Here, There, Nowhere: Urban Eviction as State Erasure of Roma Rights and Heritage between Bulgaria and Germany

Abstract

The latest urban eviction of dwellers from Sofia’s district of Zaharna Fabrika, home to one of the oldest Roma settlements in the city, has shone a spotlight on an “archipelago” of residential clusters in which spatial confinement and the steady erosion of basic rights wall off Roma communities and shrink their space for political participation. In his commentary, the author advances an intersectional reflection that foregrounds the deep-seated anti-Roma discourse and neoliberal urban replanning– phenomena that both had a particularly significant impact on the Bulgarian Roma and fostered far-right violence. Based on previous fieldwork and qualitative studies, this article highlights how the neoliberal restructuring and rescaling of cities drive the patterns of migration from Southeastern to Northern Europe, while the far-right’s anti-migration discourse is taking root within urban migrant/minoritised spaces.