Romani Worlds

ROMANI WORLDS: ACADEMIA, POLICY, AND MODERN MEDIA A selection of articles, reports, and discussions documenting the achievements of the European Academic Network on Romani Studies Edited by Eben Friedman / Victor A. Friedman Romani worlds: Academia, policy, and modern media A selection of articles, reports, and discussions documenting the achievements of the European Academic Network on Romani Studies Edited by Eben Friedman and Victor A. Friedman Cluj-Napoca: Editura Institutului pentru Studierea Problemelor Minorităţilor Naţionale, 2015 ISBN: 978-606-8377-40-7 Design: Marina Dykukha Layout: Sütő Ferenc Photos: László Fosztó, Network Secretary, unless other source is indicated © Council of Europe and the contributors The opinions expressed in this work are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy of the Council of Europe or the European Commission. 2 CONTENTS CONTENTS INTRODUCTION TO THE VOLUME __________________________________________ 6 Eben Friedman, Victor A. Friedman with Yaron Matras PART ONE: THE STRASBOURG SHOWCASE EVENT ____________________________ 11 Edited by Eben Friedman with Victor A. Friedman Opening statement by Ágnes Dároczi (European Roma and Travellers Forum) _______ 12 Opening statement by Eben Friedman (European Centre for Minority Issues) ________ 18 Opening statement by Margaret Greenfields Buckinghamshire( New University) _____ 24 Europe’s neo-traditional Roma policy: Marginality management and the inflation of expertise ____________________________________________ 29 Yaron Matras The educational and school inclusion of Roma in Cyprus and the SEDRIN partners’ country consortium _______________________________ 48 Loizos Symeou 3 CONTENTS PART TWO: EMAIL DISCUSSIONS _________________________________________ 72 Edited by Eben Friedman and Victor A. Friedman, with Judit Durst Network Discussion 1: Measuring and reporting on Romani populations ___________ 74 Edited by Eben Friedman with Victor A. Friedman Network Discussion 2: Romani cultural identity _____________________________ 170 Edited by Victor A. Friedman with Eben Friedman PART THREE: EVENT REPORTS __________________________________________ 303 Edited by Eben Friedman and Victor A. Friedman Summer School The Roma in Europe – Debates on Comparative Analysis / Policy Strategy _________ 304 Research seminar for Roma scholars Gender, Ethnicity and Class in Roma Studies: Whither Intersectionality? __________ 316 4 CONTENTS Workshop The Uses of History in Romani Studies: Theory and Practice ___________________ 323 Academic seminar The European Dimension of Romani Culture: Scientific and Political Discourses ____ 328 Workshop History, Archives and Communities: Critical Interfaces in Romani Studies _________ 351 EPILOGUE: ROMANI PEOPLE COULD BE THE BEST TEACHERS OF EUROPEAN SOCIETIES BUT EUROPE MISSED THE CHANCE – AGAIN ____________ 358 Elisabeth Tauber APPENDIX: MAPPING THE NETWORK _____________________________________ 366 László Fosztó 5 INTRODUCTION TO THE VOLUME INTRODUCTION TO THE VOLUME Eben Friedman, Victor A. Friedman with Yaron Matras Preface The current volume is intended as a contribution to the legacy of the European Academic Network on Romani Studies (EANRS). Our purpose in editing this volume is to bring the achievements of the Network — and thus Romani Studies in general — to a broad audience which includes but is not limited to academics. With these principles in mind, this introduction is divided into two parts. The first introduces EANRS, and the second, the works that make up this volume. The first part of this introduction, concerning the Network’s origins and legacies, draws heavily and directly on the document “European Academic Network on Romani Studies: A balance sheet” by Yaron Matras (2015). Matras’s document, which is ten pages long, is a careful and detailed account of both the achievements and the problems associated with the crea- tion and functioning of EANRS as well as its legacy. The Network The European Academic Network on Romani Studies emerged at a meeting convened by the European Commission’s Director General for Education and Culture, chaired by Xavier Troussard in March 2010, to which around 80 individuals were invited. The consensus formed at that meeting was that a 6 INTRODUCTION TO THE VOLUME network should be created that would include qualified academics, and that it should help to raise the visibility of Romani Studies and to bring research expertise to the attention of policy-makers. The project and its activities were organized as a Joint Project of the European Commission and the Council of Europe with the financial contribution of both organizations. Such a network and its achievements