I will dwell as you want…' Conflicting meanings and practices in housing projects for Roma people in Italy and Romania

In all European countries the housing conditions of Roma are dramatically below those of the rest of the population. Discrimination against Roma in housing access is very great, and in general the quality of housing is far from what could be considered 'adequate' (FRA 2009). In order to understand the current conditions of Roma we must start from the analysis of the discursive framing; we must consider what are the categories with which the Roma were designed from majority groups and how these categories have been used by policy makers. For a long time, in many European countries, the measures for the Roma have been designed as a solution to the alleged nomadism and as a way to control and to keep them aside from the majority population. In recent years there has been a change in public rhetorics, and governments and non-governmental organizations have been promoting projects that have "inclusion", "de-ghettoization", "participation", "cooperative planning" as keywords. The meanings attributed to these words are rarely shared by those who design interventions and those who are the beneficiary; there is a complex process of conflict, resistance and appropriation that we can observe in everyday practices. In this paper I present a comparative analysis of some housing projects in Romania and Italy, labelled by policy-makers as good practices. The analysis of the voices and practices of Roma beneficiaries has highlighted all the shadows and ambiguities hidden behind official definitions.