Between History and Myth: The Roma Oral History Accounts on the Reasons about Their Persecution during the World War II in Ukraine
Anna Abakunova, independent scholar
(hana21anna@gmail.com)
The persecution and destruction of the Roma as individuals and as communities during the World War in Ukraine has been an under-researched topic. The scarce information about the occupation of Ukraine and annihilation of the Roma can be found in Ukrainian, Romanian and German State archives. This information includes official records of orders to persecute the Roma, the localities and the number of those killed. In addition, methods employed in historical studies allow researchers to a certain extent to understand the reasons for the persecution of the Roma from the occupiers’ perspective. That explication is entirely based on archival sources.
Oral history and anthropological perspectives give scholars an opportunity to look at the reasons of why the Roma were persecuted by the German Nazis and their Romanian allies in Ukraine from the victims’ perspective. Often the Roma, in their recorded oral narratives and in private conversations reflect on their understanding of why they were persecuted during the occupation of Ukraine. This reflection differs and depends on the locality where Roma lived on the eve of the occupation, but primarily on the group to which they belonged. For instance, the Kelderash survivors state in their narrations that they were persecuted because of their wealth: Romanians and Germans decided to deport and kill the Kelderash Roma in order to take the money and houses of the Roma.
The proposed research will analyse the Roma oral history accounts in comparison to archival findings to show how the Roma survivors and their descendants view the reasons for the Roma persecution in occupied Ukraine during the war and how the Roma perspective differs from or corresponds to the archival materials. Thus, the proposed paper will try to examine how different Roma groups constructed their own “stories” of events, why they do so, and what are the factors for construction of different or similar “stories”. In this way, the paper will try to show the relation between “history” and “myth” among the Roma survivors in Ukraine. The research is based on various archives including the Yahad in-Unum Archive, the Shoah Foundation Visual Archive, the author’s personal collection of interviews, Ukrainian and German State Archives collections and Yad Vashem archives.
The Construction of the Romani Community in Songs and Musical Concepts of the Finnish Roma
Kai Viljami Åberg, University of Eastern Finland
(kai.aberg@kolumbus.fi)
In this paper I look at Finnish Romani music -- songs and concepts related to them -- on a cultural level. This cultural contextual way of perceiving Finnish Romani music is to view it in terms of cultural construction: how do songs and concepts about them construct the cultural image of the Roma? In this perspective, the self, while private and internal, necessarily and inevitably extends to things, actions and places outside oneself (Bruner 1996: 36). Accordingly, also in the Romani community and culture existing meanings, values and practices -- including those of music -- appear not only as part of the individual’s mindscape, but also, and primarily, as shaped by the social environment and culture. Examples from Romani community are based my intensive field research among the Roma since 1994.
The Economy of a Professional Category in Wallachia, 1830s-1850s: the Gypsy Brickmakers
Venera Achim, Nicolae Iorga Institute of History, Romanian Academy, Bucharest, Romania
(veneraachim@hotmail.com)
The economic and social transformations in the Romanian principalities in the 1830s-1860s strongly influenced the economy of the Gypsy slave groups. Especially in the conditions of the massive sedentarization that took place during this period, economic activities specific to some Gypsy groups disappeared and other activities and crafts that these people had not practiced before came into being. A relatively large and important professional group in the country’s economy was that of the Gypsy brickmakers. The corvee-peasants had long been engaged in making bricks, but only occasionally, when they or their landlords had needed them. In the first half of the 19th century, when huts were abandoned for houses and numerous mansions and public buildings were built in Romanian villages, some Gypsy slaves found an economic niche here. By late 19th century, the artisanal making of bricks in the countryside had become an occupation almost exclusively reserved for the Gypsies – at first slaves, and after their emancipation, free people.
My paper deals with the Gypsy brickmakers in Wallachia during slavery. Based on archival documents, I will talk about the most important aspects of the activity of Gypsy brickmaking: looking for a client, the contract with him, moving the whole group (including women and children) to the place where the bricks were needed, the provision of raw materials, the way they worked to make the bricks, the participation of the whole community in the work, including women and children, rules imposed on these workers by the central and local authorities, taxation, and frequent misunderstandings between the brickmakers and their customers. This brick making took place in the warm season.
Relations of Roma Organizations with Nomadic Roma in Romania in the 1930s
Viorel Achim, Nicolae Iorga Institute of History, Romanian Academy, Bucharest, Romania
(viorelachim@hotmail.com)
The Romani movement in Romania in the 1930s was initiated by bourgeois elements of this minority, mostly small businessmen and clerks, but also some intellectuals. They managed to mobilize around their modernizing and emancipatory project a part of the Roma in Bucharest and several other towns. These people formed the public which the Romani organizations and their leaders addressed, who participated in public meetings, and who could theoretically influence the Romani civic movement. The printed materials, from posters to the Romani press, were also for them.
If in 1933 and 1934, when they were formed, the General Association of Gypsies in Romania (AGŢR) and the General Union of Roma in Romania (UGRR) almost completely neglected the nomadic Roma, later, the situation changed. The leaders of the two mentioned organizations that acted at national level, as well as the organizations in the regions, affiliated with AGŢR or UGRR or independent, began to court the heads of the nomads, the vătafi and the bulibaşi, and to introduce their requirements into their programs and speeches.
This paper shows the circumstances in which the nomads were attached, at least as an intention, to the Romani movement, who were the Romani leaders in towns that cultivated the relationship with the nomads, what the first ones wanted of this relationship, which heads of the nomads participated in one form or another in the activities of the Romani organizations, what actually did the Romani organizations do for the nomads, and if one can speak of a participation of the latter in the Romani movement from 1933-1938.
The First Romologist of a Romani Background in Serbia
Dragoljub Acković, Director of Roma Culture Museum in Belgrade, Serbia
(ackovicd@yahoo.com)
Svetozar Simić (1913-1979), is the most prominent Romani activist and intellectual in interwar Serbia, and among other things, also the first researcher of Romani background in the whole area of Yugoslavia.
Simić was the editor-in-chief of the Romani newspaper Romano lil and co-author of several studies on Roma in the 1930s. He used the newspaper to fight against prejudice and hostility that Roma were facing, and to support cultural, economic, political and every possible kind of emancipation of Roma all over the world. Romano lil had three issues over the course of 1935, starting with a circulation of 1,000 and ending with 5,000. According to Simić, the paper had a few hundred subscribers, including ethnologists and Romologists and intellectuals from all over Yugoslavia and from other countries - USA, UK, France, Sweden, Bosnia and Herzegovina and others. Simić also worked on a Romani grammar, vocabulary, writing down customs and legends, all unpublished so far. He was one of the main young figures and activists in the civil activities among the Belgrade Gypsies during the interwar period and the only activist of Romani background who authored and published materials in the public field. Simić was the founder and president of the Educational Club of Yugoslav Gypsy Youth that existed shortly before the start of the Second World War. After WWII Simić also continued writing and maintained his contacts within the network of Romani activists and researchers of Romani culture throughout his life.
The proposed presentation will present the life and activities of Svetozar Simić in the interwar period showing and discussing documents, written materials and manuscripts from his personal archive and the archive of the newspaper Romano lil.
Romani Civic Organizations and Their Role During COVID-19: Reflections from the Catalan Case and the Leadership of Grassroots Romani Women
Emilia Aiello, Harvard Kennedy School, USA
(Emilia_aiello@hks.harvard.edu)
Rosamaria Kostic Cisneros, Coventry University
(ab4928@coventry.ac.uk)
With the measures put in place to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain, especially during the strict lockdown and social distancing enforced from March until June 2020, the Roma faced additional barriers in the accomplishment of daily needs, such as taking care of the elders, keeping the already precarious sources of income, or even ensuring good quality education of children in those cases of Romani households with limited access to the Internet or low bandwidth. While national and international governmental institutions fell short at the time of providing a timely, coordinated response to the pandemic, and better serving the needs of those communities most-affected, some civic organizations operating at the grassroots level were uniquely impactful at helping their constituencies to interpret the confusing and contradictory information related to COVID-19 received especially in the beginning, as well as to identify where assistance was most urgently required. Framed in this particular context, in this presentation we present and discuss how grassroot Romani women organized around the Roma Association of Women Drom Kotar Mestipen based in the city of Barcelona, and with a public voice at the regional level, were able to serve the needs of their communities and bridge the gap with public institutions. This case suggests that in those sites where there is an existing infrastructure of Romani organizations operating on the ground, and with public recognition, the impact of the COVID-19 multiple crises was better cushioned. In turn, this and other similar organizations were able to contest racist reactions that were constantly emerging from different sectors of mainstream society against the Roma, and which accused the Roma of being sceptical in relation to the severity of the virus, promoting anti-science, and a general unwillingness to comply with the rules. In all, we bring into discussion how civic organizations with a public recognition have played a major role at two levels; (a) within the Romani communities themselves (inward-bound) , in channeling assistance to ensure basic living conditions and human rights such as education; (b) and at the broader society (outward-bound), in challenging stereotypes and showing a unified public voice when cases of anti-gypsyism have emerged.
Josef Koudelka and his recordings of Romani songs of 1960s
Mgr. Kateřina Andršová Ph. D., University of Hradec Králové, Czech Republic
(katerina.andrsova@uhk.cz)
Josef Koudelka (born in 1938) is one of the world’s most renowned present day photographers. He has had his photographs of the Roma repeatedly exhibited and published. The major part of the photographs he took in the 1960s, prior to his emigration from Czechoslovakia in 1970, during his trips in the east and south Slovakia and Romania. Only few of his friends know that he carried with him not only his camera but also a reel-to-reel tape recorder, which he used to record Romani songs, tales and commentaries. About fifteen audio tapes have been preserved from that time period. Koudelka was and is a great lover of folk music and the recordings are a natural complement to his photographs of the “the Gypsies”. Along with the Czech researchers of the Roma, Eva Davidová and Milena Hübschmannová, Josef Koudelka ranks among the first Czech collectors who recorded the Romani musical and verbal folklore. Koudelka’s field collection has not yet been processed, evaluated or presented to the professional public.
This paper tries to provide a closer look at and a characterization of a part of Koudelka’s field recordings of the Romani folklore. The author will focus on the Romani songs that are a major part of the collection. She will select several representative examples, primarily from Slovakia but also from Romania, to analyse their music as well as lyrics. Wherever the nature of the material will make it possible, the author shall put the lyrics in the broader cultural context of the Roma.
Romani Music in the Course of Time
Zbyněk Andrš, University of Pardubice, Czech Republic
(Zbynek.Andrs@upce.cz)
Milan Durňak, University of Pardubice, Czech Republic
(milan.durnak@upce.cz)
The ethnographic film „Romani Music in the Course of Time“ features the music and the dances of the so called Slovak Roma who are the largest Romani subethnic group in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The film, which took several years to make, illustrates the present-day situation of the Romani songs, music and dances in both countries mentioned. Originally, the film was to be instructive and didactic, yet the vividness of the footage inspired the authors of its final version - Zbyněk Andrš and Milan Durňak – to take another attitude. In accordance with the concept of reflexive and visual anthropology, their approach takes into account the viewer’s subjectivity and highlights the interactions between the people behind the camera and those in front of it.
In terms of ethnomusicology the film focuses on the transformations in genre and style of the Romani music which are related to the succession of generations, the progressing globalization and the rapid expansion of audio-visual technologies. Some traditional Romani song genres, particularly the plaintive lamentations (halgató), are as good as extinct, yet the Roma are still well versed in the old rhythmical dance songs, such as czardas, as well as the more modern songs in the rhythm of tango and fox which now have become a sort of tradition as well. The film allows the viewers to enjoy the Romani music as experienced by the singers, musicians and dancers in their original background, and tries to capture the musical productions and its meaning from their perspective.
The film’s main protagonists include Romani musicians and singers coming from various backgrounds, some of them very popular while others completely unknown. The film provides their close-ups through recordings and interviews. The interviews, in Czech and Romani, are provided with English subtitles, and so are the lyrics. The film is supplied with commentaries on the situation and context of the given recording. The film’s focus is the ethnomusicologic dramaturgy that abandons the documentary narrative in order to create a cultural and audio-visual dialog of all concerned.
The movie is a music-film collage that tries to render the transformations in genre and interpretation of the Romani musical folklore as well as other segments of the life of the Roma.
P.S. In the cooperation with the organizators there will be a official film screening after the paper presentation.
Trailer: https://youtu.be/oPJbITJtS78
Gypsies Travelers across the Mediterranean Sea in the Early-Modern Era: La Ruta de las Islas
Massimo Aresu, University of Leeds
(max.aresu@gmail.com)
This paper analyses the presence of groups and individuals categorized as ‘Gypsy’ in the Mediterranean area between the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period (14th - 16th century). It is based on new research in the field, as well as on unpublished documents coming from the Italian and Spanish archives (in particular those in the islands of Mallorca and Sardinia) and from the Fraser Gypsy collection held at the Brotherton Library of the University of Leeds (UK). This Mediterranean presence has been often overlooked by scholars, who seemed to be more fascinated by the groups led by so-called ‘Earls’ and ‘Dukes of the Little Egypt’, whose movements along land routes throughout Continental Europe were reported since the first half of the 15th century.
I will focus on the Mediterranean route known as ‘la ruta de las islas’ (the route of the islands), and was followed by groups known as ‘Zingari’ or ‘Greeks’ (‘Griegos’ or ‘Grecianos’ in the Castellan documents), who would travel from the Eastern Mediterranean quadrant, through Southern Italy and through the islands of Sardinia, and Mallorca, finally reaching the Iberian peninsula. Thanks to the comparison of several testimonies I will show that the circulation of these groups did not always have a diasporic character, but was part of a wider range of mobility strategies.
Furthermore, my analysis of the available documents shows how the categories of ‘pilgrim’ and ‘refugee’ are not necessarily the most appropriate to describe these movements across the Mediterranean, as they exclude a range of travels that were much more varied, and often motivated by commercial reasons. In the Early Modern era, traces of a Gypsy presence can be found in every port of the Mediterranean sea, where they were registered as horse breeders or horse brokers, mercenaries, artisans, and travelling artists, and also as patrons of ships. In addition, since the 16th and until the first quarter of 18th century their movements took place not only along the East-West trajectory, but also in the opposite direction, from West to East. Finally, it seems that migrations by sea were less dangerous for these groups of migrant Gypsies than the central-European land transfers that used to take place along the borders of states often in permanent conflict.
If we paraphrase the words of Predrag Matvejević (1999), we can state that, at least before the appearance of Barbary corsairs the sea was “pontos […] space, scene and road”.
An Insight on “Antigypsyism” in Iran through the Ethnography of Begging Scenes at the Junctions of Tehran
Mitra Asfari, independent researcher
(mitrasfari@gmail.com)
Ġorbat women and children, the descendants of wandering ironsmiths and carpenter clans, beg regularly at junctions in the Iranian capital. These individuals are generally despised and referred to as Kowli (Gypsy). In this study, we will discuss two angles on the study of Ġorbats’ social life within the Iranian society. First, as a sociological paradigm, this study suggests observing the Ġorbat society through its relations with the Tāï (non-Ġorbat). Their interactions will be analysed through the ethnography of begging and other situations where this minority group encounters the non-Ġorbats. In each situation, the Ġorbat individual experiences rejection and a discriminating attitude from the wider society. However, the observation of begging sessions reveals the inherent place of women and children beggars in the beliefs of passers-by. Begging is performed as a rite and produces a “drama” through which the cultural framework and symbols employed by beggars become visible. This phenomenon emerges as a central event in the social life of the Ġorbat and the construction of the collective identity of the individual. The second angle will focus on the study of the ethnonym “Ġorbat” (exiled, without ancestry) and its origins. Through an anthropological point of view, it seems that this ethnonym is a result of “antigypsy” stereotypes that Ġorbats have re-appropriated. Thus, these interactions are not only based on economy but on cultural features. The identity and otherness are defined through social interactions of everyday life, by oscillation between two moral frameworks and two value systems. It is through this back-and-forth between two spheres of construction and deconstruction of meaning that the definition of self and the “other” emerges. At this intermediate level, we are able to observe the points of divergence, but also the spheres where Ġorbats are unified with the global society.
Early Integration of Sedentary Romani Communities in Northern Greece
Lambros Baltsiotis, Panteion University, Athens, Greece
(balts@otenet.gr)
In the paper we examine three highly integrated sedentary communities of Northern Greece. We selected the well-studied village of Flambouro, a Romani speaking community in Serres in Eastern (Greek) Macedonia, the Aghios Georghios settlement in Naoussa, a Slav speaking community in Central (Greek) Macedonia, and an Albanian speaking community in the town of Filiates in Epirus. The regions in which these three communities are located were annexed by Greece during the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913. All these three communities are well integrated into the local social and economic life and have adopted a Greek national discourse. The integration of the selected communities is traced back to the Interwar period. The causes of the early integration are to be found in the professional profiles, education, early land ownership in each community and a limited influence of the Communist Party in two of them. However, although many sedentary communities, mostly in Southern Greece, met the above essential factors for integration, they did not show such integration levels. Our research lead us to identify a particular strong factor for integration which is common in all these three communities and many others in Northern Greece: the significance these communities have acquired even before the Balkan Wars but definitely during the Interwar period. In the region of Serres and in Naoussa the struggle between the Greek and the Bulgarian nationalism over the territory and the Christian population, increased the importance of the Romani communities. Greek nationalism recognized quite early the significance of these communities in the battle of maps and statistics over Ottoman Macedonia and initiated an effort to embrace these communities. In a similar way, the struggle between the Greek and the Albanian nationalisms in the western part of Epirus (Çamëria in Albanian) during the Interwar period favoured the Christiaan Roma communities as this struggle was marked by features of a Christian-Muslim conflict. I argue that in certain cases external factors might be of great importance in the long integration process of Romani communities.
Family memories of the Nazi genocide of Roma versus official memory of World War II in Belarus and Lithuania
Volha Bartash, Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies, Regensburg, Germany
(volha.bartash@gmail.com)
In my paper, I will present the outcome of my recent ethnographic research on the memory and representation of the Nazi genocide of Roma in Lithuania and Belarus. During my recent field trips, I have engaged in conversations with the families of Roma, exhibition curators, local activists, educators and the inhabitants of the places where Roma were killed during World War II. I will also draw on my interviews with first- and second- generation Romani genocide survivors that I have conducted since 2015.
The paper aims to identify and interpret the gaps between family narratives of suffering and survival and public representation of the genocide of Roma and World War II. At the same time, I will try to trace Soviet and post-Soviet narratives of the war and German occupation in family memories.
Finally, this paper seeks to explain the differences between the memory of Roma and public representation (if any) of the Romani tragedy in the two countries. In particular, I wonder about post-Soviet developments in conjunction with major shifts in official memory politics.
Marriage and Weddings among Lăutar (Romani Musician) Families in Romania
Margaret Beissinger, Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ USA
(mhbeissi@princeton.edu)
This paper offers a comparative perspective on how lăutari (professional Romani musicians) and their families perceive and observe matrimony in contemporary Romania, focusing on how ethnicity and class inform marriage and weddings. Lăutari function at the intersection of Romani and Romanian society: they are Romani musicians who perform primarily at Romanian weddings. I argue that lăutar families have complicated and paradoxical relations with both Roma and Romanians. They preserve the basic norms and many of the customs of traditional Romani matrimony, and weddings provide an arena in which they express deeply important emblems of Romani culture: music and dancing, food, and presentism. Yet lăutari also invoke their “elite” status vis-à-vis “other Gypsies” by refuting what they see as “backward” marital traditions. Moreover, they embrace certain Romanian nuptial praxes, ostensibly gaining cultural capital, while likewise maintaining a basic distrust of them as non-Roma. I also explore how higher education is increasingly becoming a part of the lives of millennial lăutar family members, which affects their understandings of marriage and family. This paper treats how lăutar identity is nurtured through a seemingly paradoxical blend of Romani and Romanian culture and how the marriage and wedding practices that 21st-century lăutari and their family members assume mirror many of these dynamic intersections.
Management of the Covid-19 Epidemics in Segregated Roma Enclaves in Slovakia II: Racialized Politics as Mirrored in Epidemiological Data
Andrej Belák, Institute of Ethnology and Social Anthropology, Slovak Academy of Sciences
(andrej.belak@savba.sk)
Early during the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak in Slovakia (mid March 2020), a surveillance system has been set up by the author and his colleagues monitoring the development of the epidemics specifically within segregated Roma communities. The system first focused on data regarding Roma coming back home from foreign countries (an important indicator of infection risk before clinical testing was available) acquired through the Slovak national network of health mediators on a 2-day basis (operating in 250 segregated municipalities, covering 3/4 of segregated Roma communities in Slovakia). With people becoming clinically tested - and first cases of Covid-19 confirmed in some Roma communities - the system then shifted its focus towards recording and reporting this and related clinical data, too. In my presentation, I will use interactive visual reports (Power BI platform) summarizing the development of the epidemics in the Roma communities to review and discuss some of the political influences on the development. More specifically, I will focus on discussing mostly various possible negative influences of racialized accounts of Roma ethnicity.
Leonardo’s “A Man Tricked by Gypsies”: an investigation into the making of a stereotype
Giulia Bertoni, Columbia University, USA
(gb2605@columbia.edu)
Martin Clayton, the curator of drawings at Windsor Castle, recently argued that a famous drawing in that collection by Leonardo, known as “Five Character Studies”, in fact represents a narrative, contemporary scene: a man, perhaps a soldier, being robbed and mocked by a group of Gypsies, one of whom -- the figure to the right -- might be reading his palm. This interpretation is historically plausible (Ludovico Sforza issued an edict expelling Gypsies from Lombardy in 1493) and supported by evidence in Vasari’s biography and Leonardo’s writings. Clayton’s hypothesis, however, has stopped at the identification of the subject, without considering the implications that it may have for art history and Romani studies, giving us a glimpse of early-modern perceptions of Gypsies. In this paper, I take Clayton’s hypothesis as a starting-point, and follow two lines of enquiry.
The first is art-historical: I investigate the circulation and after-life of the drawing, which has never been precisely traced. The drawing, made by Leonardo in Milan around 1500 for the entertainment of the Sforza court, was copied and reproduced in print, becoming widely known in Italy and North of the Alps. A little-known painting in Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum, representing the encounter between a soldier and a figure grabbing his hand, attributed to Giorgione, shows a similar configuration. Could this painting represent the same stock scene? The subject may pop up again in a later painting by another artist working in Lombardy, Caravaggio, in his “Fortune Teller”. Can it be determined that Leonardo’s drawing is at the forefront of a new iconography popular in North Italy? In the second line of enquiry, interwoven with the first, I turn to studies on the relation between iconographic formulas and the creation of stereotypes. How far did these visual representations, as they crystalized into stock scenes, contribute to the formation of a Gypsy stereotype in the early-modern, and even modern, period?
Romani Contributions to European and North American Cultures
William Bila, independent scholar, Paris, France
(wlbila@gmail.com)
The modern nation state owes its existence to the creation of a defined "other”. Without this fundamental opposition which defines who is "them", there can be no definition of who is "us". Romani peoples still conveniently serve as the “other”. Examples include caravans of people officially identified as itinerant (Gens du Voyage) who have been settled for years but not permitted by authorities to move out of the immediate environs of a cement factory in Lille; or Gitans in Perpignan who are being forced to move even though they have been settled for decades. Itinerants are forced to stay, while settled people are forced to move; the definition is fluid, but it centers on the perception of legitimacy/illegitimacy. The creation of Schengen, Europe without borders, has excluded those Europeans perceived as Romani via their discrimination and exclusion from taking part in the European dream. Political apathy, lack of trust in public institutions, and withdrawal from society are all common. How much is Romani experience reflected in the current culture in Europe and North America? What is the future of our GLS society and can we reconcile it with current Romani experiences? Can we learn from Romani experiences in working towards a future without nationalism? How can the current Gypsy Lore Society help to distinguish the mythological "Gypsy" from real Romani peoples, some of whom choose to self-identify with the exonym "Gypsy"? Is the GLS capable of the necessary transformation or will it remain fixated on romantic notions?
Listening to the Voice of Romani students. Perception of the Effects of the Pandemic on the Path of Secondary School Students
Pedro Caetano, Centro Interdisciplinar de Ciências Sociais da Universidade Nova de Lisboa (CICS.NOVA)
(pedrocaetano@fcsh.unl.pt)
Ana Rita Costa, Centro em Rede de Investigação em Antropologia (CRIA-IUL), Instituto Universitário de Lisboa
(Ana.Rita.Costa@iscte-iul.pt)
Sara Pinheiro, Centro de Investigação e Estudos de Sociologia (CIES-IUL), ISCTE, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa
(Sara.Pinheiro@iscte-iul.pt)
Susana Mourão, Centro de Investigação e Estudos de Sociologia (CIES-IUL), ISCTE, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa
(susana_sofia_mourao@iscte-iul.pt)
The first state of emergency that was declared in Portugal over the COVID 19 pandemic, covering a 6-week period from March to April 2020, led to the interruption of face-to-face classroom lessons in mid-March, with the majority of Portuguese students not returning to school in the academic year of 2019-2020. 700 schools remained open for the children of front-line workers and to provide food support to children who needed it. In two weeks, media reports announced that a much higher number of meals had been served than initially expected. This information highlights the growing economic difficulties faced by families, but also the important social role of schools in Portugal.
Nevertheless, families were expected to provide the necessary support for distance learning (suitable working space, digital technologies, adequate internet connection, school materials, teaching support). Even though the government, municipalities, civil society, and local institutions have sought to respond to these needs, their efforts were insufficient, and it is known that socio-economic disparities were exacerbated, with the ethnic origin possibly being an aggravating factor. Romani children are a particularly vulnerable group of youth. In Portugal, although distance learning is not entirely new particularly for young Ciganos/Roma women, the majority of the population lack the knowledge, skills, and digital resources (Mendes et al. 2014) to attend distance learning at home. Many Ciganos/Roma parents have low schooling levels or are illiterate. In addition, many have precarious living conditions, overcrowded households, without furniture and equipment suitable for distance learning. The pandemic has also largely banished young people from socialization, which has generated some demotivation and apathy among them.
Since the pandemic’s real effects on dropout rates and academic underachievement are yet to be ascertained, it seems pertinent to launch this debate, starting from a content analysis. Using information collected from the Educig project, we intend to examine the impacts of the pandemic on educational pathways, considering the social inequalities and public policies, but also exploring the responses of the schools, young people and their families in relation to the present challenges. The data originates from 34 interviews (some carried out remotely) with Ciganos/Roma secondary school students, resident in the Metropolitan Areas of Lisbon (18) and Porto (16); 14 interviews, with Evangelical preachers and professionals/coordinators from Portuguese educational projects; 3 focus groups carried out online (24 participants), including students, families, mediators/activists, and professionals working with Romani people.
References:
Mendes, Maria Manuela; Magano, Olga & Costa, Ana Rita (2020), “Ciganos Portugueses: Escola e mudança social”. Sociologia, Problemas e Práticas, n.º 93, 109-126. DOI: 10.7458/SPP20209313546.
Profiles and Strategies of Teachers Who Teach Romani/Ciganos Students in Portugal
Pedro Candeias, Universidade de Lisboa, EnviHeB Lab, Instituto de Saúde Ambiental da Faculdade de Medicina and Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Portugal
(pedromecandeias@gmail.com)
Florbela Samagaio, Escola Superior de Educação Paula Frassinetti/Cipaf - Instituto de Sociologia, Portugal
(florbelamsamagaio@gmail.com)
Susana Mourão, CIES-Iscte (Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology), Portugal
(susanasofiamourao@gmail.com)
Sara Pinheiro, CIES-Iscte (Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology), Portugal
(sarafspinheiro@gmail.com)
In Portugal, in the academic year of 2018/19, a study carried out by a department of the Ministry of Education sought to find out the exact number of Cigano students in pre-school, primary and secondary education of public schools (DGEEC, 2018/19). The results of this study pointed to at least 25,140 Cigano students in 71 % of the public schools. Given this scenario, there is another aspect that remains to be looked at: the teachers who teach Cigano students, a group that can be known through a questionnaire survey. This communication is part of the research project EduCig (Educational achievements among Ciganos: research action and co-design project - PTDC/CED-EDG/30175/2017). The EduCig counted, among other tasks, with a questionnaire survey for teachers and professionals with management positions in Portuguese public schools. For this communication, a subsample of teachers who teach or have given classes to Cigano students was isolated (n = 538). The presentation will consist of three empirical sections. 1) Some characteristics of these teachers will be compared with those of their counterparts who have never had this teaching experience (n = 109). 2) The types of pedagogical differentiation used with Cigano students. 3) The strategies used to promote these students’ study performance. In this way, it is expected to learn more about a fraction of an important professional group, as well as to better understand what efforts are implemented in order to improve the school results of Cigano students.
Vakeriben pal o mule pro trin bara (borderi): Vakeribena pal o revenanti maškar fikcia the realita, maškar informacia the literatura vaj maškar folkloris the individualno kreacia.
Jan Červenka, Romani Studies Seminar at the Department of Central European Studies, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Czech Republic
(jan.cervenka@ff.cuni.cz)
Vakeribena pal o mule hin importantno fenomenos andre romaňi mentalno luma. Maj savore Roma džanen te vakerel pal o konkretna kontakti maškar o džide the o mule, so zadžiďile jon vaj lengeri fameľia. Pre jekh sera hine ola historii individualna, pre aver sera hin andre kala vakeribena kolektivna charakteristiki. Kala vakeribena na šunas ča andre normalno komunikacia, no hine the tema andro literarna publikacii (dikh Demeter 1992, Kher 2012, Ryvolová – ed.- 2019). O referatos kamela te sikhavel o vakeribena pal o mule sar fenomenos pre bar (pro borderis), u te sikhavel kada trine dromenca:
1) E angluňi bar (angluno borderis) dikhel o autoris maškar fikcia the realita. Avruňa, gadžikaňa perspektivatar dičhol kala vakeribena najbuter sar fikcia, ta o referatos len sikhavela buter sar realisticka vakeribena pal e transcendentno luma u kontrastinela len mamuj o fantasticka paramisa. O autoris sikhavela pojekh dikhibena andre teoria. Jekh egzemplos: O drom, saveha hin kala vakeribena prezentimen andre edicia Kher, so del avri romaňi literatura, džal komplikimen dromeha: andro berš 2012 hine mek prezentimen eksplicitnones sar paramisa, andro berš 2019 hin e pozicia buter strukturimen. Dujto egzemplos: E Milena Hübschmannovo (dikh 2006) len bešľarel andro kontekstos, sar o Roma dikhen e luma. No joj koda romano dikhiben ajci kontrastinel le gadžikane racionalnone dikhibnaha, hoj o vakeribena pale (implicitnones) agoraren andre jekh kategoria fantastickone paramisenca.
2) Le autoris interesinela the keci hin andro konkretna vakeribena literarno kompozicia. Ta jov rodela dujto bar: maškar informativna the literarnones koncipimen vakeribena. E dujto bar hin tiž dinamicko, ta o autoris sikhavela the sar pes kala duj fenomeni andro vakeribena miksinen.
3) O autoris komparinela narativna strukturi butere vakeribnendar: o rekordingi pal o romane koloňiji, o teksti, so has lekhade pre publično akhariben (Ryvolová – ed.- 2019), the o vakeribena publikimen sar autorsko literatura. Jov zumavela te sikhavel e trito bar: maškar o kolektivna strukturi the o individualna inovacii. The e trito bar hin dinamicko u le autoris pale interesinela the kada, sar pes o duj fenomeni miksinen.
Vakeriben pal o mule on Three Borders: Revenant Stories Between Fiction and Reality, Information and Literature, and Folklore and Individual Creative Writing
Vakeribena pal o mule is an important phenomenon in Romani spiritual world. The majority of Roms can tell specific stories about contacts between the living and the dead from their own or their relatives` experience. These stories are on the one hand individual, on the other hand they have a lot of collective features. These stories can be heard in everyday communication but they also represent the topic of creative writing (e.g. Demeter 1992, Kher 2012, Ryvolová ed. 2019). The aim of this paper is to show revenant stories as a border phenomenon in three ways:
1) The first border is between fiction and non-fiction. From outer, „Gadjo“ perspective these stories may seem like fiction so the author will rather show them as non-fictional stories about the transcendental world, and contrast them against fantastic fairy-tales. Various theoretical approaches to these stories will be presented: For example, Kher, a publishing house which specializes in Romani literature, has presented these stories in different ways: from explicitly labelling them fairy-tales in 2012 to a more stuctured interpretation in 2019. On the other hand, Milena Hübschmannová (2006) showed these stories in the context of Romani world. Nevertheless, she describes the Romani point of view as so radically different from the non-Romani rational one, that these stories (implicitly) are again in the same category as the fantastic fairy-tales.
2) The author will also consider the degree of literary composition in specific stories. Hence, the second border will be shown between conventional “informative“ stories and stories with real artificial composition. This border will also be shown as a dynamic one regarding mixing of particular features on both sides of this border.
3) The author will compare the narrative structure of different revenant stories: the recordings from Romani settlements, texts written as a reaction to a public call (Ryvolová ed. 2019) and other texts published as author`s literature. He will try to find the third border: the border between collective structures and individual innovations. Also, the third border will be shown as a dynamic one regarding mixing of particular features on both sides of this border.
Bibliografia /References
Danišová, E. 2019: Angluno lav (Foreword) In: Ryvolová, K. (ed). 2019.
Demeter, Gejza 1992. O mule maškar amende. Praha: Romaňi čhib.
