ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a historical and ethnographical account of the appropriation of the Danube Delta's space and resources by different state agencies and representatives from the presocialist regime until the present time. It explores how the fishermen themselves interpreted the growing presence of the state in their midst and how they acknowledged its legitimacy, accommodated its ministrations or critiqued its authority and judgements by word and deed. The chapter contextualizes recent ethnographical research in the Delta, drawing on interview material as a way of historicizing the relationship between the Delta, the fishermen and the state, past and present. During socialism, the conservation of nature was discursive, inspired by the conservation movement – reflected in the quantity of scientific work on this subject – but never really implemented on the ground. The historical evidence shows that the Romanian state has shifted its discourse on natural resources and on nature itself since the early twentieth century.
