DEUX MARCHES, DEUX VILLES : ALTERITE ET VIVRE-ENSEMBLE FRAGILE EN BULGARIE POST-SOCIALISTE
Études balkaniques (Sofia) 2026, N 3, pp. 542-562
DOI: https://doi.org/10.62761/645.EB.LXII3.02
Velislava PETROVA 
Université de Sofia « Saint Clément d’Ohrid », Bulgarie
E-mail: velislava.petrova@gmail.com
Abstract: Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2005 and 2009 at two open-air markets in post-socialist Bulgaria: the flea market in Sofia and the Nedelen Pazar in Dimitrovgrad; this article analyses how markets produce fragile forms of living-together through symbolic, moral, and ethnicized hierarchies. The markets are approached as liminal spaces where social bonds, symbolic boundaries, and urban imaginaries of the post-socialist transition are simultaneously reconfigured. The article shows how alterity becomes a structuring principle of market relations and a mechanism for the displacement of stigma in contexts of social downgrading. The comparison between Sofia and Dimitrovgrad reveals two distinct configurations of urban marginality, while highlighting the central role of the market in the material and symbolic reconfiguration of the post-socialist city.
Keywords: open-air markets, post-socialism, alterity, urban anthropology, Bulgaria