Hübschmannová, M. 2006. Moje setkání s romano šukar laviben. Romano džaniben ňilaj 2006, s. 27 – 60. Šaj arakhen adaj: https://www.dzaniben.cz/files/de787bf3d588e0d4d37e4de04397e2b2.pdf
Kher 2012. Angluno lav (Foreword) In: Otcův duch. Šaj arakhen adaj: http://www.kher.cz/Eknihy/Nase/duch.pdf
Kher 2013. Angluno lav (Foreword) In: Rozummění. Literatura Romů (nejen) ve výuce romských žáků. Šaj arakhen adaj: http://www.kher.cz/Eknihy/Nase/rozummeni_2.pdf
Kher 2014. Angluno lav (Foreword) In: Moji milí. Sbírka romské narativní prózy. Šaj arakhen adaj: http://www.kher.cz/Eknihy/Nase/Moji_Mili_pdf.pdf
Ryvolová, K. (ed). 2019. O mulo! Povídky o duchách zemřelých. Praha: Kher. Šaj arakhen adaj: http://www.kher.cz/Eknihy/Nase/O_mulo_pdf.pdf
The Gypsies of Russia during the Interwar Period: The Regional Case of Ural
Alexander V. Chernykh, Department of History, Archaeology and Ethnography, Perm Federal Research Centre, the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia
(atschernych@yandex.ru)
Historically, Russia was formed not only as a state with a vast territory but also as a multicultural state where each region had its own specificity in ethnic processes and socio-economic development. Ural represents a particular geographic and socio-economic area on the border of Europe and Asia and the central parts of the Volga region and Siberia. It is one of the largest mining and industrial regions. At the beginning of the 20th century the Gypsy population there was small. In 1926 the census noted only 2516 Gypsies in the Ural region. They were mainly represented by the ethnic group of “Ruska Roma” that settled down in rural areas. Transit groups that came to the region for some period of time were also typical of the territory, especially the Kalderash Gypsies. A complex of measures related to Gypsies that was carried out in the country didn’t have a regional character in the Urals and didn’t have particular traits. It reflected the processes initiated by central authorities. The specificity of the policy in the region consisted of the impulsiveness of the activities depending on the authorities’ orders. Among the main policy directions against the Gypsies in the Urals we can name targeted collection of data on their number and the way of settlement in the region, ongoing measures of social support in the 1920s, the establishment of several Gypsy collective farms (kolkhoz) at the turn of the 1920-1930s. The period of repressions and the “Great Terror” didn’t lead to any significant measures of repressive policy against Gypsies in the region. There were neither any special Gypsy operations. The main sources of the study include documents on the period under discussion from central and regional archives of Moscow, Perm, Chelyabinsk, Tyumen and Yekaterinburg.
Some Aspects of the Situation of the Roma in Uzhhorod under Hungarian Rule in 1939-1944
Viktor Chovka, NGO Transcarpatian regional youth organization «Gidnisty» («Pativ»), Uzhhorod, Ukraine
(chovkaviktor@gmail.com)
Petro Habryn, NGO Transcarpatian regional youth organization «Gidnisty» («Pativ»), Uzhhorod, Ukraine
(gabryn@ukr.net)
The history of the existence of the Romani settlement along the Bercheni street in Uzhhorod (in Shakhta neighbourhood) has usually attracted the attention of historians in the context of the establishment of a segregated Romani elementary school in 1926. However, studies of the situation of the Roma in this settlement during World War II are almost absent. The history of the Shakhta Romani settlement is discussed by Navrotska (2009, 2012) in the context of the Roma-targeted violence of Uzhhorod.
For the very first time, we will present data about this settlement on the basis of the materials from the State Archives of the Transcarpathian Region (branch in Berehovo) that cover a large number of Hungarian-language sources from that period.
Firstly, we will present the context of the establishment of Hungarian local authorities in Uzhhorod in 1939. Secondly, we will discuss correspondence that points to a mass complaint of Roma to their representative (starosta) in 1939. Lastly, we will describe the deterioration of the sitation of Uzhhorod Roma in the context of the anti-Roma policy of the Kingdom of Hungary. We will provide data on an operation that was aimed at selecting nomadic Roma and concentrating them in labor camps in April 1941. We will also deal with the large-scale Hungarian repression leading to the expulsion of the Roma from the city of Uzhhorod in 1942-1943.
We will show how the attitude of Uzhhorod city authorities towards the Roma was gradually deteriorating since 1941 and how Uzhhorod Roma became isolated from the rest of the city.
References
Навроцька Є. М., Адам А. Є. Сповідь. Живі свідчать: Навчально-методичний посібник про Голокост (Параїмос) ромів Закарпаття для вчителів загальноосвітніх навчальних закладів II–III ступенів. Ужгород: КП «Ужгородська міська друкарня», 2012. 80 с.
Навроцька Є. Антиромська політика в Закарпатті у роки Другої світової війни: зібрання свідчень та збереження історичної пам’яті. Голокост і сучасність. 2009. № 2 (6). С. 124–140
Addressing the Past, Rewriting the Future: An Agenda for Change for the Gypsy Lore Society
Colin Clark, University of the West of Scotland
(Colin.Clark@uws.ac.uk)
This paper will offer a schema of scientific and critical reasoning on squaring the circle of past activities and outputs of the Gypsy Lore Society as well as assessing the potential of future directions, in terms of mission, engagement, activism and politics. Based on firm principles and clear values, it is argued that the GLS can potentially reenergize itself as a body that is relevant to the 21st century advocacy scholarship enterprise. The means and methods of such mobilisation are contested and not straight-forward. It is only slightly longer than twenty years ago that the GLS was one of the very few bodies organising English-language international conferences and regularly producing a journal and newsletter in the field of Romani Studies. It had, to some extent, an intellectual monopoly over such knowledge production. This is now no longer the case and a range of international academic events take place with Roma at the front and centre of such gatherings (in a sense, the academic enactment of the ‘nothing about us without us’ rationale). Similarly, there are now a range of English-language, international academic journals with “Gypsy Studies” or “Critical Romani Studies” as their focus. This challenge to the GLS monopoly is to be welcomed and the response, to date, has been encouraging from a Board of Directors that is changing and adapting to new realities. But, there is still much to do and this paper will sketch out that pathway by drawing on the past to help rewrite the future of the GLS.
Does “the world need two urgent vaccines, one for Covid-19 and one for racial hatred”?
Ana Rita Costa, Centro em Rede de Investigação em Antropologia (CRIA-IUL), Instituto Universitário de Lisboa
(costaartl@gmail.com)
The year 2020 is marked by the covid-19 pandemic and the consequent worsening of multiple social, economic, and political tensions. Uncertainty, fear, sanitary and circulation control measures became part of everyday life. In many ways, we are living what can be called a “liminal” situation, with the flow of everyday life interrupted (Turner 1969), as states of emergency were declared in many countries, enhancing ambiguous and disorienting experiences. In this sense, Covid-19 pandemic has the potential to exacerbate and expose tensions that are more or less accommodated or hidden in societies, but also to trigger new ways to respond to them.
It is known that Romani populations all over the world have been particularly affected by the Covid-19 crisis, with a worsening of their already precarious living conditions, sense of security and well-being. Across Europe, Romani citizens have become a target for discriminatory control measures. This presentation addresses the specific situation experienced by the Portuguese Roma during this present crisis, but also how the Portuguese Roma perceive the news about the persecution of other Romani citizens across Europe and the possible upsurge of the rightwing.
With professions strongly linked to commerce and contact with the public, Portuguese Roma saw their subsistence activities particularly threatened. The majority were unable to fall back on their savings, being among the first to be economically harmed. Moreover, many did not benefit from the social support created to mitigate the effects of the pandemic. In the absence of formal support, networks of mutual help were created, overcoming the previously existing solidarities between close families. Through social media, funds were raised, and the extreme situations faced by some were deflected. At the same time, discrimination against Portuguese Roma has taken on worrying forms. As the pandemic worsened, the media echoed requests for "special confinements", targeting particular neighbourhoods and buildings. In the pandemic-electoral context, discrimination against Portuguese Roma also served to galvanize the growth of a political party which has been openly discriminatory against the Roma. In view of this situation and the absence of action by official bodies, there was an unprecedented mobilization of Portuguese Roma which culminated in an increase in their electoral participation.
The presentation is based on material collected in different stages of an ethnographic study carried out within the scope of a doctoral project, which seeks to analyse the presence of Portuguese Roma in social media.
References:
Turner, V. 1969. “Liminality and Communitas”, The Ritual Process: structure and anti-structure. Harmondsworth, Penguin books, pp 80-118.
Râmnicu de Jos, 1947. Ethnography of a Forgotten Massacre
Grégoire Cousin
(gregoirebernardjohan.cousin@univr.it)
I have heard many times in the Roma community of Tulcea, Romania that shortly after World War II there was been a massacre in the countryside between Tulcea and Constanta. In this presentation, I will show how I gradually reconstructed this story, until I know the names of the victims, of their persecutors, and the circumstances of the event. I will also show how this event is now an issue among the Roma and in their relations with the Romanian authorities. For the Roma of Tulcea, the memory of this event is today more traumatic than the deportation to Transnistria of a few years earlier. I will end with an epistemological reflection on the difficulty of reconstructing a past which is important for a local community when the event does not conform with the accepted history of persecution.
“A Group of Gypsies Who Live in a Small House on U.S. Highway 13”: Photographs by the Farm Security Administration in 1940
James Deutsch, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA
(deutschj@si.edu)
In July 1940, Jack Delano, a photographer for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) snapped eight photographs, which he titled “A Group of Gypsies Who Live in a Small House on U.S. Highway 13,” five miles south of Salisbury, Maryland. Taken to help further the FSA’s mission of documenting and alleviating rural poverty in the United States, Delano’s photographs include one shot of the family’s single-story, white clapboard home, which appears to be two rooms wide and one room deep; one shot of the family’s father, who (according to Delano’s caption) “works as a boiler man in town”; four groupings of the children (who appear to total six in number); and two shots of signs advertising the reading of palms. Not appearing in any photo is the family’s mother, who may or may not be “Ruth” whose name is associated with palm readings. The photos themselves are online at http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004678385/
Unfortunately, Delano did not make extensive field notes and was not as meticulous as other FSA photographers in identifying the subjects of his photographs. However, no other FSA photographer documented any category of Romani people as thoroughly or as sensitively as Delano. The only other Romani documented among the FSA’s 75,000 photographs were by Russell Lee, who took one photograph titled “Gypsies Living on South Side of Chicago” in 1941, and Marjory Collins, who took four photographs of a “Gypsy woman” on New York’s Lower East Side in 1942. No additional explanatory information—other than the captions—exists for any of these photographs.
This paper seeks to bring to life the individuals in Delano’s photographs through a variety of archival and library resources. These include U.S. Census Bureau records from the decennial census of 1940, which may help to identify the individuals and their ages; real estate and tax records from Wicomico County; the Wicomico Historical Society Collection at Salisbury University; and newspapers, such as the Salisbury Times, which reported on the presence of Roma living on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
Admittedly, many of these newspaper accounts were overly sensationalized, such as the report that there was “a gypsy riot near Pittsville” in 1942, when “they were celebrating a saint’s festival day and had two kegs of beer.” Nevertheless, this paper seeks to use Delano’s remarkably sensitive photographs as the foundation for exploring the history and culture of Romani living on Maryland’s Eastern Shore in the mid-twentieth century.
Gypsies in the Eyes of Evliya Çelebi
Emine Dingeç, Dumlupinar University, Kütahya, Turkey
(emine.dingec@dpu.edu.tr)
Evliya Çelebi, who lived in the 17th century, was an intellectual of the Ottoman elite who was educated in the Ottoman Palace school. He traveled the Ottoman region and other countries for more than forty years. In all the countries he visited, the traveler took notes of administrative affairs, castles, histories, geographies, neighborhoods, architectural structures, social life, the people, education systems, the general appearances of men and women, some examples of the languages of different nations, food and beverages, as well as livelihoods and the production goods. Evliya Çelebi also took notes of the routes he traveled virtually preparing a kind of travel guide. In his ten-volume work, he also recorded the Gypsies in the regions he visited. His notes were based on his own observations and information he obtained from the local people he met.
His observations and ideas were considered extremely important due to his education, but also because he was appointed to undertake important duties on behalf of the palace. On occasion he even attended the sultan’s sermons. If we take his identity as an explorer/researcher into consideration, his knowledge of the 17th century Ottoman Gypsies can be classified as the most extensive compilation of information known about Gypsies from this time and place. In these terms, his Book on Travels occupies a significant place in determining the social position of Ottoman Gypsies of this century. This is an especially important source because a majority of the information regarding Gypsies in the time of Evliya Çelebi was based on fabricated stories. In this paper, by examining Evliya Çelebi’s Book on Travels, an attempt will be made to determine some of what was known and that which was unknown about Gypsies. This also reveals the views of the state and Ottoman citizens regarding the Gypsies in the 17th century Ottoman Empire. In addition, this paper also aims to provide information on the distribution of the Gypsy population over the Ottoman geography, their behaviors, occupations and languages.
Narratives of Child Care Institutions and Adoptions in Czech Literature and Film
Gesine Drews-Sylla, Julius-Maximilians-Universität of Würzburg, Germany
(gesine.drews-sylla@uni-wuerzburg.de)
When in 2008 Tereza Boučková’s novel Rok kohouta appeared, it not only became a bestseller that led to the book‘s translation into several different languages. It also caused a public discussion on the adoption of Romani children in the Czech Republic as the narrative perpetuated anti-Roma prejudices. In her book, Boučková describes the disappointment of her two adopted sons, who are of Romani origin, from a fiercely subjective perspective, while simultaneously interconnecting these experiences and describing the development of her own creative processes. Predecessor to this autobiographical narration is the film Smradi (2002) for which Boučková wrote the screenplay. Even though the film is fictional, it also relies on Boučková’s own experiences and describes the life of a family with two adopted Romani children.
Boučková’s film and book are not the only works that deal with the fate of Romani children not growing up in their own families in Czech society. In 1996, the film Marian tells the story of a young Romani boy who is brought up in a children’s home in the late socialist years. It is narrated from the boy’s perspective, both visually and verbally explaining the vicious circle of the underlying institutional racism that governs the structures the boy is thrown into. In a way, the film explains how the Romani boy „is made“ into a „gypsy“, who — by the end of the educational process — unwillingly fulfills the prejudices that the majority of the society holds against Roma.
In 2015, Viktorie Hanišová revisits the topic of adoption in her novel Anežka, in which she tells the story of a single Czech white woman and her adopted Romani daughter. In this novel, the adoptive process also fails, but it becomes evident that racism governs the structures of the adoptive process. The adoptive mother starts the mutual life with her daughter with a lie. Instead of acknowledging the child’s origin, she tells her and the rest of the world that the girl is from Cuba. This lie poisons the relationship from its very beginnings and marks it as utterly defective. Hanišová’s book is narrated both from the girl’s and the mother’s perspective, which allows the reader to follow the development of their relationship from different angles.
From a cultural studies point of view, on the one hand, all of these novels and films can be read as metaphors for the relationship of the Czech Romani minority and Czech majority society while, on the other hand, the metaphor itself must be critically revisited. The books and films explore and offer explanatory models for dysfunctionalities that the paper aims to analyze. Additionally, it will focus on narrative strategies deployed in order to show how the films and novels shape these relationships within their own narrative dynamics.
Ethno-social and Cultural Interwar Ascending of the Romanian Roma through the Romani Newspapers
Ion Duminica, Director of the Centre of Ethnology a.i., Institute of Cultural Heritage, Ministry of Education, Culture and Sciences of the Republic of Moldova
(johny_sunday@yahoo.com)
The proposed paper will focus on the main impact of the Romani newspapers in the strengthening of the process of the ethno-social and cultural interwar mobilisation of the Romanian Roma. Initially, the argument for the necessity to publish a Roma/Gypsy newspaper was introduced in the Romanian public space on August 27, 1933 – through the Program of the General Association of the Romanian Gypsies “Appeal for all Romanian Gypsies” – elaborated and promoted by Calinic I. Popp Șerboianu (the spiritual leader of the Roma Social-Cultural Emancipation Movement in Romania).
Since 1934, in Romania, 6 Romani newspapers were published (some of these being unexplored and unknown so far): Timpul / Time (1934–1938); Neamul Țigănesc / The Gypsy People (1934–1935); O Rom / The Roma (1934); Glasul Romilor / Voice of the Roma (1934–1941); Foaia poporului romesc / Leaflet of the Romani People (1935); Țara Noastră / Our Country (1937).
In fact, the Roma interwar newspapers contributed to partially improving status of the Romanian Roma community. A prospective national idea aiming to improve the social-cultural plight of the Roma was regularly and fragmentarily formulated. The proposed paper will emphasize the main themes which were spread in these 6 Gypsy/Roma newspapers, which would essentially influence the interwar process of the ethno-social and cultural ascending of the Romanian Roma, namely: the socio-economic issues of the Romani community; the organizational issues of the Romani associations; the challenges concerning the shaping of Romani identity and the internal disagreements between Roma leaders; Romani history, culture and traditions; Romani business publicity; Romani emancipation propaganda.
Decolonising Knowledge Production and the role of the Gypsy Lore Society
Jekatyerina Dunajeva, Pazmany Peter Catholic University, Hungary
(katyadunajeva@gmail.com)
Decolonizing knowledge production within Romani Studies began as a movement that recognized the colonial, white-centered past of the discipline. Essentializing, objectifying and romanticizing Roma was commonplace in academia, and interpretation of Romani cultures, traditions, and identities was commonly done by outsiders/out-of-group members, with no consideration of uneven power dynamics. As a result, research tended to reinforc existing stereotypes. Recently, the colonial past of the discipline has been criticized, re-examined and, I argue, an attempt was made in the recent years to overturn it.
The relatively recent emergence of Critical Romani Studies is a testament to this new turn indeed taking place within Romani Studies. Accordingly, narratives about Romani groups have changed from the early days of scientific racism and increasingly include Romani voices. A significant factor in this “critical turn” was not only academic self-reflections on anti-gypsyism, but also higher awareness of researchers’ positionality in conducting research about Roma, reinterpretation of Romani history, identity and culture.
This development within the discipline questions the role research plays in constructing a certain set of discourse about Roma, problematizes researchers’ participation in reinforcing Romani subordination, and promotes decolonizing knowledge production. This process of ‘intellectual decolonization’, which has characterized some Indigenous scholarship already, is a movement worth discussing and debating among academics engaged in Romani Studies.
Racialised Politics of Garbage: Waste Management in Urban Roma Settlements in Eastern Europe
Jekatyerina Dunajeva, Department of Political Studies, Pazmany Peter Catholic University, Budapest, Hungary
Joanna Kostka, Department of Social Work, University of Lancaster, UK
This paper is based on preliminary findings from a project that analyses the racialised dynamics embedded in neoliberal policies, and how Roma are affected by said dynamics. The project is undertaken in four countries located in Central and Eastern Europe (Hungary, Romania, Kosovo, Albania), and it engages in a case study analysis of four Roma neighbourhoods (one neighbourhood in each country) exposed to environmental risk and unjust waste management services. We build on the premise that disproportional accumulation of waste is anchored and aggravated by neoliberal policies of extensive privatisation and commodification of public services (and public spaces), together with the imposition of a pervasive “market mentality” (Jessop 2002), as well as stigmatisation of Roma neighbourhoods along racial lines.
Our research aims to highlight the political aspect of solid waste management in marginalised urban neighbourhoods where Roma live, by focusing on the racialising techniques of the neoliberal policies – a topic largely unexplored by the scholarly community. Ethnically-segregated and vulnerable urban Roma neighbourhoods are all too common around the world, which is a phenomenon inseparable from the commodification of basic services and the neoliberal approach to policy. We show that unjust waste management services is one instance of capital taking precedence over social justice in a neoliberal state, which results in ethnic and socio-cultural tensions.
The study demonstrates that racialisation of impoverished minorities serves as a tool for legitimising discriminatory policies regarding land use, zoning, waste disposal and regulation, which further results in ethnic and socio-cultural tensions in the society. Moreover, subordination of equity values to commercial interests creates the conditions for “the suspicion against others, the intolerance of difference, the resentment of strangers and the demands to separate and banish them” (Bauman 1998: 47). As a result, there is differential access to goods, services, and opportunities in a neoliberal society divided by race.
References:
Bauman, Z. (1998). Globalization: The Human Consequences, New York: Columbia University Press,.
Jessop, B. (2002). Liberalism, Neoliberalism, and Urban Governance: A State–Theoretical Perspective. Antipode, 34(3), pp. 452-472.
Experiences of Different Generations of Romani Professionals with Higher Education Degrees
Antonie Dvorakova, Social Health Institute, Palacký University, Olomouc, Czech Republic
(antonie.dvorakova@fulbrightmail.org)
This study is qualitative and empirical, with theoretical implications. Based on in-depth personal interviewing, it compares subjective experiences of 15 Romani professionals in the Czech Republic. All the participants have completed higher education degrees and they maintain connections with their ethnic communities. Some belong to the new generation, while others do not. The participants’ communities have been experiencing historical trauma, combined with the impact of forced assimilation, which can impede the full development of coherent, positively-viewed and constructively-applied ethnic identities. The study will discuss what factors within their respective historically-based socio-cultural contexts can explain the differences found between the experiences of the younger and the older generations. These differences concern not only the content of their experiences regarding their education and professions, but even more importantly the ways in which the participants conceptualise their respective backgrounds and, by extension, their identities. This study will explore possible explanations for these findings, using theoretical frameworks that emphasise mutual interactions of persons with their environments, including the ways in which historically-based socio-cultural contexts enable the distinct meaning systems that people construct, and how these systems at the same time guide the human formation of the environments. Contributions to this kind of scientific knowledge, which has important implications for the employability of Roma, are exceptionally timely in our increasingly diverse yet significantly interconnected society.
Dignity. A Key Concept in Romani Literature Production and Sociopolitical Engagement of Romani Authors
Beate Eder-Jordan, Department of Comparative Literature, University of Innsbruck, Austria
(beate.eder@uibk.ac.at)
In her book Menschenrechte und Menschenpflichten. Schlüsselbegriffe für eine humane Gesellschaft Aleida Assmann, well-known for her research on cultural memory, analyses concepts such as rights of man and obligations of humans, politeness, recognition, respect and empathy (among others). She calls them key concepts (Schlüsselbegriffe) for a human society and analyses the cultural, ethic, social and political potential of these concepts for the 21st century (Assmann 2018).
The Swiss philosopher Peter Bieri analyses the plurality of human dignity. He emphasizes that rights are a protective barrier against powerlessness and humiliation, and he shows how the dignity of human beings depends on the fact if they are considered to be legal individuals (Rechtssubjekt) (Bieri 2013).
Reading texts by Romani authors and being aware of the sociopolitical engagement of the authors suggests an interfacing between Romani literature production and endeavours of Aleida Assmann and Peter Bieri in their books cited above. Many Romani authors long and speak up for a world that ensures human rights for members of Romani communities and other minorities. Processes of minoritization (Gürses 2016) and loss of dignity, but also being in possession of dignity and romanipe are main topics in literary texts of Romani authors.
In my speech I want to analyse how a key concept such as dignity characterizes Romani literary production and the engagement of Romani authors.
References:
Assmann, Aleida (2018): Menschenrechte und Menschenpflichten. Schlüsselbegriffe für eine humane Gesellschaft. Wien: Picus.
Bieri, Peter (2013): Eine Art zu leben. Über die Vielfalt menschlicher Würde. München: Hanser Verlag.
Gürses, Hakan (2016): „Minorisierung ohne Rechte. Ein Essay über Volksgruppen, Eingewanderte und Minderheiten“. In: stimme. Zeitschrift der Initiative Minderheiten, 100, (Themenheft: 25 Jahre – 100 Ausgaben. Minoritäre Allianzen), p. 8-11.
What Romani dialect used to be spoken in northeastern Hungary?
Viktor Elšík, Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Arts, Charles University
(viktor.elsik@ff.cuni.cz)
The present paper aims to demonstrate how data on geographical variation in linguistic structures from attestable (i.e. extant, or extinct but documented) Romani varieties may provide indirect evidence for the dialectal affiliation of unattestable (i.e. extinct and undocumented) Romani varieties.
More specifically, the paper will explore the question of what Romani varieties used to be spoken by the long-settled Roms (magyar cigányok ‘Hungarian Roms’) of northeastern Hungary (and the adjacent, ethnically and linguistically Hungarian, regions of southeastern Slovakia and southwestern Transcarpathian Ukraine), who have, in a more or less distant past, undergone a shift of their native and in-group language from Romani to Hungarian (cf. Erdős 1958, Vekerdi 1983). While no linguistic documentation or description of the extinct ancestral Romani varieties is available, actual dialectological evidence – see from those surrounding areas where Romani is still maintained among the long-settled Roms (or else extinct but documented) – suggests that certain structural innovations must have diffused north(east)wards through northeastern Hungary before the local speech communities of Hungarian Roms were affected by language shift.
In this paper I will: (1) briefly outline the subethnic and linguistic composition of the Romani populations in the relevant wider area; (2) present the linguistic geographical patterns that allow or require a pre-shift diffusion scenario; (3) present a dialectological assessment of the diffused structural innovations; and (4) propose a concluding hypothesis regarding the dialectal affiliation of the extinct Romani varieties. The presentation will contain a number of dialectological maps, displaying fieldwork data as well as published data (e.g. Beníšek 2017, Bodnárová 2009, Bornemisza 1853, Görög 1985, Györffy 1885, Rácz 1994) on Romani varieties in the areas surrounding the language shift area.
References
Beníšek, Michael. 2017. Eastern Uzh varieties of North Central Romani. PhD thesis. Praha: Univerzita Karlova.
Bodnárová, Zuzana. 2009. Gramatický náčrt romského dialektu maďarské obce Versend. MA thesis. Praha: Univerzita Karlova.
Bornemisza, János. 1853. A’ czigány nyelv’ elemei. Pest: Emich Gustáv könyvnyomdája.
Erdős, Kamill. 1958. A classification of Gypsies in Hungary. Acta Ethnographica 6: 449–457.
Erdős, Kamill. 1989. A ma élő magyar-cigány nyelv. In: Vekerdi, Jószef (eds.) Erdős Kamill cigánytanulmányai / Collected Gypsy studies of Kamill Erdős. Békéscsaba: Békés Megyei Tanács.
Görög, Veronika (ed.) 1985. Berki János mesél cigány és magyar nyelven / Tales of János Berki told in Gypsy and Hungarian. (= Ciganisztikai tanulmányok / Hungarian Gypsy Studies, 3.) Budapest: MTA Néprajzi Kutató Csoport.
Győrffy, Endre. 1885. Magyar és czigány szótár. Czigányul mondva Vakeriben. Paks: Rosenbaum Nyomda.
Rácz, Sándor Romano. 1994. Kárpáti cigány-magyar, magyar-kárpáti cigány szótár és nyelvtan. Budapest: Balassi.
Vekerdi, József. 1983. A magyarországi cigány nyelvjárások szótára. Pécs: Janus Pannonius Tudományegyetem Tanárképző Kara.
Public Discourse and Academic Insights on Re-Islamization of the Millet Community in Bulgaria
Yelis Erolova, PhD. Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies with Ethnographic Museum, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria
(kham@abv.bg)
Among the so-called Millet in Bulgaria, Turkish-speaking Roma – Muslims (professing ‘traditional’ everyday syncretic Sunni Islam) or Evangelical Christians, processes of religious strengthening and re-Islamization have been running for the last 20 years. These processes, often referred to as an “adoption of radical Islam”, became the centre of not only a number of public discussions and court cases, but also, have attracted the attention of part of the Bulgarian scholars. Religious conversion, religious “return”, or increased religiosity are not specific to Romani/Gypsy groups but are also characteristic for other communities in many countries around the world. Although still insufficiently examined, the case of the re-Islamized Roma from Bulgaria is an interesting and debatable question in several directions. Based on my ethnological research conducted from 2018 to 2020, the paper presents an analysis of the public attitudes (incl. Muslim communities), the views of the experts, politicians and institutions toward the re-Islamization of this part of the Roma, as well as the reactions of the affected community members themselves. The research methodology includes face-to-face interviews, qualitative content analysis of online social networks and media publications; expert assessments, and ethnographic observations, supplemented by a review of the scholarly studies made so far. The aims of this paper are: to identify the directions of the public and scientific discourse on the re-Islamization of part of the Roma in Bulgaria; to establish whether new public (stereotyped) Roma image has been formed; to address the interplay between public and scholarly debates; and to analyse the reactions of the affected communities regarding the ongoing problematization of their religiosity and what are the consequences for their identity, their place in the Romani and Muslim communities in the country, as well as in the Bulgarian society.
Roma Families and Social Change: Challenges of Post-Socialist Transformation of Roma Housing at the Estate Luník IX, Slovakia
Ondrej Ficeri, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Centre of Social and Psychological Sciences
(ondrej.ficeri@saske.sk)
Equal housing opportunities and its rational spatial distribution belonged to primary tools in tackling Roma related societal inequalities in pre-1989 socialist Czechoslovakia. Technocratic governance of socialist housing policies was designed to discipline spatially segregated members of Romani communities in the process of cultural and social assimilation and, in the end, to replicate patterns of family typology characteristic for the mainstream Czechoslovak society. The housing estate Luník IX in Košice, Slovakia, was supposed to fulfil the projected task, however, shortly after its construction authorities claimed a failure of this egalitarian housing enterprise. This was further deepened by neoliberal economic transformation after 1989 which led to ghettoization of the estate and consequent demolition of almost half of its housing stock in the course of 2000s and 2010s. At the background of the historical development, in this paper, the primary objects of the research inquiry are preserved registers of Romani families inhabiting respective block-of-flats in 1988 and 2019. The registers provide a unique empirical material containing valuable socio-economic data on family typology, marriage, parenthood, education, employment and horizontal mobility of local inhabitants. Proceeding diachronic comparative analysis of respective variables from the data, the inquiry seeks to provide an insight into the extent of social change the families experienced in the transition from socialist to neoliberal order.
Where the Pipelines End: The Roma and Access to Basic Sanitation in the Slovak Republic
Richard Filčák, Center of Social and Psychological Sciences and Institute of Ethnology and Social Anthropology, Slovak Academy of Science, Bratislava, Slovakia
(Filcak.richard@gmail.com)
Daniel Škobla, Center of Social and Psychological Sciences and Institute of Ethnology and Social Anthropology, Slovak Academy of Science, Bratislava, Slovakia
(daniel.skobla@savba.sk)
Lack of sanitation is among the root problems of many heath conditions. It leads to water-borne diseases, thus decreasing life expectancy and well-being. Sewage infrastructure is often non-existent in the Roma settlements. The outcome is houses lacking very basic access to portable water and safe sanitation, self-made latrines in close proximity to water sources, and children playing in streams just metres downstream from the latrines. The pipelines often end at the borders of Roma settlements, and where these infrastructures exist, the services might not work properly or be disconnected from the main network. The main objective of the paper is to identify factors that hinder access to sanitation, and particularly adequate sewage disposal in the localities inhabited by the Roma population in Slovakia. The study combines quantitative data on the sewage and water infrastructure in so-called Roma settlements with a qualitative account based on the field research. Based on these two types of data, the paper further explores the situation and highlights the critical role of power asymmetries regarding public policies and decision-making at the local level. The paper builds a conceptual framework using Bourdieu’s theoretical apparatus, and analyses the role of dominant social actors within ‘local fields of power’. This paper also suggests that access to sanitation should be strengthened via putting into operation more universalistic social policies in combination with new dwelling construction. The authors point out the need for reinforcement of Roma-focused affirmative action in order to neutralise Antigypsyism and biased decision-making at the local level – often connected with stigmatisation of the minority, where sanitation is an important part of the overall picture.
The Racialized Self: Experiencing Racialization in the Colonial Atlantic Lusophone and Francophone Worlds.
Martin Fotta, Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic
(fotta@eu.cas.cz)
Ann Ostendorf, Gonzaga University, Spokane, USA
(ostendorf@gonzaga.edu)
This presentation examines several case studies of how Romani people in the colonial Lusophone and Francophone Atlantic experienced racialization. Because racialization is a dynamic and interactive process it must be understood relationally. This means, not to approach Romani identities, social roles and spheres of actions primarily in terms of a Gypsy-non-Gypsy binary. It also does not mean paralleling them to experiences of other marginalized groups and their position vis-a-vis “whiteness”. Rather, it means studying Romani identity and agency in relation to other racialised groups and within processes that shape meaning and management of such relationships. To do this one must examine the processes of racialization in situ rather than abstractly or generically. For our purposes, it also means that one site of empire (and even entire imperial projects themselves) must be understood among and in interaction with other locales, while also considering the constituent members of any one of them. By considering, with archival evidence, how diverse Atlantic Roma contributed to this process, we learn more about how race is made, as well as the inconsistent manner in which individuals experienced the processes of racialization. In Brazil, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, “Ciganos”, who served as middlemen within the internal trade in enslaved Africans, while economically integrated, became seen increasingly as a distinct race. By the end of the century, after the abolition of slavery, however, their social position radically deteriorated as they became caught in legislation aimed at controlling the movement and labour of especially those formerly enslaved. In the mid-eighteenth century French North American colony of Louisiana, French “Bohemians” engaged with local power dynamics saturated in racialized aims and assumptions informed by continued tribal power and the increasing importation of West African slaves. The decisions made by some of these individuals reveal their attempts to engage racial categories on their own terms to suit their best interests. The presentation will also reflect on how the circum-Atlantic circulation of these experiences of and ideas about race proves the mutually constitutive nature of Romani, race and empire. This invites scholars to further inquire how, within the Atlantic realm that connected Europe to other continents through circulation and flux, Romani people transformed and adapted to diverse local circumstances as part of this process.
Conveners: Lorely French (Pacific University, USA), Marina Ortrud M. Hertrampf (Regensburg University, Germany), Sofiya Zahova (University of Iceland / University of St Andrews, UK)
Romani literature has experienced remarkable developments during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. As of today, in almost all countries where Roma live, authors of Romani background have been producing books and other publications in various languages, including Romany. In the decades since 1989 the number of books that authors of Romani background have published has increased. Likewise, the usage of Romani in books, translations, and periodical publications by and for Roma has also risen. Romani literary pieces share features that go beyond the borders of any one country or region. These circumstances allow us to speak of Romani literature, and even of Romani literatures, as a heterogeneous and multifaceted, yet still a collective phenomenon.
The remarkably developing Romani literature scene has provoked a considerable interest among researchers, and increasing scholarship on Romani literature has assumed at least three distinct approaches. First, there are those studies that adopt a historical approach and are based on providing accounts of Romani literature production and authors’ life paths, along with outlines of socio-political factors (socio-biographical approach). Second, there are those studies that adopt the methods of the field of literary theory and comparative literature and focus on case studies of authors and theoretical interpretations of literary works. Third, there are studies analysing Romani literary production in terms of methods and theories developed in the field of cultural studies.
