Home-Land: Romanian Roma, Domestic Spaces and the State
By Rachel Humphris
ISBN
978-1529201925Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Bristol University PressISBN
978-1529201949Imprint
Bristol University PressISBN
978-1529201956Imprint
Bristol University Press
Home-Land: Romanian Roma, Domestic Spaces and the State
In the media
On our blog: 'Brexit and domestic borders: lessons from the unspoken rules of citizenship'
In contemporary society, passport checks at nation-state borders are accepted. But what if these checks were happening in our own home? This book is the first intimate ethnography of these governing encounters in the home space between Romanian Roma migrants and local frontline workers.
Focusing on how the nation-state is reproduced within the home, the book considers what it is like to have your legal status, your right to ‘belong’, judged from your everyday domestic life. In essence this book is about the divide between state and family, home-land and home and what it means for the new rules of citizenship.
“This is a mesmerising anthropological exploration of ‘intimate state encounters’ of the local frontline workers with the ‘Romanian Roma’ migrants in the home space.” Ethnic and Racial Studies
"Humphris makes a significant contribution to theories of the state and the politics of care and belonging, drawing on her deeply insightful fieldwork." Rachel Benchekroun, Migration and Society
"This excellent book offers an important exploration of migration, statecraft, race, and urban marginalisation through a study of Romanian Roma mothers and their encounters with frontline workers." Housing Studies
''This must-read exploration of ‘intimate state encounters’ exposes the complex relation between protection and exclusion, offering important insights into daily practices of care and the crafting of border regimes.'' Bridget Anderson, Bristol University
''Powerfully written with care and insight, this sensitive ethnography reminds us that even at ‘home’, in shared domestic spaces, Roma families are subjected to Kafkaesque methods of state monitoring and surveillance. This is a wonderful account of life on the margins, placed on the outside but very much looking in.'' Colin Clark, University of the West of Scotland
''Home-Land is an important and incisive ethnography of the state that reveals just how deeply the border has invaded the ostensibly ''private'' lives and ''domestic'' space of the poorest and most racially subjugated of migrants.'' Nicholas De Genova, University of Houston
Rachel Humphris is a Lecturer and Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the School of Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary, University of London. She has held visiting fellowships at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, University of California Berkeley and York University Toronto.
Preface;
Introduction: Romanian Roma, motherhood and the home;
Chapter 1: Home truths: fieldwork, writing and anthropology’s ‘home encounter’;
Interlude: Facebook with Cristina;
Chapter 2: Shifting faces of the state: austerity, post-welfare and frontline work;
Interlude: Disappearing Dinni;
Chapter 3: Romanian Roma mothers: labelling and negotiating stigma;
Interlude: Remembering Brussels with Georgeta;
Chapter 4: Intimate bureaucracy and home encounters;
Interlude: Clara’s Belgian torte;
Chapter 5: Gender and intimate state encounters;
Interlude: Losing Sophia and Angela;
Chapter 6: Borders and intimate state encounters;
Conclusion: Homemade state: intimate state encounters at the margins;
