Integrating or segregating Roma migrants in the name of respect: A spatial analysis of the ‘villages d’insertion’ (original) (raw)
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Journal of Urban Affairs, 2014
The French republican model has long promoted an individualist, universal and difference-blind conception of citizenship. Yet the sociological and historical reality of decolonization and immigration has strained the coherence of this conception and helped to reveal the tension between the universalism of republican principles and the particularistic application of such principles to a specific nation, defined in political and territorial terms. One limit of this model is particularly visible in the spatial management of immigration and segregation trends. Indeed, while French urban planning officially rejects any policies explicitly directed at ethnic minorities, preferring to address social inequalities in spatial terms, it has not prevented French society from pursuing a strict and enduring process of ethno-racial segregation. Recently, the traditional universalist position has faced a new dilemma with regard to the social and spatial treatment of the Romani populations that have settled in France since the early 2000s. Local authorities have adopted various measures to accommodate and "manage" these populations through specific spatial and administrative devices, some of which are called villages or inclusion villages (villages d'insertion). This article offers a spatial and political analysis of such local policies, focusing on three main ambiguities that characterize this urban device-security function, integrative role, and ethno-cultural component. The authors show that the villages d'insertion offer a paradigmatic situation in which the usual scales and frames of justice get blurred, and call for a new conception of citizenship, required to promote equal respect to all populations. The French republican model has long promoted an individualist, universal, and difference-blind conception of citizenship (Spitz 2005; Laborde 2009). This conception is associated with a perfectionist view of justice according to which the state provides moral unity and a common ethos for society. Opposed to this view is the liberal conception of state neutrality regarding comprehensive sets of moral beliefs (Rawls, 1971). French republicanism sees liberal neutrality as a false regime of
Social Means Politics : How France Handles Romanian Roma Population's Settlements
The French authorities handled in different ways the settlement of Romanian Roma migrants. But always, their decisions were in accordance with the French republican principles of equality, neutrality and universalism. During a few years, after 1990, when those migrants claimed the right of asylum, France first started to negotiate bilateral agreements with Romania, in order to reduce the immigration from this country. Then, the immigration and integration policies were put forward to handle these populations, from the middle ’90 until recently. From 2012, given that the Roma migrants settled in France on a long-term basis, a new approach was adopted, witch consists in laying stress on the poverty and inclusion policies. Political decisions state concerns on the access to the health services, to work, to housing, to schooling for the children. This article mentions particularly two types of action, carried out to that effect. The first one concerns the villages d’insertion, implemented in 2006-2007. Their aim was to facilitate the integration of poor Roma migrants, by offering in the same time housing and social support services to the persons witch agreed with and adhered to this social project. Meanwhile, its name changed, and it became structure d’hébergement et d’insertion. The second one is a social diagnosis; witch is now a legal obligation before dismantling an irregular settlement. These two types of action could be beneficial to the persons concerned, if the objectives are respected. The two of them reflected nevertheless an ethnicisation of the public action, conflicting the republican spirit.
Int. J. Migration and Border Studies, Vol. 2, No. 4, pp. 365–381
Drawing on data collected during fieldwork conducted between 2010 and 2014, the article aims to explore, through an in-depth case study and process tracing centred analysis, the influence of EU's policies on Roma and Gypsies 'integration' and mobilities. Building on a multi-level analysis, and focusing on local policies targeting migrant Roma in France, I show how these populations, formally citizens of the EU, are nevertheless targeted by actions belonging to specific, dispensatory or exceptional schemes. At the national level, the politics of Roma securitisation enacts logics of racialisation and othering, that renew a long-lasting anti-Gypsyism. At the local level, while some municipalities took steps to mitigate the predicament of Roma people and oppose only rejectionist policies, the repertoires of action we observed re-inscribe these operations within the framework of the temporary (which lasts), of what I term infra-right and public hospitality. The result is a situation of considerable ambiguity, also contributing, though in a different way, to the construction of a vulnerable otherness, to which are assigned specific duties.
Spatial consequences of urban policies forming a Roma ghetto
socio.hu, 2016
The article is based on ethnographic fieldwork in a neighborhood situated at the edge of a small town inhabited by the local poor for decades. The neighbourhood that was once connected to the town through a set of institutions has become isolated over the years as personal relationships and institutions have ceased. I intend to present the institutional changes and social processes that transformed a socially and ethnically heterogeneous neighbourhood into a stigmatized ghetto. In this process, the role of different organizations that structure the life of the urban poor, and the governance structures in which those organizations are embedded are fundamental. Overall, the penalization of poverty and criminalization of ethnicity characterize the mechanisms that maintain invisibility. These are as follows: (1) limiting their right to access certain institutions through the creation of a second set of institutions, particularly in education; (2) operating a public work scheme along ethnic divisions; and (3) surveillance of space used by the local Roma minority government to organize, monitor and regulate this neighbourhood.
