GRILL StreetBusking Libre

Chapter 4

FROM STREET BUSKING IN SWITZERLAND TO MEAT FACTORIES

IN THE UK: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TWO ROMA MIGRATION NETWORKS

FROM SLOVAKIA

Jan Grill

I was accompanying Gergo and Istvan for the fi rst time on their evening busking in the centre

of Geneva. They explained that they usually go about in pairs, sometimes both playing,

sometimes one playing and the other interacting with people and begging for money. Gergo

had a shabby accordion across his shoulders. During the entire evening, I observed the same

scenario in every restaurant we visited. Gergo stood aside and played a song in front of the

restaurant guests, while Istvan moved from table to table with an empty hat in his hand

respectfully repeating several words like ‘bon jour, merci’, ‘ca va?’. He was slightly bowing

his back in a symbolic sign of humility and in the hope of arousing compassion. The repeated

body posture, consisting of a slight bowing of back and head with a piteous expression in his

charcoal dark sad eyes, belonged to the strategic armoury of migrants.

Edited fieldnotes, Gergo and Istvan, June 2005, Geneva, Switzerland

And then on Monday I went ‘packing’ for the fi rst time. So that’s how we stayed there [in

Leeds] to work. In 2005, as it was, it was still not good. But in 2006 we’d picked ourselves

up. We’d got money. We were fi ne. We saved money, came home. First we bought a car and

then a house. We bought both in one year. We were doing really great [that year].

Monika, June 2007On holiday from the UK in her home village in Slovakia

Gergo and Istvan, cited above, are two of many Hungarian-speaking Roma from the Slovak-Hungarian borderlands who throughout the 1990s and, even more significantly, after May 2004 (when Slovakia joined the European Union), migrated to Austria, Germany or Switzerland.1 On their temporary

80 GLOBAL CONNECTIONS AND EMERGING INEQUALITIES IN EUROPE

cyclical journeys, they and their companions were street musician performers, busking in order to support their families in Slovakia. Monika (quoted above) and her family went to the UK with similar hopes, though pursuing a significantly different trajectory. ‘Enduring’2 her way through the long shifts in the cold rooms of meat factories, packing chickens alongside other migrants and British citizens, she tried to materialise the migrant’s dream of a better life ( feder dživipen; feder životos). Outside their strategic street performances or working long hours in exploitative conditions, however, many migrants greatly value and act upon the possibility of engaging with identities other than the stigmatising category of ‘Gypsy’. Unlike many other marginalised Roma in the borderlands regions of Slovakia, whose situation seems to lead to an increasing sense of loss and of powerlessness in the face of overpowering circumstances, migrants such as Gergo, Istvan and Monika strive hard to retain some sense of control over their situation and to resist oppressive forces. In taking the risk of migration, they hope to secure a better life for their families in Slovakia ( Jackson 2008, 116).

In this chapter I shall explore migration as a way of escaping the pervasive marginalisation and poverty of the border regions in Slovakia and the stigmatised, heavily racialised category of ‘being a Gypsy’. I examine two specific examples of recent mobility within the enlarged European Union and two different networks of Roma migrants and their practices. I understand migration as mobility that crystallises as an economic strategy and also serves as a symbolic lever to twist previously historically anchored asymmetrical power relations between Roma and non-Roma. In this unequal relationship, Roma groups have always been positioned at the bottom of local as well as national hierarchies. Historically, Roma groups have only rarely been considered as full-fledged members of the national collectivities in central eastern Europe (CEE). Rather, they have been exposed to various coercive and discriminatory policies by the dominant political regimes.3 In highlighting the fragile dynamics and uncertain outcomes of migration I shall also emphasise the growing social differentiation between Roma and non-Roma, as well as between Roma themselves in the two localities discussed.

I situate these comparisons within the larger historical context of geopolitical borders redrawn through the enlargement of the European Union in May 2004 and emerging inequalities in Europe. I shall explore the paths and tactics of several Hungarian-speaking Roma4 living in Slovakian-Hungarian borderlands migrating to Switzerland, and also of a network of Romani speaking Roma from the Slovakian-Ukrainian borderlands migrating to Great Britain.5 In Geneva, the predominantly male migrants make their living by busking, a mixture of performing music and begging on the streets of the Swiss city. In Leeds, an entire network of Roma families struggles alongside other

FROM STREET BUSKING IN SWITZERLAND TO MEAT FACTORIES 81

‘eastern European migrants’, as they are often called in UK public discourses, in low paid menial jobs in food production factories and the packing industry. Although the two groups occupy similar socio-economic positions within the dominant societies, I shall point out some differences in their tactics that have been conditioned by their previous life trajectories. Additionally, their migration paths have been structured by the socio-legal systems of Great Britain and Switzerland, which have different migration policies and labour market regulations regarding citizens of new EU member states. These two Roma networks differ significantly in their experiences of migration. Despite the fact that both Roma networks consist of Slovak citizens and share similar negative categorisations of ‘being a Gypsy’ in the worsening conditions of the socio-economic margins of Slovakia, close ethnographic perspectives of the local contexts show us the differences and highlight the misleading pitfalls of generalising Roma migrations under one analytical umbrella.6

Two Roma Groupings on the Margins of the Slovakian

State: Feladincze in Slovak-Hungarian and Tarkovce in

Slovak-Ukrainian Borderlands7

The two villages that lie at the core of this chapter are both situated in the Slovakian borderlands. Feladincze is located in the Gemer region of the south-eastern Slovak8 border with Hungary and most of its Roma inhabitants are Hungarian-speaking. In censuses and other official encounters with the Slovak state they declare themselves to be Hungarians, members of the ethno-cultural Hungarian minority living in Slovakia. They all have Slovak citizenship and to varying degrees speak Slovak. The second network of Roma migrants come from Tarkovce. Tarkovce also lies in the south-east corner of Slovakia, in the Zemplin region although its inhabitants are predominantly Slovak-speaking.9 The localities share similar historical developments and socio-economic characteristics. Both villages are situated in rural areas and occupy a peripheral position vis-à-vis the Slovak state, as well as being close to borders with Hungary (Feladincze) and/or Ukraine (Tarkovce). During socialism, most people in both areas were employed in the neighbouring towns or regional centres but also in village collective farms and cooperatives, working alongside the dominant Slovaks and Hungarians.10 In both areas, industry played a significant role and several factories operated during socialism.

