Wastelands. Eirik Saethre

isolation from it.

      Examining Romani economies including recycling, Brazzabeni, Cunha, and Fotta come to a similar conclusion.⁶⁷ They assert that while scholars often describe Romani strategies as “niche,” these practices are nevertheless firmly entrenched within commercial markets, albeit in unique ways. Highlighting the simultaneous internality and externality of Romani work within global capitalist networks, they note that it “is embedded in the modern economic system and created in relation to a milieu from which it cannot be dissociated, but which nevertheless cannot be fully characterised with reference to the modern economic system alone (such as being ‘outside’ it) without looking at the material processes that in each instance went into its fabrication.”⁶⁸ Consequently, people like Endrit and Bekim not only exemplify a burgeoning trend whereby people rely on limited and unstable resources; their lives illustrate the complexities of being incorporated into an economic system only to be segregated within it.

      These relationships were driven by the enduring materiality of discarded commodities. Contrary to popular wisdom, an item’s worth is not extinguished when it is thrown away. A shirt in the dumpster is still a shirt and, once removed, can continue to fulfill its function as clothing. Ultimately, trash is an arbitrary state that need not be permanent. Commoditization is an ongoing process that lasts long after a thing is produced, sold, and abandoned. Appadurai notes that objects are not static but rather circulate in differing regimes of value.⁶⁹ As a result, a commodity’s economic significance is tied to its social, political, and cultural framework. These differing registers allow a single item to have opposing values and meanings that are context dependent. In other words, one person’s trash is another person’s treasure. Appadurai observes that this disjuncture is particularly evident among extremely impoverished groups. For Ashkali, who had difficulty accessing commodities through ordinary channels, dumpsters provided an alternative. Consequently, an object’s trajectory is not linear but circular, necessarily moving in and out of a trash state. As items shift between categories, they acquire biographies and histories.⁷⁰ Like people, commodities are socially constructed and possess social lives.

      For Ashkali, trash was not just a source of material goods; it also provided symbolic capital. Recycling required fortitude, strength, and expertise. Furthermore, scavengers had to be able to identify valuable goods, know the market value of each item, and possess keen negotiating skills. They were connoisseurs, gaining their knowledge through an unconscious and measured familiarization with instruments of value.⁷¹ Personal success depended upon one’s mastery of the art of living, not institutionalized learning, wage labor, or government assistance. Parents saw their children’s future in the dumpsters, not in the classroom. Youths were encouraged to go through the trash because it taught discipline and the value of labor. When a teenage boy refused, saying girls were watching, his father angrily responded that scavenging was not embarrassing; it was honest work. Taking pride in their abilities, individuals routinely showed off their best finds, such as a pair of barely worn designer sneakers, and bragged about the money they would generate. For Ashkali, garbage was not a sign of disadvantage and desperation; it demonstrated industriousness and integrity. But to Serbs, garbage marked Belgrade’s scavengers as perpetually polluted outsiders. The very thing that seemed to promise success ensured that Ashkali remained marginal.

      Given that trash fulfilled so many needs and represented potential wealth, it became a way of life. Men like Endrit and Bekim dedicated many hours each day to searching through dumpsters. Even outside these times, Ashkali routinely rummaged through every receptacle they passed. No opportunity was wasted because trash was fundamentally uncertain: you never knew what you might find. Serbs, on the other hand, passed dumpsters without reflection. To nonscavengers, trash was ready-to-hand. For Heidegger, ready-to-hand denotes everyday objects that are taken for granted and routinely overlooked.⁷² They are unremarkable and uninteresting. For Ashkali, however, garbage was inherently conspicuous, expressive, and powerful. Much more than a simple source of cash, clothing, and food, it structured people’s days, living conditions, relationships, and ethics. Millar notes that garbage can be a “form of living,” which provides both an income and a worldview.⁷³ In Serbia, trash comprised the bedrock of an Ashkali economy, sociality, and morality and, as such, formed a complex nexus through which multiple meanings and relationships were negotiated.

      Ultimately, the bibliographies of trash and the scavengers who collected it were strikingly similar. Consigned to settlements, Ashkali were stripped of humanity and abandoned by the state. Thrown into dumpsters, commodities were stripped of value and abandoned by their owners. Settlements and dumpsters were both excepted geographies that rendered people and things worthless. But these transformations were ultimately contextual and hence elastic. Cigani, in being discarded, were able to find worth in discarded objects. The Other world of Belgrade’s settlements possessed its own regimes of value. It was through this process of resurrecting economic worth that scavengers were able to assert their own sovereignty by constructing unique social and economic spaces. Trash was not just a means of survival where none other existed; it was a byproduct of global capitalism that, through its vacillations between detritus and commodity, simultaneously challenged and consolidated Ashkali identity.

      EVICTIONS AND ADVOCACY

      Although Ashkali attempted to create a space of potential prosperity, they continually faced the threat of eviction. Serbian strategic documents labeled informal Romani settlements as urban blights that needed to be destroyed.⁷⁴ Authorities routinely prioritized Deponija’s removal. Ashkali were well aware of these policies and frequently speculated about their own fate. As Endrit watched construction crews erecting new buildings adjacent to Zgrade, he was certain this heralded the impending demolition of his home. It would only be a matter of time, he remarked, until the settlement was leveled to clear land for apartments. Hoping to escape this precarious existence, Endrit considered returning to Kosovo. He had applied for a new home in a village near Pristina but nothing had materialized. Opening his wallet, Endrit produced business cards that he had collected from staff at UNDP, UNICEF, the Danish mission, and other organizations involved in the resettlement process. They made many promises, he said, but never kept them.

      As Endrit predicted, the settlement was razed approximately six months after our conversation. He stood silently on the sidelines as his house with its delicate wall stencils was flattened by bulldozers. As occurred in other settlement removals, Zgrade’s residents were dispersed across borders. Endrit joined a handful of others and returned to Kosovo. Participating in an international repatriation program, these families received new houses in a rural village. The Serbian state resettled many of those who wished to remain in the city, moving them into converted shipping containers situated in an industrial zone. A third group, including Bekim and five other families, relocated to a neighboring Romani settlement, Polje. Polje contained approximately forty households and was home to the horse carts and their Romani drivers that I had heard from my window. Its new Ashkali residents built shacks close to one another on the settlement’s periphery. They hoped to retain their sense of community while avoiding entanglements with their Romani neighbors. But as soon as the Ashkali families settled in, they began worrying about Polje’s removal.

      The clearance of settlements like Zgrade attracted national and international media attention. One online article profiled Bekim, describing him as a Romani refugee, and recounted his search for a new home. This coverage reflected a growing awareness of Romani inequality, precipitated in part by the influence of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). In Eastern Europe, NGOs have come to play an increasing role due to the neoliberal contraction of postsocialist states.⁷⁵ Of the many NGOs that operate in Serbia, several focus on Romani inclusion. Framing removals as human rights violations, activists have sought the support of European governments and organizations. Consequently, foreign dignitaries and donors would occasionally tour Belgrade and its settlements to assess the current state of Romani inequality. Designed to illuminate the hardships facing Roma, these excursions reinforced popular ideas of Roma as poor and needy. As a result, NGOs actually strengthened the boundaries around spaces of exception.

      This was first illustrated to me when a bright van arrived at the front of Polje as Bekim, Fatime, Albin, Slobodan, and I chatted near Bekim’s shack. A group of nine smartly dressed people