2016
Given the current policies of the Western European countries on the repatriation of Roma population and subsidies granting to those who return to the country of origin, increasingly more Romanian citizens of Roma ethnicity view migration as an economic opportunity. The present study has at its basis the research conducted on Roma immigrants of Romanian origin in the city of Rennes, France, between March and June 2015. The interview-based survey was conducted on a sample of 50 participants of Roma ethnicity, originating from different areas of Romania, and is aimed at analyzing the attitudes of Romanian Roma immigrants towards the local authorities: local administration, school, hospital, NGOs. The research results suggest a positive perception of Roma population directed towards certain local stakeholders, such as the NGOs, hospital and school, as well as certain reluctance towards the local administration. The problems faced by the Roma community members in Rennes are linked to the attitude of local stakeholders towards immigrants, the difficulties of insertion in the work environment and social exclusion issues. Despite the difficulties they face, the most interviewees expressed no desire of return to Romania, except for the situation in which they would be repatriated by the French State. Their migration project is based upon the intention of remaining in France for a number of years, or of migrating to another developed country in Western Europe. The situation of Roma immigrants is highly sensitive, both for France and for the other Western European countries. Since 2000, many NGOs have focused their work on helping these communities illegally settled in France. This study represents a first contribution to a larger research project, focused on the analysis of the Roma community in the city of Rennes in particular and of Roma minorities of Romanian nationality in France, and generally follows the causes that have contributed to increased migration, migration experience and routes within the Roma population.
Racial Cities: Governance and the Segregation of Romani People in Urban Europe [Routledge, 2017]
Going beyond race-blind approaches to spatial segregation in Europe, Racial Cities argues that race is the logic through which stigmatized and segregated "Gypsy urban areas" have emerged and persisted after World War II. Building on nearly a decade of ethnographic and historical research in Romania, Italy, France and the UK, Giovanni Picker casts a series of case studies into the historical framework of circulations and borrowings between colony and metropole since the late nineteenth century. By focusing on socio-economic transformations and social dynamics in contemporary Cluj-Napoca, Pescara, Montreuil, Florence and Salford, Picker detects four local segregating mechanisms, and comparatively investigates resemblances between each of them and segregation in French Rabat, Italian Addis Ababa, and British New Delhi. These multiple global associations across space and time serve as an empirical basis for establishing a solid bridge between race critical theories and urban studies. Racial Cities is the first comprehensive analysis of the segregation of Romani people in Europe, providing a fine-tuned and in-depth explanation of this phenomenon. While inequalities increase globally and poverty is ever more concentrated, this book is a key contribution to debates and actions addressing social marginality, inequalities, racist exclusions, and governance. Thanks to its dense yet thoroughly accessible narration, the book will appeal to scholars, undergraduate and postgraduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and equally to activists and policy makers, who are interested in areas including: Race and Racism, Urban Studies, Governance, Inequalities, Colonialism and Postcolonialism, and European Studies.
The'Roma Problem'in the EU: Nomadism,(in) visible architectures and violence
Borderlands, 2010
France, this article seeks to better understand their implications by looking at: a) the relationship between the Roma's sedentary vs. nomadic lifestyle; b) the Roma's use of space to secure both visibility and invisibility; and c) the state's problematic use of legal violence in order to control and police the Roma. The article strongly suggests that the Roma 'space problem' cannot be solved by attempts to either construct (settlement) or constrict (expulsion) Roma spaces by an outside authority, but rather through an acceptance of Roma's temporary presence-even if it involves a long-term temporality-in camps 'abroad' and continued support for Roma communities 'at home'. borderlands 9:2 2 but also continued policies of discrimination throughout the EU, are in fact targeting the Roma's right to settle, anywhere. If Romanians and Bulgarians were glad to see the Roma move abroad, their host countries are equally anxious to see them go 'home'.
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
In this lecture, given in April 2015 at Duke University, I argue that, in order to adequately understand the contemporary situation of Roma in Europe, we need to move beyond the currently dominant methodological Eurocentrism. In the context of Roma-related scholarship, ‘methodological Eurocentrism’ refers to analyses of the Roma’s societal position that do not sufficiently take into account how representations of both Europe and the Roma have significantly and interdependently changed since the collapse of socialism. Since the fall of communism, we have been able to observe what I call the ‘Europeanization of the representation of the Roma’, that is, firstly, the post-1989 problematization of the Roma in terms of their Europeanness and European identity; secondly, the classification of heterogeneous groups scattered over Europe under the umbrella term Roma and, thirdly, the devising of Europe-wide developmental programs that are dedicated to their inclusion, integration, anti-discrimination, empowerment and participation. I will clarify how we can understand the Europeanization of Roma representation as the latest stage of the various ways in which those who are currently called, or call themselves, Roma have historically interacted with Europe. I argue that, since 1989, a shift has taken place from considering the Roma as the Orientalized and externalized outsiders against which Europe has defined itself to considering them as the internalized outsiders to be incorporated in Europe as productive, participating and ‘true Europeans’. This shift has enabled the Roma to become actively involved in the political and policy debates about their representation, in attempts at improving their situation, and in the deepening and widening of the heterogeneous Romani movement. Yet, I will explain why this shift is fundamentally ambiguous. It has contributed to problematizing the Roma in ambiguous ways at the present-day nexus of security, citizenship and development. I will show how a threefold redirecting of Roma-related scholarship will help to critically reflect upon these problematizations beyond currently dominant Eurocentric and Roma-centric parameters.