This panel proposal comes as one of the follow-ups to the multi-session panel Narratives by and about Roma organized as part of the 2019 GLS Annual Meeting and Conference on Romani Studies, 15-17 August 2019, at the University of Iceland. The panel participants have identified the need to further maintain a forum for discussion of Romani literature from various disciplinary angles and within the field of Romani Studies. We recognize that despite the dynamic development of Romani literary scholarship in recent decades, such scholarship has been somehow underrepresented within Romani Studies, both at forums and in academic publications.
The overall aim of the panel is to provide an interdisciplinary forum for discussion of Romani literature from historical and contemporary perspectives, bringing together researchers and practitioners from various backgrounds. We invite participants who address in their papers issues such as:
Theoretical approaches to Romani literature;
Developments of Romani literature as a field nationally and/or internationally;
Analysis and comparison of narratives and motifs in Romani literature;
Case studies of Romani authors and literary works;
Romani language production, publishing and translation;
Authenticity, representation and cultural appropriation in literature (co-written) by Roma;
Interfacing between Romani literature research and other fields (for instance history, migrations, antiziganism, ethnic studies, nationalism, etc.).
Abstracts
- Eder-Jordan, Beate. Dignity. A key concept in Romani literature production and sociopolitical engagement of Romani authors.
- French, Lorely. ’Stopping Places’ in Ceija Stojka’s Autobiographical Narratives as Geopolitical, Geocultural, and Geohistorical Signifiers.
- Hertrampf, Marina Ortrud M. (Romani) Biofiction as World Literature: A case study of Núria León de Santiago’s Mahler’s Angel.
- Homann, Florian. The textual composition of Flamenco lyric as a media of Romani collective memory: Oral tradition, formulas and fragmentation.
- Kledzik, Emilia. Imagology of the “true Gypsyness” in the literary work of Jerzy Ficowski
- Parente-Čapková, Viola. “Thanks to her ‘dissident’ status, she was granted cultural asylum”. The Figure of Dissident Artist in Kiba Lumberg’s Work.
- Ryvolová, Karolína. Minority press as the prerequisite for a small ethnic literature: The Informační zpravodaj and Románo ľil Romani magazines (1969-1973) as the solid foundation for the contemporary Romani literature in the Czech Republic.
- Sabatos, Charles. Finding a Voice: the Slovak-Roma Woman Writer in Irish and Czech Fiction.
- Sevillano Martín; Belén, Ana. Double-consciousness and cultural mediation in transnational Romani literature
- Shaw, Martin - Fighting for Peace in Uriah Burton’s life story Uriah Burton ”Big Just” His Life, His Aims, His Ideals (1979)
Beate Eder-Jordan, University of Innsbruck, Austria / beate.eder@uibk.ac.at
https://www.uibk.ac.at/sprachen-literaturen/vergl/personen/beate_eder_jordan/cv.html
Proposal for the panel “International Romani Literature(s): Approaches to a ‘new’ World Literature”
Dignity. A key concept in Romani literature production and sociopolitical engagement of Romani authors
In her book Menschenrechte und Menschenpflichten. Schlüsselbegriffe für eine humane Gesellschaft Aleida Assmann, well-known for her research on cultural memory, analyses concepts such as rights of man and obligations of humans, politeness, recognition, respect and empathy (among others). She calls them key concepts (Schlüsselbegriffe) for a human society and analyses the cultural, ethic, social and political potential of these concepts for the 21st century (Assmann 2018).
The Swiss philosopher Peter Bieri analyses the plurality of human dignity. He emphasizes that rights are a protective barrier against powerlessness and humiliation, and he shows how the dignity of human beings depends on the fact if they are considered to be legal individuals (Rechtssubjekt) (Bieri 2013).
Reading texts by Romani authors and being aware of the sociopolitical engagement of the authors suggests an interfacing between Romani literature production and endeavours of Aleida Assmann and Peter Bieri in their books cited above. Many Romani authors long and speak up for a world that ensures human rights for members of Romani communities and other minorities. Processes of minoritization (Gürses 2016) and loss of dignity, but also being in possession of dignity and romanipe are main topics in literary texts of Romani authors.
In my speech I want to analyse how a key concept such as dignity characterizes Romani literary production and the engagement of Romani authors.
Literature
Assmann, Aleida (2018): Menschenrechte und Menschenpflichten. Schlüsselbegriffe für eine humane Gesellschaft. Wien: Picus.
Bieri, Peter (2013): Eine Art zu leben. Über die Vielfalt menschlicher Würde. München: Hanser Verlag.
Gürses, Hakan (2016): „Minorisierung ohne Rechte. Ein Essay über Volksgruppen, Eingewanderte und Minderheiten“. In: stimme. Zeitschrift der Initiative Minderheiten, 100, (Themenheft: 25 Jahre – 100 Ausgaben. Minoritäre Allianzen), p. 8-11.
Professor of German
Pacific University
Forest Grove, Oregon, USA
Abstract for the session „International Romani Literature(s): Approaches to a ‘New’ World Literature,” Gypsy Lore Society/Romani Studies Conference, Prague, 2020
“Stopping Places” in Ceija Stojka’s Autobiographical Narratives as Geopolitical, Geocultural, and Geohistorical Signifiers
In his 2018 book The Stopping Places: A Journey Through Gypsy Britain, English Traveller Damian Le Bas writes about the time he spends finding and staying at the “stopping places,” the atchin tans, that his maternal great-grandmother had often talked about from the time when the family was travelling. Le Bas sees stopping places as keys to understanding the lives and cultures of Travellers, Roma, and “Gypsies.”
Building on Le Bas’s idea, my paper analyzes the geopolitical, geocultural, and geohistorical significance of several “stopping places” that Ceija Stojka, an Austrian Romni artist, writer, activist, and survivor of the Nazi camps Auschwitz Ravensbrück, and Bergen-Belsen, describes in her autobiographical writings. Born in 1933, Stojka witnessed the restrictive political and social climate of the interwar period as well as continued discrimination against Roma after World War II. Before the war, Stojka lived with her extended family for a large part of the year in a wagon. Her writings portray the family as travelling mostly from late spring to late fall through the Austrian provinces of Burgenland, Styria, Carinthia, Upper- and Lower Austria, and Vienna. An analysis of the “stopping places” that surface in her works reveals that they did not just travel helter-skelter, however, and that they did not lead the purely nomadic, carefree life that the stereotypical image of being a “Gypsy” has perpetrated. They, like Le Bas’s family, developed regular, familiar routes, where they met other Roma and practiced their livelihoods. The geo-cultural sites belong to the rich customs and histories of Austrian Roma. The pilgrimage site of Mariazell, for example, was a major meeting place for Catholics to venerate the image of the Virgin Mary carved there in lime-wood and was one stop on a large pilgrimage way of over 1,300 kilometers that traversed the provinces of Vienna, Lower Austria, Burgenland, Upper Austria, Salzburg, Carinthia, and Styria. Places linked to Ceija’s family roots remain in her memories, such as Jois in the eastern province of Burgenland, and Graz. But many stopping places also became sites of persecution for Roma, as historical documents record. Knittelfeld, Wiener Neustadt, and Aspang-Markt, which the Stojka family frequented, eventually held forced labor camps and deportation stations for so-called “Zigeuner,” and “Asoziale.” The Baranka Park in Vienna, where Stojka’s family parked their wagon along with several other families, was a place where National Socialists gathered information on Roma and rounded them up for deportation. Stojka’s narratives provide geo-cultural, geo-political, and geo-historical information that corroborates and augments historical documents on these stopping places and adds human dimensions from a Romani perspective.
Literature
Baumgartner, Gerhard. "Der Genozid an den österreichischen Roma und Sinti." In Romane Thana: Orte der Roma und Sinti. Ed. Andrea Härle, Cornelia Kogoj, Werner Michael Schwarz, Michael Weese, and Susanne Winkler. Vienna: Wien Museum,
Landesmuseums Burgenland, Initiative Minderheiten, Romano Centro, and Czernin Verlag, 2015. 86-93.
---. "Dezentrale nationalsozialistische 'Zigeunerlager' 1938-1945 auf dem Gebiet des heutigen Österreich: Projektentwurf." Arbeitsschwerpunkt Roma und Sinti, www.doew.at,
accessed 4 April 2020. https://www.doew.at/cms/download/8v3s6/gb_projektentwurf.pdf.
Brettl, Herbert. Nationalsozialismus im Burgenland: Opfer. Täter.Gegner.
Nationalsozialismus in den österreichischen Bundesländern, ed. Horst Schreiber, vol
2., 2nd ed. Innsbruck: Studienverlag Ges.m.b.H. 2013.
Hagele, Laura Anna. "Ich bin eine Wurzel aus Österreich": Location and National Identity in Austro-Romany Author Ceija Stojka's Wir leben im Verborgenen (1988) and Reisende auf dieser Welt (1992), Master of Arts Thesis, The University of Georgia, 2009, accessed 5 April.
2020. https://getd.libs.uga.edu/pdfs/hagele_laura_a_201112_ma.pdf.
Le Bas, Damian. The Stopping Places: A Journey Through Gypsy Britain. London: Vintage,
2018.
Mindler, Ursula. "Die Kriminalisierung und Verfolgung von Randgruppen in der ersten Hälfte
des 20. Jahrhunderts am Beispiel der österreichischen 'Zigeuner'." In Kriminologische Theorie und Praxis: Geistes-und naturwissenschaftliche Annäherungen an die Kriminalwissenschaft, ed. Christian Bachhiesl, Sonja Maria Bachiesl. Münster: LIT Verlag, 2011. 59-81.
Freund, Florian, Gerhard Baumgartner, and Harald Greifeneder. Vermögensentzug,
Restitution und Entschädigung der Roma und Sinti. Veröffentlichungen der Österreichischen Historikerkommission. Vermögensentzug während der NS-Zeit sowie Rückstellungen und Entschädigungen seit 1945 in Österreich, Vol. 23.2. Vienna and Munich: Oldenbourg, 2004.
Stojka, Ceija. Reisende auf dieser Welt: Aus dem Leben einer Rom-Zigeunerin. Vienna:
Picus, 1992.
---. “Sie waren Rom vom Stamm der Lowara.” In “Auschwitz ist mein Mantel: Bilder und
Texte.” Ed. Christa Stippinger. Vienna: Edition Exil, 2008. 11-32.
---. Träume ich, dass ich lebe?: Befreit aus Bergen-Belsen. Vienna: Picus, 2005.
---. Wir leben im Verborgenen. Aufzeichnungen einer Romni zwischen den Welten. Herausgegeben und mit einem Essay von Karin Berger. Wien: Picus Verlag, 2013.
Marina Ortrud M. Hertrampf, Assistant Professor of French and Spanish Philology (Literature and Cultural Studies) at Regensburg University (Germany)
email: Marina.Hertrampf@ur.de
Proposal for the open panel “International Romani Literature(s): Approaches to a ‘new’ World Literature”
(Romani) Biofiction as World Literature: A case study of Núria León de Santiago’s Mahler’s Angel
For some years now we have been observing a significant increase in ‘fictional biographies’, or ‘biographical fictions’ worldwide. Biofictions (Buisine 1991), that is, novels that take real biographies as their starting points, are always situated on the borderline between real and possible worlds. Furthermore, biofictions contribute to bridging the gap between literary tradition and popular mainstream literature, and strengthen the revival of cultural figures from around the world. Following David Damrosch’s conception of World Literature as a mode of reading rather than a selection of canonical works, biofictions could be understood as World Literature insofar as they configure a vision of the world, not only through presenting diverse literary influences, transcultural hybridity and cultural recycling, but also through revealing parallel developments across spatio-temporal, ethnic, and political spaces. Not least, biofictions partake of World Literature through their ideological/political stance, that is, their very individual re-interpretation of normative facts that emphasizes the constructive and, not least, hegemonic character of national, cultural, and biographic narratives. In my contribution, I will analyse the biofiction Mahler’s Angel (2014) by the Spanish Romani female author Núria León de Santiago to illustrate the extent to which a productive overlap exists between the genre of biofiction on the one hand and that of Romani literature as World Literature on the other. León de Santiago’s biographical novel represents an example of cross- cultural representation: a world-famous Jewish-Austrian musician becomes the protagonist of a work by a Romani author writing in Spanish. Moreover, Mahler’s Angel is a “veiled autobiography” (Layne/Tóibín 2018, 151), in so far as the book not only presents a new perspective on Mahler’s life but also negotiates (the writer’s autobiographic) concerns regarding ethnic minorities in general and the multiple in- and out-group discriminations of Roma-women in particular. Thus, León de Santiago’s biofiction is a paradigmatic example of contemporary World Literature in motion (Ette) in a globalized world.
References:
León de Santiago, Núria, El ángel de Mahler. Barcelona: Bellaterra, 2014.
Buisine, Alain, “Biofiction”, Revue des sciences humaines, vol. 4, n° 224 (1991): p. 7-13.
Damrosch, David, What Is World Literature? Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003.
Ette, Ottmar, Literature on the move. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2003. Layne, Bethany and Colm Tóibín. “The Anchored Imagination of the Biographical Novel.” Éire- Ireland, vol. 53 no. 1, 2018, p. 150-166.
Florian Homann, fhomann@uni-koeln.de, University of Cologne
The textual composition of Flamenco lyric as a medium of Romani collective memory: Oral tradition, formulas and fragmentation
Abstract: The obvious relationship between Flamenco lyrics, oral tradition, new text production and the collective memory of Spanish Roma has not yet been possible to be explained convincingly, as Flamenco culture in general first was romanticized as an ancient exclusively gitano patrimony and then, after the scientific refutation of the theories about a hermetic phase of origin defended by Mairena y Molina in the 1960s, has often been considered as a mere popular folkloric product.
This contribution will show that particular Flamenco modalities, such as the Acapella types of tonás and martinets, are actually derived from specific forms of Roma self-representation and that their original texts, today still sung in a drastically fragmented form, have been produced by gitanos. Applying the techniques of oral-formulaic composition and using formulas of epic romances, gitanos were one of the main transmitter groups since the Spanish Golden Age.
Thus, in this case, the gitano heritage of Flamenco is not mainly explained by the musical performance. Instead, the thesis that emphasizes the literary elements of Flamenco is also significant, namely, that the mentioned palos indeed stem from narratives and large romances in the sense of epic-based ballads that function as oral forms of both news bulletins and media of collective memory in the Romani community. Therefore, these simple texts really related –properly speaking, must have related in former times, as Flamenco poetry is nowadays said to be non-narrative but essentially lyrical–, the stories of the persecution of Roma, such as terrible events like La Prisión General de los Gitanos (Great Gypsy Round-up) of 1749; this raid thereby becomes remembered in the communicative memory of Spanish Roma. To follow this argumentation, I will explain why the imprisonment could be deleted from Spanish historiography and forgotten in national as well as later even in Romani cultural memory. I will describe a long-term process in relation to the evolution and drastic fragmentation of Flamenco poetry as that poetry develops from narrative ballads to the short song texts as we know them today, losing their elements of storytelling in the literary trends of late romanticism in the nineteenth century. Furthermore, I argue that these particular cantes and their texts, whose narrativity still surfaced in the lyrical Flamenco verses at the beginning of the twentieth century, had a considerable influence –as a specific type of World Literature– on Spanish poetry of all these authors related to Flamenco culture.
Proposal for open panel: International Romani Literature(s): Approaches to a “New” World Literature
Dr Emilia Kledzik
Poznań, Poland
Imagology of the “true Gypsyness” in the literary work of Jerzy Ficowski
Jerzy Ficowski was a self-taught ethnographer who, from the turn of the 1940s and 1950s, when he began to publish his first dissertations in “Gypsy studies” (also in “Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society”), presented himself in opposition to earlier Polish gypsiologists as a "Gypsy-practitioner". He underlined the fact that he had traveled with the "Gypsy caravans” for a long time, hiding from the Security Service. However, my archival research proves that his contacts with the Roma were rarer than he had presented. He was the author of a popular book Cyganie polscy (Polish edition: 1953, 1965, 1985, 1989, English edition: 1989), which is still the most popular source of information about the Roma in Polish Roma studies. At the same time, Ficowski was working on his unfinished novel on "Polish Gypsies" (Wygasłe ogniska). From the turn of the 1940s into the 1950s and then the 2000s he also regularly published poems about "Gypsies" and wrote “Gypsy songs’ for folk bands. The image of Gypsies contained in his poems and songs reproduced many stereotypes of "gypsyism", but also tried to question and transcend them. This image of "real Gypsies" visible in his literary output also appear in his ethnographic works. The political context of his literary output was also significant – occurring at a time when Ficowski was involved in the state settlement campaign of the Gypsies.
The purpose of the paper is to present the imagology of the “Gypsies” in the poetry and prose of Jerzy Ficowski against the background of his personal career and his other publications about the “Gypsies” in Poland.
“Thanks to her ‘dissident’ status, she was granted cultural asylum”. The Figure of Dissident Artist in Kiba Lumberg’s Work.
Viola Parente-Čapková, University of Turku (viocap@utu.fi)
Abstract submitted for the panel International Romani Literature(s): Approaches to a “New“ World Literature
The figure of the (woman) artist is a central element in the literary works of the Finnish Romani writer, artist and activist Kiba Lumberg (*1956), including one of her comic books. Lumberg’s take on the subject is pronouncedly autobiographical, highlighting the important role of the artist’s gender, sexuality, ethnicity and other aspects of her identity, although constantly problematizing and ironizing that identity. In terms of genre, previous research on Lumberg’s work (i. e. her Memesa trilogy, 2004– 2008 and her comic books, 2010) has highlighted her strategies of using elements from the (feminist) artist’s novel and autofiction, including features of ethno/autobiography.
In my present contribution, I intend to depart from the Memesa trilogy, but concentrate on Lumberg’s last novel, Irtiottoxxx (2018, Breakxxx), which has thus far been largely ignored by the Finnish literary establishment. In Irtiottoxxx, which takes place in Italy, the lesbian Romani artist Memesa (the protagonist of Lumberg’s earlier novels) is no longer the first-person narrator, but only a narrated figure in the background. However, with the help of the “Memesa narrative” embedded in the discussion on artists’ rights and their position in society in general, Lumberg continues to discuss the role of the artist in the context of the – allegedly liberal and generous – Finnish cultural institutions. I am going to map Lumberg’s critical view of the Nordic society with the help of contextual, multi-layered intersectional analysis of her last novel.
Bibliography
Kauranen, Ralf, Parente-Čapková, Viola & Vuorinne, Anna (upcoming), Escapes of a “Mad Artist”: Intersectional Identities in Kiba Lumberg’s Comics. Accepted for the volume Hertrampf, Marina. Ortrud, von Hagen, Kirsten (eds) Selbst- und Fremdbilder von Roma in Comic und Graphic Novel: Vom Holocaust bis zur Gegenwart, München: Akademische Verlagsgemeinschaft München.
Lappalainen, Päivi (2012), “Haluan löytää oman tähteni” [“I Want to Find My Own Star”], in: Kurikka, Kaisa/Löytty, Olli/Melkas, Kukku/Parente-Čapková, Viola (eds): Kertomuksen luonto [The Nature of Narrative], Jyväskylä: Jyväskylän yliopisto [Nykykulttuurin tutkimuskeskuksen julkaisuja 107], pp. 177–186.
Parente-Čapková, Viola (2015), “Má duše se nevejde do cikánské sukně.” Kiba Lumberg v kontextu finské romské literatury a literatury o Romech“ [“My Soul Does Not Fit Into A Romani Skirt”: Kiba Lumberg in the Context of Finnish Romani Literature and the Literature on the Roma“]. Romano džaniben. Časopis romistických studií, Vol. 22, no. 2, pp. 115–120
Parente-Čapková, Viola (2018): “Is Professionalism the Same as Inhumanity?” Social Criticism in the Literary Work of Kiba Lumberg, in: Multiethnica 38, pp. 18–27. http://www.valentin.uu.se/digitalAssets/686/c_686162-l_3-k_multiethnica38.pdf [27.03.2020].
Mgr. Karolína Ryvolová, PhD.
Kher Publishing House
Paper intended for the International Romani Literature(s): Approaches to a “New” World Literature panel
Minority press as the prerequisite for a small ethnic literature: The Informační zpravodaj and Románo ľil Romani magazines (1969-1973) as the solid foundation for the contemporary Romani literature in the Czech Republic
The short-lived Romani magazines Informační zpravodaj and its successor Románo ľil, released as the internal newsletter of the Union of Gypsies-Roms between 1969 and 1973, helped forge written Romani in the Czech Republic, set the tone for Romani writing for the future, and served as a hotbed that bred new talents. Although Non-Romani intellectuals such as Milena Hübschmannová, Eva Davidová or Pavel Steiner significantly contributed to the magazine’s form, the topics and renditions therein were the Romani writers’ own. Contemporary Czech Romani writing, even by the youngest writers who have had little or no contact with the UGR generation, owes its writers’ confidence to write and their motivic patterns to the literary pioneers, many of whom have been forgotten. In my paper, I will briefly discuss the history of the newsletter, its characteristic features, and some leading topics and approaches as represented by Tera Fabiánová, Andrej Pešta, Josef Bánom and Andrej Giňa, and I will show how the ethos of the first independent Romani organisation in Czechia has transcended decades and continues to live in the works of contemporary Romani writers. I will also demonstrate that the conservative vein of narrative embedded in the oral tradition and the activist, politically engaged approach existed parallel to each other from the start; rather than being two successive stages of development, they are in fact two trends of Romani representation, and, as such, two sides of the same coin.
Abstract for the Gypsy Lore Society Annual Meeting (2020)
Submission for “International Roma Literature(s): Approaches to a ‘New’ World Literature”
Finding a Voice: the Slovak-Roma Woman Writer in Irish and Czech Fiction
Charles Sabatos
charles.sabatos@gmail.com
Yeditepe University, Istanbul
The Irish-American writer Colum McCann’s Zoli, published in 2006, features a Slovak-Roma woman who survives the Nazi occupation and Communist-era discrimination to become an acclaimed poet, only to be cast out by her community and forced into exile. While giving a (fictional) voice to a marginalized minority, the novel is dominated by two male narrators: a Slovak writer named Stranský and Zoli’s lover, an Englishman of mixed Irish-Slovak background named Swann. The novel received widespread critical acclaim (the Guardian called it “a convincing account of Gypsy life”) and was translated into a number of languages, including Czech. Two years after Zoli appeared, another depiction of postwar Slovak Roma life was published in the Czech Republic: Irena Eliášová’s Our Settlement (Naše osada). With its affectionate but unsentimental view of Roma culture, the work reveals a community deeply invested in its traditions yet confronted with social change. The text is distinguished by a simple yet distinctive mixture of languages: while the characters speak Slovak (with some use of Romani phrases), the narrative voice is in standard Czech. Despite some critical attention from scholars of Romani studies, Eliášová’s work remains mostly unknown in both Czech and Slovak literary circles.
Both Zoli and Naše osada walk an uneasy balance in their well-intentioned presentations of the Slovak-Roma woman writer, both real and fictional. In the case of McCann, the effort to bring one of Europe’s most misunderstood minorities to an Anglophone readership borders on what John McCourt calls a “patronizing gesture.” The issues of control in Eliášová’s case are less obvious but also reflect deeply engrained power balances. Her book is illustrated by drawings made by children from a mainly Romani primary school, but the editors included footnotes to “correct” the characters’ mistakes in Slovak. In the Central European context, where national identity is still heavily defined by language, Eliášová’s use of multilingualism negotiates between both the “separate but equal” status of Czech and Slovak under Communism and the suppression of Romani that has persisted to the present. Whether in a bestselling novel written in New York, or in a memoir from provincial Bohemia, the Slovak-Roma writer faces obstacles to self-expression not only due to gender and ethnicity, but to issues of appropriation similar to those debated by US Latinx and other minority artists.
Ana Belén Martín Sevillano, Associate professor, Department of World Languages and Literatures, Université de Montréal
Proposal for the panel: “International Romani Literature(s): Approaches to a ‘new’ World Literature”
Double-consciousness and cultural mediation in transnational Romani literature
Abstract
W.E.B. Du Bois coined the term “double consciousness” to refer to the conflictive subjectivities of African Americans (as racialized subjects) who strive to reconcile their ethnic bodies, behaviours, values, and experiences with those of the hegemonic group in their societies. The fact that these hegemonic values are internalized by the racialized subjects, despite the trauma those values inflict on the subjects, reveals the complexity and vulnerability of the human mind. Drawing on the concepts of “double consciousness,” “autoethnography” (Pratt), and the notion of cultural mediation (Vigotsky), this paper examines the work of Ronald Lee -Goddam Gypsy-, Mateo Maximoff -Dites-le avec des pleurs and Les Ursitori-, and Jorge Emilio Nedich -Leyenda gitana and El aliento negro de los romaníes- , analyzing how the literary texts become a space in which values and behaviours are confronted and resignified.
Du Bois, W.E.B. The Souls of Balck Folk. New York: Penguin, 1903.
Pratt, Marie-Louise. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. New York:
Routledge, 1992.
Vigotsky, L.S. Mind in Society. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press, 1978.
Martin Shaw
Mid Sweden University
Sweden
Individual paper
Fighting for Peace in Uriah Burton’s life story Uriah Burton ”Big Just” His Life, His Aims, His Ideals (1979)
The title of Romany Uriah Burton’s 26-page collaborative life story includes the words “aims” and “ideals,” and these two words capture significant parts of the contents of the life story. Aims include building a caravan park for his fellow Gypsies and Travellers to live on, walking from Belfast to Dublin in “Peace People” style, constructing a monument to his father on top of a Welsh hilltop, and negotiating punishments in terms of “Gypsy Law”. Some of these aims were ideals to begin with, but he made them real, while other ideas remained ideals, but not for the want of trying. The following words can be seen directly after the title on the inner flap of the life story: “WITH GREETINGS TO ALL PEOPLE IN THE WORLD,” and these few words also capture parts of the life story. Burton took personal action to bring attention to the much-needed idea of peace in a troubled Ireland, but he also wanted world peace. One aspect of Burton’s identity seems to contradict this description – he was a renowned no-rules, bare-knuckle fighter with a fierce reputation, but he depicts himself as maintaining the idea that he used his many abilities, including his fighting ability, to preserve and maintain different forms of peace. His life story is quite rare, as there were only a few hundred copies published; it has circulated within Gypsy circles, and, he writes: “Four copies of this article have been issued to every country in the world” (23). The life story is referred to as a booklet and an article, and the 1st of January, 1980, is suggested as the “day of the declaration of peace”: that is, the declaration of the desire for world peace. Burton claims that he has difficulty making himself understood and understanding modern society (1), but maybe it is time that he was understood; my presentation will consist of an attempt to do so.
“Stopping Places” in Ceija Stojka’s Autobiographical Narratives as Geopolitical, Geocultural, and Geohistorical Signifiers
Lorely French, Pacific University, USA
(frenchl@pacificu.edu)
In his 2018 book The Stopping Places: A Journey Through Gypsy Britain, English Traveller Damian Le Bas writes about the time he spends finding and staying at the “stopping places,” the atchin tans, that his maternal great-grandmother had often talked about from the time when the family was travelling. Le Bas sees stopping places as keys to understanding the lives and cultures of Travellers, Roma, and “Gypsies.”
Building on Le Bas’s idea, my paper analyzes the geopolitical, geocultural, and geohistorical significance of several “stopping places” that Ceija Stojka, an Austrian Romni artist, writer, activist, and a survivor of the Nazi camps Auschwitz, Ravensbrück and Bergen-Belsen, describes in her autobiographical writings. Born in 1933, Stojka witnessed the restrictive political and social climate of the interwar period as well as continued discrimination against Roma after World War II. Before the war, Stojka lived with her extended family for a large part of the year in a wagon. Her writings portray the family as travelling mostly from late spring to late fall through the Austrian provinces of Burgenland, Styria, Carinthia, Upper and Lower Austria, and Vienna. An analysis of the “stopping places” that surface in her works reveals that they did not just travel helter-skelter, however, and that they did not lead the purely nomadic, carefree life that the stereotypical image of being a “Gypsy” has perpetrated. They, like Le Bas’s family, developed regular, familiar routes, where they met other Roma and practiced their livelihoods. The geo-cultural sites belong to the rich customs and histories of Austrian Roma. The pilgrimage site of Mariazell, for example, was a major meeting place for Catholics to venerate the image of the Virgin Mary carved there in lime-wood and was one stop on a large pilgrimage way of over 1,300 kilometers that traversed the provinces of Vienna, Lower Austria, Burgenland, Upper Austria, Salzburg, Carinthia, and Styria. Places linked to Ceija’s family roots remain in her memories, such as Jois in the eastern province of Burgenland, and Graz. But many stopping places also became sites of persecution for Roma, as historical documents record. Knittelfeld, Wiener Neustadt, and Aspang-Markt, which the Stojka family frequented, eventually held forced labor camps and deportation stations for the so-called “Zigeuner” and “Asoziale.” The Baranka Park in Vienna, where Stojka’s family parked their wagon along with several other families, was a place where National Socialists gathered information on Roma and rounded them up for deportation. Stojka’s narratives provide geo-cultural, geo-political, and geo-historical information that corroborates and augments historical documents on these stopping places and adds human dimensions from a Romani perspective.
References:
Le Bas, Damian. The Stopping Places: A Journey Through Gypsy Britain. London: Vintage, 2018.
Stojka, Ceija. Reisende auf dieser Welt: Aus dem Leben einer Rom-Zigeunerin. Vienna: Picus, 1992.
Stojka, Ceija. “Sie waren Rom vom Stamm der Lowara.” In “Auschwitz ist mein Mantel: Bilder und Texte.” Ed. Christa Stippinger. Vienna: Edition Exil, 2008. 11-32.
Stojka, Ceija. Träume ich, dass ich lebe?: Befreit aus Bergen-Belsen. Vienna: Picus, 2005.
Stojka, Ceija. Wir leben im Verborgenen. Aufzeichnungen einer Romni zwischen den Welten. Herausgegeben und mit einem Essay von Karin Berger. Wien: Picus Verlag, 2013.
From Orality to Digitalization. Kris and Transnational Conflict Resolution in a Romani Diaspora
Juan F. Gamella, Vasile Muntean and Fran J. Ogáyar, Universidad de Granada, Spain
(gamella@ugr.es)
Many Romani groups have developed effective conflict resolution systems that involve a variety of procedures such as negotiation, arbitrage and, centrally, a form of trial by a court of respected male elders, most commonly known as Kris. For six years, our team has been documenting and analysing the public conflicts taking place among the Romani group of Korturare who, since the early 1990s, have experienced an intense process of transmigration towards Western Europe and North America. Originating in various locations of Western Romania (from Oradia to Cluj to Deva to Timisoara), these people maintain a moral, linguistic and endogamic community in which juridical processes are accepted to solve conflicts and to maintain peace. We have been able to reconstruct over 90 cases of serious conflicts, 59 of which ended up in a formal kris. Through interviews, participant observation and cyber-ethnography we have established the origins, development, and resolution procedures of these cases, as well as the post-conflict relationships of the individuals and families concerned. Many of these conflicts involved people living in different countries who use smartphones and digital media to make claims and counter-claims and to witness trials that are recorded and transmitted online. In this process, they are followed by hundreds and even thousands of members of the interconnected networks. Our team has also systematically collected, transcribed and analysed video recordings of about 60% of the cases studied, and the comments of many of the viewers. This database allows the study of the institutional logic of action of this gendered form of conflict resolution, and its transition from traditional orality to digitalization.
The Forgotten Holocaust – the Struggle for Recognition of the Porrajmos and Its Contemporary Re-Contextualisation
Nadezhda Georgieva-Stankova, Trakia University, Bulgaria
(nadya.georgieva.stankova@gmail.com)
The Holocaust, one of the most tragic events revealing the other face of the modern civilisation (Bauman 1992), continues to provoke various debates and new interpretations. In recent years, apart from the suffering of the Jewish people, the Holocaust has been seen as “transcending the confines of the Jewish community” (Berenbaum 1981), by adding other victims of Nazi persecution, such as the Roma (suffering during the Porrajmos), in the context of growing anti-Roma sentiments, racism and xenophobia. The paper presents the existing debates on the “uniqueness” of the Holocaust and its contemporary re-contextualisation in the struggle for recognition led by the international Romani Movement, interpreted as part of a politics of belonging (Anthias 2016; Yuval Davis, 2011). The main research questions focus on the nature of anti-Gypsy stigmatization historically, on the discursive strategies in the contemporary re-contextualisation of Holocaust experiences, the reasons for the exclusion of the Roma from the official Holocaust narratives and the extent to which the struggle for the recognition of the Porrajmos has been successful. Discourse historical analysis (DHA)(Wodak et al.1998; Wodak and Reisigl 1999; Weiss and Wodak 2003) is applied to analyse various attempts to include or exclude the Roma as victims of the Holocaust in political and academic discourse. Answers are found in the interplay between Romani agency and macrosocial contextual factors. The role of the Porrajmos in building an aspired or project identity (Erikson 1968; Castells 1997) is studied in the process of politicising Romani ethnogenesis and constructing a historical narrative, understood as identity politics, seeking a new kind of recognition, as well as redistribution of resources (Fraser 2003), bearing important symbolic and political significance in the struggle against growing exclusivist rhetoric, anti-Gypsyism and violence against the Roma on the European continent.
Problems of Pedagogical Diagnosis and School Segregation of Roma Pupils in Poland, Czech Republic, and Slovakia
Barbara Grabowska, University of Silesia, Katowice Poland
(basiagra@wp.pl)
Łukasz Kwadrans, University of Silesia, Katowice Poland
(lukaszkwadrans@poczta.fm; kwadrans9@poczta.fm)
The authors will present the results of a comparative research on the functioning of the educational system in the field of pedagogical diagnostics of Romani children and the phenomenon of school segregation. The aim is not only to diagnose and describe the situation but also to indicate possible solutions, good practices and the need for systemic changes. Data collected in three countries justify the position taken and allow problems to be discussed. The authors enrich this material and strengthen it with data from interviews with Roma and social experts.
Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Experiences of Hate Cin the UK and the Psychological ‘Ripple Effect’ on Mental Health
Margaret Greenfields, Institute for Diversity Research, Inclusivity, Communities and Society, UK (Margaret.Greenfields@bucks.ac.uk)
Carol Rogers, Buckinghamshire New University, UK
(Carol.Rogers@bucks.ac.uk)
This paper will consider the findings from a pilot project undertaken in the UK between November 2019-July 2020. The aim of the study is to establish an evidence base to consider the significant anecdotal evidence highlighting the ‘ripple effect’ of experiencing hate crime on mental health. It has been suggested that repeated exposure to hate crime may be implicated in high incidences of suicide (or para-suicide) within Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) communities and to this end we were commissioned to explore self-reported experiences of hate crime and suicide or suicide ideation amongst community members.
