Was There a ‘Gypsy Problem’ in Socialist Romania? From Suppressing ‘Nationalism’ to Recognition of a National Minority

Fosztó, László

doi:10.2478/subbs-2018-0014

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…4 At the official level, Roma, unlike other "cohabiting nationalities", did not receive any legal recognition during socialism. Their recognition instead emerged through institutional acts intended to deny and suppress their cultural presence (Fosztó 2018). The economic potential of the late socialist state sharply decreased during the 1980s and integrative efforts gave way to strict surveillance and obsessive xenophobia by the regime.…”

Section: Ethnicity (Dis)embeddedness and The Romamentioning

confidence: 99%

Anthropology of Transformation

2022

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This collection of essays is the result of the joint efforts of colleagues and students of the leading social anthropology and post-socialism theorist, Professor Chris Hann. With the thirtieth anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 2019 as their catalyst, the authors reflect upon Chris Hann’s lifelong fieldwork in the discipline, spanning regions as diverse as East Central Europe, Turkey, and the Chinese north-west. The collapse of the Berlin Wall naturally triggered a plethora of analysis and scholarly research. Sociocultural anthropology, with its focus on ethnographic study and on the gradual evolution of social relations, sharply contrasted with the emphasis on dramatic rupture brought about by the 1989 transition. Continuing in this tradition, this volume, through micro-level analysis of societal transformation from the post-war years to the present day, provides an alternative perspective to the neoliberalist views often encountered in the scholarship on political and economic modernisation. The more nuanced analysis of social transformations proposed here is a particularly useful tool in the investigation of contemporary issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the refugee ‘crisis’, and the rise of right-wing populism in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. Anthropology of Transformation will be of interest to researchers in the fields of socio-cultural anthropology, religion and economics. Moreover, the book’s discussion of issues widely discussed beyond the field of academia such as neoliberalism and the welfare state, and populist and exclusionary politics, will appeal to non-specialist readers.

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Section: Ethnicity (Dis)embeddedness and The Romamentioning

confidence: 99%

Anthropology of Transformation

2022

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“…After the short-lived interest of the Romanian socialist authorities toward the Roma at the end of the 1940s and the beginning of the 1950s, the reports issued by the central bodies of the Romanian Workers' Party, subsequently renamed the Romanian Communist Party (RCP), and the Securitate were abandoned for almost three decades, until the end of 1970s and the 1980s when the "Roma question" became once again a main concern for the socialist authorities. This time, it was not only the sedentarization of semi-nomadic and nomadic Roma that came to the forefront of the Romanian's socialist authorities' actions, but also the political pressure of Roma spokespersons for the Roma groups to be recognized as a "cohabiting nationality," actions that were labeled as "Gypsy nationalism" (Fosztó 2018) by the socialist authorities.…”

Section: The Depoliticization Of the Socialist Integration-cum-assimi...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Governing the “Unmarked” Citizens: Romania’s Roma in the Grip of Socialist Technologies of Power

Anghel

2022

Nationalities Papers

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While many scholarly contributions have documented the socialist state policies deployed toward the Roma from Central and Eastern Europe, less attention was paid to how discourses and policies have aimed to turn the “non-European,” “backward Roma” into reformed and modernized subjects that were supposed to conform to an “European,” sedentary way of life. Thus, I discuss proletarization and sedentarization not as state policies but as programs and technologies of power, specific to a socialist governmentality. The article interrogates the programs, technologies of power and biopolitical regulations that allowed the state authorities to legitimize their intervention in the daily lives of the Roma, with profound depoliticizing effects. I analyze political programs, governmental reports on Roma and ministry regulations as instruments of governmentality through which the governance of the “Roma question” took shape. Special attention is given to data/knowledge production. Finally, the research pinpoints that the micro-scale and the everyday workings of the socialist technologies of power might explain the different trajectories of socio-economic adaptation among Roma groups, which some studies have revealed during post-socialism.

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“…Studies in the field have emerged from theoretical understandings of 'Romaphobia' in an attempt to underline stereotypes in the construction of Roma identity (McGarry, 2017;van Baar, 2011). Many of such studies have focused on the socioeconomic deprivation of urban and rural Roma communities, addressing issues including but not limited to territorial segregation, lack of education and labour market exclusion (Clough Marinaro, 2017;Foszto, 2018;Maestri, 2014;O'Nions, 2010;Picker, 2017;Powell, 2008;Voiculescu, 2019). The effect of corrective policies on the neglect of everyday experiences and interactions is also present in contemporary debates (Grill, 2018;Pulay, 2015), leading to increasing discussions of securitisation issues around the Roma people in Europe (van Baar et al, 2019).…”

Section: Collective Identity Disadvantaged Urban Communities and Thmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the perpetuation and contestation of racial stigma: Urban Roma in a disadvantaged neighbourhood of Szeged

Creţan¹,

Málovics²,

Méreine-Berki³

2020

Geographica Pannonica

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Stigmatisation of Roma people has long received attention in the academic literature but the internalisation of stigma among segregated urban Roma has been little researched. By adopting a theoretical perspective on collective identity and (urban Roma) racial stigmatisation, this paper aims to 1) understand the broader nature of urban Roma stigmatisation maintained by the non-Roma people and among the Roma, and 2) better position the internalisation of stigma and the burden of Roma stigmatisation. The paper uses Participatory Action Research (PAR) as a research methodology, taking a disadvantaged neighbourhood of the city of Szeged, Hungary as a case study. The findings suggest that stigmatisation against urban Roma is a process which has deeply rooted historical backgrounds, and current efforts which strive for desegregation and integration of urban Roma will be difficult to implement , as stigmatisation remains in the collective mentality. The importance of this study rests on bringing all major dimensions of stigma together, highlighting what policymakers should consider when addressing them in the longer term. We argue that the existing urban policies towards the Roma people need to be readdressed, with clear power given to the voices of the Roma, particularly from institutions which aim to protect them.

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Was There a ‘Gypsy Problem’ in Socialist Romania? From Suppressing ‘Nationalism’ to Recognition of a National Minority

Cited by 7 publications

References 14 publications

Anthropology of Transformation

Anthropology of Transformation

Governing the “Unmarked” Citizens: Romania’s Roma in the Grip of Socialist Technologies of Power

On the perpetuation and contestation of racial stigma: Urban Roma in a disadvantaged neighbourhood of Szeged

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