Living and working in Sofia

Western popular images of Bulgaria are still fused with stereotypes about „the Balkans“ as a peripheral „Other“. In these constructions, cities and contemporary urban life hardly figure at all. Seven individual research projects present a variety of urban livelihood strategies, social relations and personal agency in the context of social and cultural change. A central task of social anthropology is to bring the unfamiliar into focus. Although these short studies cannot replace a comprehensive urban ethnography of Sofia, they aim to contribute to a better understanding of Sofia as a major city in contemporary Europe.