Centre for European and International Studies Research (CEISR)

CEISR Symposium:
‘Grassroots globalisation: squaring the circle of Roma inclusion’
Doing research with and on marginalised communities in Europe: a focus on Roma minorities

The Centre for European and International Studies Research (CEISR) conference ‘Towards a European Society? Transgressing Disciplinary Boundaries in European Studies Research’ will begin on Thursday June 28^th.

Symposium description

This symposium will be an exciting addition to inter-disciplinary discussions on European politics, marginalised minorities and approaches to participation from political processes to art networks. Using the phrase ‘grassroots globalisation’ the symposium brings together specialists on Roma activism and networks in local and global contexts, from ‘ordinary’ Roma people in local contexts to Roma political elites who work with pan-European institutions. The papers provide a detailed account of structural reasons for social deprivation and exclusion of Roma in Europe, challenging the stereotypical perceptions of the dominant societies about Roma culture and assessing the implications of discarding the agency of marginalised communities for legitimacy of the social and political framework. The symposium forms a major contribution to furthering our understanding of the political and social mobilisation of marginalised minorities such as Roma minorities.

Background to topic area

A bleak picture of the situation of Roma and Gypsy minorities is evoked by descriptions of their “persistent economic and social marginalisation” (‘EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies up to 2020’, published April 05 2011). With no kin-state of their own and lacking opportunities for mobilising political or economic resources, Roma people remain in poorly organised, disempowered and largely marginal communities living in parallel to dominant societies. However, whilst severe situations continue, there are some invigorating movements occurring across the political, policy and research landscapes. The symposium at the University of Portsmouth ‘Grassroots globalisation: squaring the circle of Roma inclusion’ will be an exciting addition to inter-disciplinary discussions on European politics, marginalised minorities and approaches to participation from political processes to art networks.

Using the phrase ‘grassroots globalisation’ the symposium notes the influence of Roma activism and networks in local and global contexts, from ‘ordinary’ Roma people in local contexts to Roma political elites who work with pan-European institutions. Each paper touches on examples of ‘grassroots globalisation’ and the challenges and successes that are explored and critiqued chime with Appadurai’s comment: “This is not a fairy-tale, nor is it at an end. It is a major struggle, filled with risks, hazards, contradictions, disappointments, and obstacles. But such moments are, in their aspirations, democratic both in form and in telos” (Appadurai 2006: 136). This is where we see the opportunity to debate the new European agenda on Roma inclusion in particular (considering the EU’s endeavours to achieve a common EU framework for National Roma Integration Strategies by 2020) and minority participation in general: our authors contrast and analyse institutional commitment to social justice and respect for European citizens, with Roma practices on the ground that re-establish the egalitarian ideals of European citizenry and are potent markers for the emergent politics beyond identity.

Papers, Abstracts and Speakers

‘When cultural issues are political: Revisiting the limits of the European governance for recognition and participation of Roma communities’

Author & affiliation: Timofey Agarin (School of Social Science Research Fellow, University of Aberdeen, UK)

Abstract: European Union has many long term commitments, most of which support the most basic democratic norm that the laws and decisions that bind citizens of the Union, should be made under the direct participation of the people affected. More recently, the European Commission’s programme ‘Europe for Citizens 2007-2013’ sought to encourage ‘interaction between citizens and civil society organisations from all participating countries, contributing to intercultural dialogue and bringing to the fore both Europe's diversity and unity.’ Within this context of such exchange however, the members of minority groups are constrained in forming their arguments on political preferences and pursuing their goals by the terms that the majority populations might accept as legitimate. Furthermore, an increasing number of minorities across the EU contest bona fide objectives of those representatives who speak in the name of their minority group in legislatures, representative bodies and as civil society groups. This paper contrasts the two theoretical challenges dealt with in much of the literature on Roma communities’ engagement in the European governance and find that the differences are minimal here.

The paper deals first with the structural challenges experienced by minority group members when seeking participation in governance, and secondly, with the functional challenges resulting from the lack of exchange on and negotiation of anticipated outcomes. The two steps allow me to argue that because political recognition of Roma communities builds upon particularistic identities, it undermines Romas’ opportunities to contest the exiting cultural bias of political institutions, militates forums of political participation and sponsors unreflected adherence to social categories such as race and ethnicity. The paper concludes that engaging Romas in the European governance is failing largely because it is built on the foundations long criticized in much of policy, sociological and ethnographic studies of Roma exclusion.