Hate crime is defined as ‘any criminal offence which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards someone based on a personal characteristic… Race hate crime can include any group defined by race, colour, nationality or ethnic or national origin, including countries within the UK, and Gypsy or Irish Travellers ‘(Home Office, 2018).
The fact that Gypsies and Travellers are specifically named within the definition of race hate crime is perhaps indicative of the significant levels of hate crime incidents they experience. GRT individuals face everyday discrimination and hatred across all aspects of their lives, occurring in their engagement with public and private services and in their homes e.g. when living at roadside encampments. The level of public and policy concern pertaining to hate crime throughout the life-span of GTR community members is indicated by the explicit recommendation on the need to gain further evidence and devise policy responses to such experiences, made in the report of the Government Women and Equality Committee report of 2019 (pp 64-65)
A significant and increasing amount of hate speech is directed at GTR community members online, with threats of serious violence levelled against them on a daily basis. Often referred to as the ‘last acceptable form of racism ‘ (Traveller Movement, 2017,. Gypsies, Roma and Travellers continue to experience widespread prejudice and discrimination, so common that it is almost normalised and seen as a ‘fact of life’ (Women and Equalities Commission, 2019). This is despite the fact that Romany Gypsies, Roma, Scottish Gypsies and Irish Travellers are protected against discrimination as ethnic minority groups under the Equality Act 2010 in England, Wales and Scotland. Despite this legal protection, findings from a study carried out by the Traveller Movement (2017) identified that 91% of GRT community members experienced discrimination because of their ethnicity and 77% were victims of hate speech or hate crime. Similarly, the Traveller Community National Survey for Ireland (2017) identified that 77% of Travellers have experienced discrimination in the ‘past year’.
Our own (ongoing data collection) study found that 80% of respondents reported that hate crime was a common occurrence; with the most common forms of hate crime/speech taking place through the medium of social media (90% of respondents) and 91% stating that they were repeatedly faced with negative stereotypes. 94% had experienced refusal of services and 80% bullying in school. Commonly reported impacts pertained to poor mental health as a result of a ‘drip feed of negativity’, perceptions of increased suicide rates and reports of community members explicitly hiding their identity, which was also stated to impact mental health. Whilst 44% of respondents had family members who had died through suicide; 71% felt hate crime was a contributory factor in such deaths.
Overwhelmingly respondents noted that GRT community members do not report hate crime to the police or other authorities, which is in part due to a stoic approach to negative life experiences including prejudice and discrimination (Rogers, 2016) as well as normalisation of such incidents which are viewed as a ‘fact of life’. Lack of confidence that the police or other authorities will take action against perpetrators leads to a cycle of under-reporting meaning that the full extent of hate crime and hate speech against these communities remains invisible, as does the extent of the impact of relentless victimisation on mental health and wellbeing.
References
H.M Government (2018) Hate Crime, England and Wales, 2017/18
O’Mahony, J. (20170 Traveller Community National Survey for Ireland (2017) Available from: www.exchangehouse.ie/publications_nationaltravellersurvey2017.php
Rogers C (2016). Beyond bereavement: an exploration of the bereavement experiences and support in Gypsy and Traveller families (Doctoral Thesis). Available from: https://bucks.repository.guildhe.ac.uk/15673/1/RogersCarol_thesis.pdf
The Traveller Movement (2017) The last acceptable form of racism? The pervasive discrimination and prejudice experienced by Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities. Available from: www.travellermovement.org.uk/policy-research
Women & Equalities Commission (2019 Tackling inequalities faced by Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities. Available from: www.parliament.uk
Kaale & Kaaje Together for the Best of the Child. Pedagogical Partnership of Finnish Roma Mothers with Day Care Professionals: Case Study in Finland
Lidia Gripenberg, Helsinki University, Finland
(lidia.gripenberg@helsinki.fi)
Finnish Roma (Kaale) are a group with a strong ethnic identity and rich cultural heritage. While residing in Finland for more than 500 years they have managed to preserve a distinctive way of life, including wearing folk costumes and complying with a vast set of behavioural rules. The purpose of this study is to investigate the experiences of Finnish Roma mothers in terms of their pedagogical partnership with day care professionals. The paper is an outcome of a research study conducted for my Bachelor of Social Services Degree final thesis at the Helsinki Diaconia University of Applied Sciences, Finland. The results showed that, in general, the pedagogical partnership of Romani mothers with day care professionals appeared to work well, and Romani mothers felt they were treated as equal partners in the relationship. However, there were some issues which the mothers wanted to be improved: the length of day care in cases when one of the parents was at home, taking into account the cultural demands on personal hygiene, taking into account the difference in language development and the social skills of Romani children. Moreover, the participants mentioned the cultural custom of an obligation to avoid family members one’s family has harmed and its possible effect on a Roma child.
Journals published by Gypsy musicians in the first half of the 20th century in Hungary
Hajnáczky Tamás, Maria Kopp Institute for Demography and Families, Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary
(hajnaczkyt@gmail.com)
The Royal Hungarian Statistics Office conducted a “Gypsy census” in 1893, from which, together with other fragmented sources, we can ascertain that most of the Hungarian Gypsy musician population lived within towns and among the non-Gypsy population. The nationwide survey concluded the following, as concerned the Gypsy musicians, “Amongst the domestic Gypsy population the musicians compose the most prestigious, and in all aspects the most distinguished, most intelligent, and from a national point of view, the most significant class.” In fact it was not uncommon for some to have significant amassed wealth and social capital. It was in part the positive social standing of defining characters among the Gypsy musicians that made it possible for them to establish associations in the first half of the twentieth century; the Hungarian Gypsy Musicians’ Association (1908-1910), the Hungarian Gypsy Musicians’ National Association (1908-1933), the Hungarian Gypsy Musicians’ National Federation (1935-1940). The first association was only comprised of the Gypsy musicians in the capital city, while the second and third functioned nationwide and had several local groups. The creation of these associations by Gypsy musicians was supported by the Ministry of the Interior, especially in the interwar years. My presentation shall primarily examine the journals published by the the Gypsy musicians’ associations, the Journal of Hungarian Musicians – The Gypsy Musicians’ Bulletin (1901), the Journal of Hungarian Gypsy Musicians (1908-1910), the Journal of Hungarian Gypsy Musicians (1924-1931), and Hungarian Gypsy Music (1938). The presentation shall include information on the circumstances of their publication, their goals, contents, and how they helped the advancement of the Gypsy musicians’ movement.
“Apal nás aba slobodo te phíras le vurdonenca”. The End of Itinerant Life in Former Czechoslovakia from the Perspective of Vlax Roms
Markéta Hajská, Romani Studies Seminar at the Department of Central European Studies, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Czech Republic
(marketa.hajska@ff.cuni.cz)
Kadi vorba žal pa kodo, sar le phúre vlašika (vaj olaskíva) Rom, so trajin po Čecho taj po Touco, vorbin paj situácija le Romengi khatar o berš 1958, kana i komunistickívo partija ašadas kodolen, so trádkernas, taj phendas lenge te ášon pe ekh than (kanun No. 74/1958). I studia avel avri andaj duj metody. I autorka ande peski búťi vorbijas le phúre Romenca, so seren i vráma angla taj vi pala berš 1958/1959, taj apal rodelas le purane lila pa kadi tématika andej archivura. Pa Romengi sedentarizácija skirij pe ande akademickíva kemňi kadej, sar te bi kodo procesi aviloun uniformno perdal sa intrégi Rom. I autorka rakhlas avri, hoj but fejlicka romane nípura gejle perdal kodi vráma maj diferentníva módosa. Le phúre Rom vorbinas lake pa lenge droma, paj fórura taj gáva, ká trádkerenas, taj phenenas avri, sostar phírenas le vurdonenca taj le grastenca taj sosko trajo sas varikana pej lenge droma, bi kherengo. Andi laki búťi i autorka sikhavel, hoď sas kecave vlašika (olaskíva) Rom, so bešle tejle aba angla dujto lumako márimo taj sas le aba dolmut penge khera. Aver Rom pale či kamenas te mukhen pesko trajo pej droma, taj varisave vi zumavenas te tráden vi pala berš 1958 -1959, ando cajto, kana aba nás slobodo te phíren le vurdonenca, taj kana o than phandavelas kodolen, so trádkernas pej gáva.
“Apal nás aba slobodo te phíras le vurdonenca”. The End of Itinerant Lifestyle in Former Czechoslovakia from the Perspective of Vlax Roms
This paper is based on interviews with eyewitnesses from the group of Vlax Roms living in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, who remember the situation in the late 1950s, when the Communist Party forced the itinerant group of Roms to settle down (enforced via law no. 74/1958). This study combines the methods of oral history among the Vlach-Rom eye-witnesses of the time before and after the years 1958/1959, and archival research. In academic literature, the scholars have very often described the whole process of sedentarisation as uniform for the whole group. However, the author argues that many Vlax families and subgroups were settling down under different circumstances and within a different time range. The Romani eyewitnesses talked about their routes and geographical trajectories, describing the motivations and reasons of their mobilities with wagons and horses, and gave an account of the itinerant lifestyle without a house. The author wants to point out that some families of Vlax Roms settled down voluntarily already in the pre-war period or even earlier, while other families were on the move even after the years 1958-1959, at the time when the itinerant lifestyle was strictly outlawed.
Gypsy Old Age and COVID-19: The Drowned Scream
Angel Heredia, University of Granada
(kalito_1@msn.com)
For more than 4 years, I have been working on my thesis "The Gypsy Experience of Old Age: Study of Cultural Differences in Aging Processes and Their Psychosocial Consequences".
Old age among Romani groups has been neglected. There is a notorious lack of studies in this area. We have worked with ethnographic and descriptive methods with a case-control design, obtaining sufficient data to conclude that old age in Gypsies/Roma is significantly worse compared to old age among non-Roma with similar characteristics. The dimensions where we found more differences and inequalites are socieconomic exclusion and discrimination, health, dependence, nutrition, lifestyle or attitudes towards aging, among many others. The situation of Romani women is especially vulnerable in all the variables studied. One of the most unexpected findings has been the basis for the international publication of the article "Differences in the prevalence of depression in older Spanish Romani and non-Romani people and associated factors" which indicates the existence of up to 4 times more cases of depression in Gypsies/Roma than among non-Romani people (Heredia et al. 2018).
As has been found in the present COVID-19 pandemic, there are risk factors that correlate with a high mortality of subjects such as low economic level (poverty) and suffering from previous pathologies such as heart problems or diabetes (poor health), among others. As we have corroborated in our work, a high degree of COVID-19 incidence among Gypsies has a direct connection to their situation of general vulnerability that includes all the risk factors mentioned above in addition to many others. We need to attract European lines of intervention/funding to support research and the creation of programs aimed at the Romani community, especially the elderly, to improve their baseline health situation as well as to improve deficient structural factors.
(Romani) Biofiction as World Literature: A Case Study of Núria León de Santiago’s Mahler’s Angel
Marina Ortrud M. Hertrampf, University of Passau, Germany
(Marina.Hertrampf@uni-passau.de)
For some years now we have been observing a significant increase in ‘fictional biographies’, or ‘biographical fictions’ worldwide. Biofictions (Buisine 1991), that is, novels that take real biographies as their starting points, are always situated on the borderline between real and possible worlds. Furthermore, biofictions contribute to bridging the gap between literary tradition and popular mainstream literature, and strengthen the revival of cultural figures from around the world. Following David Damrosch’s conception of World Literature as a mode of reading rather than a selection of canonical works, biofictions could be understood as World Literature insofar as they configure a vision of the world, not only through presenting diverse literary influences, transcultural hybridity and cultural recycling, but also through revealing parallel developments across spatio-temporal, ethnic, and political spaces. Not least, biofictions partake of World Literature through their ideological/political stance, that is, their very individual re-interpretation of normative facts that emphasizes the constructive and, not least, hegemonic character of national, cultural, and biographic narratives. In my contribution, I will analyse the biofiction Mahler’s Angel (2014) by the Spanish Romani female author Núria León de Santiago to illustrate the extent to which a productive overlap exists between the genre of biofiction on the one hand and that of Romani literature as World Literature on the other. León de Santiago’s biographical novel represents an example of cross- cultural representation: a world-famous Jewish-Austrian musician becomes the protagonist of a work by a Romani author writing in Spanish. Moreover, Mahler’s Angel is a “veiled autobiography” (Layne/Tóibín 2018, 151), in so far as the book not only presents a new perspective on Mahler’s life but also negotiates (the writer’s autobiographic) concerns regarding ethnic minorities in general and the multiple in- and out-group discriminations of Roma-women in particular. Thus, León de Santiago’s biofiction is a paradigmatic example of contemporary World Literature in motion (Ette) in a globalized world.
References:
León de Santiago, Núria, El ángel de Mahler. Barcelona: Bellaterra, 2014.
Buisine, Alain, “Biofiction”, Revue des sciences humaines, vol. 4, n° 224 (1991): p. 7-13.
Damrosch, David, What Is World Literature? Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003.
Ette, Ottmar, Literature on the move. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2003.
Layne, Bethany and Colm Tóibín. “The Anchored Imagination of the Biographical Novel.” Éire- Ireland, vol. 53 no. 1, 2018, p. 150-166.
The Textual Composition of Flamenco Lyric as a Media of Romani Collective Memory: Oral Tradition, Formulas and Fragmentation
Florian Homann, University of Cologne, Germany
(fhomann@uni-koeln.de)
The obvious relationship between Flamenco lyrics, oral tradition, new text production and the collective memory of Spanish Roma has not yet been possible to be explained convincingly, as Flamenco culture in general first was romanticized as an ancient exclusively gitano patrimony and then, after the scientific refutation of the theories about a hermetic phase of origin defended by Mairena y Molina in the 1960s, has often been considered as a mere popular folkloric product.
This contribution will show that particular Flamenco modalities, such as the Acapella types of tonás and martinets, are actually derived from specific forms of Romani self-representation and that their original texts, today still sung in a drastically fragmented form, have been produced by gitanos. Applying the techniques of oral-formulaic composition and using formulas of epic romances, gitanos were one of the main transmitter groups since the Spanish Golden Age.
Thus, in this case, the gitano heritage of Flamenco is not mainly explained by the musical performance. Instead, the thesis that emphasizes the literary elements of Flamenco is also significant, namely, that the mentioned palos indeed stem from narratives and large romances in the sense of epic-based ballads that function as oral forms of both news bulletins and media of collective memory in the Romani community. Therefore, these simple texts really related – properly speaking, must have related in former times, as Flamenco poetry is nowadays said to be non-narrative but essentially lyrical – the stories of the persecution of Roma, such as terrible events like La Prisión General de los Gitanos (Great Gypsy Round-up) of 1749; this raid thereby becomes remembered in the communicative memory of Spanish Roma. To follow this argumentation, I will explain why the imprisonment could be deleted from Spanish historiography and forgotten in national as well as later even in Romani cultural memory. I will describe a long-term process in relation to the evolution and drastic fragmentation of Flamenco poetry as that poetry develops from narrative ballads to the short song texts as we know them today, losing their elements of storytelling in the literary trends of late romanticism in the nineteenth century. Furthermore, I argue that these particular cantes and their texts, whose narrativity still surfaced in the lyrical Flamenco verses at the beginning of the twentieth century, had a considerable influence – as a specific type of World Literature – on Spanish poetry of all authors related to Flamenco culture.
Freedom and Belonging? The Continued Coherence of the New Traveller Community
Freya Hope, University of Oxford
(freya.hope@wolfson.ox.ac.uk)
Individuals often termed ‘New Age’ or, in academia, ‘New’ Travellers largely do not trace far-reaching cultural or biological Gypsy, Roma or Traveller heritage (though there are exceptions). Neither do many of them regularly use these aforementioned externally imposed ascriptions, instead referring to themselves simply as ‘Travellers’ or as being ‘from site’, to signify those that physically live or lived together on encampments (originating largely from the UK), even if this was years or even decades before hand. Nevertheless, the practicalities of a mobile lifestyle have led to some similarities between the groups, including some of their types of homes and economic trades. However, New Travellers did not adopt their lifestyles in an attempt to ‘become Gypsies’. Instead, this group were/are made up of different generations of people who either sought an alternative to, or were disenfranchised by, protesting against, or displaced within, societal contexts, and political policies and programs, in the UK over the last six decades. These included the nuclear arms project, the neoliberal settlement, and lack of employment and housing. Consequently, these Travellers come from all classes and all sectors of society. However, once living a mobile lifestyle, I suggest that New Travellers are subject to similar high mortality rates, and many of the effects of anti-Traveller legislation and oppression by the state, as ethnic Gypsies and Travellers. When asked why they first went on the road, and what they like most about the lifestyle, most New Travellers in my research said ‘freedom.’ Consequently, this paper will explore how notions and experiences of freedom shape the continued survival of this new group, despite the obstacles they endure.
The book …they are Painful Memories and the Růžička Family
Jana Horváthová, Museum of Romani Culture, Brno, Czech Republic
(horvathova@rommuz.cz)
The paper presents the results of the heuristic work for a book of testimonies by indigenous Roma from the Czech lands, i.e., the so-called Czech and Moravian Roma and Sinti, about the interwar period and the Second World War. Many of these Roma, before their genocide began during the war, had already gone through a demanding but relatively successful process of integration into the majority society, although this coexistence was not much favored by the social or political constellations of that time.
One of the families presented in the book is the Růžička family, who were settled in their own single-family house about 50 km southwest of Prague near Příbram during the war and later lived in a big split-level house in Příbram proper. During the 1920s and 1930s, they were apparently an average family of Czech traveling Roma who circulated in a comparatively small area in Southern Bohemia where they made their living. The very young couple gradually gave birth to nine children, of whom seven lived to adulthood. The youngest child, their daughter Jana, was the only one born after the Second World War.
The Růžička family developed well economically, especially thanks to the parents’ skills and diligence who provided their offspring with a stable living. The father practiced the family profession of horse trading, while the mother was selling things door to door and occasionally begging. Gradually the Růžičkas became owners of real estate and the family forged ties with related communities and extended families. The parents raised their children firmly and strictly according to the moral code and rules of their extended family group, but the father also progressively paid attention to the children’s regular school attendance. According to the reminiscences of their children, the family was well-accepted by local residents; some children have non-Romani godparents, and in the winter they parked their wagons at the farms of well-known peasants. Some of the children earned a high school education and all of the siblings established themselves well in their adults life and made livings without drawing on state aid, frequently even becoming owners of real estate themselves. Two siblings from the family settled permanently in Switzerland.
The Museum of Romani culture in Brno has long been in contact with three daughters from this family and their two male cousins and has recorded their memories. The Museum published a book of memoirs authored by one of the daughters, while the youngest daughter Jana performs in the Museum’s programs with her Geneva dance school. The lives of this active artist and healer, a woman who has traveled all over America, Asia and Europe, will be documented by the Museum in an independent book. Thanks to our contacts with several members of the family, the Museum collections also hold a relatively rich selection of materials from the photographic archive of this family and family documents. The presentation will follow their story from the interwar period through the gradual integration of this formerly travelling family into the majority society.
Getting a Living from Country People: Transactions not Relations
Anthony Leroyd Howarth, University of Oxford
(ah730@cam.ac.uk)
Popular representations of Irish Traveller men’s work are often couched in discourses of predation. In this imaginary, men are depicted as inherently untrustworthy; obtaining money through deception and employing aggressive sales routines that induce prospective customers to contract their services. At first glance, this is not without veracity. However, when men’s economic activity is examined from what I term an ‘ideology of manhood’, a more complicated picture emerges. From this perspective, economic success and masculine pride are synonymous with, and contingent upon, men’s ability to procure resources, including customers, from the environments in which they work. In order to understand this, the paper draws correspondences between the way that men procure a living, and hunting; arguing that Travellers operate within what I call a ‘getting environment’: A form of economic activity distinct from wage labour, gift giving, and other forms of reciprocal exchange. Undoubtedly, Travellers trade their time and energy for financial recompense, thereby conforming to broad understandings of exchange. However, from their perspective, they control the economic relationship and thereby avoid the constraints of bonded reciprocity.
By making these suggestions, I argue against scholarship that categorises Traveller and Gypsy economic practices as being relations of dependency. Instead, when examined through the logic of Traveller manhood and their economic practice of aggressive one-upmanship, men’s economic relations with their customers more resemble predatory and exploitative relationships. Here customers are used by Travellers for their own ends and, due to the contest of procurement, men imagine themselves to be superior to, or in their own words, ‘cleverer’, than their non-Traveller counterparts. Drawing these strands together, the paper ends by considering whether it is productive to conceptualise men’s economic activity as a socio-cosmological configuration of in/out-group boundary making which acts to invert unequal power relationships between Travellers and ‘country people’ (non-Travellers).
Management of the Covid-19 Epidemics in Segregated Roma Enclaves in Slovakia I: Aspects of Civic and Political Engagement
Tomáš Hrustič, Institute of Ethnology and Social Anthropology, Slovak Academy of Sciences
(tomas.hrustic@savba.sk)
People living in segregated Romani communities are more vulnerable to infections and diseases because they live in substandard conditions. From the epidemiological perspective, outbreaks of Covid 19 will likely be much stronger in these enclaves than in other locations with standard material conditions and infrastructure. In the proposed presentation, I will start by illustrating the civic engagement and responsibility of the Roma in Slovakia as a reaction to the spread of the coronavirus. In many places around the country, Romani individuals and communities started to spontaneously organize grass-roots action groups, thus contributing to the improvement of the situation. These were mostly aimed at disseminating awareness or providing self-help with protective equipment. Simultaneously, a group of stakeholders focused on Roma health, aware of the critical situation, coordinated their efforts (with varying degrees of success) to influence government measures and policies. I will also analyse the role of the organization, "Healthy Regions", which manages a program of Roma health mediators working in more than 250 settlements around Slovakia. It proved to have a unique role due to the participatory nature of the program and the content co-designed within the network of the more than 300 Roma health-care mediators and coordinators (92 percent of whom are Roma living directly in Romani settlements). Though this organization formally affiliates with the Ministry of Health, its status is often, even by politicians, viewed as NGO based. I will conclude with analyses of political decisions and measures to cope with the epidemic adopted by the Government Office of the Plenipotentiary for Romani Communities and by Romani MEP, Peter Pollak, who was appointed by the Prime Minister to preside over the special crises team on the situation in Romani settlements.
Antigypsyism as a Novel Concept in UK Social Work
Allison Hulmes, The British Association of Social Workers Cymru, UK
(a.hulmes@basw.co.uk)
Peter Unwin, University of Worcester, UK
(p.unwin@worc.ac.uk)
While UK social work has made great strides in tackling issues of racism in recent decades (British Association of Social Workers (BASW), 2016), an area where social work has been conspicuously absent is in challenging racism against Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) communities. Antigypsyism has never been on the social work agenda and is a term still unknown to many UK social workers. However, partly in response to concerns about the disproportionate numbers of children being taken into state care (Allen and Riding, 2018), and also through some empirical research into disability issues within GRT communities (Unwin et al., 2020), this situation is changing.
A motion was passed at the BASW Annual General Meeting in 2020 which called for challenges to Antigypsyism, and for knowledge about cultural practices to be made core to social work teaching. For the first time ever, a group of social workers with GRT backgrounds have come forward and have formed a group (The Gypsy, Roma Traveller Social Work Association (GRTSWA)) to challenge Antigypsyism and spread best practice. The group promotes working in partnership, rather than conflict, and have been supported by the international Federation of Social Workers (IFSW). We also have members from Eire, and seek allies internationally to help us effect future change after a past 50 years of malpractice. Much progress has been made in this group’s first year but debate has occurred within BASW wherein some of its anti-racist champions had interpreted their roles as being concerned only with black people, particularly since the momentum of the Black Lives Matter movement. This debate is live now within UK social work, made particularly interesting because, although Roma in the UK may perceive themselves as black people in their Eastern European contexts, this is not how they are generally perceived in the UK.
Stereotypes abound across the UK in regard to established gypsies and travellers who are vilified for being outside of the law and dependent on state benefits, paralleling prejudices in Eastern Europe (e.g. Walach, 2020). Our paper will discuss the above issues with a view to learning from others as well as presenting our own recent insights into Antigypsyism and prospects for research.
References
Allen, D, and Riding, S. (2018). The Fragility of Professional Competence: A Preliminary Account of Child Protection Practice with Romani and Traveller Children in England. European Roma Rights Centre: Budapest. http://www.errc.org/uploads/upload_en/file/the-fragility-of-professional-competence-january-2018.pdf
BASW England (2016) Racism Statement https://www.basw.co.uk/media/news/2016/aug/basw-england-statement-racism-statement-basw-england-conference-2016
Unwin, P., Meakin, B. and Jones, A. (2020) The Missing Voices of Disabled people in Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Communities. Report to Disabled Research into Independent Living and Learning (DRILL) http://www.drilluk.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Missing-Voices-FINAL-report.pdf
Walach, V. (2020) Envy, Corruption and ‘Hard Racism’: Studying Antigypsyism as an Ideological Fantasy. Slovenský národopis, 68(4), 324–339, DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/se-2020-0019
Integration, Cultural Diversity ,and Roma Women Access to Justice: Lessons from the Implementation of JustRom Programme in Greece
Christos Iliadis, Panteion University, Athens, Greece
(christosiliadis@yahoo.gr)
Discourses on “integration” and the need to improve access to rights and services have been resurfacing since the “refugee crisis” of 2015-2016, which provoked many European states to face the need to accommodate newly emerging cultural differences. However, regarding the Roma, programmes, policies and strategies to facilitated access and inclusion have a longer history, since extreme marginalization, deep poverty and multidimensional discrimination have been a reality for many communities.
It is widely recognized that Roma women in Europe face deeper and more severe exclusion than Roma men. If Roma experience higher rates of discrimination, harassment and violence motivated by hatred than non-Roma – as research such as EUMIDIS II by FRA (Second European Union Minorities and Discrimination Survey) has shown - these are even more serious for women and girls than for men and boys. Women suffer multiple types of discrimination, including a gender bias and gender specific stereotyping, which result in unequal access between women and men to justice. Reports on the situation of Roma rarely include comprehensive data on women specifically and rarely include gender sensitive approaches and examples of targeted actions.
Recent efforts to empower Roma communities and to use mediation as a tool for integration have created a new dynamic on the ground. They promote a relation of mutual recognition between Roma communities and local authorities that should characterize all practices of governance. This is especially true in cases in which citizens have been excluded from the processes of participation on the grounds of their cultural characteristics. It is especially important in cases where these exclusions have been reproduced as “neutral” while in essence favoring established representational forms. Here, empowerment through mediation may create gaps and ruptures and open new possibilities.
Based on the above remarks, this paper uses the experience of the implementation of JUSTROM (a joint programme of the Council of Europe and the European Commission) in Greece since February 2017. JUSTROM facilitates access to justice for Roma women through empowerment and legal information. Its implementation in three locations in Greece has produced significant insights towards barriers of access to justice Roma women face. At the same time, it helps us critically evaluate “empowerment” as a tool to achieve results on access to rights and services. It also allows us to build from this experience towards ways of promoting and facilitating social inclusion
Beyond Vendetta: Romani Conflicts over Female Virginity
Ayako Iwatani, Kyoto University, Japan
(glasshouse47@hotmail.com)
Early marriage, together with an appreciation of virginity, has been considered part of the culture of some Romani communities. Although it is pointed out as old custom, as well as a violation of human rights for women, early marriage is still widely practiced among the Roma. If female virginity is threatened, it is taken as a violation of family honor and could trigger community feuds as vendetta. Appreciation of virginity is not only the custom of the Roma. Keeping virginity or chastity has been associated with keeping family honor in the Mediterranean area, Arab world and South Asian societies [Pitt-Rivers 1961; Campbell 1964; Peristiany1965; Abu-Lughod 1986; Dogra 2013]. In those areas, “honor-based violence” or “honor killing” by those who attempt to recover violated family honor has been a big issue.
The purpose of this presentation is to reconsider the narrative about gender relationships of the Roma by scrutinizing examples of honor-based violence or vendetta among the Greek Roma. Among the Greek Roma, who call virginity as timi, the same word for honor in Greek, men are encouraged to fight to protect family honor and women are expected to keep virginity. There are a number of known cases of honor-based violence and even vendetta. They partly reflect local notions of family honor. However, in order to overcome previous studies about Mediterranean honor society, as well as Romani gender inequality, this presentation examines how honor is used as an idiom to avoid collapse of the community and illuminates individual conflicts facing expected gender roles.
Three Music Remembrances of the Czech Roma
Zuzana Jurková, Department of General Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
(zuzana.jurkova@post.cz)
Collective remembering, or the “time dimension of a connective structure” of every culture (Assmann 2001), plays an important role in the strengthening of group identities. The process of collective remembering is not understood as a more or less exact image of the past, but rather as a picture created from the needs and intentions of the present (Erll 2011). Its form is negotiated by various actors (both individual and collective) who often use materials of the past. Yet, these materials have been created from the needs and intentions of their time as well.
Music is one of the powerful media through which this complex social situation of collective remembering can be observed.
My presentation focuses on three musical events that took place in Prague in the last decade, which thematized a Romani past, more concretely the Romani Holocaust: the symphony concert Requiem for Auschwitz (2012), the alternative theatre performance Lety 1942 (2014), and the commemoration of the Romani Holocaust (2019). Exploration of their shapes as well as surrounding agendas reveals not only various types of intentionalities typical for collective remembering, but also inter-group dynamics intrinsic to minority-majority relations, including its development.
References:
Assmann, Jan. 2001. Kultura a paměť. Praha: Prostor.
Erll, Astrid. 2011. Memory in Culture. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Aspects and the Impact of Romani Literature during the Period of the Enlightenment [Renaissance], Soviet Union (1925-1938)
Valdemar Kalinin, independent researcher
kalininvaldemar@yahoo.com
Edward Board, independent researcher
ejboard@gmail.com
The authors deal with the peculiarities of Romani-language literature in the 292 items written in the Northern-Russian Romani dialect. These can be put into three categories: publications which refer to the time of the 1917 revolution with calls to start a new socialist way of life; those that appeal for collectivisation and combatting ‘kulaks’; those providing tips on transforming from a nomadic to a settled way of life.
Although this literature was under strict Soviet state control it impacted Romani history and culture in several ways. These books helped Roma to see beyond their camp environment and communities. They inspired Roma to feel like an equal nation and declare its official existence. They enriched the Romani language and its linguistic potential: thus the same “polska” (Polish) Roma or their parents who stayed in Soviet Union and were involved in the Romani Renaissance speak much better Romanes than those who were in Poland and Lithuania at the same time. And finally, the Northern-Russian Romani dialect played the role of a “lingua franca” in the communication between different groups of Roma in the Soviet state and continued to do so even after the fall of the Soviet Union.
The Colonial Experience and the Racialization of Roma: The Cultural Background of the Genocide
Slawomir Kapralski, Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Pedagogical University of Krakow, Poland
(slawomir.kapralski@up.krakow.pl)
The paper explores two approaches to Roma developed in modern Europe (16th–20th centuries), which the author calls, following C. Lévi-Strauss, anthropophagic and anthropoemic. The anthropophagic approach meant an attempt to “devour” Roma by forcibly assimilating and dissolving them into the homogenized modern society. The anthropoemic approach resulted in expelling Roma out of the “body social” by various procedures of marginalization and expulsion. The anthropophagic approach underlay major assimilationist projects of the 18th century, such as the one administered by Habsburgs. It will be argued that the termination of such projects was caused not only by financial constraints but also by the growing racialization of Roma which was, by and large, the side effect of the colonial experience, rather than the result of the emergence of scientific racism in European academia. The colonial mentality, as Hannah Arendt argued, was applied toward the unwanted minorities in Europe in a form of internal colonialism that produced “savages within.” These were racialized groups characterized by the alleged possession of biological essences which could not be changed by any process of assimilation. This process will be illustrated by the transformation of the anti-Roma policies of European states, which resulted in the anthropophagic approach replacing anthropoemic exclusion. The impulse behind anthropophagy, that is the vision of the disappearance of Roma as Roma, remained present behind the state policies and could not be fully satisfied by the expulsion of Roma to the margins of society. It will be argued that the particular colonial experience, which undermined the concept of Germany as the colonial carrier of civilization, in combination with the disappointing policy of exclusion produced the context in which the genocide of Roma became possible and could be carried out.
Imagology of the “true Gypsyness” in the Literary Work of Jerzy Ficowski
Emilia Kledzik, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland
(emilia.kledzik@gmail.com)
Jerzy Ficowski was a self-taught ethnographer who, from the turn of the 1940s and 1950s, when he began to publish his first dissertations in “Gypsy Studies” (also in “Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society”), presented himself in opposition to earlier Polish gypsiologists as a "Gypsy-practitioner". He underlined the fact that he had travelled with the "Gypsy caravans” for a long time, hiding from the Security Service. However, my archival research proves that his contacts with the Roma were rarer than he had presented. He was the author of a popular book Cyganie polscy (Polish edition: 1953, 1965, 1985, 1989, English edition: 1989), which is still the most popular source of information about the Roma in Polish Romani studies. At the same time, Ficowski was working on his unfinished novel on "Polish Gypsies" (Wygasłe ogniska). From the turn of the 1940s into the 1950s and then the 2000s he also regularly published poems about "Gypsies" and wrote “Gypsy songs” for folk bands. The image of Gypsies contained in his poems and songs reproduced many stereotypes of "gypsyism", but also tried to question and transcend them. This image of "real Gypsies" visible in his literary output also appear in his ethnographic works. The political context of his literary output was also significant – occurring at a time when Ficowski was involved in the state campaign targeting settlement of the “Gypsies”.
The purpose of the paper is to present the imagology of the “Gypsies” in the poetry and prose of Jerzy Ficowski against the background of his personal career and his other publications about the “Gypsies” in Poland.
