Theoretical Potential of Addressing Production of Marginality at the Crossroads of Spatial Exclusion and Development

The idea of the symposium on ‘Production of Marginality: Spatial Exclusion and Development’ that called most of the articles in this issue of Intersections: East European Journal of Society and Politics (IEEJSP) came from two international conferences that were enriching the academic stage of Babeș-...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inIntersections Vol. 1; no. 4
Main Authors Vincze, Enikő, Bartha, Attila, Virág, Tünde
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Budapest Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Centre for Social Sciences 01.01.2015
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Summary:The idea of the symposium on ‘Production of Marginality: Spatial Exclusion and Development’ that called most of the articles in this issue of Intersections: East European Journal of Society and Politics (IEEJSP) came from two international conferences that were enriching the academic stage of Babeș-Bolyai University (BBU) at Cluj-Napoca, Romania in November 2014. A panel called ‘Spatial exclusion and social inequalities’ was held at the annual conference of the Hungarian Sociological Association and the panel conveners proposed addressing the models of territorial exclusion and the social and political relations that (re)produced them on the ethnosocio-economic maps of local societies. Participants were also encouraged to focus on how local and trans-local factors and processes are shaping the spatial position and social status of the poor and rich, the ethnic Roma versus the non-Roma majorities in local settings. One week earlier the Romanian Society for Social and Cultural Development and Policy Interventions’ and another on ‘Post-socialist Neoliberalism and the Dispossession of Personhood’. These panels fertilised several articles published in this issue of Intersections: East European Journal of Society and Politics as the authors could meet and exchange ideas about ways how political economy regimes are shaping the processes of spatial, including housing arrangements, and exploring mechanisms by which impoverished people are pushed into informality, illegality and stigmatised status, and are denied of social citizenship and personhood. The remarkable interest of Eastern European scholars in these topics implied an obvious intention of publishing themed articles by the editorial team of IEEJSP; and the call for papers on the ‘Production of marginality: spatial exclusion and development programmes’ was launched by guest editors Tünde Virág from Hungary and Enikő Vincze from Romania. The editors of Intersections: East European Journal of Society and Politics originally planned one special issue; the particularly strong interest of regional scholars, however, meant that two special sections are dedicated to this topic. Accordingly, some of the themed articles will be published in the next issue of IEEJSP. Assuming that the formation of Roma ghettos across Europe as impoverished territories associated with ‘Gypsyness’ is a manifestation of spatialisation and racialisation of social exclusion, our approach acknowledges that advanced marginality is created by the overlapping mechanisms of capitalism and racism (Wacquant, 2008; Wacquant, 2012). This means that the spatial positioning of people belonging to different social classes or with diverse social status and ethnic backgrounds on the mental and geographic maps of localities is the territorial expression of social inequalities created by the larger political regime. Thus spatial exclusion is both a cause and a consequence of social inequalities, and marginalisation advances through both social and spatial processes. However, neither spatial exclusion nor social inequalities are created by space or poverty, but they are the effects of the economic and cultural order of capitalism, among others of its development paradigms (re)creating socio-spatial inequalities and injustices. Spatial segregation (and of how material deprivation overlaps with ethnic separation) is a dynamic process: the territorial divisions of the settlements, and the concepts used to identify them are subject to continuous economic, social and political changes during which the local actors re-construct and divide the space according to their social, economic, and political interests (Harvey, 2008; Mitchell,2003). Moreover, local development projects or different community based programs applied to segregated neighbourhoods are typically structured in a way that facilitates the access to the financial resources of the European Union, and they reflect the interests of various local actors positioned unequally in the local power structure. In empirical terms this approach implies the analysis of different patterns and mechanisms of spatial exclusion affecting marginalised Roma. It addresses the historical dynamics of their spatial position in a given settlement and connects these phenomena with development programmes that create or eliminate Roma colonies and slums, or aim at (Roma) community development. This approach, beyond the localised empirical materials, also endorsed the theoretical potential of addressing the production of marginality at the intersection of theories on spatial exclusion and theories of development. In addition, the editors of Intersections. East European Journal of Society and Politics expected that the articles also explore to what extent the production of marginality is an endemic feature of capitalism and what particular features it displays a quarter century after the demise of state socialism and under the conditions of the prevalence of neoliberal governance.
ISSN:2416-089X
DOI:10.17356/ieejsp.v1i4.174