LefteastJana Tsoneva is a PhD student in Sociology at CEU, Budapest. Her research interests focus on the history of ideas, political economy and theory of ideology. Jana is a member of Social Center Xaspel, Sofia and of the New Left Perspectives collective. She also co-authors Hysterical Parrhesia (a Lacanian-Marxist blog).
Ten years after Bulgaria joined the European Union as its poorest member, its economy works at two speeds, deepening the income gap between poor low-skilled workers and a handful of well payed employees working in the country’s booming areas such as IT and auto parts. The following article was originally published in Serbo-Croatian by the online platform, […]
The following article was originally published in Serbo-Croatian by the online platform, Bilten. Its English version is published here with the site’s kind permission. Around mid-December 2016 a news piece announced that a monument to the Cyrillic alphabet is to be erected in Antarctica. It is a joint Bulgarian-Mongolian project. The news about the monument raised […]
Notes from the LeftEast editors: this article is published in cooperation with Bilten.Org where it appeared in Serbo-Croatian on the 12/16/2016. Note from the author on the English language publication: In this article I focus on the latest chapter of the ongoing ‘memory wars’ in Bulgarian public and political life. I tease out the demophobic implications […]
This article is published in collaboration with the regional portal Bilten. We are habituated to think that polluting things such as garbage normally fall on minorities to deal with in order to keep them as far from us as possible. Thus, conveniently the most “polluting” social classes are tasked with the organization of garbage. For […]
This article was published in co-operation with the regional portal Bilten. July will go down as one of the most tumultuous months of 2016 in Europe. The rapid series of terrorist attacks across Germany and France had barely allowed us a modicum of time to digest them, when the failed July 15th coup attempt in […]
translated by Peter Bankov The town of Bobov dol sports some of the largest coal mining facilities in Bulgaria. The mining industry there has a hundred-year history but it really took off during socialism when the biggest investment and modernization of the mines occurred. Since 2006 the mines have been operating under a regime of […]
We are grateful to Bilten, where this article will appear in BCS. — “Common sites of memory are not sites of common memory”, prof. Lilyana Deyanova (Obektiv, October 2012) — A few years ago, the Bulgarian sociologist Andrei Raitchev observed that with the establishment of a broad consensus among all parties on the necessity for liberal pro-market […]
Nearly everywhere the operations of Uber have generated controversy. For example, Uber sparked mass protests of taxi drivers in France demanding that the service be discontinued. In contrast, when the Bulgarian Commission for the protection of competition (CPC) fined, and ordered Uber to stop operations in the country, citizens protests erupted in defense of the […]
The following is the last of three articles by Jana Tsoneva and Stanimir Panayotov on the Bulgarian state’s increasingly harsh rhetoric and policy proposals vis-a-vis the country’s Roma minority. Part I showed that while the discourse is focused on the Roma, the measures proposed will cut social provisions for all poor Bulgarians. Part II‘s main argument is […]
The following is the first of three articles by Jana Tsoneva and Stanimir Panayotov on the Bulgarian state’s increasingly harsh rhetoric and policy proposals vis-a-vis the country’s Roma minority. Part I shows that while the discourse is focused on the Roma, the measures proposed will cut social provisions for all poor Bulgarians. Part II‘s main […]