Everyday Roma stigmatization: racialized urban encounters, collective histories and fragmented habitus (original) (raw)
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Studia UBB Sociologia (Volume 58 (LVIII) 2013, December, Issue 2)
This issue presents the first set of results of the SPAREX research (www.sparex-ro.eu). This was not an inquiry on Roma, or on ghettos, or on urban structures, and nor even on poverty, but it was a multi-disciplinary contextual investigation on the processes of spatialization and racialization of social exclusion as manifestation of advanced urban marginality produced by neoliberal regimes. Viewed together with the preliminary conclusions of another ongoing investigation, "Faces and Causes of the Roma Marginalization in Local Settings. Contextual inquiry to the UNDP/World Bank/EC Regional Roma Survey 2011, focusing"on Hungary, Romania, Serbia (in Romania conducted in 25 localities) – whose some preliminary results are also presented in this issue of Studia UBB Sociologia – SPAREX demonstrates that the formation of “Gypsy ghettos” (as instances of Roma marginalization) happens at the crossroads of multi-level processes that create territorial disparities and uneven developments between and within regions, counties and localities.
Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power , 2021
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2019
Significant academic attention has been paid to anti-Roma racisms and their relationship to the processes and mechanisms of exclusion and marginalization. Significantly less effort has been directed at understanding how contemporary forms of anti-Roma racism differ from earlier ones, and why they are so difficult to challenge. Through a critical engagement with the works of David Theo Goldberg and Loїc Wacquant, the authors argue that processes of neoliberalization and securitization have contributed to the depoliticization of societal problems facing the Roma, and to the trend to 'invisibilize' the racializing dimensions of the marginal conditions under which many Roma live. Examples from Slovakia and the UK are used to articulate this trend, while also underscoring the importance of national context in delineating different outcomes and the extent of Roma separation.
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The “Faces and Causes of Roma Marginalization in Local Communities” inquiry explored the economic, political, demographic, and social forces at municipal and community level which shape practices and consequences of social exclusion and potential pathways to inclusion. Phase 2 of this research focused on a representative sample of municipalities (20–30 per country) in Hungary, Romania, and Serbia to explore basic local social services and infrastructure provisions, conditions of political participation of the Roma, and local interventions targeting Roma inclusion. This research phase relied on structured field research collecting both quantitative and qualitative data. This short country report is based on the Final Country Report on the Faces and Causes of Roma Marginalization in Romania, edited in June 2013 by Enikő Vincze, with contributions from Cătălin Dîrțu, Adrian-Nicolae Furtună, Margareta Herțanu, Iulia-Elena Hossu, Elena Mihalache, Rafaela Maria Muraru, Florina Pop, Mihaela Preda, and Daniel Tudora. The Short Country report is also co-authored by this group in the sense that these colleagues collected and processed the field data. However, overall interpretation and presentation of the data was done by Enikő Vincze (the coordinator of the Romanian research team), therefore, this report is single-authored. The text refers to “us/we” or “I” according to fieldwork knowledge or interpretation. The Romanian research team also included Ramona Făcăleț, Andrei Mihail Tudor and Elena Trifan (as a volunteer) at the level of localities, and Nicolae Arsene, Violeta Dumitru, Victor Făcăleț, Marcela Șerban and Alina Tuța at the county level.
Purification of Space: Spatial Segregation of the Roma in the Czech Republic
This paper focuses on spatial segregation of Roma in the urban environment of the Czech Republic after 1989. We stress the fact that the level of spatial segregation of Roma has increased dynamically in the past twenty years and, in addition, the increase does not correspond to the general level of spatial differentiation. We then discuss the main theoretical approaches within social science to the interpretation of residential segregation of ethnic groups and attempt to critically use these approaches in the analysis of the segregated population of Roma. We arrive at the findings that these theories, emphasizing either the voluntary aspect of minority residential strategies or conversely the constraints by which these strategies are determined, do not grasp the process of spatial exclusion of Roma population and that it is inevitable to turn our attention to the “anthropology of space”. We should concentrate on the ways in which the cultural nature of modern society manifests itself in the production of urban space. Our conclusion is that Roma segregation may be understood as a spatial purification from those who are – within the context of complex societies – constructed as the deviant other on the basis of the essentialization their (cultural) difference. Keywords: essentialism, Gypsies, marginalisation, production of space, social control
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This article explores some of the myriad representations of Roma in Europe and argues that this proliferation makes it more difficult for policymakers to formulate coherent interventions, for academics to agree on a common conceptual language and for the majority to understand the interconnected problems facing Roma communities. 'Representations' refers to how the community is understood by itself as well as by others. Whilst no community retains an uncontested image of itself and its identity, Roma communities have little or no control over how they are represented in the public sphere. Usually, representations of Roma originate and are sustained by non-Romani actors including international organisations, national governments and the majority. Of course, Roma communities have attempted to influence how they represent themselves externally to challenge negative stereotypes and internally, to raise a political consciousness and foster solidarity. Relatedly, the political representation of Roma is particularly important due to their weak political positioning in local, national and transnational contexts but also because it highlights the disparity between contested questions of who Roma are and devising policy interventions to address socioeconomic and political exclusion. This article discusses a select number of prevalent Roma representations and links the representation of Roma identity to the public presence and agency of Romani communities.