The Globalization of Rural Plays in the Twenty-First Century excavates the neglected ideological substratum of peasant folk plays. By focusing on northeastern Romania and southwest Ukrainetwo of the most ruralized regions in Europethis work reveals the complex landscape of peasant plays and the essential role they perform in shaping local culture, economy, and social life. The rapid demise of these practices and the creation of preservation programs is analyzed in the context of the corrosive effects of global capitalism and the processes of globalization, urbanization, mass-mediatization, and heritagization. Just like peasants in search of better resources, rural plays ';migrate from their villages of origin into the urban, modern, and more dynamic world, where they become more visible and are both appreciated and exploited as forms of transnational, intangible cultural heritage.