Discursive Exposures of Exclusion through the Figure of the Traitor

Abstract

In this article, I present a historical conceptualization of the Hungarian-language term hazaáruló / traitor while contextualizing
it within the emigration of Roma from Hungary to Canada and their subsequent return from Canada. I discuss how speakers emplace
Roma in Hungarian society through the figure of the hazaáruló / traitor, a term often employed in political debates to delegitimatize
opponents and also directed at Roma who returned from Canada, both by Roma and non-Roma. In tracing the concept historically,
I take into account its legal definition and usage as codified in the Hungarian Criminal Code and contexts in which, for example, rulers
operationalized calls of treason as a linguistic device for disarming a political opponent (Cornwall 2015). Then, I describe a prominent
contemporary example of the discursive usage of the term hazaáruló / traitor in the case of the Roma from the town of Zámoly who fled Hungary to seek asylum in Strasbourg, France. Finally, I include relevant findings from ethnographic fieldwork during which Romani families frequently recounted instances of being named a hazaáruló / traitor for having migrated to Canada. In my analysis, I contend that the very act of Roma from Hungary seeking refuge were public exposures of the normalized relations of exclusion.