After 1989, most of the factories in the east Slovakian peripheries experienced radical changes and sudden socio-economic crisis. Formerly showcases for the industrial progress of socialism, they were transformed into areas of high unemployment, ‘decline’ and abandonment by the state. Some of the factories were closed down while others significantly reduced


numbers of staff. In the early 1990s Roma unemployment developed at a fast pace, due to both the re-emergence of ethno-racial discrimination on the labour market and the fact that Roma had worked in economic sectors most heavily ‘restructured’. Most Roma lost their jobs during the early 1990s and since then have worked only on a temporary or informal basis. Their situation also worsened as a result of the general low educational level, wide-spread discrimination, and the sometimes de-motivating structural incentives set by the system of taxation and social support. Despite several recent state incentives11 such as a scheme of so-called ‘activation works’12 or trans-border cooperation projects with Hungary, most Roma have been placed in a vicious circle of long-term unemployment and increasing poverty. For most of the long-term unemployed Roma in the village, managing their livelihood by combining state benefits with short-term informal jobs entails almost constant balancing between the thin line of poverty and struggling with scarcity. For many, food resources are limited at the end of the month (before social benefit payments) and it is not unusual to experience hunger and to live in debt.

Being formally unemployed and receiving social benefits, however, does not in practice mean inactivity; most have informal one-off jobs in their villages that allow them to survive in conditions of encompassing poverty. In addition to these activities, migration has crystallized as one of the most dominant ways of escaping the socio-economic crisis and feelings of loss and decline. Roma in both areas throughout the 1990s followed circulatory migration paths to the Czech Republic, usually along lines of extended kin ties; most worked in menial jobs such as road and railway (re)construction or in factories.

This type of migration to the Czech Republic was conditioned by previous Roma kinship networks which stretched across the territory of the former Czechoslovakia13 and by the cultural intimacy of Czecho-Slovakian space (Herzfeld 1997). Another powerful image of international migration has also emerged: the image of migrating to the ‘West’. Both cases comprise international as well as rural-to-urban migration. However, it is also at this point that the similarities between these two Roma groupings and localities end.

Roma migration has frequently been explained by reference to a rather vague notion of ‘nomadism’, as an inherent quality and disposition of ‘the Roma’.14 However, these romanticising and ‘orientalising’ claims have no empirical foundations; rather, they reflect dominant representations of deeply entrenched imaginings of Gypsies’ radical Otherness (Gay y Blasco 2008). In fact most of the Roma in central and eastern Europe were sedentary long before the official Communist anti-nomadic laws (Guy 2004, 2001; Jurova 1993). Contrary to sensationalist media and dominant representations of Slovak Roma as a unified group sharing similar cultural traits and socio-economic and political conditions leading to the assumption of the same


migration patterns, I highlight the significance of local histories of particular places conditioning Roma migrations and tactics.15

In Feladincze, the enchanting image of international migration led several Roma men to Switzerland. On their journeys, they employed music-cum-begging performances and/or busking as a migration tactic. For most of them, this was the first migration experience into places perceived as ‘foreign’ and was seen as substantially different from the movement within territories of the former Czechoslovakia and Hungary (both of which contained features of cultural intimacy and proximity). The length of the migrants’ stay abroad ranged from one to six months, usually during the spring and summer seasons, with occasional visits ‘home’ to Slovakia. Most of the older Roma have also been migrants in Austria and Germany, where they employed similar tactics of street music-cum-begging. To migrate to Austria, Germany and Switzerland seems to have been the common migratory trajectory for the Hungarian speaking Roma from the Slovak-Hungarian borderlands from the 1990s onwards (Benedik 2009).16

In contrast, in Tarkovce, a high number of local Roma – men, women and children – sought asylum in various west European countries throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s (Switzerland, United Kingdom, Netherlands and some others). Most of their asylum-seeking attempts were refused and they were usually deported within several months (though some of them over-stayed illegally or stayed after being granted asylum). With Slovak accession to the European Union in 2004, legal frameworks and geopolitical borders have changed and suddenly Roma migrants were no longer treated as ‘Roma/Gypsy’ asylum-seekers17 or illegal ‘over-stayers’ by the authorities (with limited rights to claim asylum on the basis of discrimination from the dominant Slovakian society), but as Slovak citizens and fully-fledged members of the European Union with official rights to work in the UK.The changing categorisation of migrants also produced different forms of relationships vis-à-vis the states and migrants’ subjectivities – ‘asylum seeker’; ‘legal’ vs. ‘illegal’ migrant; EU labour migrant (De Genova 2002). While Great Britain opened its labour market to migrants from the so-called A8 countries immediately after May 2004,18 Switzerland imposed restrictions regulating the labour prospects of citizens of these new EU countries.

Unlike the Feladincze Roma, for whom migration appeared much more a lottery with no prior relations with their destinations, the Tarkovce Roma possessed a significant volume of social connections that some effectively activated and used, as well as different levels of knowledge of the English language or experience of the destination country prior to their departure.19 These transnational connections were largely animated by kinship relationships that had to be adequately maintained and reciprocated over physical distance.


Tarkovce Roma embarked on their most recent labour migration equipped with a whole set of experiences, knowledge and skills from their previous journeys across socialist countries as construction workers, or as asylum seekers in various ‘western’ European countries. During socialism a large number of Tarkovce Roma were employed in regional housing co-operatives and worked as construction workers and bricklayers. Being employed by the Košice building construction company (Pozemné stavby Košice) entailed spending several weeks working away from their home village and this gave the Roma experiences of other places and of movement within communist Czechoslovakia (Košice, Bratislava, Prague).20 This historical experience of migration is particularly significant for understanding their more recent migration journeys.

In what follows I shall introduce two ethnographic stories of migration: one of the Feladincze Roma who migrated to Geneva and the other of the Tarkovce Roma who migrated to Leeds, Great Britain. In both stories, I outline the conditions of migration and collective trajectories of the migrants, their choices and tactics, and illustrate these through concrete individual biographies.

Case 1: Busking as a Migration Tactic in Geneva

Migrants earned a living by performing music in informal spaces on the streets or in parks. They usually played the accordion and/or the violin. Practically none of them possessed any formal musical education or previous musical career and most had only a few French phrases in hand.21 Thus the performance of a very limited song repertoire was almost exclusively adopted as a migration tactic. The performances were carried out on their own, independent of any institutional structures or formal stages. Within several weeks of the migrants’ arrival in Geneva, these street music performances crystallised into a specific pattern of spatio-temporal movement on the city streets with different audiences at different stages of the day. In the mornings, Roma migrants would usually stand for long hours at certain ‘busy’ locations on the most popular shopping boulevards of Geneva. The most popular destinations for mornings and early afternoons were neighbourhoods with a high density of old people characterised to me as ‘good for playing to because the elderly are more willing to give money’. The parks and gardens surrounding the old people’s home were frequent targets. Some of the migrants would try their luck on trams, getting on at one stop and walking through and performing from the first carriage to the very last, leaving the tram a few stops later. Later in the afternoon, Roma migrants would prefer to stroll from one ‘outside’ restaurant to another, occasionally being chased away by the serving staff. This situation frequently stirred an angry response, with migrants shouting back: ‘racist, racist’. By employing this particular set of reactions framing the


encounter in ‘racist terms’, the migrants transposed the Slovak experiential framework onto Geneva reality.

