The affective politics of planning: Longing for Gadjo-than Rome (1994–2017)

Addressing the rise of “late fascism,” this article places affective politics squarely into the study of urban planning. Focusing on Rome’s municipal plans to house Romani families in segregated camps between 1994 and 2017, I trace the affective registers through which these plans were phrased and publicly presented. The plans unfolded against the backdrop of the longstanding racial coding of European Roma as “nomads,” going from suspicion and acceptance in the 1990s, through anxiety and hope in the early 2000s, to rage and anticipation after 2007. These shifts corresponded to visions of the urban future, culminating in a longing for a Gadjo-than city: in Romani, a city without Roma. I argue that affective politics enabled conceptions of “racial threats” to sustain visions of the urban future without abandoning the respectable language of inclusion. The article ultimately shows one mechanism through which liberal-democratic planning may slide into “late-fascist” forms of governance.