Unjustified Antigypsyism: The Non-Radicalization of the Roma
Markéta Kocmanová, Institute of Political Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
(marketa.kocmanova@fsv.cuni.cz)
Grounded in the field of Security Studies, the paper offers an alternative perspective on the Romani communities that, by its very essence, contribute to peaceful coexistence with the majority population. Drawing on the comparison with Muslim communities in the Western world whose radicalization leading to terrorism is, among other factors, attributed to the set of socio-economic grievances, the Roma represent a striking instance of a social group that has remained immune to resorting to political violence. Despite being confronted with social exclusion and isolation, stigmatization, socio-economic discrimination, deprivation, marginalization and cultural alienation, there has been no record of an act of political violence, let alone terrorism.
In an attempt to solve this puzzle, the paper will present the main findings based on field research conducted in different locations in the Czech Republic and Slovakia in the years of 2019 and 2020. Employing the methods of Grounded Theory in Ethnography, empirical data was collected through in-depth qualitative interviews, targeted questionnaires, observation, and other ethnographic techniques. The conference paper aims to introduce the factors identified as most salient in terms of their contribution to radicalization resistance of the Roma. In specific terms, the character of the following concepts shall be discussed: the role of motivated leadership willing to mobilize towards the majority society in a violent way, a highly cohesive community running along the traditional kinship relationships together with associated heightened sense of belonging both of which represent one of the key prerequisites of a “secure” society; auto-segregation as a protective mechanism that prevents the community from entering a conflictual relationship with the majority; the ability to forgive the perceived and experienced wrongs as a strong emotional “relief” mechanism preventing the build-up of frustration and the ensuing urge to act in a violent way to take revenge; and finally a feeling of indifference or apathy that serve as additional coping mechanisms to channel the grievances the Roma face.
In general, the paper represents a contribution to the enhanced understanding of political violence in Social Sciences, but it can also offer a fresh impetus for Romani Studies scholars and extend an invitation for interdisciplinary dialogue. Moreover, by acknowledging the peaceful character of the community at the macro level, it can challenge the dominant public and political discourse, in which the Roma are perceived as a societal and sometimes even a security threat, which it is comfortable to mobilize against.
Exploring an Unknown Face of Christianity: The Biographical Dictionary of Roma Christianity
Anne-Marie Kool, Evangelical Theological Seminary, Osijek, Croatia
(Amkool@evtos.hr)
This paper seeks to discuss methodological issues linked to the establishment of the Biographical Dictionary of Roma Christianity (BDRC), as a tool for generating data on significant figures in Romani Christianity. It seeks to explore an unknown face of Christianity off the radar, often marked by a great vitality. The BDRC will not only strengthen the identity of Romani Christianity, enrich European churches, and the worldwide Church, but also dissolve stereotyped images while bridging the gap between the Roma and the Gadje.
Recently, sociological and anthropological initiatives have been undertaken in the field of Romani research. These initiatives have been dealing with a perspective which has received relatively little attention, i.e. the Roma and Churches as well as the Roma and Christian organizations.
The BDRC will explore the names and stories of Romani indigenous church leaders and lay persons who embraced the Gospel, pioneered churches, led independent Christian movements, and applied biblical values to Romani social and political challenges. Most of them are almost unknown even to Romani Christians, as well as to the rest of the world.
In the first phase, two tools will be developed: one to map Romani Christianity (RoCMaps), including exploring significant figures. The second tool is a digital library (RoCPrints) to collect and make resources on Romani Christianity accessible, within the limitations of copyright and GDPR. Both allow for collaborative addition of data and for making these data accessible in a secure environment.
In the second phase, existing biographies will be identified, in close international, interdenominational and interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers otherwise working in separate worlds: sociology, anthropology as well as church history.
In the third phase, courses will be offered to theological schools in different countries and from different denominational backgrounds. These courses will introduce students to Romani Christianity and teach them to write biographies as part of their course assignments.
The BDRC will build on and utilize the methodology of the Dictionary of African Christian Biography (DACB - www.dacb.org, Accessed 9th April 2020) as developed by Jonathan J. Bonk (2008). Apart from obvious differences rooted in the nature of the population researched, there are striking similarities between African and Romani Christianity. In both populations, ecclesial ‘maps’ continue to “badly represent, under-represent, or simply ignore the actual state of affairs”. In both, mainline church historians hardly take any note of these unknown faces of Christianity, probably also because “the lenses through which the Christian academy peers are opaque, rendering [them] invisible.”
Some elements of the methodology of the DACB should be adapted and contextualized. One is that of doing justice to diversity. As in CEE politics and ideology, the Roma are treated under one term: “Roma”, in an attempt to homogenize them. Exploring the “significant figures” in Romani Christianity does justice to the diversity of the Roma in terms of culture and languages.
Another is that of counting with the deep divides between the Roma and the majority society.
By exploring an unknown branch of Christianity and literally giving Roma a face, the BDRC can serve to overcome some of these stereotypes, and thus strengthen reconciliation. The methodology employed, of suggesting names for the BDRC and researching and writing biographies, in which both Roma and non-Roma and people from different countries, denominations and disciplines participate, can serve to further bridge the existing gap and deep engrained patterns of exclusion.
References
Bonk, Jonathan J. "Ecclesiastical Cartography and the Invisible Continent: The Dictionary of African Christian Biography." Council on African Studies and the MacMillan Center African Studies Lecture Series, 15th October 2008. Available at https://dacb.org/about/bonk-article/, accessed 9th April 2020.
The Bergitka Roma in Polish Academic Discourse (a critical overview)
Koper Tomasz, independent researcher
(tomaszkoper77@gmail.com)
A nomadic tradition is still perceived about three main Gypsy groups (the Polska Roma, the Kelderash, and the Lovari) as a significant symbolic feature of today’s Romani identity (J. Ficowski 1953). Yet, such a long time of sedentarism could have contributed to the higher level of social adaptation to the non-Roma environment. Making changes in ethnic boundaries (F. Barth 1969) entails (re)interpretations of Romani identity including the meanings of some parts within the romanipen concept: 'The Carpathian Roma were viewed by the nomads as impure and any contact with them was regarded as polluting, thus preventing any form of social relationship between these groups, such as joint celebrations, intermarriage and dealing together, etc.' (L. Mróz 2001b: 261). These different interpretations have not only impacted each group’s self-ascription, but have also generated a sense of superiority and inferiority which has contributed to establishing a symbolic hierarchy among Polish Gypsy groups. Scientific narratives, which have been constantly changing since the publication of J. Ficowski's first book in 1953, have made a significant impact on the way how Bergitka Roma maintain their own social identity. The main aim of this paper is to analyze existing scientific knowledge in the context of existing literature on the subject. Additionally, I will capture differences in the way Bergitka Roma were described – in a diachronic process between 1953 and 2019 – by polish researchers.
References:
Barth F., (1969), Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference, Bergen: Universitetsforlaget.
Ficowski J. (1953), Cyganie polscy. Szkice historyczno – obyczajowe, Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy.
Mróz L., (2001), Poland: The clash of tradition and modernity (in:) Between Past and Future: the Roma of Central and Eastern Europe. Guy W., (ed.), Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press.
The Romani Family in Bulgaria: Observations on the Developments among Some Romani Groups
Lilyana Kovacheva, independent researcher
(lilyana_kovatcheva@abv.bg)
My work as a teacher with Roma kids and their parents in a so called “Roma School” (located in the Roma neighborhood and in which all student are of Romani background) in the town of Kyustendil, for over 20 years, has given me the chance to observe the relations among the family members, as well as the gender roles within the Romani family. As a community member and ethnographer, I have also implemented observations among the families in the Romani neighborhood, and have been able to contrast and compare them with other communities from the same Romani group living in different locations, as well as with other Romani groups. I have also looked at the subject historically and across generation. For instance, I have been interested in extended families containing four generations and 80 members.
On the basis of my own research and on the discussions on the Romani family (Jean Pierre Liegeois, Elena Marushiakova and Veselin Popov), and gender roles (Carol Silverman), I address in the paper the following topics and questions:
Extended and nuclear family in the context of historical development among Roma; the relations among family members; the importance of beliefs and rituals involving the family members – mother, father, daughter, son, daughter-in-law and son-in-law; blessings and oaths for each family member; the family as a factor in education and for preservation of the Romani culture, and especially the Romani language.
Why is the family so important for the Romani community? What does it mean to be excluded from the family and why this is considered the biggest punishment? How has emigration influenced families during the last 20 years? What are the points of view of family members about the pros and cons of the Romani family?
Lessons of the EU Roma Framework
Martin Kovats, independent researcher
martinkovats@netscape.net
The first EU Roma Integration Framework was launched in 2011 and is scheduled to be renewed in late 2020. From a political science perspective, this paper examines the main lessons of the Framework, drawing on assessments by the European Commission itself, civil society and scholars, and building on the analysis of the Roma political phenomenon developed in Rethinking Roma (Law & Kovats, 2017). The paper contrasts the relatively poor impact of the Framework on measurable improvements in the living standards and life chances of the Romani people with its success in raising the profile of Roma on European and domestic institutional agendas. The paper argues that this outcome is not unexpected but demonstrates not only the weakness of Roma governance tools, but also a fundamental ambiguity at the heart of the EU’s approach towards Roma. It concludes that technical changes are unlikely to improve policy impact and that without a coherent strategic vision underpinning its approach, the EU is creating a racialized governance that compliments (and sustains), rather than overcomes, inequality and exclusion explicitly for people institutionally categorised as Roma.
Ə řomaji ətimologija sar istoricko izvoro: nevo ətimologicko vorbari la řomaja śibako
Kirill Kozhanov, Södertörn University, Sweden
(kirill.kozhanov@sh.se)
Mikhail Oslon, Institute of Polish Language, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
(neoakut@gmail.com)
So šaj haťaras paj istorija le Řomengi anda lengi śib?
But anda so źanas pa le Řomengo puranimos: lenga polekrako than ande Indija, lengə migracyjangə droma karing ə Əvropa — rekonstrujime sy po fundo la śibako. Ama maj but anda kodola putərdimata kərdile barəm ək šəl bərš palpale. Ande amaro divano sykavas kə ə ətimologija maj šaj avel khə šukar izvoro te barvaras amaro źanglimos pa le řomengi istorija.
Kamas te sykavas amaro nevo projekto pa baro ətimologicko vorbari la řomaja śibako. Ame hramos pa sa le sa-řomane vorbi kaj sy źangle, vi kaj sy andaj Indija, vi kaj sy line vunźile dəvrʼamʼa anda aver śiba (iranicka, armenicko, gyrcycko aj slavicka), vi kaj ći źanas katar le. Ande kado vorbari sy te avel paša 1300 anglune vorbi (kujburʼa) aj sa lengə derivacy. Kana avela gata o vorbari, ande leste avela paša 3000 vorbi, aj sa kodo šaj sykavel amengə savʼatar sas ə proto-řomaji śib. Źi akana hramosarďam pa 400 vorbi, ka vuni ďam neve etimologiji aj ka vuni vortosarďam purane ətimologiji. Le vorbaresko fundo sy la řomaja śibaki istorijaki fonologija kaj laśarďam la (maj-anglal nas).
Amari ətimologicko analiza del naj numa lingvisticka arakhlimata, ama vi śorəl vudud pe vuni importanto aspekturʼa le řomenga istorijakə, sar lengo nakhlimos ande le Xristosko paťamos (fajma ande Armenija) vor lengo trajo ande k kompakto dijaspora po nordo la Grecyjako maškar le sudoskə slavurʼa (fajma karing o foro Kosturo) angla lengə maj-durune migracyji.
Historical Evidence from Romani Etymology: A New Etymological Dictionary of the Romani Language
What can be inferred about Roma’s history from their language?
Much of what we know about the Roma’s past, e.g. their place of origin in India or migration routes to Europe, has been reconstructed based on their language. However, most of these discoveries were made at least a century ago. In our talk, we argue that etymology can still be a valuable source for enriching our knowledge about the Romani peopleʼs past.
We will present our ongoing project of a comprehensive Romani etymological dictionary containing all of the known common Romani vocabulary, both words of Indic origin and early loans (from Iranian, Armenian, Greek and Slavic), as well as words with no known etymology. It will contain about 1300 detailed entries, grouping related words into word families, citing all known forms from all described dialects, including morphological derivatives. The resulting number of lexemes will thus be around 3000, giving an idea of what Proto-Romani may have been like as a living language. So far, we have processed over 400 entries, providing in many cases new etymologies and correcting existing ones, based on the newly elaborated historical phonology of Romani.
Apart from purely linguistic findings, our etymological analysis sheds light on some important aspects of Romaʼs history, such as their conversion to Christianity (probably in Armenia) or their life as a compact diaspora in northern Greece among South Slavs (probably around the city of Kastoria) before their further migrations.
Pal le Romengeri vakeribnaskeri tradicija ki e moderno romaňi literatura
Jana Gáborová Kroková, National Scientific Library in Prešov, University of Prešov (Institue for Romani Studies, Center of Languages and Cultures of nationation Minorities), Documentation and Information Center for Romani Culture, Prešov, Slovakia
(jana.gaborova.krokova@gmail.com)
Kada geňiben amen ľidžala paš o romano vakeriben, savo sas adaj, andro Československo the paš oda, sar pes kada vakeriben paruďa pro iriben.
Miri študija sikhavela le Romengero vakeriben. Pro kada vakeriben, savo vičinas paramisi, dikhaha pal o buter seri. Jekha seratar dikhaha pre oda, sar o Roma vakerenas paramisa. So kerenas o paramisara prekal oda, hoj lengero vakeriben te el interesantno, sar o Roma džanenas, ko hin paramisaris pre vatra, u kaj ola paramisa pen vakerenas. Kada savoro analizinav olestar, so dikhľom the chudňom pro diktafonos andre jekh vatra pre Slovačiko. Koda, so mange o Roma phende pro diktafonos sas but... Vaš oda thoďom lengero vakeriben andro buter temi. Ala temi hine interesantne aleha, hoj len arakhas na ča andro vakeribena, aľe he andro irimen buťa, irimen romaňi literatura.
Soske o paramisa imar pro vatri o paramisara na vakeren? Sar u so pre kada te phenel? Pre kada imar pes del te phenel avka, sar dikhas, hoj sar džal o svetos. O študiji, save kerďas e Milena Hubschmannovo, the akana e Helena Sadílkovo, o Jan Červenka, e Sofia Zahovo, o Hristo Kyutchukov, vaj the andro digitalna kulturna objekti, save kerďas o Dokumentačno the informačno centrum vaš e romaňi kultura pre Slovačiko.
From Romani Oral Tradition to Modern Romani Book Creation
The topic of this study is the Romani oral tradition in former Czechoslovakia and its development into book format.
My work will provide some insights on Romani oral tradition. The oral tradition called fairy tales, or storytelling will be viewed from several different views. One of them is the analysis of the ways in which Romani people told the fairy-tales: what the narrators did in order to make their stories interesting, how the Roma knew there was a storyteller in the settlement, where were the stories told. The analysis is based upon the interviews recorded by me in one of the settlements in Slovakia. The material collected from the Roma in the visited community was rather extensive, which is why it is divided into more categories, covering more topics. These are interesting also thanks to the fact that they can be found both in oral representation as well as in written form _in works of Romani literature.
Why aren’t the stories and fairy-tales told in the settlements anymore? How to answer this question? This can be answered with the changes in societies worldwide. Some facts are provided in the studies by Milena Hubschamnnová or more recently by Helena Sadílková, Jan Červenka, Sofia Zahova, and Hristo Kyutchukov, or they can be found in digital cultural objects produced by the Documentation and Information Center for Romani Culture in Slovakia.
Košibena andre Romaňi čhib
Iveta Kokyová, Seminar of Romani Studies, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
(i.kokyova@seznam.cz)
Martin Gális, Institute for Comparative Linguistics, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
(martin.galis@ff.cuni.cz)
Andre amari prezentacija kamas te sikhavel the pašeder te skuminel e tema, so pal late pes but na pisinel andre literatura pal e romaňi čhib the romaňi kultura, abo čeporo pes pre late pobisterel. Kada hin sekcija košibena (dikh pre bibliografia tele). Adi prezentacija pes kamel te zalel kala temaha pal makarsave dikhibena.
Andre peršo kotor dikhaha pre kulturno, socialno the historicko paluňipen kale lavendar the le frazendar. Andre save situjaciji o Roma o košibena phenen, sar oda mišľinen the andre save situjaciji šaj abo našťi chasňaren o košibena (pro sikhaviben: o terneder džene kijo phure, o čhavore kije daj the o dad). E prezentacija kamela tiš te sikhavel the te zorarel averipena, sar pes o košiben chasňarel u sar pes achaľol maškar o Roma the o gadže.
Andro dujto kotor amara prezentacijatar dikhaha pre diňi tema pal e čhibakeri sera . Sikhavaha, kana pes o košibena použinen, vaš soske the savi hiňi lengri pragmatika. Dijader mek kamas te sikhavel, khatar hine varesave lava he cala frazi. Kamaha tiš te sikhavel, či la čhibakere kontaktos hin phari the bari funkcija, pro priklados, či paš varesave frazi džal pal o kalki abo jepaškalki varesave buterdženegre evropskone čhibendar. The avka dikhaha buteder pre lengro gramaticko, morfologicko the sintakticko averipen, hoj te rodas, či e churďi kontroľa pal kale specifika šaj amenge buter phenel, khatar pes ile.
Ostatno kotor andre prezentacija avela pal e tipologija, pal o pisimen lava the leksikalna thana the rodela, či kala štrukturi pes šaj rakhen he andro aver lumakre čhiba. Kada komparativno drom amenge šaj phenel buter, khatar aven kala lava the lengri semanticko motivacija.
Sar imar has phendo, o rodipen pal kada dino kotor andre romaňi lingvistika, antroplogija/etnologija pes sikhavel pobisterdo. Vaš kada hin e prezentaija thoďi pro materijalos, so amen kidľam maškar o Roma, či phure, či terne, či murša, či džuvľa, andre but aver socijalna thana.
Curses in Romani
In our presentation, we would like to introduce and subject to deeper scrutiny a topic which has been slightly neglected in literature dealing with the language and culture of the Roma. This is the field of curses (see for example Hübschmannová 2002). The presentation would like to deal with this subject from various points of view.
In the first part, we will discuss the cultural, social and historical background of these words and phrases. Namely, in which situations the Roma use curses, how they are meant and in which situations they are / are not socially acceptable (e. g. younger people to older, children to parents) respectively. The presentation will also try to demonstrate and highlight the differences in usage of curses between Romani people and Gadže (non-Romani majority). It will show the dramatically different way in which curses are perceived among the Roma and the non-Roma.
In the second part of the presentation, the focus will be on the linguistic side of the topic at hand. It will show in what context the curses are used, and what their pragmatic purpose is. Furthermore, we intend to explore the origins of individual words as well as whole phrases. We will endeavour to explain whether language contact plays a role, and to what extent, e. g. if some phrases happen to be calques or semi calques from any of the majority European languages. We will likewise take a closer look at their grammatical, morphological, and syntactic peculiarities to see whether a close inspection of these specifics can yield more about their origin. The final part of the presentation will be dedicated to the typology of the aforementioned lexical fields, exploring whether such structures are also to be found in other languages of the world. This comparative approach may tell us more about the origin and the semantic motivation of the respective expressions.
As has already been mentioned, research in this more specific field of Romani linguistics, resp. anthropology/ethnology seems to be somewhat neglected. As a consequence, the presentation is based on material collected by the authors themselves among Roma speakers from different social backgrounds, age and gender.
Bibliografia /References
Hübschmannová, Milena. Šaj pes dovakeras. 4., nezměn. vyd. Olomouc: Vydavatelství Univerzity Palackého, 2002
The Impact of the Pandemic on the Eastern European Romani Population in Spain
Almudena Macías León, Department of Social Psychology, Social Work, Social Anthropology and Studies of East Asia, Faculty of Social and Labour Studies, University of Malaga, Spain
(almudena.macias@uma.es)
This work focuses on the analysis of the incidence of Covid-19 in the Romani population of Eastern Europe residing in Spain. For this purpose, a thematic/monographic review was carried out on recent studies of the consequences of the pandemic on the Romani ethnic minority in Spain. We will see how the shacks where the Roma live in slum settlements and metropolitan peripheries have predisposed this group to suffer a disproportionate impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
We will analyze the impact of the pandemic in the different areas in terms of employment, health, housing, immigration etc. We shall observe how the high levels of social exclusion of this ethnic group make it more likely to suffer a higher risk of morbidity, mortality, and the psychological, social, and economic effects of the pandemic.
The decline in the precarious living conditions of this population has reached alarming levels in most European countries during the pandemic, increasing levels of food insecurity and revealing new processes of discrimination and stigmatization towards this group.
In this work, the Covid-19 pandemic has been considered a new global factor that makes up a new scenario, influencing pre-existing exclusion dynamics. These always seem to affect the same population sectors, the most vulnerable, which occupy a more marginal position in the social stratification that emerges from global dynamics
Once again, we witness human rights abuse targeting the Roma in the EU context, closely linked to the process of ethnicization of the pandemic.
Identification Practices and Genocidal Dynamics in the Borderlands. A Case Study on the Roma and Sinti Families Deported from Annexed Alsace in March 1943
Théophile Leroy, EHESS, Paris
(theophile.leroy@ehess.fr)
On March 21, 1943, 62 people arrested in annexed Alsace as "Gypsies" (Zigeuner) were registered in the Zigeunerfamilienlager of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The camp's entry register lists seven family names: Blum, Braun, Franz, Freiwald, Gerste, Rosenbach and Wesel. These families, originally from Germany, were arrested in the Strasbourg area by agents of the Kriminalpolizei between late 1942 and early 1943. The youngest person was born in Haguenau in June 1942, the oldest in Lower Saxony in 1872. Deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, some were then transferred to Buchenwald, others to Mauthausen. Using the family files of the Rassenhygienisch Forschungstelle kept at the Bundesarchiv in Berlin, the resources available on the Arolsen Archives database and the correspondences and registers of the Strasbourg Kriminalpolizei, the aim of this paper is to shed light on the application of genocide policies in a Western European borderland territory through a case study of the individual and collective trajectories of the deported families of the Strasbourg convoy. Analyzing the police standards used to census, identify and arrest this targeted group provides an efficient method of understanding who the German authorities considered a “Gypsy”. By the comparison of social origins, professions, economic mobilities, family ties or prewar registrations of people identified as “Gypsy” in 1942/1943, this work will show how the German criminal police applied racial policy to fight the so-called Zigeunerplage in Alsace, a former French territory and a borderland area of the Rhine region. By crossing microhistorical approach and spatial analysis, this work will also consider the mapping method as an efficient instrument to comprehend the familial dislocation of the Rhine Sinti groups.
The Charismatic Church – Hope for the Roma?
Jörgen Ljung, Heart to Heart association
(jorgen@ljung.me)
While in secular Europe, Christianity is more and more marginalized in the public debate, a spiritual awakening is currently happening among the Roma. Religion and Christianity are back, but in a different shape then in the old forms of Christianity (Knoblach 2003). In the book “God is Back” by Micklethwait and Wooldridge (2009), they say that “there are at least five hundred million renewalists around the world”.
In Newsweek magazine, Quarmby (2014) wrote that Romani people are on the way to becoming a new moral force of Christians in Europe. The charismatic spirituality has spread through the Romani communities, a new revival seems to have been awakened across the whole of Europe. A study of these new religious movements describes how the church has changed the local society. Of the Christian groups, the converted primarily joined the Pentecostal church. Their lifestyle has changed; consumption of alcohol has dropped dramatically and crime has also been tangibly reduced. Children and young people go to school for at least eight years. Nevertheless, the problem later is that there are no jobs. Therefore, unemployment is high, and many are dependent on state benefits. Men move to find jobs in other parts of Romania or elsewhere in Europe (Cace et al. 2012).
The Romani people are locked in by themselves. The majority society has marginalised them for hundreds of years, labelling them outsiders to be avoided. There are not only two sides (with locks) that need to be open, but there is also a third one which needs to be considered - that of the individual’s own identity. This also needs to change (Slavkova, 2007). Those who have had charismatic or Pentecostal experience of being “born again”, converted and possessing spiritual gifts often talk about something happening deep inside of them. This new life that has arisen has consequences in the form of changed values and lifestyle. It seems that in the process of conversion a hope is born that they can change their own situation as well as the situation of other believers within the church community.
References
Cace Sorin, Tomescu Cristina, Cojocaru Daniela. 2012. The role of religion in several Roma communities. Revista de cercetare si interventie sociala, 2012, vol 36, pp 162–177.
Knoblach Hubert. 2003. Europe and Invisible Religion in Social Compass Band 50, Number 3
Micklethwait John, Wooldridge Adrian. 2009. God is Back. How the Global Revival of Faith is Changing the world. The Penguin Press, New York.
Quarmby Katharine. 2014. How the Roma Are Becoming Europe’s New Moral Army, Newsweek Magazine (2014-08-10).
Slavkova Magdalena. 2007. Evangelical Gypsies in Bulgaria: Way of life and Performance of Identity. Romani Studies 5, Vol 17, No 2, Bulgarian Academy of Science, Sofia.
Roma as an Object of Demographic Science
Nikola Ludlová, Central European University, Budapest
(ludlova_nikola@phd.ceu.edu)
The paper proposal is based on a dissertation chapter. My dissertation project traces the history of the knowledge production on Roma in Czechoslovakia between 1945 and 1989. This history is inextricably linked with the so-called “Gypsy Question”. It was primarily the interest of the state in knowledge on Roma what initiated and stimulated research and knowledge production and led to the institutionalization of Roma as an object of science. In line with the socialist ethos of new man, the state social engineering project targeting Roma applied state planning in its effort to assimilate and later integrate these “citizens-in-training” into the society. Various scientific disciplines thus became instrumental to the state employing the scientific management approach to social questions. An overarching framework employed in my project is the relationship between norm and transgression as, in my view, this binary underlied both the social engineering project as well as the knowledge produced to de/legitimize this project. The very framing of the attitude of the political leadership towards Roma as the “Gypsy Question” is an expression of this relation by implying a conflict between the hegemonic and marginalized cultures. The “Gypsy Question” thus codifies the transgression of the norms of the hegemonic group by the “backward” minority perceived as an obstacle to the societal well-being and progress. I regard the boundary between norm and transgression as a productive interaction: i) in the realm of science this occurred through creating a new scientific object and new scientific discourses; ii) in the realm of population management it occurred through invention or replication of a series of practices aimed at reproduction control, control of movement, political reeducation, and acculturation, etc. Finally, this interaction also incited political mobilization and scholarly participation of Roma.
In my paper, I will focus on the knowlege production in the field of demography. As an introduction to the main analysis, the paper will present the history of the constitution of Roma as an object of demography which dates back to the mid-1960s and is associated with the concern of the state to control the reproduction of Roma by means of re-education to responsible parenting, promotion of contraception, but also by means of sterilization. Further, it will outline the broader political concerns related to the population development and the possibilities of academic and expert communities to intervene in the formation of the population policy. The main analysis will concentrate on several areas: a) the internal perspectives of scientists on the object of their research and the associated problems with the aim to historicize and contextualize their interpretations and claims, b) the politics of the social construction of Roma as scientific objects which is approached as inextricably related to their construction as political subjects (through various means of categorization and surveying practices, like registers and censuses), c) the practices of knowledge making and d) the role of demographers in shaping policies towards Roma since the 1960s. Thus, apart from combining history of science and science studies approaches, I also apply social and political history to study agency and interactions among individual scientific and political actors, as well as institutional structures and arrangements among various scientific, administrative and political institutional agents.
Education for Labour Market. Building Competencies or Skills of Romani Adults from Marginalized Communities?
Marek Lukáč, Department of Andragogy, Faculty of Humanities and Natural Sciences University of Prešov in Prešov, Slovakia
(marek.lukac@unipo.sk)
Silvia Lukáčová Department of Andragogy, Faculty of Humanities and Natural Sciences University of Prešov in Prešov, Slovakia
(silvia.lukacova@unipo.sk)
In times of economic boom, the socio-economic and educational differences between the majority population and the inhabitants of Romani marginalised settlements have become more pronounced than ever. The structural changes in the industry have naturally generated increased demand for skilled workers as a result of the increasing rate of automation and digitisation. However, a significant part of the available workforce, represented by adult Roma living in marginalised communities, has the characteristics of a low-skilled population with a lack of basic skills and work experience. Their chances of obtaining a job are limited not only by their lack of qualifications and basic skills, but also by regional labour market disproportions. In this paper, we focus our attention on current types of educational activities for low-skilled people who are often clients of employment offices (Office of Labour, Social Affairs and Family). Apart from the problem of discrimination against the Roma by employers, we raise the question of whether the model of low-skilled education, based on acquiring skills for the labour market, is sufficient. Education focused on a specific profession or type of work activity (in second chance vocational education and retraining) can equip people with the necessary skills in a relatively short time. However, we believe that education should lead to building life competencies which could, in the long term, contribute to empowering the poor and allowing them to take control of their own lives. Based on theoretical knowledge, research findings and my own practical experience in educating adults without education and low skills, the paper deals with the pitfalls of adult education, and the possibilities of it contributing to empowering the poor. We will try to identify the weaknesses of the current concept of education of low-skilled persons in both formal and non-formal education, thus contributing to the discussion on the effectiveness and meaningfulness of education for the most vulnerable groups of the adult population.
Across the Great Divide: The Impact of Digital Inequality on Scotland’s Gypsy/Traveller Children and Young People During the COVID-19 Emergency
Tammi Lynne, University of Dundee
(lynne@ayeright.scot)
The COVID-19 pandemic has served to further highlight how the chasmic digital divide has impacted on young Gypsy/Travellers’ ability to access their education rights. In this paper the author examines current Scottish national and local government awareness of, and responses to, the learning and development needs and entitlements of Gypsy/Traveller children and young people pre and during the COVID-19 pandemic. A snapshot analysis of emerging testimony from young Gypsy/Travellers, their parents and community learning workers focuses on how the lack of access to digital devices and data and the discretionary decision making of street level bureaucrats (Lipsky, 1980) are key contributors to the challenges Gypsy/Traveller children and young people face when attempting to access home schooling and other learning and development opportunities in times of crisis.
To address the evident inequalities of the digital divide the author calls for universal provision of devices and data, a safe, supportive and flexible environment driven by a clear understanding of Gypsy/Traveller habitus and robust monitoring and evaluation processes to ensure that guidance and directives from central government are being delivered on a basis of equality at the local level; positing that failing this, discretionary decision making powers, underpinned by prejudice and driven by false social representations, will continue to be enacted and the ‘forever thus, business as usual’ doxic worldview of Gypsy/Travellers and other marginalised groups will endure.
References
Lipsky, M. (1980) Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services. Russell Sage Foundation, New York.
Without Schooling and Without Work: Social Reproduction of Portuguese Ciganos/ Roma Poverty in OPorto City, Portugal
Olga Magano, Portuguese Open University, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), CIES-IUL, Lisbon, Portugal
(olgamagano@gmail.com)
Portuguese studies point out the lack of education of Portuguese Ciganos/Roma people and the lack of professional qualifications that prevent access to the labour market (Mendes, Magano and Candeias, 2014; Medinas, 2019). Despite the existence of social policies covering the Portuguese population (especially since 1974, the date of the democracy), and the national strategy for the integration of Romani communities (2013), the situation of the Roma continues to be characterised by poverty, poor housing and health conditions, discrimination, segregation, poor education, and no access to the labour market. Although the overall living conditions of the Roma have improved, there is still a large gap in relation to the general population, coinciding with processes of social reproduction of poverty and social inequality (Barel, 1973; Bourdieu and Passeron, 1983).
In this presentation we compare results on the situation of Gypsies/Roma people in the city of OPorto in 2014 (Mendes, Magano and Candeias, 2014) and in 2019 (Magano and Mendes, 2019), based on a questionnaire survey carried out in the two above-mentioned years, as well as focus groups and interviews with privileged interlocutors and Romani representatives. The city of OPorto is the second largest Portuguese city in the metropolitan area of OPorto, where 23.3% of Portuguese Roma live.
In the National Study about Romani Population (2014), it was very clear that, in Oporto, 22.5% of the Roma do not know how to read or write; 70% have up to the 3rd cycle (9 years of schooling) and 7.5% have secondary or higher education; the main sources of income are work (17.5%), Social Insertion Income (67.5%), pension or retirement (5%) and in charge of the family (7.5%). With regard to the year 2019, the results were as follows: approximately 8% cannot read or write; 14.1% do not have the 1st complete cycle; 37% have completed basic education, but mostly the 2nd cycle (up to the 6th year of schooling), and only around 11% have completed the 3rd cycle. Moreover, approximately 2% have completed secondary education, and there are no cases of higher education. Regarding the main source of income, in 2019, it appears that this is Social Insertion Income (41.4%), followed by family allowance for children and young people (31.8%), and 11.8% is related with work activity. It is clear that the differences in the results are insignificant, with a tendency for the school situation and insertion in the labour market to worsen; this situation is more visible in the younger generations, who have more schooling than in the previous ones (Magano and Mendes, 2019).
In Search of Own State: Romani Attempts to Create Autonomy before WWII
Elena Marushiakova, School of History, University of St. Andrews, Scotland, UK
(emp9@st-andrews.ac.uk)
Vesselin Popov, School of History, University of St. Andrews, Scotland, UK
(vp43@st-andrews.ac.uk)
This paper will outline the development of ideas and concrete attempts to create an 'own' Gypsy state (or at least a Gypsy autonomous territorial-administrative unit) during the period from the second half of the 19th century to World War II, in Central, South-Eastern and Eastern Europe. Already with the birth and the first manifestations of the processes of Romani civic emancipation in the modern era, visions in this direction appeared. The first such historical testimony is from 1865 Habsburg Empire (from 1867 - Austro-Hungary) when Janos Kaldaras and Sava Mihaly approached the authorities with a proposal to create a 'Gypsy-Voivodina'. Almost at the same time, in 1867, in the Ottoman Empire, Iliya Naumchev wrote an article developing the idea of creating an 'own' Gypsy Christian church with services in their 'own' language, 'own' education and 'own' 'society (i.e. own state). All these ideas, as well as the very beginning of the movement for Romani civic emancipation, can be understood and explained in local historical context: in this region, it was the time of the rapid development of modern nationalism. Roma, as an integral part of the societies in which they live, also fit into the general public and political discourse and their civic visions were part of the general tendency of the development of national ideologies.
