Roma Migrants and Urban Planning and Policy. Marginality as Resource? The Case of Turin
(2013) International Workshop The Changing Italian Cities. Emerging Imbalances and Conflicts — Location: Gran Sasso Sciences Institute, L’Aquila
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- Social and spatial disciplines are widely covering urban marginality in the scientific debate. From the “ghetto” of the Chicago School (Park, 1928), the relationship between the social and the spatial dimension of urban marginality is focused from several perspectives, particularly to point out the marginalization processes caused by urban transformations, from the effects of neoliberal policies (Harvey, 2008), to the revanchist city (Smith, 1996), to the radical movements against urban transformations (Mingione, 1981). Finally leading to a deep opposition between marginality “producers” and “submitted”, very little attention is accorded to the interactions between the former and the latter. At the same time, Roma people living in unauthorized or authorized yet segregated settlements are considered as catalysts of these processes and often represented as the “extreme” example of socio-‐spatial marginalization (Marušiakova & Popov, 2008). Many researches on this topic are focused on the marginal dimension of Roma settlements, paying little attention to the relationship of these marginal sites and people with “the rest of the city”. This kind of approaches produces overall a sort of reification of marginality which makes an opening attitude to marginality issues impossible, both in theory and in practice. However, referring to the “critical urban theory” and particularly to those authors who are exploring “a new lexicon of spatial difference” (Brenner et al., 2011:237), it is clear to me the need of a different approach to marginality. The relevance of this need comes from recent and current changes in worldwide urbanization processes, which are bringing “a qualitative reconstitution of the urban itself in which a host of inherited spatial oppositions – for instance, city/suburbs; urban/rural; core/periphery; […] – are being fundamentally rearticulated, if not superseded entirely” (id.). In this context: what is marginality? My research follows a perspective on urban marginality to which the increasing “contamination” between marginal and non-‐marginal, centre-‐periphery, etc. (Governa et al., 2008) is central. Furthermore, several studies about urban informality highlight the large amount of resources that people in marginal condition are able to develop and mobilize – social relations and networks, social capital, etc. – showing as well the various kinds of interdependence they activate with other social groups (cooperation, conflict, etc.) (see for instance Roy, 2009; McFarlaine, 2012). I will therefore re-‐question the notion of marginality itself, trying to show how such an analysis could be relevant for urban theory and planning, which are definitely related (Fainstein, 2005). From this framework, the underlying question to this research is as follow: can marginality be considered as a resource? Following Michel Agier (1999), my point of view opposes the persistent idea that urban margins are spaces of social anomie. On the contrary, my aim is to show the several resources of marginal populations and the social and spatial interactions among urban dimensions that seem apparently separated. On this basis, a different perspective on urban 2 marginality is outlined from Roma people housing practices, which are considered as revealing of marginality as a resource. I’m particularly referring to Roma populations recently coming from Eastern Europe to Western European cities, namely Romanian Roma, who represents the core of my research (I call them “Roma migrants”). Their mobility/rooting to and through the city, the way they use those marginal resources (starting from the spatial one to include a broader territorial dimension, i.e. social, economic, etc.) will reveal a “territory” that otherwise would not be perceived (I’m particularly referring to the heterotopias of Foucault). As a key to understanding these practices I will consider the mobility/rooting binomial (Legros & Vitale, 2011): can the mobility/rooting of these migrants – in the city and through the city – be explained throughout the resources they mobilize? What kind of resources are them and for whom? What kind of relationship is there between them and urban planning and policies? I also assume marginality-‐as-‐resource has both a porous and an ephemeral nature. Porous, because it makes possible the encounter, the interaction among different urban dimensions, supporting the idea that marginal and non-‐marginal are not opposite entities but rather different ways of living urban territories that are related to each other. Ephemeral, because it is used and consumed by both parties, by urban transformations and Roma migrants. Based on these premises, the main objective of the research is to highlight the “generative potential” of marginality-‐as-‐resource and to develop a different theoretical point of view on the relationship between planning and urban marginality. This different perspective could then be useful in identifying new approaches in planning which overcome the “typical” mechanism that simply “moves the margin a little further” (Simone, 2007).
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Rosa, E. c. (2013). Roma Migrants and Urban Planning and Policy. Marginality as Resource? The Case of Turin. International Workshop The Changing Italian Cities. Emerging Imbalances and Conflicts, Gran Sasso Sciences Institute, L’Aquila. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/167680