14.03.2014 Stereotypes: Rroma and begging in the canton of Vaud

Jean-Pierre Tabin, professor of sociology at the College of social work and health in Lausanne, published a book about the policy towards the Roma in the canton of Vaud. The publication is based on research that was conducted between 2011 and 2013 in the streets of Lausanne. Tabin and his team studied who begs, who gives and how beggars live. He qualifies clichéd ideas that one earns a lot of money with begging, as well as stereotypes about Rroma, who are not automatically parts of organized begging networks. In the public discourse begging is often deemed a crime that needs to be punished. Through this line of reasoning poverty, poverty-migration, and the causes that lead to poverty are criminalized, Tabin argues (RTS 2014).