The Stilled-Other of the Citizen. “Roma Beggars” and Regimes of (Im)mobility in an Austrian City

Abstract

The chapter looks into the socio-material production and regulation of the ethno-political figure of the “Roma beggar” through the prism of a regime-of-(im)mobility approach. Based on an ethnographic study, core aspects of this regime for “Roma beggars” are analysed on a micro-scale: criminalizing transport, invisibilising borders, educating beggars, victimization, stillness and deportability. The study investigates the everyday social and physical infrastructures and logistics for (im)mobility, imaginaries of (im)mobility and discursive technologies. It shows how a differentiated, rationalized knowledge on “them” is produced. “Roma beggars” are constituted as an epistemic object and policy target, legitimizing the unequal treatment of people in the name of security. The related regime-of-(im)mobility derives its effectiveness precisely from its in-built arbitrariness and inconsistency. The key insight is that the “stilled, able beggar” is the only legitimate form of begging in the light of a community of good and able citizens. As this figure is practically unrealizable and deceptive, it flips into the “Roma beggar”. The chapter concludes that this “stilled-Other of the citizen” is a discursively activatable and materially stabilized aspect of the Otherness operating within the concept of citizenship itself. Hence, the regime-of-(im)mobility for “Roma beggars” turns out to be an integral part of regimes that enable differential movements and forms of (im)mobile existences among all kinds of people.