The other frontier: forest rush and small-scale timbermen of postsocialist Transylvania

This article examines the postsocialist timber rush of the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania, from the perspective of the frontier. Drawing on long-term anthropological fieldwork, it follows life-trajectories of timbermen and politicians to reveal the grassroots dynamics of timber production, trade relationships and political control of resources emerged in the last three decades. The paper unpicks the conjuncture of an area in the Apuseni Mountains, which diverged from the trajectories of other Romanian mountain communities. Here small-scale forestry thrived and large enterprises did not take hold, preventing dispossession and proletarization. A politics of patronage protected small-scale operators.