Paper title: ‘Locating Roma Participation in Research: Roma Representation and Representing Roma’

Author & affiliation: Aidan McGarry (Lecturer in Politics in the School of Applied Social Science, University of Brighton)

Abstract: Any attempt to understand the social and political participation of Roma must begin by addressing the dual production and construction of Roma identity. Anthropologists have produced Roma culture through ethnographic studies on the performance and meaning of Roma identity (Okely 1983; Sutherland 1986; Stewart 1997; Gay y Blasco 1999; Lemon 2000). Ethnographic representations of Roma have traditionally emphasized the role of the individual as exemplar and performer of Roma distinctiveness (Gay y Blasco, 2011: 445). Political scientists have examined the political (dis)unity of Roma, addressing how Roma have begun to mobilize in the public sphere, and the various structural obstacles which impede effective political mobilization (Barany 1998; Vermeersch 2006; McGarry 2010). However, any understanding of Roma participation and identity tends to focus on the way “we”, i.e., academics, NGOs, state agencies, international organizations, advocacy networks, public officials, and society at large, interact with “them”, meaning we often miss or purposely ignore the voice of Roma. This is a strategic decision because it avoids answering a difficult question: who speaks for Roma? This paper explores the dilemma of representing Roma through research because this community are extremely heterogeneous and no objective criteria exist to determine who is Roma.

Paper title: ‘Making a difference without creating a difference: de-essentialising debates on ‘the Roma’ without losing sight of ethnicity

Author & affiliation: Annabel Tremlett (Senior Lecturer in Social Inclusion in the School of Health Sciences and Social Work, University of Portsmouth, UK)

Abstract: This article uses examples from ethnographic fieldwork to illuminate the critique that discourses and institutional practices on or with Roma minorities point to a problem with essentialist conceptualisations of who or what counts as ‘Roma’. This article gives examples of how essentialist approaches are not only inadequate in dealing with on-the-ground diversities, but also have the potential to divide communities. In these examples, notions of authenticity, whilst serving a purpose in creating a strong voice (Spivak’s ‘strategic essentialism’), are naive about the impact of power relations and elitism, ignoring co-option by local elites, creating the further exclusion of marginal groups. This article argues that any studies working with discourses connected to ‘Roma’ in the current climate requires a careful de-essentialising of the debates but without losing sight of ethnicity, and offers an analytical framework that would be useful for anyone working with notions connected to ‘Roma’ in their work.

Paper title: ‘A GYPSY REVOLUTION? Conflict, fragmentation and status quo maintenance in the political mobilization of the Roma in Rome’

Authors & Affiliation: Isabella Clough Marinaro (Lecturer on Italian Sociology and Politics at John Cabot University and the American University of Rome) and Ulderico Daniele, (Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Rome)

Abstract: Having recently studied the emergence of a new Roma leadership in Rome (Clough Marinaro and Daniele 2011, Daniele 2011), in this paper we propose to focus on the consequences and outcomes of the novel spaces of visibility and political participation that have developed since the completion of our last research project. In particular, we intend to concentrate on the differentiations and conflicts which are taking shape within the new political arenas that have emerged for Roma in the Italian capital. Our analysis highlights how, following an initial period of recognition and success, processes of demarcation from and often outright opposition to the most visible Roma leaders have become increasingly evident both within formal associations and within committees of different communities’ representatives.

We intend to examine whether new spaces for political mobilization are opening up for Roma in the specific local context of Rome; we investigate what new contacts with gagè they have managed to make use of, what instruments of dialogue and debate they employ, and which Roma have managed to adopt these strategies in ways that have allowed them to successfully meet their objectives. Our analysis of these diverse experiences of political participation aims to demonstrate how attempts to represent Rome’s Roma groups are highly dynamic and heterogeneous in their processes and outcomes, and to identify the forms and causes of separation and conflict between these communities. Within this complex panorama, Roma’s relationships with gagè, be they scholars or “activists”, is shown to have become all the more complicated and unstable because the often confrontational debate which has emerged has debunked the myth of the Roma as an undifferentiated and homogeneous group, creating new and fragmented forms of support and affiliation.

