Abstract
This chapter questions and reflects on the social programmes offered to Romani migrants and on the practices of social workers which ultimately push their clients to accept the offer of ‘voluntary return’ and leave Spain. Exercised under the security-development nexus, this technique of governance combines charity and welfare programmes with persistent surveillance and punishment mechanisms enacted against Romani migrants. When the inclusion programmes turn out to be unsuccessful, the State permits exceptional practices to coerce Romani migrants to opt for repatriation. In order to ground their ‘exceptional’ actions of control, oppression, and punishment, social workers endorse mechanisms of securitization against ‘failed’ subjects of integration. This chapter argues that it is in fact humanitarianism that permits the construction of social projects aiming at ‘voluntary’ repatriation for this unwanted category of welfare beneficiaries.
This work was supported by the European Research Council under Starting Grant [number 336319]. I take this opportunity to express my gratitude to Ana Ivasiuc and Huub van Baar for their rich and insightful comments on previous versions of this chapter.
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Notes
- 1.
I use scare quotations here to question the ‘voluntary’ character of these practices, but for readability purposes, I avoid the use of scare quotations for the remainder of the text.
- 2.
The European directive on freedom of movement (2004/38/EC).
- 3.
Plan integral del pueblo gitano de Cataluña 2014–2016.
- 4.
In Spain, the outcome of the EU Framework of National Roma Integration Strategy is a decentralized politics that pushes the autonomous regions to take responsibility for designing, budgeting for, and implementing policies for the integration of Spanish Gitanos.
- 5.
Gitanos del Este.
- 6.
For example, different events organized by ROMEST (2014) network.
- 7.
During my research in Barcelona, the two programmes discussed were financed by the local budget, whereas Madrid has benefited from ministerial funds for its social projects in El Gallinero. However, I could not find evidence that the allocated funds were initially from programmes such as ROMED (see Kóczé, Chap. 9, this volume).
- 8.
Service for Social Inclusion for non-Autochthonous Roma Families with Dependent Children. See URL: https://w30.bcn.cat/APPS/portaltramits/portal/channel/default.html&stpid=20100000368&style=ciudadano&language=es. Until recently, the social service was called SASPI (social service for attending to the itinerant population), then changed its name in 2016, making the ethnic profiling of the target group even more transparent.
- 9.
Social Service for Minors of Roma Origin at Social Risk programme run by Vincle association since 2009.
- 10.
In order to protect the anonymity of my informants, all the names from field notes and interviews have been changed to fictional ones matching the gender of the person.
- 11.
While I problematize the distinction between Romani (migrants from Eastern Europe) and Gitanos (Spanish citizens), I place the exact words in quotations, to reveal the internalized racialization and the institutional exclusion of Romani migrants.
- 12.
Direcció General d’Atenció a la Infancia i l’Adolescencia is the General Direction for Child Protection authority in the Catalan region.
- 13.
Office for the Minors (Oficina a l’Atencio de Menor), Mossos d’Esquadra, Catalonia. The department is part of the regional police force.
- 14.
The interviews were recorded in Spanish and translated into English by the author. The translation from Spanish of written text is also by the author.
- 15.
Like DGAIA.
- 16.
The European Roma and Travellers Forum (2016: 3) estimates the entire Spanish Gitano population to be about 750,000 (or 1.57% of the Spanish population). In the Madrid region, the data circulating about Romanian Roma migrants stem from one source, namely, the Fundación Secretariado Gitano, which estimates the Romani migrants to be a few hundred.
- 17.
The Institute for Relocation and Social Reinsertion of the Madrid regional authority has the task of relocating people to social housing. The civil servants work in coordination with the Red Cross and ACCEM (Asociación Comisión CatólicaEspañola de Migraciones) within the project APOI.
- 18.
ACCEM is an NGO which offers services for vulnerable groups, migrants, and refugees in the regional area of Madrid. Available at www.accem.es (accessed: 20 June 2016).
- 19.
The socio-educational programme for integration has three dimensions: (1) offering basic necessities in a camp for individuals/families, in exchange for full transparency of their incomes and expenditures; (2) reimbursing the transport costs for people who go to find work or accompany their children to school; (3) compulsory good behaviour in the camp (alcoholic beverages are completely forbidden).
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Vrăbiescu, I. (2019). Voluntary Return as Forced Mobility: Humanitarianism and the Securitization of Romani Migrants in Spain. In: van Baar, H., Ivasiuc, A., Kreide, R. (eds) The Securitization of the Roma in Europe. Human Rights Interventions. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77035-2_10
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