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

Second site

An exhibition by four artists from Roma/Gypsy/Traveller communities. [From the press release

Building a new common gaze: Lessons from the new English Roma/Gypsy/Traveller art

Thomas Acton (born 1948) switched his academic ambition from the philosophy of religion at Oxford to Gypsy politics when he was recruited as a student to run the first Gypsy Council caravan summer school for children on an illegal encampment on a disused airfield in 1967. He was an administrative assistant at the first World Romani Congress in 1971, finished a doctorate on Romani Studies, and became a university sociology teacher by default. He was appointed the first professor of Romani Studies at the University of Greenwich in 1997. He has been secretary of the UK Gypsy Council 3 times, is currently secretary of the international Gypsy Lore Society, and of the Brentwood Gypsy Support Group where he lives, and is patron of the London Roma Support Group. **************************** His lecture will draw the lessons of his experience of curating the "Second Site" exhibition at the University of Greenwich in 2006, taking that on tour, working with Daniel Baker, Delaine LeBas and other artists, and seeing how that work helped lead both to the expansion of popular art with the Gypsy/Roma/Traveller community, and to statements on a broader front, such as the Romani Art pavilion at the Venice Biennale. He writes "I come as a visually naïve sociologist and community activist, fallen only by accident into the world of artists over the past 4 years (and acknowledging an immense debt both to Baker and LeBas, and my daughter Grace Acton, an arts administrator) commenting on the stories the art I have worked with tells. These are stories of human equality despite all structures of social control, of the irrepressibility of individual autonomy, of the existential self-assertion of ethnic and sexual minorities, of the unregulatability of migration and the functional necessity for contemporary nomadism. They tell how survival is a neurosis of the rich and the last thing the poor should worry about. They speak of the ephemerality of consumption and the monumentality of production and the ever- present possibility of simply rejecting the alienation of one's labour power. I will speak of art which seems to make a community of wherever we hang our hats, and recognises that all life is, inescapably, one long experiment. I will praise people traffickers, and point out how the ills for which they are blamed are an inevitable concomitant of the nation-state; and I will denounce intellectual property as the preoccupation of those irrationally scared they will somehow run out of ideas.

Citizenship and the Roma/Gypsy/Travellers

This paper discusses why those scholars who have seriously engaged with the intellectual problematics around the politics of Roma/Gypsies/Travellers on a comparative, global basis are so dismissive of the usefulness of the concept of citizenship

The origins of Gypsies/Roma/Travellers: The limitations of a standpoint approach

Using the exonym currently politically correct in UK translations of EU policies, the author discusses the extent of possibilities for explaining theories of the origins of Roma/Gypsies/Travellers by the social interests and situation of the theorists. In doing so, he will take account of his own experience of being asked by Travellers/Roma/Gypsies to offer or defend a position “as a Gaujo/Gajo”, or “as an academic” or “as a sociologist” or “as a Christian”, and of debates in the June 2008 UK government-funded Gypsy Roma and Traveller History Month

DATA SHARING FOR TASK EFFICIENCY DURING A FOREIGN HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE/DISASTER RELIEF EFFORT

This paper adapts Zigurs & Buckland’s (1998) Task Technology Fit theoretical framework for application to a virtual organization that exists for episodically during foreign humanitarian assistance/disaster relief efforts. Using the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2010 Haiti earthquake, and more than 1000 lessons learned cases from the federal government, I examine how task activities, process support level, military command level and partner types influence the technology platform that is used for structured and unstructured data sharing in real time. The predicted fit between task and technology is supported; however, addition of consideration of the virtual nature of the internal and external partnerships that are required for foreign disaster relief efforts improves the explanatory model. Recommendations for theory changes and the practical implications of this research for future foreign disaster relief efforts are explored

Open Innovation as a Route to Value in Cloud Computing

Both the cloud computing and open innovation paradigms represent recent phenomenon and as such many unanswered questions still persist. Indeed cloud computing’s full innovation potential may only be fully realised through an open innovation approach. In responding to this research gap we propose a new value creation framework which is based on a review of the literature on cloud computing, innovation, open innovation and value. Taking the framework layer by layer, this paper describes the innovation potential across components capable of offering value to organisations. The main contribution of this paper lies in proposing a framework that seeks to identify best route(s) to value, thus providing a visual mapping to enable organisations determine which cloud computing components, implementations, solutions and innovation approach is most suitable for value attainment

The development of Roma/Gypsy/Traveller identity during the candidacy for EU membership of the Turkish Republic

Drawing on their recent research project for the UK Economic and Social Research Council, the authors will discuss the way in which increasing international NGO activity has sought to identify and advance the the cause of Roma/Gypsy/Traveller groups in Turkey, and how these efforts interact with the groups’ own sense of their identity and interests. Reporting on the development of formal organisations, they will argue that the legacy of the Byzantine and Ottoman empires has left not only a distinctive network of Rom, Dom and other groups perceived as Çingene, but different understandings of how identity is constituted within complex social relations, which mean that great caution must be exercised in using policy or ethnicity models derived from central and western Europe. Nonetheless a more accurate overview of the populations involved is required, and the authors will try to provide a prelimary sketch

An Investigation into Time Pressure, Group Cohesion and Decision Making in Software Development Groups

Two of the key themes in contemporary information systems development (ISD) literature are (i) how to build and release systems in shorter time frames and (ii) how to enable development groups to build systems in a cohesive manner. This is reflected by today’s predominant contemporary ISD methods such as agile, their distinguishing feature being an explicit emphasis on continuous, timely releases and a facilitation of effective group collaboration and communication. In a survey of 119 software developers we explore the effects of group cohesion and two types of time pressure, hindrance and challenge, on the decision-making quality of ISD groups. Our results showed challenge time pressure and group cohesion to have a positive effect with hindrance time pressure having no significant impact. We discuss the implications of this and offer insights with respect to theory and practice for those wishing to improve the decision-making quality of their ISD groups