.art/challenges-and-strategies-for-including-sustainability-in-the-social-control-of-the-municipal-school-feeding-councils-in-minas-gerais-in-the-national-school-feeding-program/

The Creating Life Champions project is a collaboration between the ERASMUS+ program and the UEFA Foundation for Children, to strengthen positive social values and principles by using sports fields as a vehicle. This project gathered 16 partners from 8 European countries. The following text presents the results of the ethnographic research done in Portugal regarding this project, aimed to conduct an in-depth analysis of how trainers perceive the educational and pedagogical role of sport and what may be the path for a sustainable strengthening of this role. From April to May 2023, a total of 20 in-depth interviews with youth coaches from 3 cities and 14 football clubs various football clubs in Portugal, to understand, the main factors, values and necessities of working with children in sports, creating a blueprint of the profile of a youth coach in Portugal for the Creating Life Champions Project to create a module and Moodle course for trainers.

Article by Daniel Alves, illustrated by Patricia Palma

https://theanthro.art/creating-life-champions-youth-coaching-values-ethics-careers-and-a-sustainable-development-of-trainers-and-athletes/

This article explores the pivotal role of videos and thematic routes in promoting sustainable tourism through the lens of intangible cultural heritage (ICH). Anchored in anthropological and ethnographic methodologies, it highlights how these tools preserve and celebrate traditions, crafts, music, and oral histories. Using the Mouraria neighborhood in Lisbon as a case study, the project documents local narratives and practices to create immersive and authentic tourist experiences. This model demonstrates how tourism can safeguard cultural identity, enhance socio-economic development, and promote sustainability without compromising authenticity.

Article by Augusto Ferreira, illustrated by Patricia Palma

https://theanthro.art/aroundtheneighborhood-a-storytelling-of-mourarias-memories-traditions-and-history/

Speculative Design is a methodological approach that can be a huge tool for anthropologists. By working in collaboration with designers and using speculative design techniques, anthropologists and designers together could engage with communities and specific social groups for understanding social problems and imagining alternative futures. With this text is on the one side to present Speculative Design, while at the same time speculating how it could work for anthropologists as a tool for social innovation.

Article by Andrea Gaspar, illustrated by Michaela Jones

https://theanthro.art/what-if-anthropology-speculative-design-social-innovation-2/

Ridesharing practices such as hitchhiking and carpooling form specific ways of mobility, rich in composition and narratives. Both social practices are present at the margins of all urban areas in Romania having their own specific modus operandi. Although they are not associated with the concept of sustainability by their public, they are embedded in a sustainable kind of mobility, as alternatives to personal road vehicles. The sustainable dimension of ridesharing is also supported by the debate around the occupancy of the car seats. Comparative and historical material demonstrates that states may encourage, discourage, criminalise, or neglect hitchhiking through different policies or even propaganda in order to fill as many car seats as possible. Through such policies, ridesharing is promoted as an act of individual responsibility towards the environment and society as a whole. In other cases it is perceived as a limitation for mobility, and the social results are easy to detect. As Graham and Marvin (2001) noted when they were discussing electronically tolled highways or superhighways, these practices are clearly exclusionary, accentuating the splintering of urbanism. My article proposes a timeline in the history of ridesharing and explores the way unorganised travelling like hitchhiking and organised commuting like digital carpooling (especially through the Blablacar platform) might be part of a more sustainable behaviour. In contrast, other so-called ridesharing platforms such as Uber or Bolt are falsely considered part of the broad concept of sharing economy. Borrowing the concept from Belk (2014), I consider them “pseudo-sharing”.

Article by Iulian Gabor and Ben Eyre, illustrated by Daniela Olaru

https://theanthro.art/on-shared-automobility-practices-from-horse-carriages-to-digitally-prearranged-rides/

Ridesharing practices such as hitchhiking and carpooling form specific ways of mobility, rich in composition and narratives. Both social practices are present at the margins of all urban areas in Romania having their own specific modus operandi. Although they are not associated with the concept of sustainability by their public, they are embedded in a sustainable kind of mobility, as alternatives to personal road vehicles. The sustainable dimension of ridesharing is also supported by the debate around the occupancy of the car seats. Comparative and historical material demonstrates that states may encourage, discourage, criminalise, or neglect hitchhiking through different policies or even propaganda in order to fill as many car seats as possible. Through such policies, ridesharing is promoted as an act of individual responsibility towards the environment and society as a whole. In other cases it is perceived as a limitation for mobility, and the social results are easy to detect. As Graham and Marvin (2001) noted when they were discussing electronically tolled highways or superhighways, these practices are clearly exclusionary, accentuating the splintering of urbanism. My article proposes a timeline in the history of ridesharing and explores the way unorganised travelling like hitchhiking and organised commuting like digital carpooling (especially through the Blablacar platform) might be part of a more sustainable behaviour. In contrast, other so-called ridesharing platforms such as Uber or Bolt are falsely considered part of the broad concept of sharing economy. Borrowing the concept from Belk (2014), I consider them “pseudo-sharing”.

Article by Iulian Gabor, illustrated by Cristina Labo

https://theanthro.art/on-shared-automobility-practices-from-horse-carriages-to-digitally-prearranged-rides/