Romani Liberation

Centered on the trajectory of the emancipation of Roma people in Scandinavia, Romani Liberation is a powerful challenge to the stereotype describing Romani as passive and incapable of responsibility and agency. The author also criticizes benevolent but paternalistic attitudes that center on Romani victimhood. The first part of the book offers a comprehensive overview of the chronological phases of Romani emancipation in Sweden and other countries. Underscoring the significance of Roma activism in this process, Jan Selling profiles sixty Romani activists and protagonists, including numerous original photos. The narrative is followed by an analysis of the concepts of historical justice and of the process of decolonizing Romani Studies. Selling highlights the impact of the historical contexts that have enabled or impeded the success of the struggles against discrimination and for equal rights, emphasizing Romani activism as a precondition for liberation. The particular Swedish framework is accentuated by a stimulating preface by the international activist Nicoleta Bitu, and afterwords by two prominent Romani advocates, the politician Soraya Post and the singer, author, and elder Hans Caldaras

Assessing the Historical Irresponsibility of the Gypsy Lore Society in Light of Romani Subaltern Challenges

Contemporary scholarship in the fields of Romani Studies and antigypsyism (i.e., anti-Gypsyism or antiziganism), increasingly recognizes the centrality of location or “standpoint” in the discourse around representation and legitimacy. Deriving from a conceptual understanding of antigypsyism, this paper analyzes Gypsylorism, in the sense of constructions of “the exotic Other within Europe” (Lee, 2000). The trajectory of knowledge production from the early days of ”Gypsyology” to (critical) Romani Studies is analyzed: first, by means of a historiographical analysis of Nordic literature, which establishes the analytical dichotomy between subalternity and Gypsylorism, and second, by a scrutiny of recent academic debates in the field. The paper argues that the emergence of authors from the Romani standpoint in fictional and academic literature has contributed to a change as well as provoked counter-reactions. The paper illuminates debates and trajectories by discussing the failed attempts to make the Gypsy Lore Society (GLS) claim historical responsibility for its Gypsylorism/Orientalism at its Istanbul conference in 2012 and the compromise resolution of GLS in Stockholm in 2016, which avoided an apology and maintained the unresolved antagonism

Varför accepteras antiziganism mer än annan rasism? : Om ett tappat momentum och behovet av allianser

Selling argues that antigypsyism has not been understood as a real racism rooted in colonialism and has therefore been ignored by many anti-racists. Through retrospectives of racism against Roma in Swedish history, Selling shows that the struggle against antigypsyism has partly been characterized by the fact that Roma have rarely considered themselves a "revolutionary subject" and therefore had to seek alliances with power, which have proven to be unstable. Selling also shows how the state has secured itself with a system of reference groups, which rewards yes-persons, but excludes the growing number of young qualified Roma antigypsyism critics. At the same time, the struggle of Roma has won successes, and the author describes examples of important Roma representatives, from Rosa Taikon and Hans Caldaras to Soraya Post, and the various momentum that has come as a result of the fact that antigypsyism in Sweden has been increasingly exposed. The essay also analyzes how unpredictable mass media events can undermine or fuel latent and manifest antigypsyism. Today, the author argues, there are openings to rediscover the consequences of antigypsyism through new alliances.Selling argumenterar för att antiziganismen inte har förståtts som en riktig rasism med grund i kolonialismen och därför ignorerats av andra antirasister. Genom tillbakablickar på rasismen mot romer i den svenska historien visar Selling att kampen mot antiziganismen delvis har präglats av att romer sällan själva har betraktat sig som ett ”revolutionärt subjekt” och därför behövt söka allianser med makten, vilka visat sig vara instabila. Selling visar också hur statsmakten säkrat upp sig med ett system av referensgrupper, som premierar ja-sägare, men stänger ute den växande skaran av unga kvalificerade romska antiziganismkritiker Samtidigt har romers kamp vunnit framgångar, och författaren beskriver exempel på viktiga romska representanter, från Rosa Taikon och Hans Caldaras till Soraya Post, och de olika momentum som kommit genom att antiziganismen i Sverige har blottlagts. I uppsatsen analyseras också hur oförutsägbara massmediala händelser kan komma att undergräva eller underblåsa latent och manifest antiziganism. I dag, menar författaren, finns det öppningar för att återupptäcka antiziganismens konsekvenser genom nya allianser

Ur det förflutnas skuggor - historiediskurs och nationalism i Tyskland 1990-2000

The subject of this study is the re-construction of German national identity and nationalist thinking within the framework of the 1990s’ history discourse in relation to the Nazi past and the Holocaust. The empirical focus is on national politics and the press. Maurice Halbwachs’ social constructionist theory on collective memory and Jan Assmann’s thesis on the defining power of elites in the cultural memory are combined with a hegemony perspective and the tools of discourse analysis. The notion normalization is identified as the hub in a hegemonical intervention starting in the 1980s: a set of different texts, articulations and acts, referring to the Nazi past, regarding German nation-statehood as natural and promoting positive connotations about the German nation, through relativization or a diminishing of Nazi crimes in the collective memory. I argue that, due to the decline of self-experienced, communicative memory and the GDR collapse, a new societal consent was possible; one that now integrates Holocaust memory and German identity. However, the nationalist instrumentalization of this new framework has weakened the barriers against xenophobia and antisemitism. The intense history discourse of the 1990s is expressive of the transition conflict about the selection and rearrangement of public recollections needed for a new equilibrium in German society. Case studies: Buchenwald, Neue Wache Berlin, Holocaust Memorial Berlin

Romani Liberation

Centered on the trajectory of the emancipation of Roma people in Scandinavia, Romani Liberation is a powerful challenge to the stereotype describing Romani as passive and incapable of responsibility and agency. The author also criticizes benevolent but paternalistic attitudes that center on Romani victimhood. The first part of the book offers a comprehensive overview of the chronological phases of Romani emancipation in Sweden and other countries. Underscoring the significance of Roma activism in this process, Jan Selling profiles sixty Romani activists and protagonists, including numerous original photos. The narrative is followed by an analysis of the concepts of historical justice and of the process of decolonizing Romani Studies. Selling highlights the impact of the historical contexts that have enabled or impeded the success of the struggles against discrimination and for equal rights, emphasizing Romani activism as a precondition for liberation. The particular Swedish framework is accentuated by a stimulating preface by the international activist Nicoleta Bitu, and afterwords by two prominent Romani advocates, the politician Soraya Post and the singer, author, and elder Hans Caldaras

Index of Persons, Documents and Scriptural References in Veritatis Splendor.

Leeswijzer encycliek Veritatis Splendo