Romanias perennial 'outsiders'. From a foreign non-European minority to intra-EU displacements. An exploration of Romas? Perpetual socio-economic and symbolic exclusion

Abstract

After the fall of the socialist regimes from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), various national and European programs were enabled in order to improve the socio-economic well-being of European Roma, but these policies are often anchored in an a present-centered and ahistorical framework, without taking into account the dynamic processes of stigmatization and marginalization that have plagued the Roma minority (Powell and Lever, 2015). The present paper seeks to contribute to the (historical) reconstruction of these processes of stigmatization and marginalization of Roma in different social-political periods (with an emphasis on the last and a half century). Using secondary data (censuses) and historical sources, I describe the state policies and state-led modernization programs that were aimed at improving Roma’s socio-economic well-being and their ambiguous effects. I conclude that in order to achieve social inclusion of poor Romanian Roma, more efforts have to be made to tackle the stereotypical `Gypsy image` that has guided most social inclusion/integration programs since the formation of the Romanian nation-state