Paper short abstract:

Through an ethnography of moral engagement and disengagement in the relations between Gypsies and Gadge, the paper argues that, rather than disrupt sociality, 'inequality' and antagonism are in fact constitutive of it, as they delineate commonality from otherness, and thereby enable moral behavior.

Paper long abstract:

My attempt to enlist the sympathy of my future host by reminding her of her husband's friendship with a member of my family did not go down well. After a minute's reflection, she stated coldly: 'Yeah, I remember. We helped him a lot and now we're helping you. My husband likes to help the Gadge [non-Roma] and get nothing in return.' This sober enunciation of the interested behavior that suffuses the relations between Gypsies and Gadge sounded conspicuously at odds with the notions of mutuality, equality, and inclusion that civil society promotes as panacea for antagonistic ethnic relations.

The present paper argues that, rather than disrupt sociality, as goes the current assumption, 'inequality' and antagonism in fact constitute it, by enabling moral behavior. Building on fourteen months of field research with a group of former 'thieves', I describe how central the distinction from the Gadge is to them, in terms of the values that instill social life. Firstly, I discuss how Gypsy-Gadge antagonism enables the social reproduction of Gypsyness through so-called 'negative reciprocity' (Sahlins 1972: 195) such as theft or begging, made possible by the absence of moral obligations towards others. Secondly, I build on my informants' reflections on the anti-corruption protests taking place in Romania at the time of my fieldwork to propose that 'disengagement' is an equally valid form of political critique as the much more praised (but often hollow) notion of 'engagement', as it points to the lack of obligations and to the structural (im)possibility of meaningful action.