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Urban Roma, segregation and place attachment in Szeged, Hungary
Author(s) -
Málovics György,
Creţan Remus,
Méreiné Berki Boglárka,
Tóth Janka
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
area
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.958
H-Index - 82
eISSN - 1475-4762
pISSN - 0004-0894
DOI - 10.1111/area.12426
Subject(s) - reciprocity (cultural anthropology) , sociology , place attachment , feeling , citizen journalism , participatory action research , gender studies , political science , social psychology , social science , anthropology , psychology , law
Recent research in segregated areas has shown that Romani people are marginalised in Central Eastern Europe and that desegregation has become an important part of the agenda in local development policy‐making. This paper aims to push forward this issue and to better understand how Roma living in segregated urban areas relate to the places and communities in which they live. The research therefore links the particular field of Romani Studies to wider developments in the social sciences, and especially to global debates on insecure/informal housing and (neo‐)ghettoisation, by ascertaining how Roma people's personal attachment to place functions as a basis for their everyday activities in the ghetto and surrounding area(s). The analysis is based on a participatory action research (PAR) process carried out in Szeged, Hungary, with local scholar–activists, Roma representatives and Roma families living in local segregated spaces. The findings suggest that the world of Roma in segregated neighbourhoods is characterised by a strong feeling of place attachment fundamentally shaped by social relations and the features of those neighbourhoods, but certain centripetal forces alienate inhabitants from these spaces. This is important because existing place attachment to segregated Roma communities as a living environment is a contradictory situation for the affected Roma, which is characterised by “dual bonds”: traditional relationships based on strong bonding capital and reciprocity still exist and represent significant material and emotional support for families and the places they inhabit, while at the same time communities are becoming more fragmented, with the most marginalised often being excluded from this “net of space protection.”