Uneven Citizenship: Minorities and Migrants in the Post-Yugoslav Space by Gëzim Krasniqi & Dejan Stjepanovic

Author:Gëzim Krasniqi & Dejan Stjepanovic [Krasniqi, Gëzim & Stjepanovic, Dejan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138089587
Goodreads: 48813636
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-08-21T00:00:00+00:00

Re-positioning of Romani Minorities after the Yugoslav Disintegration and their Access to Citizenship in the Post-Yugoslav Space

Romani minorities faced numerous obstacles in their access to citizenship of post-Yugoslav states. The difficulties did not arise only from the armed conflict or forced migrations in the post-Yugoslav region, but also from epistemic violence that redefined different citizenship acts and hence also re-positioned Romani minorities in the context of citizenship regimes. Although it cannot be simply deduced that persons identified as belonging to Romani minorities were direct targets of this epistemic violence enacted through citizenship acts, the resulting position of Romani minorities was an unanticipated side effect of the discriminatory citizenship regimes created by these acts. These side effects resulted from the dismantling of bifurcated citizenship of the Socialist Yugoslavia (Å tiks, 2010), and also from some of the features of the position of many Romani individuals before and after the disintegration of SFRY. These included inter-generational poverty, living in informal settlements (and births in domicile conditions) and hierarchical inclusion in the educational system. Thus, belonging to a non-dominant ethnic group was not the only decisive factor for Romani minorities, and the socio-economic position of the vast majority of Romani individuals also has to be taken into account when studying their access to citizenship.

Not all Romani individuals were denied access to citizenship of the SFRY successor states in which they resided. Since legal continuity between the SFRY republican citizenship and citizenship of the newly established states was provided, those Romani individuals who possessed the citizenship of the socialist republic where they officially resided automatically became citizens of the respective successor state. However, those individuals who did not possess birth certificates because their births had not been registered experienced problems although they should in fact have been among the included (Å tiks, 2010, p. 12). Yet, the main subgroups of Romani minorities who faced the greatest difficulties in regularizing their citizenship status were those who formerly did not possess the republican citizenship of the socialist republic where they (formally or informally) resided. Although Romani minorities were not the only ones who found themselves excluded in this type of post-Yugoslav citizenship constellations, the reasons why their access to citizenship was in many instances obstructed lie in the determinants of their positioning specific to Romani minorities.8 Such positioning was not taken into account and thus the unanticipated consequences in citizenship access arose.

Those former Yugoslav citizens who fell into the category of the excluded (Štiks, 2010, p. 13) in the new states became aliens in the country of their residence, where they were lawful citizens, and had to undergo the process of naturalization. Even in those cases where the option of facilitated acquisition (in a provisional period) of citizenship was provided, the former SFRY citizens with other former republican citizenship had to meet the requirement of registered residence in most cases, for example, in Slovenia at a certain date (Deželan, 2011), or the requirement of permanent residency for up to 15 years in Macedonia (Spaskovska, 2010a). Since the majority

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