Gypsies, Lawbreakers, Vagabonds and Junkies
Academic lecture by Gergo Pulay
Gypsies, Lawbreakers, Vagabonds and Junkies: Practices of Spatial and Social Distinction in a Bucharest ‘Roma Ghetto’
As everyday forms of Romanian anti-Gypsism suggest, the low qualities associated with the Roma are often localized in specific marginal spaces. But the dangers attributed to marginality are also seen as threatening the ‘mainstream’ with invasion. Ethnicity is part of a larger set of distinctions here, as it is accompanied – and often interchanged – with other forms of social closure. The neighborhood presented in this study is usually seen from the outside as an ultimate ‘no-go area’, a stigmatized Gypsy ghetto of Bucharest. With regards to the diversity of housing conditions and the social profiles of the inhabitants, both of these terms seem to be problematic...Inhabitants of the area draw boundaries between spaces and peoples within their neighborhood, distinctions which are not necessarily based on ethnically coded references.
Gypsies, Lawbreakers, Vagabonds and Junkies: Practices of Spatial and Social Distinction in a Bucharest ‘Roma Ghetto’
As everyday forms of Romanian anti-Gypsism suggest, the low qualities associated with the Roma are often localized in specific marginal spaces. But the dangers attributed to marginality are also seen as threatening the ‘mainstream’ with invasion. Ethnicity is part of a larger set of distinctions here, as it is accompanied – and often interchanged – with other forms of social closure. The neighborhood presented in this study is usually seen from the outside as an ultimate ‘no-go area’, a stigmatized Gypsy ghetto of Bucharest. With regards to the diversity of housing conditions and the social profiles of the inhabitants, both of these terms seem to be problematic...Inhabitants of the area draw boundaries between spaces and peoples within their neighborhood, distinctions which are not necessarily based on ethnically coded references.
Category
📚
Learning