Discourses About the Gypsy / Roma in Europe Since 1989 A
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Talking Difference: Discourses about the Gypsy / Roma in Europe since 1989 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Adina Alexandra Giurgiu Schneeweis IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Adviser: Catherine R. Squires August 2009 © Adina Schneeweis 2009 Acknowledgements All blessings are divine in origin but none can be compared with this power of intellectual investigation and research which is an eternal gift producing fruits of unending delight. ’Abdu’l-Bahá I have been going to school for twenty-two years – a time blessed with unending delight, indeed. In this process, I cannot count the people that have helped me and shaped me. Suffice to say that I am grateful for the opportunities I have been offered, from family members, mentors, teachers, friends, and staff that have taken the time to know me and share a smile with me every day. The University of Minnesota and especially the School of Journalism and Mass Communication have been so generous in their support. My academic life has been marked by several mentors to whom I am forever indebted. For supporting my beliefs and pushing them forward, I thank my advisor, Dr. Catherine Squires. Stepping into this process at a key point, Catherine, you have taught me how to be my own critical reader. More importantly, our conversations have encouraged me to keep going and have confirmed that this matters! Dr. Brian Southwell has served as my advisor for many months and his encouragement and guidance I must acknowledge. The faculty that has joined my doctoral committee at a variety of different moments – Dr. Raymond Duvall, Dr. Hazel Dicken-Garcia, Dr. Mark Pedelty, Dr. Dona Schwartz, Dr. Michael Goldman, and Dr. TK Chang – I thank you for your continued excitement in my ideas. Bud, for turning my life upside down by exposing me to i postcolonial scholarship; Hazel, for guiding my first article to publication; Mark, for your joy while discussing methodological reflexivity with me; Dona, for challenging my use of method; Michael, for also inviting Gramsci and Foucault to the dinners at your home; and TK, for seeing the scholar in me during the first day of orientation. For my commitment to a doctoral education, I have to thank again Dr. Hazel Dicken-Garcia. There is no other like her. From the first course I took with her, until the most recent walks around the Minneapolis parks, Hazel has been a believer that I am on the right path. She has taught me more about graduate school and becoming a scholar than I thought possible. I can only hope that I can somehow do justice to her commitment to me by trying to model her love for her students in my own career. For my dedication to teaching, I thank the faculty in Murphy Hall for their patience, especially my dear friend Dr. Kathy Forde, whose energy has been an inspiration. I am most grateful to my students, for sharing their interests with me as I embarked on my own teaching adventures. I also thank the many teachers in my family, who have instilled a love for learning in my heart since I was in primary school and started teaching math to my friends in the neighborhood. My friends of the past seven years, where would I be without your humor and your wit? Dr. Katie Foss, Becky Bolin-Swenson, Madhavi Murty, Jen Moore, Nahid Khan, Soyoen Cho, Sumi Kim, Dong Dong, and all the other office mates – you have made my life sweeter. The many friends outside the academic ranks, thank you for the repeated “yes, you can!” posts on my blog and Facebook pages. The Bahá’í community of Minneapolis, every single hug and prayer mattered. ii I am deeply grateful for the unwavering love my parents and my parents-in-law have shown me, both in fun times and in hard times. Your devotion has never faltered and it inspires me in my life every day. My mother and my mother-in-law in particular, you have earned my eternal gratitude for caring for my son so that I could produce the work that this dissertation has become, without having to worry about his emotional safety. Mom and dad, your desire to support me, even as I cringed at every “have you scheduled your defense yet?” question, has been a gift. Dad, no one supports me as unconditionally as you do! Mom, I hope you know where I get my desire for excellence and my passion for teaching – I am where I am, because of you. For my deep love for words, I thank my grandmother, Iulia Vlasa. As a high school Romanian teacher, my grandma Lia has shared with me her books, her notes, her love for literature and grammar, and her time, engaging my interest at a time when teenage activities should have distracted me. Above all else, I thank my dearest Kian and Bob. Kian, my little boy, your genuine curiosity for this world