Scientific racism and racialisation in contemporary Polish empirical research on begging

Abstract

In the Polish debate and research on begging, there is a tendency to combine this topic with social pathologies, culture, skin colour and race. Due to the use of the above-mentioned categories in the discussed research, I adopted the perspective of the postcolonial theory as the appropriate method of analysing the scientific discourse on begging. Based on the empirical research analysed in the article, I show that the ethical standards used in the research are inconsistent with the UNESCO Experts’ Declaration developed in the mid-twentieth century, recognising the category of race as unscientific. A practice of particular concern in this regard is the coding of empirical data based on racial categories imposed on Roma in the context of identifying begging with criminality. Within these approaches, I identified the essential and cultural approach to begging and the concept of a happy beggar created on its basis. On the other hand, at the level of content and conclusions, the ideological stake of the analyses carried out, aimed at rationing the social usefulness of work and its control, is revealed. In this context, the emerging aim of the research and tasks of the social assistance system is to “provide care” for the activity of citizens and forcing the population able to work to undertake it.