From the reactions of the restaurant guests and passers-by it was clear that people were variously entertained, moved, indifferent or annoyed by the begging musicians. Some of the restaurants’ guests pitied them. Their attention was caught by these seemingly exotic and unknown musicians who, in a hitherto unknown way, came right up to the table asking for money and performing. But some of the guests and passers-by were also annoyed, ignored their playing and became offended by the begging migrants. This potential for ignoring reveals something about the social position of these actors in the social hierarchy of Geneva society – poor playing-cum-begging migrants wait, long-suffering, for the non-Roma, and richer, residents of Geneva dining in the restaurants to give them some relatively ‘merciful’ trifle. It also highlights the clear limits to and paradoxes in their own imaginations. On one hand, through busking the migrants try to reinvent their positions vis-à-vis the dominant societies. They leave homes to escape their position in Slovakia at the bottom of society. On the other hand, it is this clearly asymmetrical relationship between the guests and Roma musicians that seems to reproduce a very similar dependence of Roma on the mercy of the restaurant guests. And yet the Roma choose to migrate with a hope of actively improving their lives.

Sometimes the performances and wanderings on the street would last until late in the evening, with irregular breaks, depending on the amount of money earned and the musicians’ level of tiredness. This daily routine of movement was nevertheless flexible, and changed depending on the opportunities arising and power constraints. For example, when some cultural event takes place in a specific part of Geneva, Roma seize the opportunity to go and perform among a higher concentration of people. On the other hand, migrants immediately spot police raids and inspection patrols and in such cases avoid these places for several days.22

All the migrants shared the hope that their busking would bring them enough to cover their living abroad and send remittances back to their families. Their migration journeys usually lasted from several weeks to several months. These two activities, music performing and begging, merge into one mode of supporting themselves and also into the two most prominent representations of Roma/Gypsies in dominant public discourses. In addition to producing certain economic effects, the movements of these migrants through the pulsating streets where they play provide an arena in which social categories are reproduced, cultural stereotypes publicly displayed and fantasies consumed. In this area they can stage the image of ‘(Roma) musicians’; this however often merges with stereotypes of ‘east Europeans’ and of foreign ‘Gypsy beggars’ of


unknown origins, perceived as threats to ordinary citizens. Their performances can provide the audiences with the possibility of imagined Roma fantasies of embodiment of wildness and otherness (Van der Port 1998), which are located outside the homely imaginary of the national collective (Hage 2000). The fact that they are performing in the centres of the city highlights the symbolic transgression of spatial norms and social order. For local town residents, these places are supposed to be showcases of order and cleanliness and not of foreign-looking, intrusive ‘beggars’ who pester passers-by.23

Gergo’s Story

At the time of our encounter, Gergo had already spent three months in Geneva. Before he was seduced by the powerful illusionary dream of migration, Gergo was long-term unemployed. He trained as a plumber and by 1989 had worked in his profession for ten years. However, the state company he worked for shut down in 1991. Unable to find another job, he lived from social benefits combined with occasional one-off informal seasonal jobs which were paid in cash. Now, he usually goes abroad for four or six months per year, travelling by car with other Roma men or by long-distance coach. While he is away, his second wife with his two daughters and his parents remain in Slovakia in the village of Feladincze. He calls them almost every day from a phone-box in Geneva and sends them money whenever he has earned enough.

Contrary to representations of socialism as a period of severe forced policies towards Roma, Gergo and his companions looked back to communism with sentimental nostalgia. The discourse of nostalgia for the socialist period could be exemplified by one of Gergo’s remarks: ‘What didn’t we have during socialism? I was working, earned enough money for food and for supporting my family. The only thing that we didn’t have then was that we couldn’t come here [referring to going abroad].’

Roma migrants in Geneva consisted of several groups of male relatives24 bound by extended kinship ties coming from different towns located in the Slovakia-Hungarian borderlands. These kinship ties are occasionally complemented by more arbitrary and fragile bonds and networks of mutual friends and acquaintances.25 The group of migrants I worked with lived in one overcrowded flat. They paid their rent individually to the non-Roma Hungarian landlord who had migrated to Switzerland during the late 1960s. With no other local social contacts and without sufficient command of the language they were dependent on this landlord and this exposed their vulnerability.26 Several migrants chose instead to stay overnight in their cars in car parks located at the margins of the city.


From their position of more or less permanent unemployment in an area torn by economic crisis, temporary labour migration appears to be one of the few options allowing the Roma to improve their economic and social standing without permanently leaving their homes in Slovakia. Busking for two months in Geneva can provide successful migrants and their families with a sufficient sum for subsistence over a much longer period in Slovakia. Part of the earned money was used for some additional expenses such as the renovation of houses or the purchase of items beyond the reach of the long-term unemployed. At the same time, their income and its unstable nature would rarely change their situation radically. They could improve their conditions, but only in exceptional circumstances could they afford more significant investments such as buying a house or a car (in stark contrast to Tarkovce Roma – see below).

It must be noted that not every labour migration necessarily results in a ‘happy ending’ and some migrants returned even more impoverished and indebted than when they had left. The highly risky nature of this type of migration does not guarantee a large economic profit. Istvan,27 for instance, who invested all his money and even borrowed some in order to buy an accordion and a ticket to Geneva, had faced many difficulties from the beginning of his migration. By migrating, he lost his social benefits in Slovakia and got into trouble for not deregistering.28 For various complicated reasons, he was trapped in Geneva in a cycle of debt and found himself unable to repay these loans and also to pay rent. Unlike the other migrants, he did not have any relatives in the network and his friendship bonds did not activate enough feelings of solidarity among his friends to translate into financial assistance. Despite his bad luck and lack of a safety net, he refused to go home; his gendered ideas, centred around masculine ‘models’ of migration that included bringing money home, would have been destabilised by an unsuccessful return (cf. Sayad 2000). Instead, he moved to Lausanne, hoping to increase his earnings away from the stiffer competition from the plethora of musicians in Geneva. However, he was caught by the police in Lausanne and deported back to Slovakia, returning more indebted than before arriving in Switzerland.29 Considering the highly unstable nature of this type of migration, one cannot see this movement purely in economic terms and motivations (as automatically guaranteeing high incomes). Reasons for migration are more complex, combining several factors conditioning decisions to migrate and often involving high stakes for those who choose to try their luck abroad.

