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

Abstract

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