Paper Short Abstract:

Based on extensive fieldwork in small peripheral Hungarian towns—including Roma communities—our presentation shows how the interconnection of social and spatial mobility shapes local class-based ethnic relations. We also show how normative expectations of social and spatial mobility create tensions in the livelihood strategies of local households (both Roma and non-Roma).

Paper Abstract:

We consider peripheral small towns as spaces that typically face resource outflows in the process of global capital accumulation. For example, outmigration for social mobility is mainly a loss of the middle-class population which constantly threatens the reproduction of local class and ethnic relations. In rural Hungary, notions of ethnicity and class overlap: the disadvantaged class position is associated with Roma by residents, while the idea of the middle class is linked to ‘Hungarians’. Thus, this outmigration has a strong class-based ethnic aspect: the local middle class, which in many cases also represents an ethnic 'majority' position, emigrates from the town (mainly through higher education), while the capital-poor strata (e.g. Roma) tend to remain in the local context or opt for other forms of circular migration (e.g.commuting, work abroad without emigration of the household). Consequently, migration can lead to class-based ethnic tensions as it increases the number of poor and ethnically stigmatised people in the local population.

Moreover, although the stakes are different, the normative expectation of social and spatial mobility creates tensions in the livelihood strategies of both Roma and non-Roma households. The point of these tensions is that fulfilling the normative expectation of social and spatial mobility may not only promise individuals a better social position but may also alienate them from existing resources related to locality (e.g. family relations, relational capital, housing, friends). The presentation will show how this tension is manifested in local Roma and non-Roma.