The end of World War I led to the collapse of three great empires in the region (Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman) and the creation of new nation-states. Under these new conditions, the movement for Romani civic emancipation takes on new forms: creating Gypsy/Romani civic organizations with new aims, in which the vision of their own state or another form of autonomy is already absent. The so-called Gypsy Kings in Poland and their ideas for establishing a Gypsy state in different places around the world rather represents a historical curiosity as a media phenomenon, far from practical realization.
The situation in the newly created Soviet Union was quite different. There, in the context of a multinational state with a complex hierarchical territorial-administrative structure built on a national principle, Romani activists tried to create a Gypsy Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. We will present the first ideas in this direction that emerged in the 1920s, as well as specific concrete steps taken, outlining the reasons why they remained unsuccessful.
Roma Issues in National Elections in Slovakia in February 2020
Juraj Marušiak, Institute of Political Science, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Slovakia
(marusiak.juraj1@gmail.com)
The aim of the presentation is to analyse the presence of the Roma issue during the electoral campaign in Slovakia before the national elections that took place in February, 2020. I will focus on the extent and the ways Romani people (as a community or as individuals) were described by the political parties and individual politicians during the campaign.
Despite relatively high economic growth, the mental gap between the majority population and Romani community members persisted. Whereas in the electoral campaign of 2016 the relevance of that conflict fell due to the refugee crisis, which contributed to the electoral success of the extreme right People´s Party Our Slovakia (ĽSNS). In 2020 this party returned back to the issue of Roma.
The most well-known case of a politician considering the Roma issue were the racist statements of the parliamentarian Milan Mazurek from ĽSNS who presented on Frontinus Radio, which resulted in his conviction and removal from the parliament. At the same time, this party faced an attempt at de-legalization in 2019. However, if before the regional elections in 2017 this party was isolated, in the years 2018-2020 its relevance has increased and the isolation of ĽSNS was overcome. Finally, the court´s verdict condemning M. Mazurek was criticized by some representatives of “mainstream” parties, mainly the main coalition party “Direction – Social Democracy” (Smer-SD). The representatives of the Romani community criticized the project of “Roma reform” presented by the neo-liberal Freedom and Solidarity Party (SaS) as aimed against the Romani people and inspired by ĽSNS. On the other hand, before the election seven opposition centrist and centre-right parties expressed their support to the Roma Memorandum, presented by the Opre Roma initiative.
The main findings are that the anti-Romani rhetoric is still present in the agendas of the political parties in Slovakia, and that the radical parties managed to bring this agenda into the political mainstream. Some of the “mainstream parties” verbally support the policies aimed to improve the lives of the Romani people, but at the same time they support restrictive steps, which are aimed mainly against them.
Discussing Public Policies Aimed at Roma in Portugal and Brazil: Between Universal Rights and Demands for Recognition of Specific Identities
Jessica Cunha de Medeiros, Federal University of Pernambuco, Brazil
(jessica.cunhamedeiros@gmail.com)
Based on research carried out with Roma/Ciganos in Brazil in Portugal, in this work we propose to discuss the challenges posed by, and for, the state's performance when social policies are implemented. In the case of Portugal, even four centuries after the Constitution of 1822 extended Portuguese citizenship to Roma, the Roma still prominently feature among the poorest and most vulnerable. Portugal extended the Social Insertion Income (RSI) created in 2002 to Roma, but this is still insufficient for social integration, as studies illustrate that less than 7% of families benefitting from RSI are Roma, thus showing us the inequality the Roma face as a whole general population. In the case of Brazil, unlike other ethnic-indigenous groups, Ciganos have not received any prominence throughout history and not specific political action has been taken on their behalf. The constitution of 1988 did not recognise them as a minority to be protected.
In Brazil it was only in 2000 that identity guidelines were being put forth and debated in the National Congress, and at that time public policies started to be directed at Traditional Peoples and Communities, thus allowing Ciganos to be included there. We have advanced in the last decade, opening the labour market and giving them schooling rights; however, if we change the perspective, we see a mismatch of opportunity and quality of life in the face of the general society, as Ciganos remain in an extremely fragile social situation. These two countries, placed on different continents, focus on the conflicting dimension of the processes that are incorporated by the Roma/Ciganos when they adjust the rhetoric of citizenship in the appropriation of the affirmation of ethnic identity. We problematize that citizenship, which presupposes equality before the law for all citizens, implies a situation that begins with an intention of inclusion and recognition, and produces an unwanted effect, since it starts from the assumption that we are all equal. However, when it concerns Roma and other groups, this principle is confronted by situations in which individual rights affect the collective interest. In the legal field, when we speak of Roma people, the political-legal frameworks continue to corroborate hegemonic practices, such as the “integration” of this subject into national society, contradicting the right to diversity, to a distinct historicity, in addition to socio-cultural specificities.
Difficulties and Success Factors in the Inclusion of Portuguese Ciganos/Roma in the Training and Employment System: The Perspective of Employment and Training Technicians
Maria Manuela Mendes, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Lisboa, Portugal; Centro de Investigação e Estudos de Sociologia (CIES-IUL) e FAUL, University of Lisbon, Portugal
(mamendesster@gmail.com)
Olga Magano, Portuguese Open University, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), CIES-IUL, Lisbon, Portugal
(olgamagano@gmail.com)
Pedro Caetano, Centro Interdisciplinar de Ciências Sociais da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal
(pedrocaetano@fcsh.unl.pt)
Pedro Candeias, Universidade de Lisboa, EnviHeB Lab, Instituto de Saúde Ambiental da Faculdade de Medicina and Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Portugal
(pedromecandeias@gmail.com)
According to the EU-MIDIS II survey (FRA 2018), almost two-thirds (63%) of young Roma aged 16-24 are neither in work nor in education or training, with the remaining one-third either in school or in employment. However, it is important to highlight the inequalities of gender roles, which are also reflected in differences between men and women in terms of school and professional qualifications and access to the labour market. In Portugal, the National Study on Roma Communities (2014), carried out within the scope of the National Strategy for the integration of Romani communities, shows these discrepancies. Thus, more than half of the women surveyed are divided between domestic workers, unemployed, looking for their first job, and never worked (45.5%), although a proportion of them is composed of active women with a profession or who work (6.4%). It is also observed that the number of active and studying men is vastly higher than that of women.
The National Strategy sets out a series of generic and ineffective goals, such as: promoting the increase in the qualifications of the Roma; qualification of trainers and technicians; sensitisation and mobilisation of potential employers for the hiring of Roma and for the purchase of products and services provided by Roma, with their involvement; promotion of the participation of Romani girls and women in the labour market and professional activity. However, the impact of these goals on the socio-professional insertion of Roma is unknown.
Given the above-mentioned context, this communication, within the scope of the EDUCIG project (School performance among Roma: action research and co-design project), aims to gauge the perspectives of technicians from training and/or employment centres (public services) on Roma people’s relationship with the labour market and professional training. In this context, we will discuss the preliminary results collected through an online questionnaire survey of a sample of approximately 250 directors, employment and training technicians. The survey sought to assess the perceptions that these professionals have in relation to Roma, namely difficulties in accessing training and employment, factors of success and failure in terms of socio-professional insertion, and the willingness of employers to welcome Romani workers.
Childhood and Calon Education in Time Transversality, Networks and Relations
Edilma do Nascimento J. Monteiro
Comitê de Antropólogas Negras e Antropólogos Negros da Associação Brasileira de Antropologia -ABA e NEPI/UFSC, Brazil
(edilmanjmonteiro@gmail.com)
The theme of childhood is almost always seen as a dichotomous debate inseparable from education/schooling. Thus, the school appears as a variable that makes up the scenario of thinking about children in the modern world. Among the Calon Gypsies in Brazil, the school also places itself as a potential agent in the transformations which take place during the daily life of the Calon Gypsies, giving new meaning to internal relations and promoting changes in the life cycle of these people. This article presents, as a central objective, the transformations in the way of living childhood and conceiving among the Calon based on the following indicators: 1) time (stopping time); 2) social contexts (family networks); and 3) school (Calon x juron relations). Indeed, these are the starting points for analysing the changes in the children's way of life and the educational forms that have remained and been reframed in this process. The methodology is based on an ethnographic fieldwork involving six years (2013-2019) of relationship with people in three Calon family networks in Paraíba (Costa family network and Sertão family network) and Paraná (family network of the West). The participant observation involved techniques such as thematic drawing and focus groups with the children, as well as the use of photographic resources. The data presented reflect how the Calons have experienced childhood and its reinterpretations but, above all, how they have experienced giving emphasis to Calon education, showing us the place of the school in this process of teaching and learning of the Calon person in the respective networks.
Housing of Roma in Slovakia – Practical Experiences on a Municipality Level
Alexander Mušinka, Institute of Romani Studies, University of Prešov, Slovakia
(alexander.musinka@gmail.com)
In my contribution I will refer to different examples of how municipalities solve the problem of housing of the Roma in Slovakia. I will not offer a complex survey of every example of municipality access, but I will present the variability of this phenomenon in Slovakia. My contribution will illustrate single forms of how concrete municipalities solve the problem of Roma housing. Besides positive complex solutions, it will also contain controversial or inappropriate solutions. The aim of the contribution lies not only in the formal presentation of single forms of solution, but also in the explanation of how these solutions are perceived by municipalities, the Roma and the public. The contribution represents the result of a long-term research of this phenomenon, which is built on field findings, interviews with the representatives of municipalities, interviews with the Roma and analysis of public/media debates and presentations.
In the contribution I will present complex and heterogeneous approaches used in the village of Spišský Hrhov, uniform solutions of housing for whole individual communities, which were successful or unsuccessful (villages of Sveržov, Krivany, and Letanovce), the original solution in the village of Čirč, and successful and unsuccessful solutions concentrated on individual house building (villages of Kojatice and Rankovce) etc.
A separate part of the contribution will discuss different ways in which Roma housing problems are solved in urban areas. I will introduce the situation in Košice´s Luník IX, Prešov´s Stará Tehelňa and Sabinov.
The Criminal Case Fabricated against the Gypsies in Novosibirsk in 1938
Irina Nam, National Research Tomsk State University, Russia
(namirina@bk.ru)
From the 1920s to the end of 1930s, the Gypsies fully experienced the USSR policy in which “affirmative action” prevailed, but they were not spared from forced deportations and repressions during the so-called ‘national operations’ of the Great Terror period (1937–1938). This policy in general targeted „foreign nationals’ (in Russian: inonatsionaly) – people whose ethnic motherland was seen as a potential threat to the USSR – and some of the Gypsies were among them. The proposed presentation will introduce a criminal case called “Romanian” operation from the early 1938 in the city of Novosibirsk. This was a case fabricated against 26 Gypsies who had been initially arrested as thieves and horse-stealers. As half of them were born in the already non-existent Austrian-Hungarian territory, their nationality was used as a reason for accusing them of espionage in favour of Romania (Articles 58-6,9,10,11 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic). The NKVD officer, O. Yu. Edenberg, who specialised in organising repressions against inonatsionaly, combined materials on 13 tinsmiths and locksmiths from three artels (small production cooperative), as well as on a Gypsy music band and on 9 unemployed Gypsies, to make up an espionage-sabotage case. According to the established practice in such cases, the arrested were accused of being part of a counter-revolutionary spy organisation said to be run by the head of the “Hungarian Labour” artel, P. I. Koldoras-Vishnyakov. The NKVD officers were given detailed instructions on how to interrogate the Roma. It is noteworthy that of the 26 people accused, there was one Russian, one Hungarian, and one Austrian, while the rest were Gypsies. The accused were convicted as Romanian spies for stealing the general plan of an aircraft factory, disassembling railway tracks, illegal tinning, and poisoning other workers. Of the 26 people, 14 were sentenced to capital punishment and shot dead on 5 June 1938. The rest were sentenced to 10 years in labour camps. The presentation will show that in spite of the “affirmative action” the Gypsies in early Soviet Union suffered the turbulences of the era along with other citizens of the country. The presentation uses the term “Gypsies” (in Russian tsygane) in order to preserve historical correctness and reflect adequately the spirit of the time. The Russian designation “tsygane” includes not only Romani communities (and a small number of Sinti), but also the Lom and the Dom, as well as the Mughat and other “Gypsy-like” communities in Central Asia. The study was supported by the National Research Tomsk State University Competitiveness Improvement Programme.
Special Education Needs: Horváth & Kiss v. Hungary
William S. New, Beloit College, Beloit, USA
(newb@beloit.edu)
Since 2008, several cases alleging discrimination against Romani children have been brought successfully to the European Court of Human Rights. These cases concern the segregation of Romani students, either in Roma-only classes, due to language and/or cultural differences (Oršuš v. Croatia, 2011); in ‘ghetto’ schools (Sampanis v. Greece, 2008); or in special schools, where Romani children have been diagnosed disproportionately as intellectually disabled (D.H. and others v. CZ, 2008). The subject of this paper – Horváth & Kiss v. Hungary, 2013 – concerns the latter. On the basis of tests that the Court found to be biased against the Roma, two young Hungarian Roma boys — István Horváth and András Kiss — were found to be intellectually disabled, and were placed in special schools for the handicapped. In Nyíregyháza, the town in eastern Hungary where the boys lived, the regular school population was around 9% Roma, but the population of the special school they attended enrolled between 40 and 50% Romani children. After several years of litigation, the Court ruled that the testing materials were biased, and their use constituted a violation of these students’ rights. This was an instance of indirect discrimination, insofar as the Court did not find clear intent on anyone’s part to discriminate against the Roma. Notwithstanding the important legal questions at stake here, this paper focuses mostly on the international history of psychological/psychiatric testing and special education that converged in Hungary and other post-communist European countries, resulting in the stigmatization and misrecognition of Romani students. While the institutional structure of special schools in Hungary is the legacy of Russian science and practices of ‘defectology,’ the testing regime itself comes primarily from the West, from France and the United States in particular. I will suggest that these historical processes – barely interrupted by victories in the Court – are and have been traumatic for individual children, tending to produce negative intergenerational effects, while perpetuating the endemic socioeconomic disadvantage of the Roma. Additionally, a goal of this research is to show that these historical processes related to psychological/psychiatric treatment of minority children – where racial identity is rendered into intellectual deficiency – are globally normative, meaning that while legal remedies are important, more fundamental change in institutional paradigms is required for real change.
Re-Nazification and De-Nazification in Postwar West Germany: Learning about the Roma in Freiburg, 1965
William New, Beloit College, Beloit, USA
(newb@beloit.edu)
Yuma Carpenter-New, independent researcher
(yumacarpenternew@gmail.com)
During the postwar years in west Germany, public education was influenced both by those seeking to create a more tolerant, democratic society, and those seeking to perpetuate the eugenic, racial ideologies of the Nazi era. This conflicted dialogue crystallized in curricula and teaching related to the Roma and Sinti who had survived the war, and those who had not. On one side, Dr. Hermann Arnold emerged in the 1950s as a ‘Gypsy expert,’ disseminating ‘curricular materials’ to teachers in West Germany that were based on documents produced by the Racial Hygiene and Demographic Biology Research Unit, responsible for sending scores of Roma and Sinti children to Auschwitz. On the other side, the occupying powers required a complete reorientation of the German education system, and German writers like Wolfdietrich Schnurre attempted to promote understanding of, and compassion for, the Roma. This presentation concerns the convergence of these two vectors in the lessons of a teacher from Freiburg, in 1965, as revealed in her correspondence with Hermann Arnold, and her use of a story by Schnurre in her curriculum. I explore the ways in which this teacher, and others in the education system, negotiated the tensions between re-Nazification and de-Nazification, at a time when wilful historical amnesia about the Nazi campaign against the Roma was still the rule.
There are Three Approaches to the Roma Housing Problems in the Polish Carpathians: New House, Scatter, and Status Quo
Ewa Nowicka, Collegium Civitas, Poland
(ewanowickarusek@gmail.com)
Maciej Witkowski, WSB University, Poland
(mwitkowski@wsb.edu.pl)
The housing situation of families belonging to the Romani minority in Poland has become a serious social problem. A significant (albeit unquantified) proportion of the Romani community (especially from the Bergitka Roma group in the Polish Carpathians) live in conditions which are so poor that the local and central government are compelled to take direct action. Among some of the especially poor Romani communities, it is extremely rare to live in a flat which has not been provided to a particular family as part of some support programme, while owning a flat in legal terms is also uncommon. Problems of this nature have been solved over the last 20 years in an ad hoc manner, and largely by local authorities. Using ethnographic data, we are going to compare the social consequences of the different actions aimed to solve housing problems in three Roma communities: a Roma community displaced into new social housing which replaced the former poor cabins; a Roma community scattered (individual Roma families were provided with free housing which was geographically distant from their current Roma neighbours and close to a non-Roma neighbourhood); a Roma community which has maintained the status quo since the defeat of the resettlement policy.
“If you don’t play here, you’re not a human!” – Pariahdom Boundary and Romani Music-Making in Klenovec (Slovakia)
Petr Nuska, Durham University, UK
(petr.nuska@durham.ac.uk)
Roma are well-known in the field of ethnicity studies as a group that even “the most experienced and best-informed academics in the subject are unable to easily define” (Law and Kovats 2018: 39). Their peculiar position in the ethnicity theories was already outlined in Barth’s renowned article on ethnic boundaries. He considered the “gypsies” (sic) as an example of so-called pariah groups, which are defined by the active rejection of host societies (Barth 1969: 31). This pointed to the distinctive feature of Romani ethnic identity. Surrounding majorities’ active rejection of Roma was later identified as “a major factor in the preservation of” and even “a necessary condition for the maintenance of Romani ethnic identity” in various settings (Gmelch 1986: 323; Lee 1997: 69). Figurative references to Roma as pariahs can be found abundantly in contemporary literature (e.g. Hancock 1987; Vassilev 2004; Pogány 2012).
This paper contributes to the discussions on Romani ethnicity by presenting an ethnographic case study from Klenovec in Slovakia; explaining distinct features of the local Romani ethnicity performance. As a starting point, it argues that Romani ethnicity is, indeed, significantly formed by the pariahdom boundary – an exclusive demarcation of the non-Roma majority – constituted by specific types of ethnic boundary markers (cf. e.g. Wallman 1978). As a response, the local Roma use diverse strategies to escape from the pariahdom boundary, including various degrees of social integration, acquisition of non-Roma socioeconomic habits, and undercommunicating their ethnic identity. All these strategies predominantly aim to dilute the markers of the pariahdom boundary.
Romani music-making in Klenovec represents a significantly different response to these conditions. Being a Romani musician allows the most convenient socioeconomic adaptation to the environment of the disadvantaged region in question. Moreover, professional Romani musicians from Klenovec have a set of proved strategies for enacting ethnic boundary markers – on the musical stages and beyond them – which in other contexts may be considered troublesome and harmful. Professional musicianship allows for the high level of socioeconomic integration while escaping the pariahdom boundary’s harmful effects. At the same time, it legitimises a proud enactment of Roma-ness. It allows being (and staying) a Rom. Thus, musicianship plays an integral part in the construction of Romani ethnic identity. As expressed by one musician from Klenovec: “If you don’t play here, you’re not a human.” The paper is based on ethnographic research carried out between 2013–2021.
References
Barth, Fredrik. 1969. “Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference.” The British Journal of Sociology 21 (2): 231. https://doi.org/10.2307/588416.
Gmelch, Sharon Bohn. 1986. “Groups That Don’t Want In: Gypsies and Other Artisan, Trader, and Entertainer Minorities.” Annual Review of Anthropology 15: 307–30. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2155764.
Hancock, Ian F. 1987. The Pariah Syndrome : An Account of Gypsy Slavery and Persecution. Karoma Publishers.
Law, Ian, and Martin Kovats. 2018. Rethinking Roma : Identities, Politicisation and New Agendas. Palgrave Macmillan UK.
Lee, Ken. 1997. “Australia: Sanctuary or Cemetery for Romanies?” In Romani Culture and Gypsy Identity, edited by T. A. (Thomas Alan) Acton and Gary. Mundy, 203. University of Hertfordshire Press.
Pogány, István. 2012. “Pariah Peoples: Roma and the Multiple Failures of Law in Central and Eastern Europe.” Social & Legal Studies 21 (3): 375–93. https://doi.org/10.1177/0964663911429152.
Vassilev, Rossen. 2004. “The Roma of Bulgaria: A Pariah Minority.” The Global Review of Ethnopolitics 3 (2): 40–51. https://doi.org/10.1080/14718800408405164.
Wallman, Sandra. 1978. “The Boundaries of ‘Race’: Processes of Ethnicity in England.” Man 13 (2): 200. https://doi.org/10.2307/2800245.
“I’m moving out for good, and I don’t intend to come back”: Negotiating Belonging of Roma through Their Mobility in Postwar Czechoslovakia
Jan Ort, Seminar of Romani Studies, Department of Central European Studies, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague
(jan.ort@gmail.com)
My paper is a microhistorical study of a village in north-east Slovakia, which is a region that was in the past strongly socially and economically marginalized. Migration was a common economic strategy of all local inhabitants; but there was also a shared experience of displacement. Many villages in the region were almost completely destroyed at the end of World War II, and during the first postwar years the people were coming back to rebuild their homes. For this purpose, however, many of them migrated to the Bohemian lands, seeking better economic opportunities. In this sense, migration and mobility did not stand in contrast to local belonging but were an integral part of a shared local identity and experience.
However, mobility of the local Roma met in certain situations with the dominant discourse of naturally “nomadic” and “fluctuating Gypsies”, and as such it was to be controlled or even prohibited. In my paper, I will focus on the local implementation of central policies of socialist Czechoslovakia which targeted the Roma/“Gypsies” and their mobility. It was mainly the 1958 Law on the Permanent Settlement of Nomadic Persons, and the Government Decree 502/1965 on “controlled dispersal” and “organised transfer” of the Roma. I will show how the implementation of these measures was negotiated by the local actors and the ways in which it contributed to the understanding of the quality of the local belonging of the Roma.
The Global Future of the Gypsy Lore Society: A View from the Americas
Ann Ostendorf, Gonzaga University, USA
(ostendorf@gonzaga.edu)
This presentation will reflect on some of the benefits of an increased consideration of Romani Americans and Romani Studies in the Americas to the field of Romani Studies as a whole and the Gypsy Lore Society specifically. The supposition that such an orientation would be beneficial is grounded in the fact that experiences are geographically situated. Because many diverse American places share certain historical and contemporary circumstances with each other that differ from Europe and other parts of the world, Romani people’s lived experiences in the Americas, and hence the work of scholars considering these lives, have at times developed along distinctive trajectories. Scholars ask questions, governments enact policies, activists choose strategies, and individuals navigate circumstances in ways that mutually constitute each other and that are distinct to local, national and even continental realities. Since “The goals of the Gypsy Lore Society include promotion of the study of these communities, their history and cultures worldwide; dissemination of accurate information aimed at increasing understanding of them in their diverse forms; and establishment of closer contacts among scholars studying any aspects of these cultures,” (GLS homepage, http://www.gypsyloresociety.org, accessed March 16, 2020) my suggestion for a trans-Atlantic turn is in line with the stated goals of the organization. Although some of the limitations to achieving these “worldwide” aims are no doubt pragmatic, others are ideological. A greater awareness of the ideas and realities that inform the experiences of scholars and Romani people in the Americas can not only help the GLS better achieve its own stated goals, but can also enrich the work of Romani Studies scholars in Europe and beyond.
Representing Romani People. Some Critical Considerations about Scientific Literature
Daniele Panaroni, University of Rome “La Sapienza”, Italy
(daniele.panaroni@uniroma1.it)
Over the last decades, many studies on the relations between media systems and the Romani people have been conducted. Many of these studies investigate the representation of Romani people by the media. Starting from the theoretical framework elaborated by the Sociology of the Unmarked (Brekhus 1998), the present contribution will answer three main questions: 1) What are the aspects mainly addressed by scholars studying the phenomenon? 2) Are there any dominant theoretical frameworks and methods? 3) In which way do these frameworks influence the research findings?
The considerations are based on a systematic review of the relevant literature. The literature on the media representations of Roma mainly focuses on the power asymmetry between the majority of the population and the minority object of the representation. The applied methods in the study of media representations are in most cases qualitative. The analyzed works mainly focus on the press, television, and radio, analyzing only the information programs. Still today, only a few studies have been conducted about the web. Research on media representations of Romani people highlight the following points: media representation of the Roma broadly reflects the relation of domination between the majority society and minority; a discriminatory representation of Roma people prevails.
References
Brekhus, W. (1998). A sociology of the unmarked: Redirecting our focus. Sociological Theory, 16(1), 34-51.
“Thanks to her ‘dissident’ status, she was granted cultural asylum”. The Figure of Dissident Artist in Kiba Lumberg’s Work
Viola Parente-Čapková, University of Turku, Finland
(viocap@utu.fi)
The figure of the (woman) artist is a central element of the Finnish Romani writer, artist and activist Kiba Lumberg’s (*1956) literary work, including one of her comic books. Lumberg’s take on the subject is pronouncedly autobiographical (e.g. Lappalainen 2012), highlighting the important role of the artist’s gender, sexuality, ethnicity and other aspects of her identity, though constantly problematizing and ironizing it. In terms of genre, previous research on Lumberg’s work (i. e. her Memesa trilogy, 2004– 2008 and her comic books, 2010) has highlighted her strategies of using e. g. elements from the (feminist) artist’s novel and autofiction, including features of ethno/autobiography (see Parente-Čapková 2018 and Kauranen, Parente-Čapková & Vuorinne 2020).
In my present contribution, I intend to depart from the Memesa trilogy, but concentrate on Lumberg’s last novel, Irtiottoxxx (2018, Breakxxx), so far largely ignored by the Finnish literary establishment. In Irtiottoxxx, which takes place in Italy, the lesbian Romani artist Memesa (the protagonist of Lumberg’s earlier novels) is no more the first person narrator, but only a narrated figure in the background. However, with the help of the “Memesa narrative” embedded in the discussion on artists’ rights and their position in society in general, Lumberg continues to discuss the role of the artist in the context of the – allegedly liberal and generous – Finnish cultural institutions. I am going to map Lumberg’s critical view of the Nordic society with the help of contextual, multi-layered intersectional analysis of her last novel.
References:
Kauranen, Ralf, Parente-Čapková, Viola & Vuorinne, Anna (2020), Escapes of a “Mad Artist”: Intersectional Identities in Kiba Lumberg’s Comics. Hertrampf, Marina, Ortrud, von Hagen, Kirsten (eds) Selbst- und Frembilder von Roma in Comic und Graphic Novel: Vom Holocaust bis zur Gegenwart, München: Akademische Verlagsgemeinschaft München, 243–272.
Lappalainen, Päivi (2012), “Haluan löytää oman tähteni” [“I Want to Find My Own Star”], in: Kurikka, Kaisa/Löytty, Olli/Melkas, Kukku/Parente-Čapková, Viola (eds): Kertomuksen luonto [The Nature of Narrative], Jyväskylä: Jyväskylän yliopisto [Nykykulttuurin tutkimuskeskuksen julkaisuja 107], 177–186.
Parente-Čapková, Viola (2018): “Is Professionalism the Same as Inhumanity?” Social Criticism in the Literary Work of Kiba Lumberg, in: Multiethnica 38, 18–27. http://www.valentin.uu.se/digitalAssets/686/c_686162-l_3-k_multiethnica38.pdf [27.03.2020].
Public Health Mediation in Roma Health Care Including Management of the Epidemic: New Strategies by the Czech Ministry of Health via the NIPH
Daniela Mosaad Pěničková, National Institute of Public Health/Effective Public Health Project Coordinator/Guarantor, Czech Republic
(daniela.penickova@szu.cz)
While a significant number of the Roma people in the Czech Republic have enjoyed health status comparable with the general population, a substantial segment of Roma reside in geographically and/or socially segregated communities. These are marked by chronically low levels of education, standards of living, and legal employment, and by life expectancy 10-15 years shorter than the country’s average. Central and Eastern Europe health authorities mostly agree that the health disparities are due to an adversarial combination of limited health care access and risky health-related everyday practices. The Czech Ministry of Health thus implemented a national five-year project, “Effective Public Health,” targeting both of these in order to improve the health status among the socially excluded inhabitants across the fourteen regions in the country. Through comprehensive revisions by interdisciplinary teams, the methods and tools of the project have shifted from a socio-structural approach to a mixed-method model that is informed by both cultural views (including Romani Studies) and socio-structural perspectives (including structural sociology and economic studies). In light of the Primary Care Reformation recently begun by the Ministry of Health, the project’s initial phase explored the effectiveness of the primary care use. It showed that the combination of a long distance to one’s general practitioner, limited access to the Internet, prohibitive costs of health services and frequent refusal to register with primary care practitioners illustrate major structural barriers of the Roma to primary health care, considered the gatekeeper to the entire system of public health. At the same time, a complex system of cultural beliefs and practices stemming from a long history of forced migration, poverty, segregation, and internalized racism have contributed to a significantly systematic nonadherence to clinical and public health recommendations and medical regimes among many Roma individuals and families. Over 60 community workers – called Public Health Mediators (PHM) in the project—coming from the segregated living background themselves, have been trained to be able to utilize structural and cultural approaches and apply them in improving Roma health. Through the combination of informed legal advice and in-depth knowledge of social group strategies, as well as culturally relevant behaviors, they have seemed to mark (in the Czech Republic) innovative directions of work in public health care.
Invoking the Past for the Present’s Sake. The Case of the Romani Movement in Interwar Romania
Petre Matei, “Elie Wiesel” National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust, Romania
(matei.petre.ro@gmail.com)
This paper examines the memory-making mechanisms in interwar Romania and the extent to which Roma were able to make use of them in order to forge common perceptions of the past or a shared group identity.
Little was known about the Romani past in Romania. Things started to change already in the 1930s against the background of the emergence of the first Romani organisations. Romani activists started to be preoccupied with their past in an effort to use it for identity construction and made attempts to identify relevant lieux de mémoire. However, they had to act according to the then meagre means available to them. Hence, the commemorations practiced by the Romani organisations in the 1930s were integrative, aiming to show their closeness to the Romanians they depended on. They celebrated days and symbols such as the National Day of Romania (10 May 1866), the Restauration Day (10 June 1930), the Orthodox Easter, or the Heroes’ Day (as the latter coincided with the Ascension Day, its observance could benefit Roma who referred both to religious and national meanings). Back then, Romani activists had not yet developed a coherent and consistent discourse regarding commemoration. For example, the relatively few references to slavery the Romani activists made were not meant to accuse the Romanian people as a whole, which is different from the more recent radical approaches. All of these did not yet represent sustained efforts to create, let alone successfully disseminate, a coherent historical narrative. Moreover, the real impact of the Romani organisations on the Romani communities at the time should not be overstated. All they had at this time were just a few Romani newspapers which were not yet very influential. For most of the 1930s, there remained a significant gap between Romani ethnic entrepreneurs, and the Romani people as a whole.
Modern Migration Processes of Roma from Macedonia
Daniel Petrovski, Institute of Folklore "Marko Cepenkov", Skopje, Republic of North Macedonia
(petrovskidaniel@gmail.com)
As a topic, the migration of Macedonian Roma in the post-war period is insufficiently researched in science. This social and cultural aspect of the recent history of the Roma from the Western Balkans has a special impact on the identity issues and especially on the demographics of the Romani population. This paper will focus on the Macedonian Roma’s migration and ethno-cultural changes in the post-war period.
As a marginalized people, the Roma were particularly affected by the consequences of World War II, which significantly increased poverty and unemployment, which in turn had repercussions on education. After the war, industrialization began, especially in progressively developing countries such as America, Australia and China, as well as some European countries (Germany, France, and Italy). Such an economic and social set-up of the great powers vis-a-vis underdeveloped countries has led to mass migration and job search in the world's economic centres of power, especially by the countries of the Western Balkans.
The post-war migration of Macedonian Roma was happening during the existence of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). The first period took place in the 1960s and 70s, when the world economy was looking for workers from the Balkan countries. The second period can be called a "socio-economic wave" and the reason for the mass exodus in the late 1980s is the spread of information in Romani neighbourhoods that by means of asylum application one can obtain documents enabling him to stop in European countries quickly and easily. Since Macedonia gained independence in 1991, many Roma have returned from Germany through a reintegration programme. The third period of modern migration wave has been taking place since 2009 and can be called an "asylum wave", after Europe opened its borders to the citizens of Macedonia. According to field research, some asylum seekers received full protection and financial assistance from the European states. The modern migration of Roma from Macedonia has contributed to a significant improvement in their housing, economic stability and raising awareness of education. There is no official data on the number of Roma from Macedonia in EU countries, but according to data obtained by local "Romani leaders" from European cities, Macedonian Roma are mostly in Germany, Belgium, Italy, Sweden, and France.
Marian Devotion as Post-Modern Religious Response to Marginality. On the Case of Roma/Gypsies in Slovakia
Tatiana Zachar Podolinská, Institute of Ethnology and Social Anthropology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia
(tatiana.podolinska@savba.sk)
Since the rise of modern society, religion is said to have disappeared (“disenchanted word”, Weber 1978). It is only in the last decades that secularisation itself is unveiled as a ”modern myth”. “Re-enchantment” is currently placed at the very heart of modernity. Some authors not only observe a ‘return of the sacred’ but even “desecularisation” (decrease in the secular aspects of modern culture, Bell 1977, Berger 1999).
The thesis of this contribution is that the Marian religiosity is part of this aforementioned “re-enchantment” of modern European culture.
What is interesting about apparitions is that they occur on the periphery not only from the geographical point of view (peripheries of cities, rural areas) but also at peripheral levels of society: the seers are mostly children or (illiterate) women with a socially deprived background (Turner and Turner 1978). The contribution will present Marian devotion (including apparitions and pilgrimages) among Roma/Gypsies in Slovakia, i.e. among those who are “weak” in multiple senses. Firstly, they live on the periphery of the mainstream society and are therefore socially marginalised. Secondly, Roma are also ethnically stigmatised in the case of Slovakia. Thirdly, from the spatial perspective, Roma communities are located in rural areas and peripheral and deprived urban areas.
