‘Ethnicised’ Inclusion in Times of Austerity: An Anthropology-of-Policy Perspective on Roma Inclusion Policies in Serbia

This paper addresses the topic of the welfare state in crisis by analyzing policies intended to improve the inclusion of Roma in the welfare system in Serbia. In the fields of anthropology of policy and policy translation (Shore, Wright and Però 2011; Clarke et al. 2015; Mosse 2005), policies are conceptualised as sets of rhetorical devices and material practices that are inevitably reinterpreted, contested and altered as they are transferred from one place to another. Drawing on this understanding, I examine the ways in which EU-supported ‘Roma inclusion’ policies are being taken up and reshaped in the phase of policy ‘implementation’. Specifically, I seek to expose tensions between, on the one hand, the ‘ethnicised’ perspective of social disadvantage (Surdu and Kovats 2015) promoted by the mainstream policy discourse, and, on the other, the austerity-driven flexibilization of the position of social workers and teachers as traditional welfare state actors (reflecting broader processes of pauperization). The main empirical evidence used in this paper comes from seven-months of ethnographic fieldwork on an international EU funded project conducted by several public and ‘civil society’ entities in Serbia. By exploring on-the-ground practices deriving from inclusion policies, the paper complements the debate on the changing premises of redistribution in post-socialism, and calls into question the productivity of the dominant ‘identitarian’ paradigm for addressing social inequalities. Furthermore, it contributes to the existing anthropology of policy research by shedding light on the ways in which supposedly separate policy domains interact, sometimes creating results that contradict the official policy scripts. References: Clarke, John, Dave Bainton, Noémi Lendvai, and Paul Stubbs, eds. 2015. Making Policy Move: Towards a Politics of Translation and Assemblage. Bristol: Policy Press. Bilić, Bojan, and Sanja Kajinić, eds. 2016. Intersectionality and LGBT Activist Politics: Multiple Others in Croatia and Serbia. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Mosse, David. 2005. Cultivating Development. An Ethnography of Aid Policy and Practice. London: Pluto Press. Shore,Cris, Susan Wright, and Davide Però. eds. 2011. Policy worlds: Anthropology and the Analysis of Contemporary Power. New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books. Surdu, Mihai, and Martin Kovats. 2015. “Roma Identity as an Expert-Political Construction.” Social Inclusion 3/5:5-18.