Roma beggars in Uppsala : racialised poverty and fallacious homeownership in Romania and Sweden

• Trying to trace a continuous link in time and space, and from a qualitative ethnographic and multi-sited approach to housing and racialised poverty, we analyse the narratives of fifteen Romanian Roma begging outside stores in Uppsala’s inner-city district. The narratives from Uppsala reveal precarious living and housing conditions in Romania. Beggars come to Sweden for more income, but there they are also exposed to homelessness, harsh weather conditions, racism and discrimination. Using a combination of political economy approach for the analysis of housing, with a postcolonial approach to migratory patterns of the racialised and impoverished Roma in Europe/Sweden, we reflect on two main topics: Firstly, while beggars are homeless in Uppsala, paradoxically they are often homeowners in Romania, although their housing conditions are precarious in both places. Secondly, we discuss the relationship between racialisation and the precarious living and housing conditions observed among the Romanian Roma. Grounding our analysis in the empirical material we argue that the very idea of homeownership as a good investment and a more convenient form of tenure than rental housing must be especially disputed in this context. We therefore propose the term fallacious homeownership, to characterise the precariousness of life among these poor and racialised homeowners. This article merges the interests of urban and housing researchers with those from the postcolonial tradition.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Social och ekonomisk geografi -- Kulturgeografi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Social and Economic Geography -- Human Geography (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Roma

fallacious homeownership

racialised poverty

Uppsala

Romania

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

ovr (subject category)