Although Slovak accession to the European Union made movement across internal European borders easier for citizens of the new member states of central eastern Europe, the Hungarian-speaking Roma migrants were not registered for any job and did not have any kind of official work permit. Despite the fact that Switzerland opened its borders for free


movement to all EU citizens, it imposed a system of work permit quotas on nationals of all new member states that joined the EU in May 2004.30 The migrants I worked with did not apply for legal work permits. This was due to their lack of interest in and knowledge of this possibility as well as the legally unclassifiable nature of their income-generating strategies. They mostly relied on stories and representations circulated by other migrants’ narratives. Because of their mistrust of formal institutions and lack of linguistic skills, even the possibility of consulting or seeking advice about their migration status, or legalising their status through official permission, was not entertained. From the perspective of the Swiss legal system, Roma migrants are ‘legally absent’ (Coutin 2005; De Geneva 2002). Despite their physical presence in Switzerland, they are not authorised to work and, in a way, are positioned outside the Swiss state structures. The fear of being caught and deported is frequently evoked and present in everyday activities and discourses. At the same time, this legal absence and the risk of ‘being

caught’ by police, interrogated and possibly deported, which appeared in many narratives, contrasted with the relative ease of passing oneself off as someone else [non ‘Gypsy’] in the diverse and heterogeneous population of Geneva. The uncertain and risky conditions of supporting themselves by playing music were contextually overlooked through other discourses indicating the greater space for ‘passing’ in the ‘ethno-culturally’ diverse Geneva society, as well as through earning sufficient money to support relatives back home for several months (if lucky).31

The music-cum-begging performances were the only source of cash income available to the Roma migrants in Geneva. As such, it was rather an unstable and irregular way of getting a living. Its success or failure was directly dependent on many ‘external’ factors – i.e. several days of rainy weather, a broken accordion or the annual music festival Fêtes de Genève32 may cause a significant decrease in income, and thus generate serious problems for the supply of immediate cash needed for the weekly rent and other living expenses. As Istvan told me in one conversation: ‘The difference between me and you is that your way is certain…you know why you came here, have a regular salary33 you expect every month, your flat…but me – I have to live from day-to-day.’ The unpredictable nature of their income-generating strategies was a source of constant worry and insecurity. Periods of success were frequently followed by days of misery and from a long-term perspective the migrants were struggling to make their strategies significantly profitable and frequently changed their locations in Switzerland or in Austria.

If sufficient income to guarantee paying the bills was not secured, significant problems arose, revealing the migrants’ vulnerability and the absence of any kind of safety net. The only potential safety net for these migrants is provided


by a few relatives and friends who are nevertheless dependent on the same conditions, and by their skillfulness in the music-cum-begging activity. Migrants could borrow money from other Roma, most commonly along kinship lines. But this possibility was also limited by mistrust among non-related Roma. Someone considered as a friend on one occasion would not necessarily help with a loan, and, to the contrary, sometimes broke faith by stealing someone else’s money or leaving Geneva without paying back his debts to his ‘friends’. Unrelated migrants originating from different locations in Slovakia had practically no interactions with each other prior to migration. The migrants’ solidarity was thus mainly constructed along relatively closed kin ties (such as brothers coming with their sons) while friendship ties with other non-related Roma were seen as much more unreliable, risky and prone to betrayal. The division of money among Roma migrants playing music and begging in pairs, especially when they were not related, was also one of the most problematic and potentially conflict-generating occasions. Numerous conflicts were sparked off at the end of the working day by problems in dividing the earnings into equal shares. Such conflicts and the fragility of social ties go firmly against the popular imaginary of Roma as a unified and cohesive community or as a homogenous culture.

Conclusion to Case 1: Performing Music in the West Relying on

the Generosity of Others and Invisibility Vis-à-vis the State

The migration of Felandicze Roma highlights several cultural contradictions involved in migration processes within these conditions of ethnicised poverty and powerful asymmetrical relations. Although their migration is partly generated as a response to poverty and universal negative discrimination on the labour market, their own migration tactics rely on activities that historically have been directly linked to the powerful master narratives of Roma nomadism, begging and enchanting the imaginations of the non-Roma gadjes (Gay y Blasco and Iordanova 2008). However, their migration tactics should not be read as a continuation of some kind of cultural tradition or essentialised Roma identity. Rather it is a response to the conditions generated by the situation and transformations of 1990s (and before). To some extent, one can argue that the Roma are trying to escape the pervasive stigma of Gypsiness, and yet at the same time they are playing with the same image, ‘performing’ the image of ‘musicians’ in the eyes of western world. This migration is then shot through with paradoxes and contradictions. Imaginations of migration for the Roma, and the ambivalent relationship with their Slovak state and Hungarian nationality, figure as a key in their negotiations of these cultural contradictions. Another contradiction is


that despite their migration from Slovakia, from conditions of poverty, from discrimination and marginalisation, most of them clearly link their future with Slovakia and see their villages as home.

Adopting certain misrepresentations while refusing and escaping others can be seen as a constitutive element of Roma everyday lives and mobilities in central and eastern Europe and abroad. This capacity to manoeuvre within the externally imposed categorisations – such as ‘work-shy’, ‘dangerous’, ‘thief ’, ‘stinking’, ‘scrounger’, etc.34 – may resonate with many popular (but also academic) representations of Roma as slippery tricksters vis-à-vis members of the dominant society (usually trying to outwit gadjos). However, it is more useful to see this capacity as enabling them to re-negotiate their position and to be persons who can decide and purchase things on their own rather than as dependents on powerful others.

Case 2: From Slovakia to United Kingdom Meat Factories

Unlike the Feladincze Roma, the migration of Tarkovce Roma differed in both their geographical destinations and their tactics. In fact, many of the Tarkovce Roma complained about the busking and begging Roma in the UK (in most cases referring to groups coming from Romania) as ‘making shame’ (keren ladž), and proclaimed their own distance from them. Moreover, by firmly embracing the modernist discourse to which they themselves had been exposed throughout the socialist period, they associated this practice with some kind of backwardness, something Tarkovce Roma did ‘in the old times’ (sar cirlatuno) but not anymore. The Tarkovce migrants also blamed the Romanian Roma in British cities for ‘giving them a bad name’ once again in the eyes of the British society. Instead of busking, Tarkovce Roma built on their previous social connections and started to work in various low-paid but mostly legal jobs in the UK, facilitated by connectedness to transnational networks, and a relatively higher awareness of the UK system.

