Where are the Romanies? An Absent Presence in Narratives of Britishness

The article explores the exclusion or ghettoization of British Romani experience in narratives of historical Britishness, an action that resounds in contemporary politics and identities. It suggests that scholarship might do more to retrieve quotidian and, in particular, shared histories of British Romani culture, integrating those histories into broader narratives about a national past. This scholarly retrieval of everyday Romani life in the past involves reconsidering what might constitute evidence of this experience, and might be open to rewriting established orthodoxies of Romani/Gypsy Studies, with an awareness of the politics of such subversion

"Put your own house in order first": local perceptions of EU influence on Romani integration policies in the Czech Republic

This article examines the influence of the European Union (EU) on the development and implementation of Romani integration policy in the Czech Republic from the perspective of those responsible for policy delivery. Based on analysis of key policy documents and research conducted in the Czech Republic, this article first examines how Romani integration became a more important issue during membership negotiations and then discusses how the criticism of the European Commission's Regular Reports was received by those responsible for implementing pro-Romani policies. Finally, the paper assesses how the status of full EU membership has impacted on integration policy. The article concludes that while funding for Romani integration projects has benefitted some groups, the overall impression of the EU is of a remote institution, quick to criticise and unwilling to practise what it preaches

From the fall of the Berlin Wall to the first Roma Pavilion at the Venice Biennale – from the world of Agnes Daroczi to the world of Daniel Baker

Where did the “new Romani artists” come from? And why now? When I first met the distinguished English Romani artist Delaine LeBas in the 1990s, she told me she felt guilty because she had not done enough for her own people. I always replied that the Romani people needed real artists and professionals in all fields; there were already professional Gypsies whose main specialisation was helping their own people. Since 2006 the “new Romani art” has moved centre stage in European Roma politics. What can this art do for the people? And in what sense, if any, does the new Romani art tell us about contemporary Gypsy/Roma/Traveller experience? I will suggest it can only do so if that is not actually its purpose

Romani Minorities and Uneven Citizenship Access in the Post-Yugoslav Space

This paper discusses the position of Romani minorities in the light of the state dissolution and further citizenship regime transformations after the disintegration of the former Socialist Yugoslavia. While observing closely the repositioning of the Romani minorities in the post-Yugoslav space, it explicates that in the case of state dissolution, the unevenness of citizenship does not only manifest in the rights dimension, but also in uneven access to citizenship with regard to new polities.status: publishe

More on pejorative language: insults that go beyond their extension

Slurs have become a big topic of discussion both in philosophy and in linguistics. Slurs are usually characterised as pejorative terms, co-extensional with other, neutral, terms referring to ethnic or social groups. However, slurs are not the only ethnic/social words with pejorative senses. Our aim in this paper is to introduce a different kind of pejoratives, which we will call “ethnic/social terms used as insults”, as exemplified in Spanish, though present in many other languages and mostly absent in English. These are ethnic terms like gitano, ‘Romani’, which can have an extensional and neutral use, but also a pejorative meaning building on a negative stereotypical representation of the Romani community

Romani violin performance in 19th century Hungary and Romania

This paper explores the emergence and popularity of Romani musical practices in nineteenth century Hungary and Romania. First explaining the origin of the Romani settlers in both countries, the paper contrasts the ways in which Romani musicians integrated themselves into the dominant cultures around them. The paper investigates the problematic formation of the style hongrois which was inspired by the performance practices of the Romani people in Eastern Europe. The popular music performed by Hungarian Zigeunerkapellen (Romani bands) based on local Hungarian folk music spread across Europe, leading to conflation between “Hungarian” and “Romani” identities by outsiders and a debate within Hungary on who gets to invent a nationalist sound. In Romania, the formerly enslaved lăutari (Romani musician class) formed ensembles called tarafs and dominated the professional music industry. The violin was integral to both Hungarian and Romanian Romani music cultures, which led to a great number of Western European works for solo violin attempting the emulate the style hongrois or “Hungarian-Romani” style.Thesis (M.M.

Altitude Limits for Rotating Vector Model Fitting of Pulsar Polarization

Traditional pulsar polarization sweep analysis starts from the point dipole rotating vector model (RVM) approximation. If augmented by a measurement of the sweep phase shift, one obtains an estimate of the emission altitude (Blaskiewicz, Cordes, & Wasserman). However, a more realistic treatment of field line sweepback and finite altitude effects shows that this estimate breaks down at modest altitude ~ 0.1R_{LC}. Such radio emission altitudes turn out to be relevant to the young energetic and millisecond pulsars that dominate the \gamma-ray population. We quantify the breakdown height as a function of viewing geometry and provide simple fitting formulae that allow observers to correct RVM-based height estimates, preserving reasonable accuracy to R ~ 0.3R_{LC}. We discuss briefly other observables that can check and improve height estimates

Developing A Multi-Level Advocacy Framework for Roma Health at the Local Level

Romani communities are Europe’s largest ethnic minoritized group. The specific racism towards Romani communities—known as antigypsyism—has permeated historical socio-political structures that have denied Romani their rightful recognition as political subjects. Today, antigypsyism is reflected in the EU and national health policies known as the National Roma Integration Strategies Health Component (NRIS-H). It has been widely recognized that the NRIS-H was developed “for Roma, without Roma”. The pre-established Eurocentric policy processes and traditional research methodologies have sustained Romani communities in marginalized conditions. The ramifications have been that Romani are blamed for their living conditions and deemed helpless, which has contributed to a negative stereotype that further excludes Romani from decision-making spaces. I propose that multilevel advocacy for Romani health justice can mediate a psycho-social-political empowerment journey with the objectives of: (1) building collaboration between multiple stakeholders at the local level, (2) building advocacy capacity among health professionals and organizational managers, (3) co-creating knowledge among a group of Romani neighbors, and (4) advocating for health justice of Romani communities. Inspired by community-based participatory action research tools, I address antigypsyism through (1) positionality and reflexivity, (2) interactive knowledge production, and (3) accountability to communities. The results are presented in a series of peer-reviewed publications. Finally, I present lessons learned to support the integration of multi-level advocacy phases as we move forward with new Romani social policies, for and with Romani communitie