Poverty and Work Experiences of Roma in Romania : A Study Through the Lens of Field, Habitus, Capital, and Anomie in a Roma Community in Romania

This study analyzes the experiences of poverty and work among Roma in the context of post-socialist Romania through the lens of Merton´s modes of adaptation to anomie and Bourdieu´s concepts of field, habitus, and capital. The purpose is to investigate Roma remembrance of work in the former communist regime and explore how they navigate socially within the framework of current anomic Romania. The method of qualitative interviews is used in this study. Six semi-structured interviews included one with three participants and ten short interviews were conducted between February 2020 and November 2021. The interviewees were selected based on the criterion of remembering life during socialist Romania. The results suggest former regime nostalgia with the experience of life for Roma as “better then” due to provision of work and housing. In contrast, experience of a current inept government unable to provide work for the poor was prevalent. The analysis shows how Roma´s racialized habitus and low levels of cultural capital i.e., education, collides with structural ethnic racism, preventing employment within anomic Romanian work fields, with the result of Roma travelling and working abroad. This study suggests experiences of poverty coping strategies in the forms of “innovative” and “ritualistic” Mertonian modes of adaptation to the macro anomic context. The former through begging in order to survive and the latter on projecting the social dynamic of the former socialist regime's provision of work for the poor onto the local NGO. Thus, relying on the same social dynamic by “ritual.” Contrary to racist discourses on Roma as “being lazy” and “not wanting to work” this study shows unanimous positive work values among Roma. It brings the thesis to the conclusion that willingness to work exists but a clash of preferred governance of Roma and the requirement of cultural capital and neoliberalist entrepreneurship, aggravated by the anomic state of Romania, prevents Roma from labor market integration and thus escaping poverty.

Grantor dc:publisher

Helsingin yliopisto

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Domingo, Axel Marco

Contributors dc:contributor

• Helsingin yliopisto, Valtiotieteellinen tiedekunta
• University of Helsinki, Faculty of Social Sciences
• Helsingfors universitet, Statsvetenskapliga fakulteten

• Roma
• Romania
• Poverty
• Work
• Anomie
• Field
• Habitus
• Capital
• Merton
• Bourdieu
• Post-socialism
• Neoliberalism
• Discrimination
• Communism
• Ceausescu

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Identifier URI

URN:NBN:fi:hulib-202305292201

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:helda.helsinki.fi:10138/358392