Living beyond the Pale: Environmental Justice and the Roma Minority

Chapter Eight: Roma? Not in My Backyard

CHAPTER EIGHT Roma? Not in My Backyard The patterns described in the previous chapter represent four specific types of unequal distribution of environmental benefits and harm. Although different in forms and scope, they share several common features. They are the outcome of division in the villages, where through social processes the weaker group (Roma) is unequally exposed to adverse environmental impacts or has limited access to environmental benefits. With a bit of exaggeration , the location of settlements, management of natural resources or waste is an outcome of the cold war over the space in villages and the environment plays an important role in the struggle. I identify three main factors influencing decisions of the majority toward the selection of environmentally problematic places for Roma settlements. These are:  Economic interests (the price of the land/real estate value, commercial potential);  Ethnic discrimination and spatial distance (proximity to the main village and racial prejudices/the effort to push Roma out of the main village); and  Changes in local economy (management of the resources and access to employment). Economic interests are a very powerful driving force behind decision making, but ethnic discrimination also plays an important role. Non-Roma do not want Roma in the main village and are often able (as illustrated in the cases of Rudňany and Svinia) to find ways to push them to the outskirts . Environmental conditions most likely—mainly through their impact on the value and commercial potential of the land—play a decisive role in the selection of places for settlements. All these three factors are then reflected in the entitlements control and distribution. Amartya Sen originally claimed that entitlements derive from 166 Living Beyond the Pale legal rights rather than morality, or human rights and should therefore be treated as a descriptive, rather than a normative concept (Sen 1984: 166). Yet, even if entitlements as such are not a normative concept, the ways in which people and social groups approach their distribution are to a significant degree (at least in our examples) dependant on morals, cultural norms and the shared values and perceptions. In addition, there are (equally, if not even more important) economic interests playing a crucial role in the distribution. Economic interests, social pressures, prejudices and competition over the resources are all reflected in the decision-making and the entitlements are primary tools used in the distribution of the environmental resources— especially land as the most important factor in the origin of environmental (in)justice. Some settlements were built a long time ago, some during the former totalitarian regime, and others have appeared recently after the political changes in the 1990s. Although regimes were changing and the governance system has been going through rather different stages, there are similarities and deeper mechanisms in the entitlement control. Regardless of the regimes, from the very beginning of the settlements’ history we see here a strong role of the non-Roma (i.e., entitlements’ owners and controllers ) in the allocation of places. As we have seen in the case studies, there is a need to distinguish ownership , control and access. Private ownership is part of the legitimised command, but equally (if not more) important is the control of entitlement over the land which has unknown, scattered owners or is in the possession of the municipality and state. In the present situation of mixed and unclear ownership of unknown entities, where known owners are not particularly interested in their properties (e.g., because of its low value, small size, fragmentation or poor location), the role of the municipalities becomes central in land control. As schematically visualised in Figure 23, entitlements over land in municipalities with Roma settlements are a rather complicated outcome of different forces and actors pursuing their own aims. Problem arises, when the interests of non-Roma are not driven by normative concepts of social cohesion or shared values involving Roma, but rather by interests of their own group, which they consider as contradictory to the interests of Roma. Thus the entitlements and their control (either formal built on ownership, or informal derived from norms, rules and power) is used in particular interests of the stronger group. To use terminology from the environmental policy literature, interest of the ma- Patterns of Environmental (In)justice 167 jority when coming to the land distribution for Roma settlements can be identified as the “not in my backyard” (NIMBY) syndrome. The majority sees Roma as a kind...