The powerful and scaremongering articles which appeared in the British media prior to May 2004 contributed to the making of a ‘Roma invasion’ discourse. The Sun and Daily Express reported that thousands of Gypsies ‘are poised to flock to Britain’.35 These articles expressed fears of ‘flooding in’, ‘being swamped by’ the Gypsies from the member states joining EU. Sections of British media speculated that huge numbers of east European Gypsies were ‘ready’36 to come when EU accession allowed free movement. The roots of these media discourses might be traced back to the discussions and policy developments evolving around waves of Czech and Slovak Roma asylum seekers in west European countries throughout the 1990s (Clark and Campbell 1997; Matras 2000; Sobotka 2003; Stewart 2002; Guy, Uherek


and Wernerová 2004; Uherek 2007). Despite the public fears and worrying discourses, the ‘Gypsy invasion’ did not materialise.

The migration of Tarkovce Roma to the UK in 2004 did not come in the form of some spontaneous ‘Roma invasion’. It was conditioned not only by the opening of the British labour market to citizens of the new EU member states but also by previously established connections with relatives who had stayed in the UK since their asylum-seeking efforts. It was precisely these connections that provided potential candidates with necessary social capital and frequently also economic capital to migrate (see Gardner 2008; Bourdieu 1984).

The significance of social connections to the UK and the power individuals associate with certain places and see as obtainable through migration is clearly embedded within larger geopolitical processes. Nurtured by the bipolar vision of grey socialist scarcity and imagined abundance of the West in the late socialist period, in the 1990s Czech and Slovak citizens witnessed a wide range of expectations associated with the fall of the Iron Curtain. Desire for ‘branded’ items and ideas from the West saturated everyday life in postsocialist central eastern Europe, and Roma were no exception. Supported by an imagery of a ‘less racist’ West where wealth was more readily accessible, some Roma embraced a similar hierarchy of value. This hierarchy translated into decisions to migrate westwards, for some as asylum seekers in 1990s, for others as EU citizens and labour migrants after May 2004. This involved not only the physical movement of people but also movement of material things and of ideas between both countries. Money and material objects brought from the West to Slovakia constituted powerful capital and obtainable status symbols and entailed the trans-formation of the self (Gardner and Osella 2003). Becoming a migrant with a hope of transforming one’s life trajectory and self, of acquiring these material things through mobility, must then be seen not only as a matter of economic profit but also, more importantly, as a symbolic recognition and assertion of being a person of equal standing with non-Roma Slovaks. While in the past Roma have been economically dependent on non-Roma Slovaks, migration has given them an alternative to this historically asymmetrical power relation. The entrenched dependency is not only socio-economic, but also symbolic, reflected in the power of the non-Romas’ paternalist categorisations and treatments of Roma.

In what follows, I reconstruct a life story of one individual that can exemplify a common collective trajectory of many of the migrants.

Monika’s Story

Monika is in her early fifties. She went to school in the 1960s and finished her elementary education during socialism. According to her own words, she


has always been ‘hard-working and diligent’. She mentioned several times that she started to date and live with her first husband at the age of fifteen. As the oldest child in the family, she was ‘the only person supporting her ill parents and smaller sisters and brothers’. After finishing elementary school, she started to work as a seamstress for a big textile factory in the neighbouring town – a very common trajectory for Roma women from Tarkovce during socialism. However, shortly after the birth of her first daughter, her husband was diagnosed with cancer, and he died six months later. Her extended family supported her throughout these hardships and gave her material as well as spiritual comfort. After several years, she remarried and had two more children. Her second husband had spent four years in prison, which, according to common Roma beliefs, meant that he became a ‘coarse ex-convict’ (bešn lo

basistaris) treating her very badly, beating her and drinking extensively. The post-1989 period brought ‘bad times’ and the worsening of her living situation. She became long-term unemployed and experienced ‘great poverty’ after the closure of the textile factory. She attempted to work in the informal economy providing menial labour in agriculture for local farmers for a very low wage (paid in cash). At that time, she sometimes had to ask her siblings for help and also sometimes ‘I had to go and ask for help from the gadje peasants.’ She experienced humiliation and powerlessness as well as, more positively, the generosity of a number of local non-Roma peasants. The role of her sisters and brother, and their families, was crucial in supporting her family at that time. She frequently refers to the 1990s as living in ‘dire poverty… not like [we live] now’ (baro coripen… na sar kanake) when it was ‘difficult [literally heavy]’ (phares sas) to manage. The word phares refers both to the difficult and hard work she had to do, and the difficult and existentially painful and sad period of her life course.

After her husband’s return from gaol in the late 1990s, they decided to follow the example of their relatives and try their luck as asylum seekers. First, together with other Tarkovce Roma, they went to Switzerland but they were deported within days. After several months back in Slovakia, they decided to seek asylum in another west European country. Monika and her family spent more than a year in the Netherlands as asylum seekers in 1999/2001 and then returned home, while some of her relatives stayed in the UK (some of those remaining had gained, others did not have, asylum37). With the money saved from asylum38 and the sale of their old house, they purchased another house in the same village. However they were unable to find permanent jobs again and their only support was social benefits. Monika’s husband was imprisoned and spent another year in gaol for petty pilfering and fishing without a licence, while her teenage son started to work in the Czech Republic, alongside his uncle, in construction and, with the


help of social benefits, supported the whole family. In her own words, ‘it was one of the most difficult times of my life’. Once again her family ties helped her to overcome this life crisis.

In 2004 she and her relatives decided to try their luck in the UK, and migrated to Leeds. At that time, only two Slovakian Roma families, who had arrived as asylum seekers in 2002, lived there. Later on, following Slovakia’s entry to the EU, these two families formed the first link in a chain, helping their brothers and sisters, relatives and their families to migrate. Commonly, men arrive first, initially living with their brothers’/sisters’ families in their flats. Later on, usually after two or three months, they are followed by their wives and children, at which point they usually find jobs and rent their own flats. This pattern has been in place since migration to west European countries commenced at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Monika and her husband went to the UK with the support of her sister and sister’s children who had been in the UK since 1998 and had remained even though their asylum claims had been refused.39 Despite their lack of English, and thanks to her nephew’s help and contacts she, her husband and all their children found work in the sausage factory where he was employed.40 It was also her nephew who helped them in applying for a National Insurance Number (NINO) and Workers Registration Scheme (WRS, UK Border Agency, Home Office). These two documents were the only official requirements for entering the legal job market in the UK.

