Paper short abstract:

The paper highlights the State (canton and municipality of Geneva) thinking, practices and mechanisms which transform the Roma from legal European citizens into exogenous criminals that fill the common imaginary of the dangerous stranger. It also looks on how Roma/Gypsies from Romania seem to resist by their bodies which draw new social and symbolical territories in public spaces.

Paper long abstract:

Roma/Gypsies live in Geneva as dwellers in cloth markets - Swiss or French national citizens, as refugees or asylum seekers (from Kosovo or Bosnia-Herzegovina), as recent immigrants coming from Romania. Only the last category is fully visible in public places in present times. They systematically challenge the Calvin's city's representation of these spaces by the begging practices, even if few of them are self-employed as street musicians. The canton of Geneva adopted a law punishing the beggars in 2009. My paper highlights the State (canton and municipality) thinking, practices and mechanisms which transform the Roma from legal European citizens into exogenous criminals that fill the common imaginary of the dangerous stranger.The anti-begging law, the politicians official declarations, the legal procedures that exchange unpaid amends in time to spend in jail, the police representations and harassment action by inscribing "beggar" in passports , the daily tracking of road- maintenance and garbage collection services for uninstall improvised beds are such rules and practices that systematically neglect the citizenship to these persons. Exposed to high precarity and health damages, earning small amounts of money compared to other places where they lived as migrants previously, Roma/Gypsies from Romania seem also to resist by their bodies which draw new social and symbolical territories in public spaces such squares or supermarkets entrances. My ethnographical study explores in details the Roma/Gypsy art of occupy space in De Certeau's term (1980) in its gendered, aged and kinship determined ways.