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In the early 1950's and early 1960's Sweden, two Romani men, Karl and Sven, handed in their written life stories to the folklorist Carl-Herman Tillhagen at the Nordic Museum in Stockholm, who added them to the museum archive. Karl identified as "zigenare" (Gypsy, or Kelderash Roma), and Sven as "resande" (Traveller). These life-stories were written in the aftermath of a public debate on "tinkers" containing suggestions such as sterilization, politics of territorial exclusion while the Kelderash Roma to a large extent were still excluded from permanent housing and schools. The narratives are read as an act of "talking back" (Hancock 2010), by the authors to the majority population in a discriminatory and often racist societal climate. The inclusion of the stories in a national archival collection provides an opportunity to see the history of a few members of Romani groups in Sweden from an in-group perspective, in opposition to the otherwise often stereotypical and antigypsyist portrayals of these groups in the archival sphere. The article focuses on how the narrators positioned themselves and which issues they wished to mediate to the supposed majority Swedish readers

“I was born here”: Positioning by Origin and Citizenship in a Conversation between a Collector and a Roma Family in the early 1950s, Sweden

This article examines an audio recording with a Roma family made by the collector Arvid Andersson in Sweden, in the early 1950s. The aim of this article is to unfold this jointly constructed conversation between the collector and the Roma family members. The analysis of the conversation shows a delicate interplay between the Roma family and the interviewer, and we especially stress the agency of the family in the process of negotiating belonging, challenging a discourse about the Roma as a passive group merely subjected to discrimination and stereotyping. The foreignness of the Roma was continuously stressed, while the Roma opposed being positioned as foreigners and tried to clarify that they did belong in Sweden and contributed to society.&nbsp

I stadens utkant. Svensk-romska livsberättelser och lägerplatser från 1900-talet

Roma people have been present in Sweden for at least 500 years. The first members of the group today known as Swedish Roma arrived in the late 1800s, and during a large part of the 1900s they were forced to a nomadic lifestyle. The purpose of this project is to highlight this part of history, in collaboration with Roma associations, focusing on camp sites and life stories during the 1900s and to incorporate this cultural heritage into Swedish public collections at the Swedish History Museum and the Institute for Language and Folklore. The project will combine ethnological interviews with archaeological excavations, and will involve questions about multiculturalism and interaction between Roma and the majority Swedes.