IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v60y2023i10p1875-1893.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

‘We lurk in the hidden places’: The (un)stable spatialisation of Roma poverty in Romania

Author

Listed:
  • IonuÅ£-Marian Anghel

    (Research Institute for Quality of Life, Romania)

  • Filip Mihai Alexandrescu

    (Research Institute for Quality of Life, Romania)

Abstract

This article studies the urban geographies of Roma poverty by exploring variations in spatialisation. We draw on Sassen’s work on expulsions to argue that the spatialisation of poverty does not always result in a ‘ghetto’. We show instead that the ‘savage sorting’ of winners and losers and the resulting expulsions separate Roma into different levels of (housing) market worthiness. However, this sorting is also shaped by a ‘governance of Gypsy urban areas’ that enables a partial stabilisation of expulsion outcomes. We flesh out these arguments using interviews and observations collected in several Roma ghettos and slum areas from two Transylvanian mid-sized cities in Romania. Our research indicates that the spatialisation of (Roma) poverty is the result of disordering and re-ordering processes, that make it more ruthless, but at the same time politically containable.

Suggested Citation

  • IonuÅ£-Marian Anghel & Filip Mihai Alexandrescu, 2023. "‘We lurk in the hidden places’: The (un)stable spatialisation of Roma poverty in Romania," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 60(10), pages 1875-1893, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:60:y:2023:i:10:p:1875-1893
    DOI: 10.1177/00420980221136984
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00420980221136984
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/00420980221136984?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Remus Creţan & Ryan Powell, 2018. "The Power of Group Stigmatization: Wealthy Roma, Urban Space and Strategies of Defence in Post†socialist Romania," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(3), pages 423-441, May.
    2. Enikő Vincze & George Iulian Zamfir, 2019. "Racialized housing unevenness in Cluj-Napoca under capitalist redevelopment," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(4-5), pages 439-460, September.
    3. Tom Slater, 2006. "The Eviction of Critical Perspectives from Gentrification Research," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 737-757, December.
    4. Remus Creţan & Petr Kupka & Ryan Powell & Václav Walach, 2022. "EVERYDAY ROMA STIGMATIZATION: Racialized Urban Encounters, Collective Histories and Fragmented Habitus," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(1), pages 82-100, January.
    5. Colin McFarlane, 2011. "Assemblage and critical urbanism," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(2), pages 204-224, April.
    6. Jamie Peck & Nik Theodore & Neil Brenner, 2013. "Neoliberal Urbanism Redux?," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(3), pages 1091-1099, May.
    7. Herbert J. Gans, 1994. "Positive Functions of the Undeserving Poor: Uses of the Underclass in America," Politics & Society, , vol. 22(3), pages 269-283, September.
    8. Erin McElroy, 2020. "Digital nomads in siliconising Cluj: Material and allegorical double dispossession," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(15), pages 3078-3094, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Melis Oguz & Evren Tok, 2011. "Gentrification as a Blanket Concept: A Tale of Resisting and Contesting Neoliberal Urbanization Programmes," ERSA conference papers ersa11p201, European Regional Science Association.
    2. Marina-Alexandra Rotaru & Remus Creţan & Ana-Neli Ianăş, 2023. "Ethnicities in Post-Communist Romania: Spatial Dynamics, Fractionalisation, and Polarisation at the NUTS-3 Level," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-29, May.
    3. Mace, Alan & Holman, Nancy & Paccoud, Antoine & Sundaresan, Jayaraj, 2015. "Coordinating density; working through conviction, suspicion and pragmatism," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 56768, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Gabriel Schwake & Haim Yacobi, 2024. "Decolonisation, gentrification, and the settler-colonial city: Reappropriation and new forms of urban exclusion in Israel," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 42(4), pages 618-638, June.
    5. Jenny Muir, 2014. "Neoliberalising a divided society? The regeneration of Crumlin Road Gaol and Girdwood Park, North Belfast," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 29(1-2), pages 52-64, February.
    6. Nick Bailey & Madeleine Pill, 2015. "Can the State Empower Communities through Localism? An Evaluation of Recent Approaches to Neighbourhood Governance in England," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 33(2), pages 289-304, April.
    7. Hillary Angelo & David Wachsmuth, 2015. "Urbanizing Urban Political Ecology: A Critique of Methodological Cityism," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(1), pages 16-27, January.
    8. Josep M Campanera & Paul Higgins, 2011. "Quality of Life in Urban-Classified and Rural-Classified English Local Authority Areas," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 43(3), pages 683-702, March.
    9. Marguerite van den Berg, 2018. "The discursive uses of Jane Jacobs for the genderfying city: Understanding the productions of space for post-Fordist gender notions," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(4), pages 751-766, March.
    10. Sebastian Ureta, 2014. "The Shelter that Wasn’t There: On the Politics of Co-ordinating Multiple Urban Assemblages in Santiago, Chile," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(2), pages 231-246, February.
    11. Tim Butler, 2007. "Re‐urbanizing London Docklands: Gentrification, Suburbanization or New Urbanism?," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(4), pages 759-781, December.
    12. Van Assche, Kristof & Duineveld, Martijn & Beunen, Raoul & Valentinov, Vladislav & Gruezmacher, Monica, 2022. "Material dependencies: hidden underpinnings of sustainability transitions," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 24(3), pages 281-296.
    13. Branislav Machala & Jorn Koelemaij, 2019. "Post-Socialist Urban Futures: Decision-Making Dynamics behind Large-Scale Urban Waterfront Development in Belgrade and Bratislava," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 4(4), pages 6-17.
    14. Winifred Curran, 2018. "‘Mexicans love red’ and other gentrification myths: Displacements and contestations in the gentrification of Pilsen, Chicago, USA," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(8), pages 1711-1728, June.
    15. Shenjing He, 2012. "Two Waves of Gentrification and Emerging Rights Issues in Guangzhou, China," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 44(12), pages 2817-2833, December.
    16. Jean-Paul D. Addie, 2009. "Constructing Neoliberal Urban Democracy in the American Inner-city," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 24(6-7), pages 536-554, September.
    17. Ingmar Pastak & Eneli Kindsiko & Tiit Tammaru & Reinout Kleinhans & Maarten Van Ham, 2019. "Commercial Gentrification in Post‐Industrial Neighbourhoods: A Dynamic View From an Entrepreneur’s Perspective," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 110(5), pages 588-604, December.
    18. Kevin Ward & Timothy Bunnell, 2021. "Reflections on five years of the Summer Institute in Urban Studies," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(4), pages 863-878, March.
    19. Talia Margalit & Adriana Kemp, 2019. "The uneven geographies of post-political planning: Objections to urban regeneration projects in peripheral and central Israeli cities," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 51(4), pages 931-949, June.
    20. Wang, Ke & Cui, Qingming & Xu, Honggang, 2024. "Sensory therapeutic assemblages in tourism: Qi and the health of snowbirds in China," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:60:y:2023:i:10:p:1875-1893. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.