Roma in Times of Territorial Rescaling: An Inquiry into the Margins of European Citizenship

ABSTRACT

This paper examines how territorial rescaling and ensuing citizenship realignment in Europe affect marginalised minorities. It focuses on the case of Roma and calls for a new perspective on this minority: instead of viewing Roma as an exceptional non-territorial minority and migrants, it investigates their position primarily from a citizenship perspective. While examining different examples of the citizenship position of Roma, the paper argues that their positions represent the margins, which become central in defining what citizenship entails at different levels. The margins are usually not directly visible, yet they define the ‘boundaries’ of citizenship salient during episodes of territorial rescaling.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to express my gratitude to Jean-Thomas Arrighi and Dejan Stjepanović for their invaluable guidance and support during the writing and editing process of this paper. The author would also like thank Peter Vermeersch and other reviewers for their very helpful comments as well as all the participants of the workshop ‘An “Ever Looser Union”?—Citizenship and Territorial Rescaling in the Emerging European Order’ at the University of Neuchatel in December 2017.

ORCID

Julija Sardelić http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2206-4369

Notes

1 As I have discussed elsewhere (Sardelić, 2017c), using the term refugee crisis is problematic in the context of Europe, but it is a term that has been widely used in the public discourse. When I talk about the refugee crisis in Europe, I do not mean to suggest that the crisis was in any way caused by the refugees per se, but to the crisis in response to the larger refugee movement in the EU.

Additional information

Funding

This paper is part of a project that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 705768.