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Bringing the Third Sector Back into Ghetto Studies: Roma Segregation and Civil Society Associations in Italy

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Class, Ethnicity and State in the Polarized Metropolis

Abstract

By considering the segregation of Roma in camps in Rome, in this chapter I evaluate the merits and limitations of Wacquant’s work on the ghetto. While rightly placing the state at the core of the analysis of racial segregation dynamics, Wacquant overlooks the complexity of public policies and does not discuss the role of civil society organisations in the (re)production of ghettoisation. I thus suggest integrating this view with theories coming from “camp studies”, which stress the heterogeneity of actors operating around state-enforced camps. Drawing on this approach, I explore the role of third sector associations not only in the planning and implementation of Roma housing segregation but also in the potentially exclusionary effects of their Roma inclusion discourses.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Some of the subcontractors were involved in the 2014 police enquiry Mafia Capitale (i.e. Capital Mafia), which uncovered the corrupt management of the Roma camps run by local political administrators, individuals from criminal organisations, as well as members of some of the major subcontracted cooperatives working in the Roma camps.

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  1. School of Media, Communication and Sociology, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

    Gaja Maestri

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  1. Department of Urban Studies and Planning, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    John Flint

  2. Department of Urban Studies and Planning, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    Ryan Powell

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Maestri, G. (2019). Bringing the Third Sector Back into Ghetto Studies: Roma Segregation and Civil Society Associations in Italy. In: Flint, J., Powell, R. (eds) Class, Ethnicity and State in the Polarized Metropolis. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16222-1_11

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