Paper short abstract:

This paper ethnographically explores how are neo-liberal reforms of labour ‘activation' experienced by Roma subjects against the redrawn lines of deservingness and struggles for being recognised as ‘active’ citizens.

Paper long abstract:

The last two decades in Central Eastern Europe have been characterised by a dramatic changes in the forms of public aid for the poor and growth of ethnicised poverty. In popular discourses the Roma/Gypsy groups came to be portrayed as the ultimate figure of 'scroungers' who 'take without giving', 'lost their working habits' and become 'dependent on social benefits.' In Slovakia, the state has introduced several neo-liberal reforms marking a shift from more protective forms of welfare towards more disciplinary workfare. One of the policies aimed at combatting long-term unemployment were so-called 'activation works', designed as temporary tool for activating 'passive subjects' and bringing them back to formal work. This paper will ethnographically examine how are these 'activation' projects experienced by long-term unemployed Roma participants against the redrawn moralising landscapes of deservingness and struggles for being recognised as 'active' citizens. I will explore how do these works operate in practice, as well as what activities count as more or less legitimate form of 'work' in the unequally distributed hierarchies of worthiness. Particular attention will be paid to contested meaningfulness of 'work', to questions of exploitation and to particular temporality in which boundaries of 'temporary' blur into ambiguously long-term prospects.