The Țigani Community Adaptability to Changes in Rural Romania and the COVID-19 Impact

Mihai Voda, Andrei Murgu, Constantin Adrian Sarpe, Steven M. Graves and Calin Avram
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Mihai Voda: Geography Department, Dimitrie Cantemir University, 3–5 Bodoni Sandor st., 540545 Targu Mureș, Romania
Andrei Murgu: Faculty of Law, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, 10 Victoriei bd., 550024 Sibiu, Romania
Constantin Adrian Sarpe: Romanian National Waters Administration, 33 Samuel Koteles st., 540057 Targu Mureș, Romania
Steven M. Graves: Department of Geography and Environmental Studies California State University, Northridge, CA 91330-8249, USA
Calin Avram: Biostatistics Department, George Emil Palade University of Medicine, Pharmacy, Science and Technology, 38 Gh. Marinescu st., 540139 Targu Mureș, Romania

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 20, 1-14

Abstract: Romanian rural villages are struggling to survive present times when youngsters leave for a better life in the city while elders work the land like a hundred years ago. Our paper integrates human environments research with public health preparedness, presenting the Țigani (Gypsy/Roma) ethnic group from rural Romania as an example to the world. The future security of mankind will require a new understanding of the human place in its environment. That will lead to a new society, not the most powerful or intelligent, but the one that is more adaptable to changes, with sensitive and interconnected community members. Therefore, the Țigani ethnic group that fought for its rights and flourished despite unfavorable odds, including the recent COVID-19 pandemic, represents the best example for a new world that prioritizes humans, promotes health and wellbeing, facilitating innovation and transformative networks environmental integration. This research attempts to quantify the Țigani ′s unique attributes that helped their communities survive and made them more adaptive to change. Always marginalized, they identified the other ethnic groups’ weaknesses to penetrate the villages and learned to use the smartphone apps to communicate, for their trades, coppersmith, metal roof tiles and drainage systems. Our research was based on Geographical Information System, Microsoft Power Bi analytics data visualization tools and statistical analysis with SPSS V20 to demonstrate what enables their flourishing and what resistance they face locally. We argue that the Țigani ′s intense social cooperation, strong sense of family, community and mutual assistance helped them to fight COVID-19, generating their significant adaptability to the societal changes and their power to keep intact their cultural identity. The results show how the constant growing Țigani population changed and may change Romania′s rural environments in the future.

Keywords: Țigani; adaptability; sustainability; social environments; COVID-19; cultural identity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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