This contribution will explore how Marian devotion is embedded in a particular cultural context in order to mediate help, protection and care of the “Mother of Christ”. It will elucidate the process of “appropriation” of the Virgin Mary, i.e. the process of inculturation, in which the “White” Virgin Mary is culturally and ethnically “transcribed” and “translated” into the “Chocolate Mary” and “Our Solemn Mother” that physically, mentally and spiritually fits much more and corresponds to the hopes and needs of a particular “peripheral” ethnic community. This phenomenon of “marginal centrality” can be interpreted also in terms of internal emancipation (Marushiakova and Popov 2020) and as an attempt of a stigmatised and deprived community to achieve a proper position within the mainstream society. This contribution is an output of the project VEGA 2/0060/19 Ethnographic Research of Non-Religion and Secularism in Modern Slovak Society (Life-Trajectories and Stories).
References:
Bell, D. 1977. The Return of the Sacred? The Argument on the Future of religion. In: British Journal of Sociology 28(4): 419–449.
Berger, P. L. 1999. The Desecularization of the World. In: P. L. Berger (Ed.), The Desecularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and World Politics. Washington: Eerdmans, pp. 1–18.
Marushiakova, E. and Vesselin V. 2020. An Introduction. In: E. Marushiakova and V. Popov (Ed.), Roma Voices in History. A Source Book. Brill (forthcoming)
Turner, V. W. – Turner, E. 1978. Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture. Anthropological Perspectives. New York: Columbia University Press.
Weber, M. 1978. Economy and Society. Berkeley: University Press of California Press.
Inclusiveness of Public Policy Support Measures Aiming to Increase Employment Rate among Roma – Case of Slovakia
Zuzana Polackova, Institute for Forecasting, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia
(polackova.zuza@gmail.com)
People from marginalised Romani communities (MRC) are one of the groups most distanced from the labour market in Slovakia. According to the EU-MIDIS II survey, only one in five Roma aged 16 years and older in Slovakia describes their main activity as employed or self-employed. For comparison, this number is lower than in the Czech Republic or Hungary. On the other hand, it seems to be the highest since the early 1990s, when the system of the planned economy collapsed in Slovakia and Roma were the first to lose their jobs.
Aiming at achieving better employment for disadvantaged groups, including people from MRC, a variety of public policy measures have been implemented, and significant public resources invested. The most visible are an active labour market policy offering direct job subsidies, and a social insurance policy offering fiscal incentives to employers who give work to persons who have been unemployed long term. Official data regarding the participation of the ethnic minorities in the specific policies/measures do not exist in Slovakia, and thus the extent of the impact (negative, positive or any) is not known. Similarly, the explicit (not exclusive!) targeting in processes of specific measures designing is not used in practice.
This paper builds on the results of the online survey and qualitative research among employers focused on the impact of the active labour market measure on the employment of Roma, as well as qualitative research among support workers focused on the identification of obstacles preventing people of MRC from utilising the existing support measures aimed at increasing the employment rate.
The Sound of Romani Religiosity
Kinga Povedák, PhD, ‘Convivence’ Research Group on Religious Pluralism, Hungarian Academy of Sciences – University of Szeged, Hungary
(povedakkinga@gmail.com)
This paper investigates the role of Romani worship music in Hungary. Although there is more and more research on Pentecostal Roma conversion, there is hardly any study looking at Romani religious experience through a musical-anthropological/ethnomusicological perspective. I argue that the anthropological analysis of Romani religious music and the surrounding phenomena enables us to better understand Romani religious experience and religious culture. I discuss congregational music as an important pastoral method in the conversion to Pentecostal-charismatic communities. As part of my ‘Sound of religious pluralism’ pilot project, I present the musical ethnographies of Pentecostal and Catholic Roma congregations.
On the Origin of the Endonym Sinti – a Historical and Linguistic Examination
Daphne Reitinger, Linguistic Department, University of Graz
(daphne.reitinger@uni-graz.at)
The origin of the endonym Sinti has been subject of investigation for well over 200 years. In the wake of the discovery of the Indo-Aryan affiliation of Romani, one of the earliest sources mentioning this endonym interprets the term ‚Sinte‘ as the ‚true‘ ethnonym (‚der wahre Name‘)‚ of all Romani-speaking groups and allocates its origin to the river Sindhu and the province of Sindh in northwest India (Biester 1793:365-366). In the 1900s Hasse (1803:32-38), in his search for attestations of Gypsies, refers to the classical literature and proposes a connection to the Sintians of ancient Thrace. Pott (1844:34), referring to Hasse in his review of reference literature on the Roma of that time, revisits a potential connection to the ancient Σινδοί (Zindoí) people of the Bosporus and notes on but dismisses a morphologically possible relation to ‚Gesinde‘ (germ. ‚domestic servants‘; ,comrades‘). Piasere discusses the possible affiliation to a pre-European pool of inherited Romani self-appellatives, as well as additionally touching upon ‚Gesinde‘ anew (2019:110). Matras (1999, 2019) concludes the term Sinti to be a European borrowing in Romani due to its employment of the inflectional pattern characteristic of European loanwords. Notwithstanding the interpretations and arguments made to date, an etymology accepted by the general scientific community has yet to be put forward.
In my presentation, I will discuss the linguistic practices and dialectology of the Late Middle Ages and onwards (starting roughly in the year 1400) of Central and Western Europe, with a particular focus on the peripatetic populations. Consequently, I will closely examine the early attestations of the self-appellative term Sinti as well as the early sources of northwestern Romani varieties in general and Sinti Romani in particular with regard to their geographical and dialectological implications. Finally, by considering the linguistic, historical and anthropological ramifications, I will propose an etymology for the term ‚Sinti‘, in accordance with Matras‘ findings of Sinti being a loan acquired after the emergence of the Northwestern group.
References:
Biester, Johann Erich: Ueber die Zigeuner, besonders im Königreich Preußen (Beschluß vom Februar Nr. 3). Von ihrer Sprache. In: Biester(Ed.): Berlinische Monatschrift, Band 21, p.360-394, Berlin 1793
Hasse, Johann Gottfried: Zigeuner im Herodot, oder neue Aufschlüsse über die ältere Zigeuner-Geschichte aus griechischen Schriftstellern, Königsberg 1803
Matras, Yaron: Johann Rüdiger and the Study of Romani in 18th Century Germany, Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, fifth series, 9, p. 89-116, 1999
Matras, Yaron: Romani self-apellations in a linguistic perspective. A reply to Leonardo Piasere, Anuac Vol. 8, 2, p. 105-112, 2019
Piasere, Leonardo: Pour une histoire des auto-dénominations romanès, Anuac Vol. 8, 1, p. 85-118, 2019
Pott, August Friedrich: Die Zigeuner in Europa und Asien, Halle 1844
Remote Vocational School Classes: The Policy That Succeeds or Fails in Inclusion of Romani Youth?
Edita Rigová, Institute of Ethnology and Social Anthropology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia
(edita.rigova@savba.sk)
The goal of this paper is to analyse the role of remote vocational school classes located in rural areas in close proximity to segregated Romani settlements in the context of social inclusion of Romani youth in Slovakia, with a focus on the integration in the labour market. The policy of locating vocational school classes directly in Romani settlements or in close proximity was set up in reaction to low educational attainment of the Romani minority, with the purported aim being to bring the schools close to localities in which Romani children live and thus to facilitate for them better access to vocational education. Hailed by authorities as an inclusive educational policy, this has been considered by many activists and experts as highly controversial, since it may strengthen isolation and segregation of Romani youth from general society. The number of remote school classes has increased over the last period, though the policy has not been evaluated and its impact on school results and labour market integration is ambiguous. Since research into this phenomenon has been practically absent, my paper represents a solitary scientific contribution. While the paper examines the impact of this policy in the field of social inclusion and integration of young Roma into the labour market, it augments our understanding and knowledge of patterns of marginalisation of Roma in Slovakia in line with Bourdieu's concepts of social capital and theory of power, as well as Anderson's theory of inequality. In conclusion, it argues that the policy, in contrast with its professed goals, reinforces segregation of Romani communities.
COVID-19 Crisis: Impact on Households of the Romani Community
María Félix Rodriguez, FAGA. Equi-Sastipen-Rroma Network, Spain
(ghalilea@hotmail.es)
Diana Maria Gil Gonzalez, University of Alicante. CIBER of Epidemiology and Public Health, Spain
(diana.gil@ua.es)
Javier Arza, Public University of Navarre, Spain
(javier.arza@unavarra.es)
On March 14, 2020 a state of emergency was declared in Spain due to the COVID 19 crisis and a confinement of the entire population was carried out. The relationship between the UA and the UPNA with the Equi Sastipen Network allows to carry out research on the multidimensional impact of the pandemic on Romani families and extend it to other autonomous regions. The previous associative work with the families, the experience in research, the existence of professionals from inside the community and the creation and participation in networks throughout the national territory allow the realization of this report. The methodology is an exploratory study (CATI) of households that form part of the care network of five Romani associations in the social sphere (“Participatory Rapid Appraisal"). The fieldwork began on April 12 and ended on May 10, 2020. The study reflects the multidimensional impact of COVID19 on households previously affected by social exclusion, which had barely been able to recover from the previous crisis. At the end of the previous crisis, almost 3 out of 4 Romani people were in a situation of exclusion.
It is for this reason that we speak of Sindemia. Of a worsening in the self-perception of health and a high incidence of anxiety or depression problems. In education, half of the households have found it difficult for children to continue their studies at home. One out of every two households has seen its labor activity harmed, a similar percentage has suffered a notable reduction in its economic income, and eight out of every ten households claim to have had difficulty in accessing basic food. In addition to the above-mentioned problems, there is an increase in perceived discrimination. Slightly more than a half view it as having increased during the state of emergency. The results are similar to those shown by other studies that have analyzed the impact of COVID-19 in excluded sectors. Protective factors such as the cohesion of the extended family and the traditional mutualism complemented by Romani civil society have been identified. As alternatives for the future, a multidimensional perspective and a multisectoral approach oriented towards equity are necessary, as well as participation of the Romani population and its civil society and the reinforcement of the axes of the fight against discrimination and the social and institutional recognition of the Romani population.
A Backdrop to Civic Activism? Romani Voices within the Finnish ‘Gypsy Mission’ during the Interwar Period
Raluca Bianca Roman, University of St Andrews, UK
(rr44@st-andrews.ac.uk; romanralucabianca@gmail.com)
Risto Blomster, The Finnish Literature Society
(risto.blomster@finlit.fi)
Founded in 1906, by non-Romani evangeliser Oskari Jalkio, the Finnish Gypsy Mission (Suomen Mustalaislähetys, presently known as Romano Missio) has grown into one of the longest-lasting and most active Roma organisation in the Nordic countries (and, perhaps, beyond). Its initial aims were focused on the religious awakening of the Romani community in Finland, and the majority of its leaders and actors at the time were non-Romani Evangelisers. With their priorities of interventions being both religiously-based and socially-based, the Mission set up, as early as the beginning of the 20th century, several Romani schools, Romani language courses, children’s homes, with a key focus placed on the education of Romani children in Finland.
Yet, despite the apparent “absence” or “silence” of Romani voices within these initial phases of the Mission, the organisation would not have been able to thrive and develop as it did without the support and mediation of Roma themselves. These often acted not only as contact points with Romani families within different regions but as active members of the Mission itself: as evangelists, preachers, writers for the Mission’s journal (Kiertolainen) and teachers/employees within the Mission’s social/educational institutions.
It is in this context that this paper will explore the role and life stories of key Romani figures from within the Mission, primarily during the interwar period, a period characterised both by the country’s search for its own national identity (in the aftermath of a bloody Civil War and Finland’s newly attained independence from Russia) and by an apparent silence of the Mission’s activities. The paper will also look at how these key Romani figures both followed and moved away from the main goals of the organisation. In fact, while their association with the Mission is often understated, some of the most active Romani social activists were connected with its early activities. Through this, the paper will explore the backdrop to what can be seen as the emergence of Romani civic activism in the country, through its connection to the Gypsy Mission and the legacy the latter has left not only for post-war social activism but also for present-day Romani religious mobilisation within the country.
The Governance of Gold Production in Wallachia and the Status of the Rudari (1388-1838)
Julieta Rotaru, Managing Editor, Romani Studies, Gypsy Lore Society
(julieta.rotaru@gmail.com)
The Romanian-speaking Rudari, “țigănised Romanians”, “old Romanians” or “Romanianized Gypsies” (Weigand 1897, 1908: 174), “other Gypsies” (Block 1938: 108, nowadays Bengelstorf 2009) are a population who traditionally inhabited the entire Balkan area and Central European parts. See Marushiakova and Popov 2021, for their different appellations and their current status and migration. Those who live outside the Romanian borders were and are better researched than those who live in Romania. One of the few historical research projects (Constantin Șerban, 1959 and 2002) shows the Wallachian Rudari from the seventeenth century onwards were gold-washers and subordinated to the Cozia Monastery, the authority of which they continually contested for centuries until they eventually became State Gypsies in the nineteenth century. In the absence of gold mines, Wallachian local specialty was the panning of native gold from the riverbeds of the main rivers and their tributaries, an activity carried out by the Rudari amply described by foreign observers or administrators. This paper explores the role of the Cozia Monastery in the history of the Rudari in Wallachia. For the governance of gold production, the Rudars were organized in 1388 by the Wallachian ruler as țigan of Cozia Monastery, which was built by him on the Olt Valley. In time, the panning of gold and its submission to the Crown was done through an officer of the central administration, the Chief Police Commander (Marele Armaș) and the relation to Monastery was ascertained through a vătaf headman chosen from among them, who was responsible for their surveillance and the tax collection for the Monastery. This relationship with the Monastery continued as long as slavery was legal, and the Monastery claimed that “all” Rudari belong to Cozia, through many donations. Here we will investigate the context of the original donation with the aim of seeing how the nature of slavery in relation to the Rudari developed and identifying the roots of later intense conflicts between the Rudari and the Monastery. The sources used will include material from the monastery archive which were partially integrated into the previous research (Constantin Șerban 1959) and socio-demographic data from the MapRom database (www.maprom.se).
Minority Press as the Prerequisite for a Small Ethnic Literature: The Informační zpravodaj and Románo ľil Romani Magazines (1969-1973) as the Solid Foundation for the Contemporary Romani Literature in the Czech Republic
Karolína Ryvolová, Kher Publishing House, Prague, Czech Republic
(karolina.ryvolova@centrum.cz)
The short-lived Romani magazines Informační zpravodaj and its successor Románo ľil, released as the internal newsletter of the Union of Gypsies-Roma between 1969 and 1973, helped forge written Romani in the Czech Republic, set the tone for Romani writing for the future, and served as a hotbed that bred new talents. Although non-Romani intellectuals such as Milena Hübschmannová, Eva Davidová or Pavel Steiner significantly contributed to the magazine’s form, the topics and renditions therein were the Romani writers’ own. Contemporary Czech Romani writing, even by the youngest writers who have had little or no contact with the UGR generation, owes its writers’ confidence to write and their motivic patterns to the literary pioneers, many of whom have been forgotten. In my paper, I will briefly discuss the history of the newsletter, its characteristic features, and some leading topics and approaches as represented by Tera Fabiánová, Andrej Pešta, Josef Bánom and Andrej Giňa, and I will show how the ethos of the first independent Romani organisation in Czechia has transcended decades and continues to live in the works of contemporary Romani writers. I will also demonstrate that the conservative vein of narrative embedded in the oral tradition and the activist, politically engaged approach existed parallel to each other from the start; rather than being two successive stages of development, they are in fact two trends of Romani representation, and, as such, two sides of the same coin.
Finding a Voice: the Slovak-Roma Woman Writer in Irish and Czech Fiction
Charles Sabatos, Yeditepe University, Istanbul, Turkey
(charles.sabatos@gmail.com)
The Irish-American writer Colum McCann’s Zoli, published in 2006, features a Slovak-Roma woman who survives the Nazi occupation and Communist-era discrimination to become an acclaimed poet, only to be cast out by her community and forced into exile. While giving a (fictional) voice to a marginalized minority, the novel is dominated by two male narrators: a Slovak writer named Stranský and Zoli’s lover, an Englishman of mixed Irish-Slovak background named Swann. The novel received widespread critical acclaim (the Guardian called it “a convincing account of Gypsy life”) and was translated into a number of languages, including Czech. Two years after Zoli appeared, another depiction of postwar Slovak Roma life was published in the Czech Republic: Irena Eliášová’s Our Settlement (Naše osada). With its affectionate but unsentimental view of Romani culture, the work reveals a community deeply invested in its traditions yet confronted with social change. The text is distinguished by a simple yet distinctive mixture of languages: while the characters speak Slovak (with some use of Romani phrases), the narrative voice is in standard Czech. Despite some critical attention from scholars of Romani studies, Eliášová’s work remains mostly unknown in both Czech and Slovak literary circles.
Both Zoli and Naše osada walk an uneasy balance in their well-intentioned presentations of the Slovak-Roma woman writer, both real and fictional. In the case of McCann, the effort to bring one of Europe’s most misunderstood minorities to an Anglophone readership borders on what John McCourt calls a “patronizing gesture.” The issues of control in Eliášová’s case are less obvious but also reflect deeply engrained power balances. Her book is illustrated by drawings made by children from a mainly Romani primary school, but the editors included footnotes to “correct” the characters’ mistakes in Slovak. In the Central European context, where national identity is still heavily defined by language, Eliášová’s use of multilingualism negotiates between both the “separate but equal” status of Czech and Slovak language under Communism and the suppression of Romani language that has persisted to the present. Whether in a bestselling novel written in New York, or in a memoir from provincial Bohemia, the Slovak-Roma writer faces obstacles to self-expression not only due to gender and ethnicity, but to issues of appropriation similar to those debated by US Latinx and other minority artists.
The Fortunes of the Fransuzuya, c. 1890 – c. 1940
Sheila Salo, independent scholar
(Sheila.salo@gmail.com)
The Fransuzuya entered scholarly consciousness in 1913 and 1914 through accounts in the Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society. Subsequent contributions by academically-trained historians have analyzed discrete sets of documents and have focused primarily on non-Gypsy institutions’ relations with these Rom. The present study, grounded in ethnographic field research, draws on such documentary sources as vital records, passenger lists, and news accounts, as well as those generated by government agencies. Internet materials produced by members of the group provide a bridge between field and documentary research. Through these sources the study extends the geographical and chronological scope of our understanding of this Kalderash Rom vitsa. The travels of the Fransuzuya in Europe, the United Kingdom, and the Americas illuminate how these Rom have negotiated changing social, political and economic circumstances, both those deriving from the non-Gypsy world as well as from encounters with other Rom. The development of economic organization and its role in group identity brings the story into the 21st century.
The Decisions of the UN Human Rights Committee Regarding Complaints Submitted by Romani Authors
Vasilka Sancin, Department of International Law, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Law, Slovenia, Member of the UN Human Rights Committee (2019-2022)
(vasilka.sancin@pf.uni-lj.si)
The proposed paper intends to look into the decisions of the UN Human Rights Committee in complaints brought to it by authors communications of Romani ethnicity or/and their representatives/counsel arguing violations of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (the Covenant). The jurisprudence shows that the authors, bringing complaints mostly against Eastern or Southern-European States parties, alleged violations of various rights protected by the Covenant, from the right to life (article 6), torture or ill-treatment (article 7), the right to liberty of movement and freedom to choose one’s residence (article 12), the right to family life and privacy (articles 17 and 23), fair trial rights (article 14), freedom of thought, conscience and religion (article 18), minority rights (article 27), while most of them argued discrimination and raised issues under articles 2 and 26 of the Covenant. The cases concern predominantly, although not exclusively, situations of forced evictions and demolitions of housing of Romani communities. The paper aims to address the reasons for the finding of inadmissibility in about one third of all submitted cases and discusses the reasoning of the Committee in Views where the findings of a non-violation(s) or a violation(s) were supported by the majority of the members, looking also into the separate opinions appended by the individual members. Special attention will also be devoted to the remedies part of the Views where the violation was found and to the analysis of the follow-up procedures to Views in such cases.
The Fate of the Dycha Family from the Village of Hrušky: Documenting Victims of Nazi Genocide of the Roma and Sinti in the Czech Republic
Michal Schuster, Terezín Initiative Institute, Prague, Czech Republic
(michal.schuster@terezinstudies.cz)
The paper will present one specific outcome of the project Database of Roma Victims of the Holocaust in the Czech Republic, conducted since 2016 by the Terezín Initiative Institute in Prague. The documentation of victims is based on systematic archival research, which has been carried out in various Czech and foreign archives and other memory institutions.
The case study of the tragic fate of a Romani family from the village of Hrušky shows the possibilities of detailed, systematic and local research of individual victims, documenting the genocide of the Romani and Sinti populations on the territory of today´s Czech Republic.
The Dycha family lived in the village of Hrušky in agricultural South Moravia, where they had a small house, jobs, and a conflict-free relationship with the majority. After 1939, they were struck by the “anti-Gypsy” policies of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Finally, in early May 1943, they were transported along with their eight children to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. The only survivor was Damián Malík - Danihel, the illegitimate son of Estera Dychová. According to archival documents and testimonies of witnesses he was rescued thanks to his Slovak citizenship and thanks to the intervention of two local men – the former village mayor and his successor.
The case study has various important overlaps in the pre-war and post-war period and, besides the personal stories themselves, also touches upon other interesting sub-topics of the coexistence of the Romani minority with the majority in the past. These include, for example, links among different segments of the Romani population in Moravia and Slovakia, examples of negotiations of the Roma with local authorities and institutions (e.g. concerning the right to residence, the permission to build a house and smithy, etc.) and sheds light on the relationship between the members of the Romani minority and the majority before and during World War II in a small Moravian village.
The Romani Minority Visual Representation in the Czech TV Headline News Programme: No Change Since the Year 2000
Renáta Sedláková, Faculty of Arts, Palacky University, Olomouc, Czech Republic
(ren.sedlak@gmail.com)
Media are key agents in the process of the construction of social reality in late modernity. Their operation may contribute to the discrimination of members of various social minorities and their social exclusion. The Romani minority belongs to the most stereotyped and discriminated social groups in everyday life in the Czech Republic. The author has analysed the media’s representation of the Roma as shown in the TV headline news programme Události on Czech TV (public service broadcaster) since 2000. Although it revealed a significant increase of news coverage of the Roma in that period, the detailed analysis did not show an increased level of understanding for these minority members. Despite the wide scope of information covered by the news discourse, only several frames (Entman 1993) had been used for their representation – social housing, social benefits and crime dominantly. Most of the events and topics were narrated within the „Us versus Them perspective, which represents the Roma as the different Others. Most of the news was presented from the majority point of view as minority members are not usually quoted as information sources by journalists. Romani people were quoted almost exclusively in the cases related to their ethnic group, they did not comment on the society’s issues in general. Romani people‘s representation constructed in the analysed programme, showed a new racism defined by van Dijk (2000) on the level of latent meaning. There are no racialist or xenophobic statements on the manifest level of the news reports, nevertheless, plenty of stereotypical images are presented at the same time. In this paper the author will focus on the visual representation of this minority. Based on the media and language constructivism (Schulz 1989, Searle 1995, Kopytowska 2015) the paper analyses dominantly applied signifiers and shows a reduction and direction of news meaning via used visual images. The semiotic approach and the discourse analysis were applied to the images which are most common in the news service. The visual images are the key signs in media representation of the Roma and the signs used in the visual part of the news are the key signifiers in these cases. Images of the Roma in public places with lots of children running around, with devastated buildings and socially excluded localities are present even in news reports on completely different topics (e.g. international politics or urban policy). The paper shows that such images have not disappeared from the news discourse of the public service broadcaster since the year 2000. This majority news discourse does not give much space to Romani minority members for getting more in-visible in the Czech society or to challenge the widespread mainstream media representation imagery.
References
Entmann, Robert. 1993. ‘Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm.’ Journal of Communication 43, 51–58.
Searle, John. 1995. The Construction of Social Reality. London: The Penguin.
Schulz, Winfried. 1989. ‘Massenmedien und Realität. Die ‘ptolemäische’ und die ‘kopernikanische’ Auffassung’. In Massenkommunikation. Theorien, Methoden, Befunde, edited by M. Kaase and W. Schultz, 135–149. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.
Kopytowska, Monika. 2015. ‘Mediating Identity, Ideology and Values in the Public Sphere: Towards a New Model of (Constructed) Social Reality’. Lodz Papers in Pragmatics 11, 133–156.
van Dijk, A. Theun. 2000. ´New(s) Racism: a Discourse Analytical Approachn’. In Ethnic Minotities and the Media, edited by S. Cottle, 33-49. Buckingham, Philadelphia: Open University Press.
Roma in the Turiec Region according to 1930 Census Data
Lucia Segľová, Institute of Roma Studies, University of Prešov, Slovakia and Slovak National Museum, Museum of Culture of Roma in Slovakia in Martin, Slovakia
(lucia.seglova@gmail.com)
This descriptive contribution is inspired by the demographical characteristic of Roma in Moravia according to the 1930 data census by Ctibor Nečas (he analysed data on 1161 Roma in 25 localities). The contribution similarly describes Romani communities in the Turiec region (Slovakia) based on the 1930 census. The Turiec census data will be compared with available information on: Romani communities in Moravia, some Romani communities in Slovakia, and the whole population in Slovakia. In this way, we can find how similar were these two Romani populations in Czechoslovakia and how similar or different was the Turiec Romani population and the majority. I was able to identify 495 Roma in Turiec in 28 localities (2 urban) based on declared and ascribed ethnicity (140 Roma declared “gypsy” nationality in the census). The structure of the Romani population will be analysed according to biological (gender, age), social (proportion of economically active and inactive, profession, literacy) and cultural criteria (surnames, proportion of legal marriages and open partnerships, proportion of nuclear and extended families, local endogamy and exogamy, number of children, size of household, origin in the region). The contribution confirms the statement by Nečas that the settled Romani population in Moravia was similar with the Romani communities in Slovakia. In comparison with the majority, Romani populations in Turiec and Moravia were characterized by higher femininity, unusual juvenility, low rate of literacy, distinct predominance of several surnames, high occurrence of open partnerships, and still a high proportion of extended families. Contrary to the Moravian Roma, traditional trades were still important among the Roma in the Turiec region and the number of household members was a little higher in the Turiec region too. At the same time, we discover great predominance of locally born Roma in the Turiec region, as well as a total predominance of local exogamy among Romani partners, and a strong patrilocality (which means that partners used to take up the man’s residence). The research also confirms some specific features of the urban Roma in the Turiec region. Men were usually musicians, originated from other Slovak regions, lived among majority and were more educated than the rural Romani population.
Double-Consciousness and Cultural Mediation in Transnational Romani literature
Ana Belén Martín Sevillano, Department of World Languages and Literatures, Université de Montréal, Canada
(ab.martin.sevillano@umontreal.ca)
W.E.B. Du Bois coined the term “double consciousness” to refer to the conflictive subjectivities of African Americans (as racialized subjects) who strive to reconcile their ethnic bodies, behaviours, values, and experiences with those of the hegemonic group in their societies. The fact that these hegemonic values are internalized by the racialized subjects, despite the trauma those values inflict on the subjects, reveals the complexity and vulnerability of the human mind. Drawing on the concepts of “double consciousness,” “autoethnography” (Pratt), and the notion of cultural mediation (Vigotsky), this paper examines the work of Ronald Lee (Goddam Gypsy), Mateo Maximoff (Dites-le avec des pleurs and Les Ursitori), and Jorge Emilio Nedich (Leyenda gitana and El aliento negro de los romaníes), analyzing how the literary texts become a space in which values and behaviours are confronted and resignified.
References:
Du Bois, W.E.B. The Souls of Balck Folk. New York: Penguin, 1903.
Pratt, Marie-Louise. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. New York: Routledge, 1992.
Vigotsky, L.S. Mind in Society. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press, 1978.
Moscow Standard Romani and Smolensk Correspondents of 1930s
Viktor Shapoval, Moscow City University, Russia
(ShapovalVV@mgpu.ru)
Soviet standard Romani, being created by a narrow group of enthusiasts, had been accessed by the latter as a worldwide unique project. In reality it was a hybrid of some obviously contradicting sources: variations of Romani spoken by the enthusiasts themselves. Nevertheless, for a short time, this standard Romani had reached a high status of a literary language. It means that Moscow editors had the rights to change texts sent by local correspondents to the Romani magazines. Previously we had no opportunities to judge about those editing practices. Some 4 pages in local Romani found by E. Marushiakova and V. Popov in the Smolensk State Archive offer some new facts for reconstructing this side of the Romani publishers’ activities in the period 1926–1938. On the one hand, the Smolensk texts are strikingly similar to modern written Romani texts coming from Western Russian regions (e.g. Pskov). On the other hand, in some points they surprisingly differ from Dobrovolsky's materials (1908).
Some peculiar traits are quite visible in the source:
- narrow unstressed o, e: Rumá ‘Roma’ = [“=” instead of “standard”] Romá (modern private correspondence [Corr.]: Rumný ‘Romani woman’ = Romný; puláv ‘I understand’ = poláv; pu tárgo ‘to the market’ = pro tárgo; A. Kleyn's tales: čururé ‘poor <people>’ = ćororé; kukuró ‘self’ = kokoró; pudžál ‘he goes’ = podźál; dy škóla ‘at school’ = dre škóla;
- difference between č and čh, lost in standard: tečhenav ‘(I shall) to write’ ([Corr.]: čhon ‘month’, čhavále ‘Roma, guys (a form of addressing)’;
- phonetical peculiarities: kśeré ‘at home’ = kheré; txébi ‘it needs’ = trébi; xuróstor ‘from the town’ = foróstyr; xedýr ‘better’ = fedýr; skendyjá ‘he/she has) gathered’ = skedyjá;
- lexical phenomena: thiibnáskiri ‘a mill’; barydýršo ‘a chief, an elder’, etc.
It is worth to underline that the texts analyzed here were sent to the magazine Nevo drom, though weren't published there. Some other materials from Smolensk correspondents were published, but we have their original manuscripts. Having now samples of genuine Smolensk texts, we can in some important details reconstruct the forms and volume of the necessary editing process, which the editorial board had to conduct while preparing various local correspondences for publication in a very short period of time.
Fighting for Peace in Uriah Burton’s Life Story Uriah Burton ”Big Just” His Life, His Aims, His Ideals (1979)
Martin Shaw, Mid Sweden University, Sweden
(Martin.shaw@miun.se)
The title of Romani Uriah Burton’s 26-page collaborative life story includes the words “aims” and “ideals,” and these two words capture significant parts of the contents of the life story. Aims include building a caravan park for his fellow Gypsies and Travellers to live on, walking from Belfast to Dublin in “Peace People” style, constructing a monument to his father on top of a Welsh hilltop, and negotiating punishments in terms of “Gypsy Law”. Some of these aims were ideals to begin with, but he made them real, while other ideas remained ideals, but not for the want of trying. The following words can be seen directly after the title on the inner flap of the life story: “WITH GREETINGS TO ALL PEOPLE IN THE WORLD,” and these few words also capture parts of the life story. Burton took personal action to bring attention to the much-needed idea of peace in a troubled Ireland, but he also wanted world peace. One aspect of Burton’s identity seems to contradict this description – he was a renowned no-rules, bare-knuckle fighter with a fierce reputation, but he depicts himself as maintaining the idea that he used his many abilities, including his fighting ability, to preserve and maintain different forms of peace. His life story is quite rare, as there were only a few hundred copies published; it has circulated within Gypsy circles, and, he writes: “Four copies of this article have been issued to every country in the world” (p. 23). The life story is referred to as a booklet and an article, and the 1st of January, 1980, is suggested as the “day of the declaration of peace”: that is, the declaration of the desire for world peace. Burton claims that he has difficulty making himself understood and understanding modern society (p.1), but maybe it is time that he was understood; my presentation will consist of an attempt to do so.
In (re)Search of Inclusion: Roma under the Pressure of De-historicizing between the 1950s and 1990s
Victoria Shmidt, Institute for History, University of Graz, Austria
(victoria.shmidt@uni-graz.at)
I trace the crystallization of the epistemic community of those who took a leadership position in producing knowledge concerning “Gypsies” and depicting them as a self-isolated group of “primitives,” a key signifier for racializing Roma until today. The sustainable reproduction of racial assimilationism concerning Central European Roma after 1945 stemmed from the multilevel interrogation of national and global agendas concerning surveillance over unreliable populations. Anthropologists from Central European countries operated as the main agents connecting intra-country and international levels of policy making concerning Roma. Emancipated from the pressure of Soviet neo-Lamarckism, Yugoslav scholars played a central role in reestablishing physical anthropology as an inter-country epistemic community in the 1950s; Czech scientists obtained a leading position among Central European colleagues only later – in the second half of the 1960s. Several international initiatives, UNESCO statements aimed at eliminating racism in the 1950s, the global agenda of demographic policy making in the 1960s and the International Biological Programme between the 1960s and 1970s provided an organizational framework for fixing whiteness as a source of the normative gaze upon Roma. Moving beyond the borders of science, this approach directly influenced practices of education and shaped public discourses concerning Roma in Central Europe.
Getting to Know the Sikligars—a Marginalized Community of Ironsmiths with Possible Links to Roma Origin Loci
Punita G. Singh, Ashoka University, India
(punita@gmail.com)
Once valued for their metal-burnishing skills, the Sikligar community of smiths have since lost their lustre and have been relegated to living on the fringes of mainstream India. Scattered across the country in shantytowns, the Sikligars suffered the ignominy of being labeled a nomadic ‘criminal tribe’ by the British in 1871 (Singh ‘Sher’, 1966). This appellation was later ‘denotified’ and the community classified under dubious categories like ‘Scheduled Castes’ (SC) and ‘Other Backward Classes’ (OBC) despite many being affiliated to the Sikh faith which believes in an egalitarian, casteless society. This paper reviews extant writings and research on the Sikligars, supplemented by ethnographic accounts of encounters with Sikligar families. The community’s own sense of their history is of particular interest, as many narrate stories of Rajput ancestry and links to places like Chittor, Kannauj, Multan and Sindh that have been implicated in Roma origin theories. Their devotion to Sikh gurus Hargobind and Gobind in the 16th and 17th centuries also comes up in narratives recounting their role as weapon makers for battles with the Mughals. As ‘lohars’ (ironsmiths), the Sikligars now subsist primarily by making farm implements, metal tools, locks and keys. While the Indian government has attempted to ‘settle’ some of the SCs and OBCs, the Sikligars often face discrimination from the majority communities they find themselves embedded in, on account of linguistic and lifestyle differences. In the 1984 Sikh pogrom in Delhi, it is purported that a large majority of the Sikhs murdered were Sikligars and Labanas—easy targets living in ‘resettlement colony’ ghettoes (Radhakrishna, 2007). The irony of their existence is further highlighted, not just in tense out-group relations, but also within the religious in-group, with Sikh elites sometimes treating them as lesser-than. With some scholars and activists raising awareness about these ‘forgotten Sikhs’ (Singh, 2009) the Sikh community is now rallying to uplift the Sikligars and restore the dignity and respect they were accorded by their revered gurus.
