Roma Integration and Institutional Practices with Roma/Gypsies in Postsocialist Hungary

Abstract

This dissertation explores the concept of Roma integration and the practices in a range of different institutions with Roma/Gypsies in the first three decades of the postsocialist period in Hungary as a framework for understanding racial ideologies operating in the country at the time. It is based primarily on fieldwork conducted in the summers of 2006 and 2009 and the period from July 2011 to December 2012 in the cities of Budapest and Pécs.

My overarching argument is a simple one, but it has important implications for the recent evolution of Hungarian politics. I argue that in the first two decades following the collapse of the state socialist period in Central and Eastern Europe, there were multiple regimes coexisting in the country of Hungary with their own racial ideologies at work with regard to Roma/Gypsies. Influenced by geographic, linguistic, demographic, and institutional factors, as well as those of political economy, they pointed to different priorities and end-goals with regard to Roma integration. The element of Romani/Gypsy difference, or “Gypsiness,” was engaged and mobilized differently as it was rhetorically constructed or performed for different audiences and in different contexts. The centuries-old hierarchy in which Roma/Gypsiness has been coded as stigmatized was present as a factor in all these multiple regimes, but the ways in which this stigma was engaged was a core element in their divergences. Further, in the context of the widespread project of “Roma integration,” I observed a slippage between inclusion and integration and lack of consensus about what integration entailed. Assimilation was assumed to be part of the process not only among most in the general population in Hungary, but also among many of those working in initiatives with goals of democratization, inclusion, and/or integration.

My dissertation presents snapshots of some of the divergent racial ideological regimes operating in Hungary in the early postsocialist period, focusing on the institutional contexts of the University of Pécs Romology Department, a community-based Roma organization in Pécs, the Roma Poverty Housing Program of Habitat for Humanity International, and the European Capital of Culture Pécs2010 program. There are comparisons to many other institutions, to highlight tensions, alliances, and convergences in different approaches to work with/for Roma/Gypsies and understandings of Roma integration. I utilize varied approaches, including textual analysis and autoethnography, to uncover insights into Hungarian sociocultural dynamics of the time and understandings of difference and how these interrelate with different contemporary institutional practices with Roma/Gypsies. I discuss many factors affecting the divergences in approach, including (1) the distinctive social geographies of Pécs and Budapest, and (2) the foundations of “indigenous” Hungarian institutions versus “international” organizations coexisting in Hungary in the early postsocialist period.

The rise of “illiberalism” in Hungary and the increasingly exclusionary model of the Hungarian nation that has been becoming hegemonic during the third decade of the state socialist period create an increasingly hostile backdrop for engagement with stigmatized minorities, including Roma/Gypsies. I analyze Roma- and Gypsy-related projects and processes in these institutions in relation to the evolving political landscape and explore their interaction.

I conclude with a typology of Roma programs that were operating in Hungary in the early postsocialist period, which offers a synthetic analysis of models of institutional practices with Roma/Gypsies in this period from the standpoint of interventions and their implicit theories of change.