From liberation to freedom: Governing the “ghetto” in post-war Hungary

Abstract

This article investigates the relationship between race and property in Hungary by examining the shifting discourse of the “ghetto” in post-war Hungary. I unpack the relationship between norms of propriety, or logics of use, associated with colonial epistemologies of land and the various racial projects deployed by the Hungarian state between socialist and liberal-capitalist governments. To operationalize this project, I put into conversation Brenna Bhandar’s racial regimes of ownership with David Theo Goldberg’s racial governmentality to understand the shifting logics and tactics of racial management toward Roma in Hungary. I show that the concept of the ghetto was crucial in the deployment of the racial project “The Elimination of Settlements with Unacceptable Social Conditions,” where the project was understood by officials as a palliative to the damage done by capitalist social relations. On the heels of this project, a group of liberal dissidents led by sociologist and demographer Istvan Kemeny forged a new problematic that centered state interventions on the Roma family. I show how this problematic was used to deny Roma tenure claims in the majority Roma Eighth District during the transition to liberal capitalism.