was for the welfare of the NGO, Polje’s residents became frustrated. Resigned, Bekim simply reiterated his earlier statement: “They never actually help us.” Despite competing rhetoric between Serbian policies decrying the proliferation of unhygienic Romani settlements and NGO reports excoriating the removal of these communities, these debates rarely affected the lives of Ashkali. Both evictions and aid were rare.
Reminiscent of its physical position with the city on one side and fields on the other, Polje was in limbo between an unengaged Serbian government and ineffectual aid agencies. This uncertainty made informal Romani settlements sites of permanent displacement. They were simultaneously temporary and enduring. As a result, residents’ lives were unceasingly precarious. Even those people who left Polje to settle elsewhere, like Albin and Endrit, could not find stability. They routinely returned to the settlement for the dumpsters that surrounded it. Whether they were relocated to containers, apartments, or Kosovo, these families never truly left Polje. Consequently, settlements impacted lives, economies, and socialities far beyond their borders. Rather than just temporary homes for refugees and migrants, informal Romani settlements became a discrete realm in which lasting insecurity and dislocation reconfigured experience.
SUFFERING AND BOREDOM
While artists, novelists, television producers, governments, and NGOs all perpetuate common narratives about Roma, so do researchers and anthropologists.84 From the outset of this project I was concerned about how my own writing would be situated in regard to these narratives. What impact would it, and I, have upon the lives of Polje’s residents? First, the topics that I sought to engage seemed prone to replicating long-standing assumptions. By studying the enduring displacement of people in excepted spaces, my work risked resembling the very stereotype that I most wished to challenge: that Roma choose to lead iterant lives on the margins of civilization. Second, I, a non-Romani white American male, would be telling a story about people whose lives were unlike my own in profoundly significant dimensions. Polje’s residents and I were not only separated by differing ethnicities, nationalities, languages, and lived experiences but also by vast economic disparities. My own background, education, and embeddedness within a wage labor hierarchy would invariably structure any writing that I produced. And while I hoped for this book to be read by a “wide audience,” I knew that group would not include the people it was about, many of whom were unable to decipher written Serbian, let alone English. In all likelihood, most readers of this text will share far more traits in common with me than with Polje’s residents. Consequently, if Polje is an Other world, it is only because a world of assumed whiteness, housing, and paychecks is privileged, frequently taken for granted, and portrayed as normative.
Conscious of these issues and committed to a collaborative methodology, I determined the project’s feasibility by first consulting with settlement residents and prepared to abandon the research if Ashkali and Roma did not want an anthropologist such as myself delving into their communities. It was at this point that I met Endrit. Not long into our first conversation, I explained that I hoped to spend months working with scavengers, taking part in their daily lives, and having them guide my project. But I also conceded that I was still learning Serbian, had never scavenged before, and was largely unaware of the social complexities and norms that suffused settlements. In thinking together about whether we might collaborate in this project, we discussed how his assisting me could be invasive and onerous. Having laid out my goals and concerns, I asked Endrit for his opinion: What did he think about my research and methodology? Was it appropriate and would anyone be interested in participating?
Rather than answering me directly, Endrit asked a question of his own: “What will you give me?” Would the project fund houses? Grant residents access to land? Guarantee that water and power was legally supplied to the settlement? Improve their lives? I replied that I could do none of those things. While I would assist in a personal capacity and provide whatever resources I could, my work would not lead to systemic improvements in his status, housing, education, or health. In fact, it might make things worse. Detailed information about his settlement, albeit disguised with pseudonyms, would be publicly available and could no doubt be used in ways we did not intend or foresee. Endrit thought for a moment before replying that I was the first person who had been honest with him. Journalists, NGOs, and government representatives all promised to change lives, he said, but no one did. Because I refrained from making similar pledges, Endrit declared that he would be honest with me: he was the leader of a nearby settlement and would be willing to speak more about my project. Two days later I visited his home, met other Ashkali, began the slow unfolding process of nurturing relationships, and was subsequently invited to conduct fieldwork with them in Zgrade.
Two years passed before I returned and began research.85 By then, Zgrade had been razed and Endrit was living primarily in Kosovo. However, I located his daughter’s family in Polje and I was invited to spend time with them. After speaking more about my project, they and their Ashkali neighbors agreed to participate. As we discussed, I would not conduct surveys, focus groups, and formal interviews. I also refrained from audio recording and public notetaking. I did not want people to feel as if they were being put under a microscope or subjected to unfamiliar practices. I would be present in the moment with people, what some anthropologists have called “deep hanging out.”86 Consequently, all quotes are from memory. To document events, I wrote copious field notes when I was alone or others were sleeping, usually late at night.
Although I attempted to be as unobtrusive as possible and integrate into the settlement, I was nevertheless a non-Rom and foreigner. Concerned about how an outsider like myself would be received, I employed a Romani research assistant to act as a facilitator, translator, and advisor. Slobodan was studying social work at the University of Belgrade and he assisted me approximately one day a week.87 His conviviality, local knowledge, and Serbian language skills significantly eased the awkwardness of many early interactions and, as fieldwork progressed, his insights were invaluable. However, I quickly learned that my assumptions regarding insiders and outsiders were inaccurate. Aside from being Romani, Slobodan had little in common with Polje’s residents. His family had lived in Belgrade for generations, owned a house, and were members of an educated working class. Upon meeting Slobodan, many of Polje’s Roma actually failed to identify him as a Rom. Meanwhile, Ashkali residents routinely stressed their difference from, and at times superiority to, Roma such as Slobodan. He was thus never treated as an insider. Consequently, Slobodan’s Romani identity did not necessarily facilitate my entry into the settlement and, in some cases, complicated it.
My own positionality was also created and situated within the context of the settlement. First, Polje’s residents steadfastly refrained from commenting on my ethnic or racial identity. I was never called a non-Rom nor was I labeled “white.”88 My difference was articulated through my nationality. When I was ignorant of local norms, asked about what trash to collect, mispronounced words, or confessed to being a vegetarian, I was called an American. Initially, my desire to live and work in Polje was attributed to this as well. As I returned from my first scavenging trip pedaling a trokolica—and Roma stared in confusion—Bekim loudly announced, “He is American!”
My nationality not only marked me as socially atypical but also was a signifier of wealth. In addition, Polje’s residents were aware that I was employed as a professor and had been given a grant to conduct research in Serbia. However, conversations about my affluence were rare and, contrary to the stereotype of the begging Gypsy, only men in Bekim’s and Endrit’s households requested my financial assistance. Not only was it deemed rude to inquire about another’s income; men took pride in being able to support their families. Accepting cash, especially from someone outside the domestic unit, was an admission that they had failed in this endeavor. Consequently, when Bekim or Endrit desperately needed money for food and other essentials, they quietly asked for “loans” that I did not expect to be repaid. My labor, on the other hand, could be and was publicly utilized. I carried water, prepared paper for recycling, watched children, and scavenged.89
But it was not my skin color, nationality, or wealth that most determined my place in Polje; it was my gender. I spent the vast majority of my time with men participating in their activities. In contrast, my interactions with women were much more circumscribed because significant relationships