The profile of a rural community: Vitomiresti, Olt county

Abstract

The article is based on a data collection from the project Marginal Rural, a grant of Romanian Academy, carried out between 2019 and 2022. The aim of the project was to collect data from several rural and small urban communities and analyze socio-demographic data, but also look at indicators regarding infrastructure, health and education services, sources of income, local employers, or the phenomenon of migration for working. The analysis included different perspectives, respectively an institutional one (through the opinions of representatives of public institutions), an entrepreneurial one (through the opinion reflected in interviews with local entrepreneurs) and the vulnerable groups’ one (through the opinions reflected from the focus group organized with disadvantaged people). We looked at the phenomenon of rural development/underdevelopment and potential marginalized rural areas. Marginalization represents a social phenomenon, fuelled by the socio-economic context that followed the 1989 revolution. The completion of the transition from the socialist regime towards free-market economy implied high social costs for a part of the population, including poverty and social exclusion.