Citizen Outsiders: How the Struggles of Romanian Roma in London Challenge the Conception of Citizenship

Open Research Online The Open University’s repository of research publications and other research outputs Citizen Outsiders: How the Struggles of Romanian Roma in London Challenge the Conception of Citizenship Thesis How to cite: Solf, Juliane (2018). Citizen Outsiders: How the Struggles of Romanian Roma in London Challenge the Conception of Citizenship. PhD thesis The Open University. For guidance on citations see FAQs. c 2015 The Author https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Version: Version of Record Link(s) to article on publisher’s website: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21954/ou.ro.0000d1f8 Copyright and Moral Rights for the articles on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. For more information on Open Research Online’s data policy on reuse of materials please consult the policies page. oro.open.ac.uk CITIZEN OUTSIDERS HOW THE STRUGGLES OF ROMANIAN ROMA IN LONDON CHALLENGE THE CONCEPTION OF CITIZENSHIP Juliane Solf, MA, BA (Hons) A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Open University Department of Politics and International Studies December 2017 II Abstract Conventionally citizenship has been understood as membership in nation states requiring certain rights and providing certain entitlements. Over the last twenty years, critical perspectives asserted that citizenship is not merely membership, let alone membership of a state. It is now argued that historically and theoretically citizenship involves a distinction between an outside and inside and often its boundaries become the sites of social struggle. Critical perspectives on citizenship invite us to think of citizenship as processes by which political subjectivity, understood as the right to make claims to rights, can be recognised and enacted. As these perspectives allow us to think critically about citizenship beyond membership and the nation state, in this thesis I focus first on the mechanism related to the logic of citizenship that dismisses political agency of those who do not count as political subjects and makes them into what I refer to as ‘citizen outsiders’. Second, I draw on critical perspectives on citizenship and ethnographic methods to examine how Romanian Roma in an East London borough, who are discursively constituted as lacking capacities to act as citizens, contest the ways they are problematised. By focusing on their everyday life struggles as acts of citizenship, I argue that Roma in London do make claims to rights and, in doing so, enact themselves as citizens. Finally I draw conclusions about the ways Roma are problematised and how Roma disrupt these positioning with various acts of citizenship. III IV Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction – Roma at the Margins of Citizenship .......................................... 1 1.1 Background to Research ....................................................................................................... 2 1.2 Research Aims and Questions ................................................................................................ 3 1.3 Citizenship and its Strangers .................................................................................................. 4 1.4 Situation of Roma beyond Strangeness ................................................................................... 8 1.5 ‘The Right to have Rights’ .................................................................................................. 14 1.6 Outline of Thesis ................................................................................................................ 17 Chapter 2: Conventional and Critical Perspectives on Citizenship ................................... 19 2.1 Conventional Perspectives on Citizenship ............................................................................. 20 2.2 Critical Perspectives on Citizenship ..................................................................................... 26 2.3 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 47 Chapter 3: The Situation of Roma and Perspectives on Citizenship ................................. 53 3.1 The Situation of Roma in Europe ......................................................................................... 54 3.2 Minority Status and Romaphobia ......................................................................................... 65 3.3 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 77 Chapter 4: The Research Process .................................................................................... 81 4.1 Rationale ........................................................................................................................... 82 4.2 Research Design ................................................................................................................. 85 4.3 Data Collection .................................................................................................................. 95 4.4 Ethical Issues ................................................................................................................... 113 4.5 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 114 Chapter 5: Discursive Constructions of Roma in the UK ................................................ 117 5.1 ‘Roma as Nomads’ ........................................................................................................... 119 5.2 ‘Roma as Unfounded Asylum Seekers and Undeserving Migrants’ ....................................... 124 5.3 The Need to Restrict Roma ............................................................................................... 141 5.4 Neglecting Roma .............................................................................................................. 142 5.5 ‘Roma as Criminals’ ......................................................................................................... 148 5.6 ‘Roma as Welfare Fraudsters’ ............................................................................................ 155 5.7 ‘Roma and their Self-Exclusion’ ........................................................................................ 165 5.8 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 171 Chapter 6: Claims of Roma in London .......................................................................... 175 6.1 ‘We cannot live like this’ – Everyday Bare Life and Dependency ......................................... 176 6.2 ‘I want to be respected in the way I am’ – No Need to Become a Citizen ............................... 182 6.3 ‘We have a right to live’– The Difficulty of Becoming an Actor ........................................... 190 6.4 ‘I don’t give up. This is my protest’ – Abjecthood ............................................................... 202 6.5 ‘I want people to listen to me’ – Contestation ...................................................................... 208 6.6 ‘I rather say nothing’ – Crossing the Barrier ........................................................................ 213 6.7 ‘We came here to have a better future, to have a future’ – Claims to Rights ........................... 222 6.8 ‘Being Roma is not good for anything’ – Assimilation ......................................................... 228 6.9 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 232 Chapter 7: Conclusion – Everyday Struggles as Acts of Citizenship ............................... 237 7.1 Summary ......................................................................................................................... 238 7.2 Main Conclusions ............................................................................................................. 242 7.3 Contribution .................................................................................................................... 252 Appendix .................................................................................................................... 261 Basic demographics of the fieldwork participants in East London .................................................. 261 Ethics Approval ........................................................................................................................ 265 Bibliography .................................................................................................................... 273 V VI Chapter 1: Introduction – Roma at the Margins of Citizenship This thesis looks at how Roma as citizens are problematised in UK authoritative discourses, and in particular, based on fieldwork carried out in East London, explores the ways in which Roma challenge these problematisations by making claims to rights in their everyday life. While the majority of Roma possess the legal status of citizens, they are often discursively constituted as lacking the capacities to act as citizens. Aiming to challenge this perception,based on interviews and participant observations, I explore how people who are constituted as what I refer to as ‘citizen outsiders’ make claims to rights, and in doing so, enact themselves as citizens. This introductory chapter

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