continues to move me to keep asking questions and looking for answers in trying to understand how this world can be better for you. Your snuggles have peppered my work with necessary silliness. My husband Bob is a special case. Your brilliance, your edits, your help with choppy translations from Romanian, your patience as my thoughts developed into ideas worth reading, your exemplary parenting of our son, and your cooking – none can compare to your deep commitment to me as a person. Without it, I would not be as complete as I am today. Thank you for reminding me what is most important. iii Dedication To Dzavit Berisha, who reminded me of the real world - and of the possibilities iv Abstract This dissertation is a study of discourses about the Gypsies / Roma in contemporary Europe. It is positioned at the intersection of the disciplines of mass communication, cultural studies, postcolonial studies, and Romani studies. It seeks to explain the construction, development, and social treatment of Gypsy difference in Western and Eastern Europe since 1989. The research, therefore, focused on discourses in the press, in Romania and the United Kingdom at critical conjunctures between 1990 and 2006, and in publications of non-governmental organizations of the emerging movement for Roma rights. The analysis asked what press and activist discourses contribute to what European cultures mean by Gypsy / Roma. How and why have these discourses changed – at a historical time of increased attention to human rights and minority political representation, of European Union enlargement and opening of borders, of politico-economic transformations and democratization processes throughout Western, Central, and Eastern Europe? Press discourses constructed “the Gypsy,” whereas activist discourses formulated “the Roma.” The analysis of newspapers identified competing representations of discrimination against the Gypsy, of deploring the Gypsy’s perpetual victim status, and, to a smaller degree, of attempting to recognize the minority culture in its own right. Differently, the activist publications contributed and formulated discourses that recognize the discrimination against the Roma, the state’s role in this process, the rights of the Roma, the need for integration of the Roma, the role of tradition in contemporary process of inter-ethnic living, and, in few rare cases, the inferiority of Roma cultures. Tensions, hesitations, and changes were inherent in each of these constructions of the Gypsy / v Roma. While discriminating against the Gypsy / Roma and lamenting racism are both rather self-explanatory in post-World War II and post-Communist Europe, press and activist discourses illustrate that such communication institutions play their part in the dominant ideology-counter-ideology dance that maintains an anti-Gypsyist system in place – by over-ethnicizing the Roma peoples, by intentionally shying away from formulating a cohesive Roma identity, and by continuing to find solutions for the Roma instead of with the Roma (yet an improvement from earlier eras of solution-finding against the Roma). vi Table of Contents Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………. i Dedication……………………………………………………………………………….. iv Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………... v List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………. ix Chapter One. Introduction……………………………………………………………... 1 Positioning Gypsy / Roma Discourses in Mass Communication Research……... 14 Gypsies / Roma in Historical Context…………………………………………... 21 Chapter Plan……………………………………………………………………... 29 Chapter Two. Thinking and Conceiving the Gypsy / Roma: Theoretical Framework……………………………………………………………………………....31 Discourse and Discursive Practices……………………………………………... 32 The Gypsy Subaltern…………………………………………………………….. 46 The Subaltern in Gramsci’s Project…………………………………… 46 From Gramsci’s Subaltern to Subaltern Studies………………………. 49 Postcolonial Theory and Difference……………………………………………...52 Postcolonialism, Communication, and Mass Communication…………………...62 Chapter Three. How Do We Know What We Know about the Gypsies / Roma? A Review of the Literature………………………………………………………………. 68 Gypsy / Roma History…………………………………………………………... 71 A Migration Story……………………………………………………….. 71 From Slavery to Ethnic Cleansing………………………………………. 75 The Gypsy / Roma Political Minority…………………………………… 81 British and Romanian Gypsy / Roma Communities Today……………… 90 The Rise of NGO Activism………………………………………………. 96 Media Representations: Caught between Crime and Romance………………... 103 Self-Other Inversions as the Paradox of Difference…………………… 113 Learning from the Past………………………………………………………..... 114 Chapter Four. Discourse Analysis in Mass Communication and Postcolonial Studies Research: Methodology and Methods………………………………………………..116 On Methodology………………………………………………………………..119