Returnees and their neighbors: Migration of the Romanian Roma, networks, social distance, and local development

Abstract

Migration has a significant impact on the home communities of the migrants through financial and social remittances. There is an ongoing debate about the effects of migration on local development between proponents of approaches inspired by “development optimism” on the one hand, and those that are focused more on the negative consequences. Our study is focused on the ways mobile Roma are repositioning themselves within two ethnically mixed localities in Transylvania. Returnees take advantage, reorient and navigate between local social categories, challenging them to rely on the resources at their disposal to improve the situation of their families and communities. Social networks facilitate migration and also serve as support for the renegotiation of social categories at home. We distinguish between two main patterns of network development. On the one hand there are localities where network ties crosscut ethnic boundaries and facilitate intense exchanges and communication between different segments of local society. In the other case, network ties tend to be tight between members of the same ethnic category, but ties that cut through ethnic boundaries remain weak. We discuss the implications of these patterns for the local development paths of the home localities of the migrants.

Cosmopolitans in a farmhouse

“…To feel at home is related to the subjective feeling of 'fitting in' a social position (Berger, 2018), but it also presupposes a 'quasiperfect coincidence of habitus and habitat' (Bourdieu, 2000, p. 147). Homemaking is a multilayered process, since home is both the symbol and the mate rialised reality of our place in the social and physical world; it is the representation of one's social position, but also a lived place (Creswell, 2009;Toma & Fosztó, 2018;Tuitjer, 2018). As a consequence, homemaking is at the crossroads of newly developed and family inherited dispositions, mobilising and blending different classbased preferences, practices and tastes, especially in cases of socially or spatially mobile individuals (Bourdieu, 1984;2002).…”

“…The materiality of their home expresses their social position (Bourdieu, 1984;Toma & Fosztó, 2018;Tuitjer, 2018), which is apparently higher than their neighbours', but is also the lived reality of it, which is constituted by the routines as well as the meaningful formality of everyday practices. It is the pleasure of these small formalities that reinforces their decision to live the way they do in the place they do.…”

“…Kovai, 2019;Kovai & Vigvári, 2020;Melegh et al, 2018;Szombati, 2018). The worldwide re structuring of mobility chances is interrelated with changes in living strategies, of which an increasing number are based on different kinds of spatial mobilities framed by global migra tion (see for example de Haas, 2010;Parreñas, 2001;Durst, 2018;Melegh et al, 2018;Toma & Fosztó, 2018;Váradi et al, 2017;Váradi, 2019). Complex and ambivalent effects of these global changes in migration patterns have become visible in Hungary and the CEE region in variable and 'fluid' forms (de Haas, 2010) of spatial mobilities.…”

“…Complex and ambivalent effects of these global changes in migration patterns have become visible in Hungary and the CEE region in variable and 'fluid' forms (de Haas, 2010) of spatial mobilities. Transnational employmentbased mo bilities that are either long or short term, formal or informal appear in forms of commuting, as well as in circular, periodical, or longterm transnational migration (Durst, 2018;Durst & Nyírő, 2018a;Toma & Fosztó, 2018;Melegh et al, 2018;Váradi et al, 2017;Váradi, 2018). All these spatial mobility (and living) strategies have complex effects on social mobility aspira tions and trajectories, and vice versa.…”