Her son and daughter, together with their children, were able to speak a bit of English as a result of their previous experience seeking asylum. They all found work through an employment agency, again thanks to a nephew’s connections with the agency managers. After a year or so, her daughter and her husband were employed directly by the company as regular workers with contracts. Most of the Roma migrants, however, continued to be employed as ‘temporary workers’ finding work through agencies. This usually meant earning the minimum wage (though frequently even below this minimum level after several deductions were made by the job agency, which claimed reimbursement for transport to work, uniforms, etc.); or working without a legal job contract. Monika and her family were still earning a bit over the minimum wage. They worked in the meat factory preparing sausages for ASDA supermarkets.41 During the first couple of years, by living in an overcrowded flat with her children’s families and taking long shifts, weekend shifts, and doing overtime they managed to save enough to purchase a big family house in their village in Slovakia and also to buy, on hire-purchase, a brand new Škoda Octavia car. Both house and car are among the highest status symbols for the Roma (and possibly non-Roma) in east-Slovakia in general and among Tarkovce Roma in particular. After investing all their money back in Slovakia,


they returned to Leeds to work. While continuing to work in the meat factory, they keep planning to return to Slovakia ‘for good’ (pro žužes).

The experience of Monika and her family exemplifies a common trajectory for Tarkovce migrants who were predominantly employed as ‘ancillary workers’ in low-skilled manual work, often taking positions most peripheral to the production process on the UK labour market. These jobs are also often described by migrants as the ‘dirtiest’42 (car cleaning), the ‘coldest’ (working with frozen meat in slaughterhouses or packing chickens), the ‘heaviest’ (meaning most difficult – i.e. working 12 hour shifts and often night-shifts) and the ‘smelliest’ (working in the fish factories or alongside people they considered ‘dirty and stinking’). Their occupational status varied and include for example ‘packer’, ‘general cleaner’, ‘porter’, ‘carrier’, ‘pallet constructing’ and so on. Roma migrants were employed formally but frequently also entered into informal deals called ‘fušky’ – as in Slovakia.43 Working in the UK has been often described as ‘hard’ (phares) and involves ‘considerable suffering for the money’ (but trapindžom pro kada love). Despite the physical hardship, minimal salary and most typically marginal and vulnerable status within their working places, these jobs were often valued as paying more than equivalent work in Slovakia where it was difficult to find a job in the first place.44 Almost unanimously, they told me that the ‘great poverty’ of the past had been replaced by the unimagined wealth of the present thanks to the United Kingdom. I often heard ‘England has saved us’.

The migration experience, especially of those ‘who made it’ or at least somehow obtained money for some investments in Slovakia, means that many Roma have been – especially in the last three years – buying houses from non-Roma and moving out from the historically traditional ‘Gypsy-only occupied’ parts of the village. Additionally, the economically successful migrants are repairing their own houses, purchasing cars and generally showing off their improved and social mobility in Slovakia. As a matter of fact, while the ‘whites’ (i.e. ethno-culturally dominant Slovakians) are becoming less and less dominant in the spatial organisation of the village, the Roma are buying houses from the non-Roma in the centre and other areas (previously inhabited exclusively by non-Roma). The whole settlement has become spatially more mixed. Roma and non-Roma are now living side by side, which contributes to a reorganisation of the traditional social order of the village (where Roma are historically positioned at the margins). Additionally, many young non-Roma are also migrating from the village in search of work, which contributes to changing social relations in the village.

Similar to patterns documented in other migration studies, migrants are returning with many objects of various value, frequently possessing the power of the places associated with their origins (Gardner 1993). ‘Things from England’


have established new fashion trends among the Roma migrants and imposed hierarchical distinctions between successful, unsuccessful, and non-migrants, as well as vis-à-vis the local gadjos. One can discern a shift in clothing style and jewellery purchased in the UK. The typical ‘Anglicanos’ [Englishman] – a Roma migrant – wears a branded tracksuit (Nike, Adidas, Umbro, etc) and trainers. The clothing style largely corresponds with British working-class clothing. However, when re-implanted and explained in Slovakia it is represented and looked upon as the ‘English fashion’ (anglicka moda). Both buying the branded sports equipment, and purchasing gold ‘Pakistani’ jewellery and fashionable mobile phones, serve as external signs of upward social mobility and status symbols of successful migration. One might argue that adopting this style stems from two kinds of reasoning. First, it reflects a lifestyle of the social groups with whom the migrants have close contact during the time away. Secondly, it fulfills the postsocialist desire for consuming the world of brands that only some people, and certainly not Gypsies, can afford in Slovakia. Most significantly, the material transformations and investments, as well as other practices and narratives such as contextually situated evocations of English words and expressions, constitute what Gardner and Osella (2003, xvi–xvii) call migrants’ ‘self-transforming projects’. The experience of new places, ideas and practices which migrants encounter results both in a questioning of previous forms of hierarchy and in a reinvention of the self ’s position within the local social and symbolic orders.

Conclusion to Case 2: Roma Mobilities and Growing

Inequalities in the Local Contexts

While labour migration has emerged as one possible strategy for escaping poverty in the eastern Slovakian borderlands, it has also further accentuated social differences and led to some perceived ruptures of and transformations in kin relations. In Tarkovce a large number of people are left behind, people who have not migrated or who have returned from migration impoverished. Thus, while the village has been radically transformed as a consequence of migration, and while many Roma have indeed improved their status and symbolic standing, there has been a complementary process of growing social differences between those who succeeded and those who did not or could not migrate in the first place. This transformation of the previous social categorisations and classifications affects relations not only between the Roma and non-Roma, but also among the Roma themselves.

Nevertheless, even those Roma who did not migrate or who returned more impoverished than before, sometimes find ways of changing their socio-economic position by carving out for themselves specific niches as auxiliary


workers. The influx of foreign money into the local village has created economic connections and dependence on foreign places as well as opportunities in the local context per se. With many returning migrants investing in the reconstruction of their old houses or building new ones, many of the poor Roma are employed as cheap labourers for various auxiliary jobs. Moreover, many Roma migrants are also contracting non-Roma building companies for reconstructing their houses and cultivating their surroundings. This has been frequently commented on as a reversal of previous hierarchies and power relations in which non-Roma always used Roma as a cheap labour force. In their own words, ‘the tide turns [lit. card has flipped over]’ (karta previsardža). As one of my Roma friends noted when looking at the renovated facades of several Roma houses on the street, ‘before that Roma always worked for Gadje and look now, Gadje are working for Roma’.

Migration is seen as an ‘opportunity’ unparalleled by anything in the past. While Tarkovce Roma remember socialism with nostalgia, they still consider the recent migration and its positive consequences as better. As one of the migrants noted, ‘…we still talk about communism because it was good. There were jobs, money, we built houses… we had everything. We just couldn’t go abroad [literally go to worlds]’ only to add immediately that ‘now, you have better opportunities. You can go and our Roma have been always going’. This, once again, differs from the Roma from Feladincze who in the migration context, without their families and facing daily struggles, often evoke the socialist period as a ‘time we had everything’ as opposed to the present time saturated with uncertainties.

