The position and agency of the ‘irregularized’: Romani migrants as European semi-citizens

Abstract

This article discusses the position and agency of Romani migrants. It argues that different states often irregularize the status of Romani migrants even in cases where it should be regularized due to their de jure citizenship. This irregularization is possible because of their position as semi-citizens in their ‘states of origin’. Yet, Romani migrants are not mere passive observers of these practices, but react to their irregularized migrant statuses. In doing so, they redefine their national and European citizenships. This article centres around two case studies to analyse the position and agency of Romani migrants The first is Roma with European Union (EU) citizenship and the second is post-Yugoslav Roma without EU citizenship.

Migration Regimes and the Translation of Human Rights: On the Struggles for Recognition of Romani Migrants in Germany

“…6 Several works on this thematic field do admittedly exist, however, not in the presented synopsis and German context. For instance, in their insightful works, Sardelić (2016) and Çağlar and Mehling (2013) also address the question of how Romani migrants try to achieve political belonging via acts of citizenship. In contrast to their particularly normative perspective, this article does not explore the citizenship debate in such detail, but instead more deeply reveals the cultural modus operandi of appropriation and translation of universal norms (human rights).…”

“…According to Balibar (2003;2009), the discrepancy between minorities' codified rights and rights in social practice cannot be resolved, as the current concepts of citizenship (particularly in the Balkans) are dominated by nationalism: a state for Roma that Balibar terms "European apartheid". Roma, who can at best be said to have semi-citizenship (Sardelić, 2016), are consequently exposed to a vicious cycle of structural discrimination whose individual components can scarcely be isolated: racism, high unemployment, ghettoization, poor institutionalized educational capital, almost nonexistent social mobility, lack of trust in (state) institutions, retreat towards kinship networks, etc. (Mappes-Niediek, 2012).…”

“…The German government does not view Roma's protection claims as being worthy of recognition, as they are usually neither politically persecuted nor fleeing from war and thus fail to meet the criteria for German asylum and refugee protection. Instead, German authorities are irregularizing the Romani migrant status and classifying them as "economic" or "poverty" migrants (Sardelić, 2016;Scherr, 2015a). 3 Against this background, a clearly visible Romani protest movement, which fights for a collective right of residence that employs human rights in order to disrupt Roma's history of infringement, at least in regard to refugee law, began forming around 2008.…”

“…The shared fundamental attitude is that a structural discrimination against Roma dominates in the Western Balkans and that the present asylum and refugee protection should be extended to include them. 4 This article has two main goals: Firstly, it aims to depict Roma's current migration from the Western Balkans within European policy at present, and subsequently reveal through which practices they are categorized as "bogus asylum seekers" in legal and political discourse as well as in the media (Kacarska, 2012;Lee, 2014;Sardelić, 2016). By using selected examples, I sketch which role Western Balkan governments play within the German as well as European migration regime.…”

What's in a Name? Causes and Consequences of Labelling Minorities as “National” or “Migrant”: Roma in Italy and Spain

“…Recent scholarship has started to recognize the need to overcome such “splendid isolation” (Willems, , pp. 305–306), acknowledging that the framing of the Roma as a minority “in need of integration” is relevant not only for minority protection but also for issues revolving around European citizenship, the surge in populist xenophobic parties and the so‐called “migrant crisis” (Kostka, ; Sardelić, ; Sigona & Treheran, ; Vermeersch, ; Yıldız & Genova, ).…”