Events

Jour Fixe 128 | Vera Messing - Tünde Virág: Doing and undoing communities: the narrative of spatial politics of Józsefváros’s municipalities in 2009-2019 and since 2019

The HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences Institute for Sociology cordially invites you to

Doing and undoing communities: the narrative of spatial politics of Józsefváros’s municipalities in 2009-2019 and since 2019

 

Lecturers: Vera Messing (HUN-REN CSS Institute for Sociology); Tünde Virág (HUN-REN Centre for Economic and Regional Studies)

Discussants:  Lea Kőszeghy (HUN-REN CSS Institute for Sociology) ; Gergő Pulay (HUN REN CSS Institute for Minority Studies)

Date: 01 February 2024. 1 pm

Venue: HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences Institute for Sociology, 1097 Budapest, Tóth Kálmán utca 4. Room B1.15 

Online: Zoom link: 

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84551117034?pwd=qN7kdrPPNGNTPa6RHZzH14h3sHF3Pf.1

Meeting ID: 845 5111 7034
Passcode: 064328

Abstract:

This paper aims to contribute to “centring neglected Eastern European perspectives on urban marginality” by focusing on the construction and dismantling of the imaginary “Roma/Gypsy ghetto”. It provides analysis and example of governing an urban area that had been historically characterized by high levels of ethnic, religious and social heterogeneity, yet still stigmatized as an ethnic “ghetto” by the mainstream society for several decades. We take the analytical concept of Wacquant’s ghetto and anti-ghetto (2008, 2012) and study the interconnected mechanism of invisibilisation and racialization of different local groups. We will show the significance of local approaches to challenging the image of the “Roma ghetto” in an urban neighbourhood where a large Roma population has long shared spaces with other ethnic groups in the district of Józsefváros, in Budapest. The empirical study, which included structured interviews with local municipality and NGO actors, offers an excellent case to compare the working and the consequences of contrasting spatial politics and the opportunities and limitations of local governance in a centralized de-democratizing regime. The first one of FIDESZ’s order and border approach to local space in the period of 2009-2018 and the second, the municipality composed of civil organizations in the period since 2018, that is greatly inclusive and participatory.