Concluding Remarks

Through the exploration of two migratory paths and networks of Hungarian Roma from Slovakia making a living in Geneva in Switzerland and Slovakian Roma in the United Kingdom I have addressed various tensions and contradictions implicit in the migration process. I have shown that Roma migrations have been shaped by wider migration policies of states and economic demands for cheap labour as well as by previously developed networks and transnational connections. The Tarkovce Romas’ migration to the UK has been conditioned by the opening of British labour markets but also by being connected to the country through their previous experiences with migration and, more specifically, with asylum claims in the UK throughout the 1990s. They therefore had relatives and friends in the UK prior to the enlargement process. This also shaped migrants’ choices and job opportunities. Migration to Switzerland, on the other hand, has been eased by EU rules for free movement but made difficult by the specific regulations of the labour market for Slovak


nationals, and the lack of previous ties and connections to the place. Under such circumstances, the migrants did not enter any formal market and relied exclusively on their own independent performances, busking and begging on the streets of Geneva.

This chapter has also highlighted the significance of kinship and friendship ties in generating and shaping these specific patterns and migratory trajectories. Being able to maintain reciprocal relationships with successful migrants abroad is crucial for retaining hope for upward social mobility. The hopes and dreams of migrants, however, do not always come true, and frequently the actual experience of the journey leaves a bittersweet taste. Along the route to materialising their dreams, migrants are balanced on a very thin edge. Migration to the West serves as a powerful illusion, informed by the selective narratives of returning migrants, an enchanting dream that appears to promise much but in reality brings less than expected under risky conditions and frequently offers rather ephemeral effects. The possibility of success depends on one’s social position and trajectory as well as the specific circumstances of each particular migration. While for some Roma migration does indeed bring desired upward mobility, for many Roma it leads to deepening poverty. Many migrants have to borrow money for the trip and if they are not able to earn money within a relatively short period of time, they often fall into a very difficult situation and become dependent on family or risk indebting themselves to ‘intermediaries’ or loan sharks for support. While relatively high numbers of Tarkovce Roma managed to radically improve their social and economic status through time-tested routes and pre-existing transnational connections with more established Roma migrants in the UK, the Feladincze Roma have constantly manoeuvred, seized their opportunities through frequent movement between different cities in Switzerland and Austria, but have not succeeded to the same extent. Compared to Tarkovce Roma, Feladincze Roma earned significantly less through their busking and under relatively more fragile and insecure circumstances. However, the extent of perceived success cannot be restricted to different economic consequences; it must be also seen on a more socio-symbolic level. While in Feladincze migrants’ remittances have contributed to improving living conditions of some households, in Tarkovce the whole social and spatial organisation of the village has been transformed much more dramatically by Roma purchasing items of symbolic significance in the village hierarchy of value and displaying their success vis-à-vis the envious gadjes.

I have tried to show some of the conditions of migration to the imagined West and situated some of the hierarchies that it has produced, contested and challenged as well as re-produced. On one hand, Roma migration and its effects have certainly allowed many Roma to challenge and circumvent their ‘Gypsy’ position vis-à-vis the dominant ethno-cultural groups of Slovaks


and Hungarians. At the same time, migration contributes to another set of emerging inequalities and social differentiation, especially within the Roma networks. By seeing Roma migrants’ lives as socially located within particular sets of relations, the present chapter entails a critique of and analytical move away from the misleading master narrative of ‘Roma migration’ to a more differentiated account of some Roma migration and circumstances within which they migrate.

The comparison between the two cases of Roma migration enables us to see how various larger socio-economic transformations create conditions of growing poverty and inequality, how socio-legal systems of states and the European Union provide a space for movement as well as determine the kind of tactics, collective trajectories and individual biographies that frame the present experiences of migration. It is under these conditions that migration crystallises as a strategy and hope for escaping poverty and marginality in the Slovakian backwaters.

Notes

1 According to Benedik (2009), some Slovakian Roma appeared on the streets of Graz and other Austrian cities as early as 1989–90.

2 The local Romani idiom of ‘trapindžom’ can be in this context translated as ‘endure’, ‘suffer’ or ‘sacrifice’.

3 For historical works addressing the ‘Gypsy question’, concerning ‘citizens of Gypsy origins’ in former Czechoslovakia, more specifically from 1945 to 1989, see Donert (2008); Jurova (1993); and Sokolova (2008).

4 Roma migrants sometimes use the term ‘Gypsy’ (Cigán) interchangeably (both when speaking to me as a non-Roma but also among themselves). The term ‘Gypsy’ was used straightforwardly, dependent on contexts, and/or sometimes with a derogatory and offensive connotation but occasionally also ironically. In general, in this text, I try to follow my informants’ terms as closely as possible.

5 This text is based on anthropological fieldwork carried out between May and September 2005 in Geneva and between the summer of 2006 and autumn September 2008 in Slovakia and UK. The second and main part of my fieldwork was generously supported by the Wenner Gren Foundation and Marie Curie Fellowship (affiliated to the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava). This article does not pretend to provide any comprehensive generalizations about Hungarian Roma or Slovakian Roma as ‘a group’ residing in Slovakia but rather focuses on specific networks of several Roma migrants and their experiences and social practices within the migration context.

6 This work also provides an ethnographic critique of some sensationalist journalists’ accounts and politicians’ rhetoric that spread moral panic and fear, by making claims that after May 2004, the ‘West’ would be flooded by ‘East European Gypsies’.

7 With the exception of Geneva, all the geographical and personal names have been changed by the author.

8 The village has approximately 2300 inhabitants and is located 20 km from the border with Hungary. The closest city on the Hungarian side is Miskolc and Rimavska Sobota in Slovakia. Local Roma are Hungarian speaking.


9 According to the official municipality’s statistics in 2009, the village has 4333 inhabitants and lies close to the Ukraine and Hungarian borders. Although the village lies at the linguistic boundary dividing the Slovak-speaking and Hungarian-speaking territories of the Slovak Republic, residents speak and identify themselves as mainly Slovakian. The local Roma speak mainly Romani among themselves but are also fluent in the Slovak language.

10 In official communist ideology, Roma were not recognized as a specific ethno-cultural minority and their difference was explained through class differences. One of the aims of socialist policies was to incorporate citizens of Gypsy origin into working-class citizens (see Donert 2008; Sokolova 2008). Consequently, all socialist citizens had to be employed in former Czechoslovakia (otherwise rendered illegal).

