Abstract
E. Vincze describes types of spatial technologies of displacement and destitution: dislocation of needy families from the city centres by the authorities with or without providing alternative but deprived homes on the peripheries; disconnection of impoverished residential areas from basic infrastructure; underdevelopment of peri-urban zones where ethnic Roma had been living for ages. She also identifies major trends of the political economy of housing in Romania: uneven development of the cities, privatization, restitution, dismantling the social housing system, gentrification. The marginal and destitute housing areas formed as a result of these processes are the low-cost locations where the exploited and expropriated cheap labour force is reproduced. Therefore, the interconnectedness of marginal spaces with a racialized labour has a productive role in the development of capitalism in Romania.
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- 1.
The term is used by Kasmir and Carbonella (2014) in order to highlight the long process of the fragmentation of the working class from the United States. In my article, I am adopting it to reflect the longue durée nature of ghettoization and to suggest that the spatial dislocation of the penurious working-class Roma consists of multiple series of displacements, and that—as Carbonella and Kasmir say in the context of their analysis—these are not cases where we are dealing with a one-time enclosure or related event.
- 2.
This is an observation that recalls the conclusions of another research project, conducted in 25 localities from Romania, entitled Faces and Causes of Marginalization of the Roma in Local Settings: Hungary—Romania—Serbia. Contextual inquiry to the UNDP/World Bank/EC Regional Roma Survey 2011. A joint initiative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Open Society Foundation’s Roma Initiatives Office (RIO) and the Making the Most of EU Funds for Roma Inclusion program, and the Central European University/Center for Policy Studies (CEU CPS). October 2012–June 2014. See more about it in Szalai and Zentai (2014).
- 3.
The inhabitants of the informal homes from Cantonului Street call the area Cantonului colony. Since this was formed starting at the end of 1990s as a result of a series of relocations of evicted people from the city, it illustrates the case of an area constituted as an outcome of different kinds of spatial technologies of displacement.
- 4.
Details of the formation of disadvantaged housing areas inhabited predominantly by Roma in Ploiești, including the area informally named Dallas are given in the chapter of Berescu, this volume.
- 5.
Since the Roma from Târgu Mureș are Hungarian speakers, they use Hungarian names for the territories where they live. Marospart is a geographical denomination expressing the fact that the shelter area where they live is on the shore of Mureș River.
- 6.
The locals are naming this area using the English term “Pork city.” The name refers to the fact that, before 1990, dwellers of blocks of flats used this territory as a location for small animal farms.
- 7.
Colina Verde means “Green Hill” in English, and this was the name given to this area by the local public administration that actually created it in 2010 as a “residential area” placed less than one kilometre from the non-ecological landfill of the city. This denomination was a way to avoid making explicit the fact that the modular houses provided for Roma evicted from a centrally placed area of the city were actually located in the landfill area called Pata Rât. Moreover, in fact not all the evicted families were provided with alternative homes there. The latter were allowed by public officials to build “illegally some improvisations” on the land nearby the modular houses.
- 8.
The Hungarian-speaking local Roma call this area Kastély in Hungarian, which means Castel in Romanian and Castle in English; it was actually the building of a former slaughter house.
- 9.
The Hungarian name for the area means La Bărăci in Romanian, both referring to the fact that the houses from here are actually improvised barracks, in fact being metallic container-like housing spaces.
- 10.
Also encountered in other localities, the denomination Dallas, according to the inhabitants of these areas, has its roots in the American television series titled Dallas, which played in Romania in the 1980s. By this, people expressed in an ironical way the huge discrepancy between their actual living conditions and the luxurious life of the very rich oil company owner family depicted in the show.
- 11.
The term bloc NATO in Romanian or NATO block of flats is used in several towns of Romania for denominating buildings formerly owned by the state that after 1990 were abandoned by their former tenants and were disconnected from utilities and allowed to deteriorate. The name recalls the horrendous situation of blocks of flats from areas hit by the war where NATO interfered.
- 12.
Nicolae Ceaușescu, General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989 and Romania’s head of state from 1967 to 1989, embodies in the memories of the locals the period of real socialism in this country, marked by industrialization and urbanization.
- 13.
Ion Iliescu served as President of Romania from 1989 to 1996 and also from 2000 to 2004, representing first the National Salvation Front and afterwards the Democratic National Salvation Front that split from the former, which later evolved into the Party of Social Democracy in Romania, and then into the Social Democratic Party. Altogether, these periods (likewise all of the post-1989 era) are marked by the privatization of the state-owned units of production as well as the public housing stock, and by the integration of Romania as an emergent market into the scene of global (neoliberal) capitalism.
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Appendix
Appendix
Municipality of Călărași, Călărași County, South Development Region
-
Obor -
Doi Moldoveni, Cinci Călărași -
Livada
Obor
Doi Moldoveni, Cinci Călărași
LivadaTotal population of the city: 65,181
82.91% Romanians, 3.15% Roma, 0.04% Hungarians (Census 2011)
Municipality of Cluj-Napoca, Cluj County, North-West Development Region
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Partially Cantonului street, partially Colina Verde -
Partially Colina Verde, partially Cantonului -
Dallas, Landfill -
Dallas
Partially Cantonului street, partially Colina Verde
Partially Colina Verde, partially Cantonului
Dallas, Landfill
DallasTotal population in the city: 324,576
75.71% Romanians, 1.008% Roma, 15.27% Hungarians (Census 2011)
Municipality of Miercurea-Ciuc, Harghita County, Central Development Region
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Pork city -
Wastewater plant -
Landfill -
Csíksomlyó (Șumuleu)
Pork city
Wastewater plant
Landfill
Csíksomlyó (Șumuleu)Total population in the city: 38,966
16.77% Romanians, 0.86% Roma, 78.54%, Hungarians (Census 2011)
Municipality of Ploiești, Prahova County, South-East Development Region
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Dallas -
Container housing zone under the bridge -
Blocul NATO -
Mimiu, Bereasca, Bariera București, Boldeasca
Dallas
Container housing zone under the bridge
Blocul NATO
Mimiu, Bereasca, Bariera București, BoldeascaTotal population in the city: 209,945
90.64% Romanians, 2.40% Roma, 0.08% Hungarians (Census 2011)
Municipality of Târgu-Mureș, Mureș County, Central Development Region
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Marospart (Malul Mureșului) -
Social housing area Kastély (Castel), Barakoknál (La barăci) -
Hidegvölgy (Valea Rece), Hegy utca (Dealului street)
Marospart (Malul Mureșului)
Social housing area Kastély (Castel), Barakoknál (La barăci)
Hidegvölgy (Valea Rece), Hegy utca (Dealului street)Total population in the city: 134,290
49.17% Romanians, 2.32% Roma, 42.84% Hungarians (Census 2011)
Romania, counties and county centres
Marked with red bullets on the map | Percentage of ethnic Roma (2011 Census) (%) |
|---|---|
Călărași county | 8.05 |
Cluj county | 3.46 |
Harghita county | 1.71 |
Prahova county | 2.33 |
Mureș county | 8.78 |
Romania | 3.3 |
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Vincze, E. (2019). Ghettoization: The Production of Marginal Spaces of Housing and the Reproduction of Racialized Labour. In: Vincze, E., Petrovici, N., Raț, C., Picker, G. (eds) Racialized Labour in Romania. Neighborhoods, Communities, and Urban Marginality. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76273-9_3
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