Citizens Associated with European Societies: Roma People and Contradictions of European Politics of Inclusion
Author: Szilvasi, Marek , r05ms0@abdn.ac.uk
Department: Department of Sociology
University: University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom
Supervisor: Prof Claire Wallace & Dr Christopher Brittain
Year of completion: 2014
Language of dissertation: English
Keywords:
theories of equality and soci
, social contradictions
, citizenship studies
, Roma people
Areas of Research:
Political Sociology
, Poverty, Social Welfare and Social Policy
, Social Classes and Social Movements
Abstract
The research addresses the relevant dilemmas and challenges of the contemporary European politics of Roma inclusion. The situation which many Roma in European societies experience nowadays combines deprivations and denials on the grounds of civil and political recognition, cultural identity and minority rights, and socioeconomic justice in (re-) distributing resources. The European call for specific Roma-targeted policies is also articulated in these three discourses of inclusion: liberal non-discrimination, multiculturalism, and social justice . Each of these three discourses addresses different type of inequalities; sometimes they can complement each other in promoting substantial equality, whereas other times one politics of inclusion can reinforce the existing inequalities of another type. These domains are closely connected with and burden one another reciprocally – in the sense that better solutions of the problems of one domain can exacerbate the problems in another. Given this, the main two questions this research aims to answer are the following: (1) how do policy-makers reconcile the three domains of inclusion and which of them dominates in the contemporary European Roma policy-making?; and (2) to what extent do the problems of existing European Roma inclusion policies stem from the contradictions of these discourses when applied simultaneously?
