Four - No pollution and no Roma in my backyard: class and race in framing local activism in Laborov, eastern Slovakia

Summary

Introduction

It was the bleak December of 2007. Petitioners were walking door to door to collect signatures. Ultimately, almost 9,000 people decided to sign and stand up against the planned construction of a massive coalburning power plant. It was a rather good achievement in the eastern Slovakian district of Laborov, comprising 100,000 inhabitants. There were also people who did not sign up. Some had hopes of new jobs in the power plant, some declined because of fear and some simply had no particular interest. There were also those who were not asked to sign up local Roma living in segregated neighbourhoods on the outskirts of the town, a community of around 3,500 people. Legally, they were inhabitants of the town, but in everyday life they were unwanted and overlooked by local decision makers and the majority of ethnic Slovaks. Being the subject of long-lasting institutional discrimination and prejudice, they are considered by some to be almost an ‘environmental burden’, a kind of ‘pollution’ on the ‘pure body’ of the town, producing nothing more than waste and problems.

Care for the environment and the fight against pollution have been serious agendas in public policy making in Laborov and have revolved around two main issues. Firstly, air pollution linked to a highly controversial plan to build a coal-burning power plant in the immediate vicinity of the town centre (culminating in years 2006–10). Secondly, the issue of waste management in the town, which came to be increasingly presented in the public debate. While the former could be considered an example of short-term popular mobilisation and community resistance to environmentally irresponsible big capital investment, the latter is an instance of a managerial problem recategorised into an ethnic issue and example of racialisation and reproduction of prejudices and discrimination against local Roma. Thus, this chapter can be seen as a case study of the racialisation and class division of an environmental justice struggle and a contest of framing between ‘environmental justice’ and racial oppression, in which the Roma are cast as no more than equivalent to environmental pollution.

Our study, the fieldwork for which was undertaken in March 2017 and January 2018, is based on available written records (media and documents), interviews and observational research, involving fieldwork in Laborov.