Paper title: ‘Grassroots understandings of minority identity and marginality: Finnish Roma elite on Romanian Roma migrants in Finland’

Authors & Affiliation: Raluca Bianca Roman (University College London, School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies)

Abstract:  My paper deals with the interactions and reactions between/of the local and migrant Roma community in the city of Helsinki, as a consequence of Roma migration to this area. As of 2008, the presence of migrant Romanian Roma in Finland has brought about much debate regarding the status of this group, along with several interventions of local authorities, social activists, international officials and the general population to address the dire living conditions of the Roma migrants. At the same time, the Roma migrants were being primarily identified as beggars in the media and contradictory interventions from behalf  the local authorities soon unfolded. Under such a background, I focus specifically on the actions/reactions of members of the national, Finnish Roma community to all of the above, given the context of Finnish Roma often being labelled as one of the ‘better integrated’ Roma groups in Europe. To this aim, I explore specifically the views of the Finnish Roma “elite” on the Romanian Roma beggars in the Helsinki area. This research brings into question the rapport established between two distinct, national Roma communities and the complexity of “intra-ethnic” relations, in a localized and contextualized case study of Roma migration.

Paper title: ‘Reclaiming ‘Gypsy’. Art as activism’

Authors & affiliation: Delaine Le Bas (Independent Artist)

Abstract: The term ‘Gypsy’ is moving from a group label to a term indicating alternative identities and (radical) social change, including the creation of formal and informal networks that bring together a variety of people from artists to social workers and community workers/agitators. This paper considers major art networks in Berlin, Finland and the CoBrA art collective based in Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam with particular reference to the ‘Gypsy Camp’ design by CoBrA and the ‘Gypsy Revolution’ project by Delaine and Damien Le Bas. These examples offer alternative social spaces for debates around Gypsy groups, inequality and social inclusion, providing a political platform to display societal problems and solutions in an interactive, interesting, (artistic), people-friendly manner. The paper argues that reclaiming the term ‘Gypsy’ can create an alternative framework for thinking through inequality and the ‘self’ that is not bound by a certain ethnic or cultural group, but one that recognises interactions with family, community, art, alongside economic and political contexts as intrinsic to fighting inequality and racism.

Paper title: ‘Methodological challenges of a European comparative research on education of ethnic minority youth’

Author & affiliation: Vera Messing (Research Fellow at the Center for Policy Studies of the Central European University, Budapest, Hungary).

Abstract: EDUMIGROM is a 3 year long FP 7 funded European comparative research project which aimed to study how ethnic differences in education contribute to the diverging prospects for minority ethnic youth and their peers in urban setting. The research involved 9 countries, and was designed such, that an equal distribution of old and new member-states were involved. Reflecting on the multiplicity and complexity of the research questions EDUMIGROM project addressed the design of the investigation embodied a multi-method and multilevel comparative empirical approach, including qualitative and quantitative empirical research. The project has taken place in 9 European countries: 4 – Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia - representing post communist societies, where Roma have been in the focus and 5 are old member states of the EU, where the focus has been placed on second+ generation migrants, who being born and raised in the given society were citizens (or at least denizens) of the country. The research was faced with a number of methodological challenges in the course of designing and realizing the multilevel and multimethod research. The presentation will provide an insight to these challenges and their solution.

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Please note that there will also be a conference panel on 'European minority groups and the interface of political discourse and popular (media) culture' as a part of the Centre for European and International Studies Research (CEISR)’s conference at the University of Portsmouth on June 28^th 2012 at 14.45 with three papers focused on Roma minorities: ‘Pushed aside: representation of the Roma/Gypsy minority in the Hungarian mainstream media’ by Gábor Bernáth and Vera Messing (presented by Vera Messing); ‘Reality TV’s ‘demonic’ turn: ethnicity, class and gender in ‘Big Fat Gypsy’ TV’ by Annabel Tremlett; and ‘Art as Activism: The Rise Of Roma Activism’ by Delaine Le Bas.

See http://www.port.ac.uk/research/ceisr/europeanstudiesconference/ for further details.