Urbanities,
Vol. 3
·
No 1
·
May 2013
© 2013
Urbanities
Magazine in 201
But the dwelling of Roma in the centre of the city of Timisoara and their
acquisition of historical buildings has (and still does to this day) provoked many
demonstrations of anger among the urban population of Timisoara.
It is their presence in an ‘inappropriate place’ in the traditionally bourgeois parts of
the city that has created a row. According to the theory of symbolism expressed in
Purity and
Danger
by Mary Douglas (1966), one will remember that it is not the essence of the object
that makes it clean (= acceptable) or dirty (= unacceptable) but the shared values on what is
acceptable and the sacredness of this consensus. Hence these palaces seem ‘misplaced’
(
déplacés)
in the moral sense of ‘inappropriate and sacrilegious’. In Timisoara they add to the
already shocking visibility (a Roma should be invisible and vagrant) of their central place.
The centre is still supposed to be reserved for well-established ‘indigenous’ or majority élites,
or possibly to international companies. Since Roma have no urban history, their presence in
historical parts and buildings creates in itself a scandal.
It is their
new
and
arrogant
– at least this is how it is perceived by the local population
– architectural presence that seems to create a major problem. As it is for the resurgence of
(Roma) beggars in post-modern Western societies, it is the challenge that their presence
represents to our social representations and values that creates the obstacle. In addition, a
normal
Roma is supposed to be poor and to deserve at best our pity; a rich Roma is thus an
abnormality that does not fit into the social landscape. Houses, even if unfinished and empty
are more visible and stable than cars; no longer can the Roma identity be properly covered by
informality or poverty alone. Around the globe new rich are showing (off) their wealth,
particularly through their most visible acquisitions: cars, women and houses. Why should the
Roma be an exception?
8
See the reportage by Tom O’Neill in the issue of September 2012.
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