11 These projects have been sometimes implemented with the financial support of the European Union.

12 The intentions behind introducing the scheme of ‘activating works’ by the state in 2004 was to fight long-term unemployment and the alleged dependency of chronically unemployed people on social benefits (although unofficially it was intended to address Roma problems) in order to, as frequently evoked by policy-makers, re-learn working habits and increase motivation for work (by paying the ‘deserved’ small amount of extra-money additional to social benefits).

13 Creation and reproduction of these networks and extensive kinship lines between Roma living in Slovakia and the Czech Republic date back at least to the post Second World War period when many Slovakian Roma moved to Czech lands, frequently because of state policies aimed at re-populating the borderland areas after the forced displacement of ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia in 1945–46.

14 This tacitly assumes that it is a feature shared by all the Roma groups who are conceptualised as a homogenous category without any attachment to places.

15 On analytically significant distinctions between strategies and tactics, see de Certau (1988, xviii-xx; cf. Bourdieu 1977). Tactics are constantly changing and require improvisations made out of constraining conditions. Many of the everyday practices of Roma migrants can be seen as ‘tactical’.

16 This contrasted with other Roma groups (Romani and Slovak speaking) in Slovakia who tended to prefer migration to west European countries such as Great Britain, Belgium and others.

17 See Clark and Campbell (1997).18 ‘A8 countries’ refers to the countries that joined the EU in May 2008; that is, the Czech

Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia.19 I find it analytically useful to employ Bourdieu’s notions of capital and field (Bourdieu

1984; 1986). For a similar use of Bourdieu’s concepts in analysing migration connections between Bangladesh and Great Britan, see Gardner (2008).

20 Some of the Roma spent extensive periods of time working in other socialist regions under Soviet influence. Some of them, for example, recalled stories of building hotels in Crimea.

21 Once I asked them where they had learned to play and whether they played any music back in Slovakia. In response, I got a grin and the answer that ‘we’ve learned by ourselves but we are not musicians’ and added in a somewhat ironic tone that back home ‘where would we play? What do you think? Are you crazy or what?’ At the same time, only a few minutes later, Peter, a migrant in his mid-40s, claimed that ‘a Gypsy is born with music in his body!’ and in so doing he embraced the hegemonic dominant discourse representing Gypsy natural proclivity and talent for music in a biologising notion of (Roma) ‘blood’ and essentialised culture.


22 I witnessed one such encounter with a police controller during a performance on a tram. The Roma migrants did not play on the trams again for the rest of my fieldwork.

23 This note is based on the migrants’ own explanations, folk theories and observation. More comprehensive research needs to be done concerning the representations of various Roma groups in Switzerland in relation to the possibility of passing. In my paper, I focus more on my informants’ explanations and narrative. This clarifying point owes its origin to a personal communication with Yasar Abu Ghosh.

24 With the exception of one woman, all of the migrants were male. This differs from other Roma groups in Geneva who are from other eastern European countries, such as Romania. In the latter case, although male migrants tended to be in the majority, a relatively high number of women were present too.

25 The small grouping of migrants I worked with consisted of 14 persons. There were several such ‘groupings’ and networks living in Geneva and some in other Swiss cities at the time of my fieldwork. Most of the Roma were relatives and friends from several neighbouring villages in Slovakia.

26 Some of the migrants occasionally visited the local charities in search of support but did not develop close relations with social workers.

27 Istvan was twenty six years old and had one child back in Slovakia.28 Most of the Roma migrants did not deregister from the long-term unemployment

registry and continued receiving their benefits while abroad. However, in most cases their absence became apparent and subsequently they lost their rights to receive state support and faced legal consequences (fines or legal proceedings).

29 As a matter of fact, he borrowed money for the trip from his relatives. He promised to pay them back with interest upon his (anticipated) ‘successful’ return.

30 The system of work permit quotas will officially end in 2011.31 However, more recently several images, circulating in the media and by social workers,

portray the Roma as ‘eastern European Gypsies begging on the streets of our cities.’ These discourses have been flourishing in recent years in several countries targeted by Roma migration (e.g. Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Spain and others). This point is based not only on my research but also on discussions with a group of researchers at a conference ‘Romani mobilities in Europe: Multidisciplinary perspectives’, organised by the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford, 14–15 January 2009.

32 Fêtes de Genève is one of the biggest musical festivals in Geneva that is organised on a regular basis. It lasts several weeks and it presents a wide range of concerts performed on different stages in parks and on the streets of the city.

33 I was employed as an intern at the International Organisation for Migration in Geneva.34 All these negative characteristics are widely used and shared among the dominant

Slovakian society when referring to ‘Gypsies’.35 The Sun 19 January 2004. See also the Sunday Times 18 January 2004, the Daily Express

20 January 2004 (cf. Clark and Campbell 1997).36 In a front-page article called ‘Britain Here We Come’, the Daily Express reports that

1.6 million Gypsies are ‘ready to flood in’ (the Daily Express, 20 January 2004).37 The main reason for their abrupt return to Slovakia during the period of waiting for

the decision regarding their asylum claims was the sudden death of her young niece and their desire to participate in the funeral and the collective mourning.

38 Some of the Tarkovce Roma managed to save some money from the period of asylum seeking. These included savings made from the pocket money/benefits they received


as asylum-seekers or income from their informal jobs. While these were not considered high amounts of money in the asylum countries, after being converted into Slovakian crowns these amounted to substantial sums back in Tarkovce.

39 Most asylum-claims were refused. While the majority of the refused Roma asylum-seekers returned back to Slovakia, some stayed semi-legally or even returned on fake passports.

40 The Roma migrants sometimes had to bribe corrupt managers or middlemen if they wanted work. I recorded many narratives about the initial easiness of getting a job through the agencies, although this was soon replaced by competition with other eastern European migrants, by corruption and the power of middlemen and dirty business.

41 In addition to the income from their jobs, they also received working tax credit due to their low-income – something for which they were legally eligible given their long-term employment contract and EU citizenship status.

42 All these adjectives appear in the migrants’ own discourses concerning their work in the UK.

43 In the UK, these one-off jobs were often carried out for Pakistani businessmen. For men, these jobs usually consisted of cleaning, bricklaying, gardening and painting. Women were most often employed as occasional cleaners of homes. The payment for these ‘fušky’ is given in cash and it is usually from 20 to 35 GBP per ‘fuška’, which could last from two to ten hours.

44 This situation has slightly changed with the development of the exchange rate (due to a weaker UK pound) and after Slovakia started to use Euro as its official currency in 2009. Although the economic conditions changed and are presently less profitable, migration to the UK is still seen as providing an opportunity in comparison to the situation in Slovakia.

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Documents

GRILL StreetBusking Libre