References
Singh, J., 2009. On the Forgotten Sikhs’ Trail. Chandigarh: Institute of Sikh Studies.
Radhakrishna, M., 2007. ‘Urban Denotified Tribes: Competing Identities, Contested Citizenship’, Economic and Political Weekly, 42(51): 59-64.
Singh ‘Sher’, S., 1966. The Sikligars of Punjab: A Gypsy Tribe. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers.
First Evangelical Missions among Bulgarian Gypsies
Magdalena Slavkova, Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies with Ethnographic Museum, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria
(chachipe@abv.bg )
The Evangelical propaganda among the Gypsy groups in Europe began in the 19th century, while the first missions among the Bulgarian Gypsies, which I shall focus on in my paper, were conducted in the first half of the 20th century. The first mission was in the village of Golintsi (today a neighbourhood in the town of Lom, North Bulgaria), where a Baptist church was established with the active support of Austrian missionaries. The building of the Gypsy church was inaugurated in 1930. The first important missionary was P. Punchev, who started preaching among his people in the first years of the century. Another successful Baptist mission was carried out among the Muslim Kalajdžii (tinsmiths) in Northwest Bulgaria. B. Boev was a Gypsy preacher, who preached among his people in the region of Montana and was sent to study abroad like P. Punchev before that. Along with this, Methodists and Congregationalists, who have been very successful among Bulgarians in the 19th century, have some success in evangelisations among the Gypsies. Methodist religious services were conducted for the locals in the village of Golintsi and an attempt to attract both Bulgarians and Gypsies was done. The Evangelical missionaries set up a few missions: the Evangelical Baptist mission among the Gypsies in Bulgaria (late 1920s) and the Committee of the Gypsy Evangelical Mission in Sofia (early 1930s). During that period, translations of the New Testament and religious literature in Romani language were published, among which are: Somnal evangelie (lil) Маtejatar (The Holy Gospel of Mathew) by Atanasakiev (1932); Somnal evangelie (ketapi) kataro Ioan (The Holy Gospel of John) by the same author (1937); Romane somnal gilija (Roma sacred songs) collected by Tatarev (1936). At the same time, one of the first Pentecostal Bulgarian societies was established in Yambol, South Bulgaria, where the Ajdinii Muslim nomads live. There were also Gypsies among the first converts, whose names were recorded in the Protocol book of the Yambol Pentecostal Church in the 1930s.
The backdrop to my analysis is the ethnographic fieldwork material that I gathered among Gypsies (Rešetari, sievemakers in the town of Lom; Kalajdžii in the town of Montana; Ajdinii in the town of Yambol; Erlii, locals, in capital city Sofia and others) and archival work I did in private and church collections along with colleagues from Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies in 2018 and 2019. The paper is presented as a part of the research project “Contemporary Bulgarian Identity – National and European Dimensions” (КП-06-H50/6 from 30.11.2020), financed by the National Science Fund, Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science.
Religion, Ethnicity and Reproduction of Social Inequalities in Eastern Slovakia
Jaroslav Šotola, Department of Sociology, Andragogy and Cultural Anthropology, Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic
(jaroslav.sotola@upol.cz)
The dynamics of religious landscape transformation in Eastern Slovakia is commonly framed as a question of social inclusion. In this paper however, I would like to problematize this view through focus on power inequality and dominance present in everyday practices related to religious activities. Conceptual framework of the paper is based on studies about ambiguous relationship between race and faith in contemporary America, which questioned assumptions about integrative role of religion through evidence for social reproduction of racial discrimination and inequality. This context, which lends the intersection of religion and the Roma a different perspective, will be presented on the ethnographic example of a locality where Romani Pentecostal movements have developed rapidly in recent years. Much more than “inclusion“, one can observe an active effort to prevent any significant participation of the Roma in the public space. In the past and present, the performance of whiteness has led to the definition of a local Catholic church as a certain stronghold of the existing racial order, thus preventing any changes leading to ethnic and racial equality. The context of oppressive structures helps better understand the dynamics of the development of Romani Pentecostal churches as alternative spaces in which a new form of agency can be articulated, challenging ubiquitous racism of Slovak society.
Is Right to Water a Right for All: The Case of Roma in Slovenia
Alenka Janko Spreizer, Faculty of Humanities and Institute of Intercultural Studies, University of Primorska, Slovenia
(alenka.janko.spreizer@fhs.upr.si)
Maša Kovič-Dine, Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
(Masa.Kovic-Dine@pf.uni-lj.si)
Vasilka Sancin, Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
(Vasilka.Sancin@pf.uni-lj.si)
Irena Šumi, Faculty of Social Work and Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
(irena.sumi@fsd.uni-lj.si)
Many Roma, as a minority in today's Europe, are exposed to structural discrimination that reproduces their marginalised position. Moreover, due to the neoliberalist policies of the states, they are pushed into the structural violence of poverty. In Slovenia, Roma communities are also facing the challenges of environmental justice, especially in relation to the fulfillment of the right to safe drinking water and sanitation, as has been noted by non-governmental organisations such as ERRC and Amnesty International. In light of the recent judgment of the European Court for Human Rights, which rejected the appeal for the right to water of Roma families, supported by Amnesty International, our proposed paper reflects on the intersections of the diverging interpretation of the right to water and sanitation by different actors dealing with the provision or denial of the right to water and sanitation in selected Roma communities. These actors include representatives of Slovenian state institutions, municipality representatives, the Roma, and NGOs. Slovenian legislation regulates the special position of the Roma from the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia downwards. Even though the regulation grants a special status to the Roma in Slovenia, they still regularly face barriers in accessing adequate living conditions, education, employment and health care, which are a consequence of violations of fundamental human rights, including the right to safe drinking water. The violation of the latter is based on various obstacles to the access of safe drinking water for the Roma in Slovenia. Consequently, limited access to safe drinking water impedes participation of Roma students in schools. With a limited level of concluded education, the Roma find it difficult to gain employment. Additionally, due to their poor health status, the younger members are more susceptible to disease and have a harder time finding legal protection in the field of health law. Slovenia has also been warned about its violation of this international legally-binding right by the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and others (expl. the Special Adviser of the United Nations for the right to water and sanitation, ...). Hence, it is necessary that these violations be remedied. The goal of the proposed paper is to present the preliminary results of an ethnographic and theoretical research project on access to safe drinking water in connection with the legalisation of the Roma settlements and access to employment, health care and education for the Roma people. The research project’s aim is to prepare suggestions for a strategic framework of measures to ensure better and non-discriminatory access to drinking water, education, employment and health care, as well as to suggest concrete measures to prepare the national programme of measures for the Roma for the period after 2021.
In Law We Trust. “Gypsies” and Procedural Justice in the Enlightenment period
Stephan Steiner, Sigmund Freud University, Vienna, Austria
(stephan.steiner@chello.at)
Over the course of the 18th century, Gypsies progressively turn from objects to subjects of jurisdiction. Courts, which for centuries basically handed down their sentences against them, slowly turn to institutions that also respect their claims. For the first time in early modern history, Gypsies emerge as plaintiffs and sometimes they are actually winning their cases. If contextualised and interpreted carefully, a number of archival documents offer a rather unusual perspective on Gypsy life. Victimhood and scapegoating are only one part of the story; Gypsy agency completes the other side of the coin. Actively trying to change a societal imposed “fate” from the Enlightenment period on also included invoking the courts. The latter was not, as often argued, solely a result of the Enlightenment itself, but most probably also due to a shift of mentalities within the Gypsy communities. The gradual transition away from outlaw practices to reference to the courts might also mark a radical repositioning of Gypsies vis-à-vis the dominant society.
From Classification to Polarization: Romanian legislation targeting the Roma during the Interbellum
Cristina Stoica, Department of History - Western University, Canada
(cstoica2@uwo.ca)
Despite Roma residing on the territory known as modern day Romania since the 14th century, the history of the constant prejudice and discrimination targeting the ethnic group has only recently come to light in academia. Their ethnic identity and existence in Romania following their emancipation in 1864 has been targeted and used to foster a nationalist dominant narrative rooted in raciology.
The modern day narrative suggests that Roma are an ethnic group with linguistic and cultural origins stemming from Northwestern India (Barany 1998). Their cultural practices have caused the group to remain largely isolated from Romanian mainstream society. Following the unification of Greater Romania in 1918, several attempts were taken by the Romanian government to “Romanianize” and assimilate the ethnic group. However, by the 1930s, ethnic Romanians uncomfortable with the encroachment of the Roma into what they deemed to be Romanian territory and space, began petitioning for their removal from the Romanian public sphere. By 1938, the “Gypsy Question”, consisting of a wide-ranging debate on whether the Roma should be assimilated or removed from society, came to the forefront of political discourse.
This paper will outline the means with which the Romanian government utilized discriminatory discourse to marginalize Roma from mainstream society during the interwar period. When looking at the social standing of the Roma in Romanian society during the interwar period, two questions arise: To what extent did prejudices and stereotypes of the Roma affect the ethnic group’s social standing in society during the 1920s? Could the Roma be assimilated into society, and if not what was to be done with them? Likewise, when considering the role of the Romanian government, two questions come to the forefront: Why was the “Romanianization” policy “effective” in assimilating ethnic minorities such as Germans or Ukrainians into Romanian society but in assimilating the Roma? And how did the Romanian government utilize and manipulate the notion of “us vs them” to justify the physical and spatial marginalization of the ethnic group?
References:
Barany, Zoltan. "Ethnic Mobilization and the State: The Roma in Eastern Europe." Ethnic and Racial Studies21, no. 2 (1998): 308-27. doi:10.1080/014198798330034.
Epidemics and Gypsy Neighbourhoods in Bulgaria (1918 - 1945)
Plamena Stoyanova, Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies with Ethnographic Museum, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria
(flame1228@gmail.com)
Malaria, cholera and other epidemics periodically erupted in different parts of the Bulgarian principality restored in 1878. The measures taken to address these pestilences affected all of the population of the Bulgarian lands. However, the Romani neighbourhoods often became the subject of a particular attention by health authorities. The poor living conditions among many Gypsies made controlling health measures difficult for implementation, and this sometimes lead to cardinal decisions. For example, after the pox outbreak at the end of 19th century in Plovdiv, the Gypsies are evicted from the town and moved to a village nearby, called General Stolipin. Today the village is a big neighbourhood of Plovdiv, known as Stolipinovo. It is one of the biggest neighbourhoods of Bulgaria, populated mainly by Roma. At the end of the WWI, the world faced the threat of the Spanish fly, which took many lives’ in Bulgarian lands – Gypsies are among the victims as well. The aim of this paper is to track the measures towards the Gypsy neighborhoods in times of the epidemic in the interwar period; to evaluate and compare these measures with the common ones used in the rest of eh country, and to note the attitude of other ethnic groups towards the Gypsies in critical epidemiological situations.
The School Education of Roma in Cyprus: Current Reflections and Proposals
Loizos Symeou, independent researcher
(L.Symeou@euc.ac.cy)
The Roma in Cyprus still seem to endure educational marginalisation and teachers’ attitudes towards them appear rather complex, entailing several nuances that distinguish the experiences of Romani children in the school (Symeou and Karagiorgi, 2018). Over the last decade, school enrolment, attendance and completion among Roma in Cyprus has followed the trends of some other European countries; more specifically, there has been an increase in the enrolment rate of Roma at all school levels, and as a consequence a decrease in school drop-out has been observed. However, despite a ten-year compulsory education system and social service incentives aimed at keeping Romani children in school, the rate of early school leaving among Roma in Cyprus remains high, and only a few Roma attend secondary education, with even fewer completing compulsory lower secondary education. In addition, the attendance and completion of upper secondary education among the Roma of Cyprus remains extremely low, while university education has not yet been completed by any Roma in Cyprus (European Commission, 2019). This paper describes the latest developments in the Greek-Cypriot education system concerning the school education of Roma; it reviews the existing empirical studies in the field as well as local and European reports describing the school education of Roma in the Greek-Cypriot education system, and critically reflects on the current relevant educational practice and policies. It concludes by suggesting possible reform measures that would enhance Roma children‘s school inclusion and success.
“Gypsies” and Communal Relations in Seventeenth-Century Scotland
Thomas Tyson, University of Cambridge, UK
(tmt27@cam.ac.uk)
In the later sixteenth-century and for much of the seventeenth-century, the key institutions of Scottish government endeavoured to reform Scotland along Calvinist lines, transforming the structure of the established Church to enforce moral discipline and create a “godly” society. Anti-Gypsy legislation and proclamations passed between 1593 and 1609 created a special role for local civil magistrates and the lowest ecclesiastical courts in regulating relations between “Gypsies” and non-Gypsies, with the aim of extirpating the “sinful” way of life attributed to “Gypsies”.
The records of the lowest Church courts, the presbyteries and kirk sessions, offer substantial evidence of the interactions between these bodies, parish elders and civil magistrates, and other members of local communities. Across Scotland during the seventeenth-century, the lowest Church courts investigated “Gypsies” and their social ties with non-Gypsies. These records reveal a range of conflicting attitudes among both secular and ecclesiastical authorities regarding “Gypsies”, and between them and the communities they served. As such, they offer a rare opportunity to consider the social history of an understudied group who did not conform to early modern religious and political norms, and had no legal right to exist in Scottish society.
Drawing on such archival material, this paper will contribute not only to the neglected history of the persecution of “Gypsies” in Scotland, but will also consider how individuals labelled “Gypsies” negotiated hostile governance at a local level, and were able to exist outside of traditional religious and political structures of what historians have traditionally seen as a highly repressive and conformist society. This paper proposes that considering how “Gypsies” related to the early modern communities in which they lived offers a rejoinder to claims that the processes of state formation and the Reformation made “Gypsies” and other supposedly marginal groups the passive victims of ever-increasing state power.
Religion and Employment of Latvian Roma during the Authoritarian Regime
Ieva Tihovska
(ieva.tihovska@gmail.com)
Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art of the University of Latvia
The 1930s is the period when the history of Latvian Romani activism began. It is also the time when the mono-ethnic ideal became stronger in the Latvian society and rise of politics which resulted in diminishing the power of ethnic minorities. After the coup d’état on May 15, 1934, an authoritarian regime was established in Latvia. A turn towards strict nationalist politics was expressed by the slogan “Latvia for Latvians!”. The status of ethnic Latvians was strengthened in politics, economics and culture, and many schools and other organizations of ethnic minorities were closed, including the first Latvian Romani organization – the Gypsy culture promotion society “Čigānu draugs” (“Friend of Gypsies”), founded in 1932. Nevertheless, Romani activism continued in other forms, basically in the fields of religion and employment. The main Romani activist, Jānis Leimanis, changed from cultural to missionary work and collaborated with several religious organizations – the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church (which had established a Gypsy mission in 1934), as well as with the English-American Mission Society, the Methodist church, and others. Leimanis also organized non-religious meetings in different towns and called on the Roma for a closer cooperation with the state, meaning the involvement of the Roma in regular work, the military service, and other civic activities. When a new institution – the Work Center – was founded by the government in May 1939, Leimanis became a mediator between the center and the Roma and involved several hundred persons in forestry and other work.
“Stay Home! Stay Safe!” - Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Romani Communities in Romania
Stefánia Toma, Romanian Institute for Research on National Minorities (RIRNM), Babes-Bolyai University (BBU), Romania
(tomastefania76@yahoo.com)
The global COVID-19 pandemic proved to be more powerful than expected and its effects are immediately perceptible. The probability that these effects are going to be noticeable in long term perspective is high. It was obvious from the early moments of the interventions that the “Stay Home” policies were going to be implemented with difficulty in certain contexts, for example as regards the marginalized Romani communities and other vulnerable populations that had already been exposed to inequalities and inequities even before the pandemic hit even harder.
The pandemic contributed to the deepening of social and economic inequalities between different segments of the population and the measures that were envisaged to be universally suitable to everybody proved to be inadequate in the case of those who already had to cope with every-day survival difficulties: inadequate housing conditions, unemployment, lack of or difficult access to certain services (eg. education and public healthcare), to mention just a few. These conditions were exacerbated by the growing public shaming of the returnee migrants (including the Roma), who were presented as virus carriers.
In my presentation, I will focus on the way vulnerable rural Romani communities in Transylvania were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. I will use pre-pandemic ethnographic data in contrast to online interviews and discussions during the lockdown. I will also (shortly) critically discuss some methodological aspects of online and digital data collection methods.
Romani Holocaust Education and Remembrance Outside of Europe
Marcos Toyansk, Laboratory of Studies on Ethnicity, Racism and Discrimination at the University of São Paulo (LEER-USP), Brazil
(mtoyansk@gmail.com)
Romani Holocaust has become a central component of Romani national identity since Nazi Germany destined the entire Romani population for total annihilation. In recent years, the commemoration and creation of places of memory of the genocide has proliferated and expanded in geographical terms, reaching countries and groups that were not particularly persecuted during the Nazi period nor occupied by Germany, like Spain, Turkey, and Brazil. The Romani Holocaust narrative has been absorbed into the historical traumas of these groups and to the present-day persecution and discrimination. This presentation will focus on the recent development of collective narratives and new actions towards including Roma in memorial sites in Brazil, highlighting the new Holocaust memorial in Rio de Janeiro and the Holocaust Museum in Curitiba, both backed by a Jewish initiative. The importance and perceptions of this turn for the local Roma – the Roma and the Calon - as well as the institutional strategies and educational approaches to the teaching of an almost unknown part of a huge historical event to Brazilians about a people who are considered to lack historical memory, will also be examined.
Being ‘Dritti’ in the Italian Funfair. Social Boundaries and Cultural Significances in a Peripatetic Niche.
Chiara Tribulato, Lacito, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
(chiara.tribulato@uni-graz.at)
The funfair, a contemporary embodiment of the medieval fair, is a special economic niche that gathers social categories linked in multiple different ways to the world of travel. This world is nowadays a complex system shared among Sinti and non-Sinti travelling entertainers, who define themselves as ‘Dritti’. This term was traditionally employed as an ethnonym by vagabonds, peddlers, performers and animal trainers who travelled across northern Italy, following seasonal markets and traditional fairs. Today, said term is commonly used to designate Italian showpeople by bloodline, i.e. born from Traveller parents in the environment of the funfair or circus.
The group, though geographically scattered, is supported by a social hierarchy based on the seniority of families in the world of travel and is organized around a dense network relying on marriage alliances. The profession is strongly marked in terms of identity and is transmitted from father to son across generations. This transmission within the family applies also to the ride, which is both the center of economic life and a symbol of prestige status inside this separate world.
The condition of social marginality and itinerant lifestyle strengthens the self-perception of the people belonging to this service-provider group, whose sense of ‘self’ is built in ideological opposition to the outside world; the ‘sedentary’ world. From the latter they are often labelled as ‘gypsies’ and with ‘gypsies’ they also share their living and economic routines.
Taking into account the complexity of this specific peripatetic niche, this paper assesses the relationship between the Dritti and Sinti communities within the arena of travelling show business, where mixed marriages have provided the appropriate setting for a meaningful cultural and linguistic exchange. It specifically explores the processes through which being Dritti is conceptualized and reproduced in a mixed environment, constantly divided between the two needs of mimesis and differentiation.
Slovenia’s Fixation on Autochthony as the Relevant Criterium for Granting Special Rights to the Romani Community
Domen Turšič, Department of International Law, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Law, Slovenia
(domen.tursic@pf.uni-lj.si)
The Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia includes two articles that specifically deal with minority groups in Slovenia. Article 64 provides for special rights of the “the autochthonous Italian and Hungarian national communities in Slovenia”. These special rights include the right to establish organisations and develop economic, cultural, scientific, and research activities as well as the right of representation in representative bodies of local self-government and in the National Assembly. Article 65 then provides that the “status and special rights of the Romani community living in Slovenia shall be regulated by law”. Article 65, on its own, does not provide for any special rights of the Romani community. It simply mandates the legislature to do so. The Local Self-Government Act provides for one such right, the right of representation in local self-government. However, the legislature limited this right to municipalities with “autochthonous” Romani communities. This was the basis for several cases before the Slovenian Constitutional Court, where the Court had to deal with the constitutionality of the limiting criteria of autochthony for granting special rights to the Romani community. The presention will critically analyse the decisions of the Constitutional Court, which ultimately allowed the legislature to continue to utilise autochthony to limit special rights of the Romani community. Moreover, the article will address recent attempts to amend the Roma Community in the Republic of Slovenia Act so as to limit all special rights of the Romani community in Slovenia by using the criteria of autochthony. It will argue that the use of autochthony as a limiting criterion is inappropriate, because the term is largely undefined in both international and domestic law.
Romani International Migration Experience in the Times of Socialism: the Czech Lands
Zdeněk Uherek, Charles University; Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic
(zdenek.uherek@fsv.cuni.cz)
There is still a widespread notion that Romani migration from Czechoslovakia abroad is a new issue that only appeared at the end of the 1990s. The era of socialism in the Czech lands is mainly associated with inner Romani migration from Slovakia to Bohemia and Moravia. However, we also recorded Romani migration to Western countries prior to 1989. Not to a large extent, but certainly an extent worth our attention. Migrations to the West were motivated by economic, political, and family reasons. In some cases, curiosity also played a role. Several cases, which I will present in more detail, will show how closing the borders and the state propaganda about the West also worked in Romani households and influenced the behaviour of individuals and narrow groups of Romani actors. We can also consider networks of relatives that exceeded the state borders. However, we have also recorded stories of departures to a completely unknown environment, without family ties and knowledge of the language, where the Roma gained an appropriate position only with diligence and wit. It is symptomatic that since 1989, the radius of action of Romani migrations has increased considerably, while before 1989 migrations were mostly directed to neighbouring Western countries.
Interwar Period in Historical Legends of Kalderash Roma
Dmitriy Vaiman, Department of History, Archaeology and Ethnography, the Perm Scientific Centre of the Ural Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia
dmitrii-vaiman@yandex.ru
Different narratives concerning the interwar period can be found in oral historical legends. Many of them tell the story of the appearance of class and give the key for understanding intergeneric relations. The 1930s depression is a period which holds a specific place. As a result of the policy of the 1930s several Kalderash communities were left without a male population and all the responsibility lied on the women. Roma had to leave Moscow and the Moscow region and move further into the country. In any case, this specific period was the most challenging for the Romani communities, which is reflected in their oral history. Nowadays these stories represent some of the brightest ones in the history of the Roma. They are told among different age groups and categories of Roma.
"Our family was sedentary": Policies towards the Roma in Interwar Czechoslovakia on the Example of Three Microhistorical Studies from Moravia
Lada Viková, Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, University of Pardubice, Czech Republic
(lada.vikova@seznam.cz)
This contribution presents one part of a wider research project in which I map the lives of three Romani families (linked by the surname Ištvan) from three regions in Moravia since their arrival in the territory (i.e. from the end of the 18th century to the end of the 19th century), through the process of their settling down (from the 19th to 20th centuries), until – if possible – the present day. The lives of these families are linked with three localities: Bohusoudov (Dačice district), Radějov (Hodonín district) and Bořitov (Blansko district). The presentation will document how the position of Roma in the interwar period and their coexistence in a given locality was determined by legislation and specific programs and regulations. I will focus on the process of disciplining (of both settled and non-settled Roma) under the control of the police – via local gendarmerie stations – and show whether and how it concerned these particular families. The study will also focus on the topic of education, social assistance, and interactions between the gendarmes and the Roma. I will try to follow these from the perspective of different actors: municipal councils, gendarmeries, teachers, and – where possible – the Roma themselves. The aim is to understand whether and how the unequal position of the Roma in the interwar period could have contributed to the deterioration of their position during the Second World War. Or, in other words, how significant was the role of the system the interwar Czechoslovak society arrived at in the later annihilation of most of Czech and Moravian Roma after 1939. In spite of the fact that the preserved memories of the Holocaust survivors constitute only a relatively small part of the collected data, I will try to use the Romani perspectives as the main research point of view. When analysing the collected archival documents, I will focus on the differences in the opinions on the ongoing process of integration (or segregation) of the particular Romani families as voiced by their surroundings and their manifestations. I will also try to identify, in specific cases, the mechanisms that could have contributed to an easier implementation of the persecution orders targeting these families during 1939-1945, but also those that could have contributed to their rescue and saved individual lives. The three micro-studies will be set within a broader framework of the contemporary context.
Marginals on the Sidelines of the Education System or on Education About the Roma Genocide in Croatia, 1945-2020
Danijel Vojak, Institute of Social Science Ivo Pilar, Zagreb, Croatia
(danijel.vojak@pilar.hr)
The Romani population has lived in the lands that are today part of the Republic of Croatia for over six centuries, which makes them one of the oldest minority groups. Their history of cohabitation with the majority Croatian population was often marked by repressive assimilation policies imposed on them by state and local authorities, culminating in the genocide committed by the Ustaša authorities during World War II. Even today, very little is known about the extent of this genocide committed against the Roma in the Independent State of Croatia (ISC). The marginalisation of scholarly interest in researching the genocide committed against the Roma was one of the characteristics of the communist ideological model of the authorities in socialist Croatia (Yugoslavia), which prohibited the highlighting of the ethnic identities of victim groups, and instead incorporated them into the common discourse of "victims of fascist terror". With such ideological control, the memories of the Romani war victims were joined by those of other victims of the Ustasha authorities and its fascist and Nazi allies, which made it impossible to hold separate commemorations or to erect monuments for the Romani victims. The consequences of this policy are still felt in Croatia today; scholarly research on the genocidal suffering of the Roma remains insufficient and unsystematic.
This paper will analyse the question of how the education system in Croatia, after the end of World War II, addressed or perceived the topic of the genocide of the Roma. The analysis will cover textbooks and history manuals which have been published and used in the teaching of history in primary and secondary schools from 1945 to the present. In particular, the paper will analyse the issue of comparison in relation to the suffering of other nations, such as Jews, with respect to the suffering of Roma during World War II in Croatia.
Explorations of the Miraculous in Romani Pentecostal Spirituality
Melody J. Wachsmuth, Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, UK
(mjwachsmuth@yahoo.com)
In the two Romani Pentecostal communities under scrutiny in Croatia and Serbia, local spiritual ontologies readily accommodate Pentecostal theology of the supernatural. Life story narratives reveal an acceptance of an active spiritual realm. This is indicated by the fear of curses and sickness and congregants seeking healing among local and internationally renowned healers, accompanied by the need to confront the demonic. Attested miracles are often an integral part of Pentecostal conversion, and there is a frequent “journey” theme as one travels from sickness to various magic people and doctors, to healing in the Pentecostal space. This indicates the necessity of a faith that addresses local ontologies and contextual problems so that one’s life can be reinterpreted and changed.
Despite the numerous claims of miracles as part of the Pentecostal experience in many contexts, they are a difficult and rarely addressed phenomenon from a social science perspective, partially because of the challenges of how to approach and assess miracle claims. In one sense, the “truth” question depends on definitions and cultural contexts and cosmologies. In another sense, the expectation for miracles is part and parcel of Pentecostal theology and is therefore ubiquitous in the global phenomena of Pentecostalism in both Western and non-Western societies. Thus, incorporating both social science and theological perspectives can broaden the parameters for discussion and analysis. Therefore, analyzing “journey” narratives of healing from two Romani communities, this paper will explore the role of the miraculous in Romani spirituality both from a socio-cultural and a theological lens.
An Overview of the Non-Roma Peripatetics in Turkey: Socio-Historical Background and the Present Conditions
Egemen Yılgür, Yeditepe University, Turkey
(tegemen1523@yahoo.com)
The Turkish Republic succeeded the Ottoman Empire, which encompassed parts of the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe, and hosted diverse communities who almost perfectly fit the ideal type definition of peripatetics that Joseph C. Berland and Aparna Rao formulated in the last quarter of the 20th-century. Their matrimonial practices were more or less endogamic and they, as family groups, regularly visited their clients, partly settled agriculturalist and town dwellers and partly pastoral nomads, to provide some services and goods in exchange for cash or agricultural products on a seasonal basis. However, as the rise of new institutions and industry decreased demand for what they provided, some of them gradually disappeared, merging into the majority. The others revised their subsistence strategies, generally on a less mobile basis, but succeeded to preserve their group identity.
Such groups, for whom the use of another term, post-peripatetics, would be more appropriate, constitute the majority of the population called ‘Gypsy’ by the surrounding locals today. Since the 15th-century, the Ottoman Empire had had a distinct policy of taxation for peripatetics and thus registered them separately under generic terms such as Çingāne or Ḳibṭī, the Ottoman counterpart of Anglo-Saxon ‘Gypsy’. Although modernisation attempts abolished many aspects of the pre-modern taxonomy of the Ottoman population in the 19th-century, official usage of the term Ḳibṭī somehow remained longer. The modern Turkish state, as an administrative body, inherited such terms from the empire and used them as legal titles until the mid-20th Century. These idioms are still a part of everyday language, whereby people use them to denote post-peripatetics and peripatetics, generally in a stigmatising manner.
This presentation will be an overview of present archival and ethnographic data, reflecting on how non-Roma peripatetics, such as Dom, Lom, Teber (Abdals), and Tahtacis, have become post-peripatetics, and how they have interacted with the majority and the state.
The Monument of ‘Serbian Gypsy Youth to its Heroes’ in the Context of Yugoslav Romani Activism in the Interwar Period
Sofiya Zahova, University of St Andrews, UK
(sdz@st-andrews.ac.uk)
The commemoration of the Balkan Wars (1912-1913) and the First World War (1914-1918) had a central place in the public life and national identity of the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Many citizens of Romani/Gypsy background participated in various divisions of the Serbian army during these wars, some of them were later awarded for their participation and heroic performance. In the interwar years, in Čubura, one of the Belgrade neighbourhoods where Roma were living, a monument with the devotion “Serbian Gypsy Youth to its Heroes [who] perished and died from 1912 to 1918” was erected. Its creation seems to be a unique self-initiative of the Belgrade Roma demonstrating their belonging to the commemoration and national-identity practices of the state. The monument is preserved until today and is currently located in the yard of a Belgrade Romani organization where community celebrations are held annually.
The proposed paper will present and discuss the monument and its ornamentation, the first written and visual records about it discovered so far and, most importantly, its function and place in the life of the local Romani community during the interwar period in terms of civil activism, ethno-cultural practices and (self)representation. The written records with names of soldiers and community ´benefactors´ (individual and organizational) on the monument also represent an important historical source about the main agents of civic activism of the time. The paper will demonstrate the importance of the monument for the identity of the Romani community as a separate unit of citizens, bond by their own community identity, within a larger social context and national commemoration narrative. Finally, the current state, usage and interpretation among the Romani community will be discussed.
Religious Practices and Confessional Affiliation(s) of the Romanian Roma. A Critical Examination of the Bibliography Published in the Last Three Decades
Marian Zăloagă, “Gheorghe Șincai” Institute for Social - Sciences and the Humanities, Romanian Academy, Târgu Mureș, Romania
(zaloagam@yahoo.com)
In chronicles or monographs, in handbooks and travelogues or in Gypsiologists’s writings (i.e. non- Romani literary or scientific production), the Roma in Romania were often regarded as nonconformists as far as their religious practices or confessional belonging are concerned. As in many other European cultural milieus, the Romani population fell victim to the premodern religious prejudices which regarded them as treacherous profiteers of the religious practices flourishing within the neighbouring normative cultures with which they had been in long term or sporadic contact. Clearly, religious impiety was an important discursive element which contributed to the marginalization of the Roma. It had been appealed to in order to persuade the non-Roma to refrain from developing contacts with members of Romani group(s) and/or punctually used to legitimize aggressive incidents. Although, recent studies in cultural anthropology have examined a mass tendency of the Roma to convert to Evangelical Churches, generally, researchers left undiscussed whether centuries’ of religious rejection and stigmatization from the part of traditional dominant Churches in Romania stood behind this recent spiritual - confessional choice.
In this presentation, I focus on the literature published after the year 1989, when Romania became a trustworthy site of research for social scientists and anthropologists concerned with the Romani groups. In parallel, Romani activists’ engagement has been able to provide inspiration for kinfolk who have chosen to affirm their identity by contributing to the growth of the literature dedicated to the topic. In very personal ways, they have been able to formulate an internal response to the existing traditional production about the Roma which cannot be neglected by the recent research projects since they increasingly cultivate a participative approach. A significant step forward was represented by the institutionalization of Romani studies as demonstrated by the publications originating from several state-run agencies or produced in academic and research centres in Romania. This translated into the publication of schoolbooks, reviews, handbooks, and volumes intended to raise awareness about the particularities of the group both inside and outside the Romani community. I investigate how this production, displaying a variable and uneven level of complexity (e.g. works of popularization or academic), addressed the religious matter as a marker capable to explain both causes of historical marginalization and/or whether the topic has been addressed to elucidate particularities of the Romani group(s) both inside and outside what is imagined to represent the Romani identity.
In-Betweenness: The Džorevci Community in Bulgaria
Sanja Zlatanović, Institute of Ethnography, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Belgrade, Serbia
(szlat@eunet.rs)
This paper is based on fieldwork conducted in Bulgaria, in the cities of Sofia and Pernik. It explores the phenomenon of preferred identification, characteristic of the Romani community, on the example of Džorevci in Bulgaria. The Džorevci community represent a paradigm of how an external definition/categorization shapes the internal experience of belonging, with the result that, for generations, the members of his community remain in an ambiguous, liminal position, “betwixt and between” the established ethnic categories of Bulgarians and Roma – “neither-norˮ, “and/or” and “both-and” (depending on the individual, the situation, and the wider social and political context). In their interactions with relevant others – the Bulgarians and the Roma – the Džorevci community is engaged in a constant, long-term process of negotiation, contestation and non-recognition, doubly included or doubly excluded – in the narratives of my interlocutors the predominant experience being the latter.