Roma communities, urban development and social bordering in the inner city of Budapest

ABSTRACT

The paper relates intersectionality to the construction of urban borders based on a case study of Roma neighbourhoods in Budapest. In doing this the authors focus on rationales behind appropriating and demarcating urban spaces according to political, ethno-territorial and economic agendas. We are concerned with bordering as reflected in representations of neighbourhood in Budapest’s VIII District and socio-ethnic issues that have been framed in conjunction with urban development. This includes the selective ways Roma-specific issues are made visible, or in fact masked, through ostensibly “colour-blind” policies. Furthermore, we relate these representations to concrete impacts of urban renewal with regard to challenges of multi-ethnicity but also to often exclusionary practices of border-making. Indeed, while not an officially proclaimed policy, social segregation is eagerly pursued in practice. However, this is only part of the story as we can clearly identify attempts to create a sense of Roma belonging and pride.

KEYWORDS:

• Roma
• urban borders
• place-making
• social exclusion
• urban policies
• Budapest

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank our colleagues within the EUBORDERSCAPES project, Nira Yuval-Davis, Georgie Wemyss and Kathryn Cassidy in particular, for support and critical feedback. In addition we would like to acknowledge the informed criticisms and comments provided by the reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

James W. Scott http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6092-9784

Additional information

Funding

This article is based on research funded by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development within the scope of the EUBORDERSCAPES project [grant number 290775].