Our interdisciplinary approach to the discursive production of social identities combines diachronic and synchronic perspectives to the purpose of outlining the hierarchical way of structuring Romanian urban social classes into specifically communist (Dumitru 1996) vs. post-communist types. In observing the way in which such types have emerged, evolved, altered or disappeared, we retrace different forms of social representation for two enduring socio-cultural types â the upstart/parvenu (Rom. âciocoiâ) and the industrialist â and pin down positive vs. negative, individual or collective stereotypic attributes, which are being differently constructed, depending on the social context in which the individuals are being placed (Ellemers and van Knippenberg 1997).