would have been impossible before the rise of modern media such as the internet, whence the subtitle of this volume. As a whole, the Network can show a broad set of achievements. First, it created a system of virtual contacts in Romani Studies on an unprecedented scale (see the Appendix to this volume), which enabled specialists in the field who were not aware of one another’s work and areas of interest to engage with one another. Moreover, it produced a resource of value to academics whose research did not include Romani Studies and who wanted to become acquainted with such research and integrate it into their teaching. Through its sponsorship of research into policy and research training workshops, including participation of entire groups at the Central European University Romani Studies summer school (featured in Part Three of this volume), the Network allowed many dozens of researchers, most of them early career, to engage directly with one another. This opened up numerous new opportunities and had the added value of introducing a reporting structure through which information on all events and their content would be publicly available even if they did not result in an academic research publication. Sponsorship of early career researchers had a significant impact on the inclusion of relevant content in international confer- ences and contributed directly to the visibility of Romani Studies. Also, the many approaches to policy bodies at European and national levels served to make them aware of the availability of a wide body of expertise in the area. Finally, the Network facilitated a number of core debates that will have a lasting impact on the intellectual agenda in the field, with direct 7 INTRODUCTION TO THE VOLUME implications for policy. These include the issue of conceptualising Romani identity and identifying the target group, the issue of compiling quantitative data on Roma, and the role of academics in providing quality assurance of policy interventions at local and national levels. All three remain controversial issues, but the Network debates have, it can be argued, shifted the parameters of the discussion on all of them. Documentation of two of these debates are included in this volume and discussed in the second part of this introduction. There were a number of exchanges with the EC connected with feedback from Network members. On one occasion, the SC worked to collate responses to National Strategies in a structured manner by setting up working parties with country-based expertise and delegating the lead to a number of designated members. The procedure resulted in the preparation of 13 sets of written comments by members of the Network, with other Network members sharing previously published work related to the Strategies. These responses were fed back to the EC and published on the Network website,1 with EANRS’ contribution acknowledged in a progress report by the EC to the European Parliament from June 2013 (see European Commission 2013: 4 fn 11, 9 fn 20). Additionally, the issue of consultation with civil society, which the EANRS participants had flagged centrally in their integrated response, was later taken on board and it now figures in various EC communications on the National Strategies. EANRS’ lasting legacy will include some of the analyses of basic parameters of both academic and political engagement, such as critical reflections on the way the majority conceptualises Roma and on the way of achieving a sound balance between affirmative action and advocacy on the one hand and transparency and the rigour of enquiry-led expertise on the other. This is an intellectual legacy that will last into the future. Another legacy, which you are currently reading, is this e-book. 1 See http://romanistudies.eu/news/contributions_from_members/ 8 INTRODUCTION TO THE VOLUME Structure of the volume This book consists of three main parts. Part One is made up of papers that were presented at the closing, showcase event of EANRS as a project in Strasbourg and entitled “Policies for Roma inclusion: The contribution of academic research.” Contributions by Ágnes Dároczi, Eben Friedman, and Margaret Greenfields address the questions “How can research benefit policy on Roma?” and “How can Roma empowerment benefit from research?” Yaron Matras provides a case study from Manchester, UK as an illustration of the local-level impact of trends in policy toward Roma at European level. A second case study, by Loizos Symeou, examines the inclusion of Roma in seven European countries, drawing on the findings of research conducted in the framework of the project “School Education for Roma Integration” (SEDRIN) in the period 2012-2014. Part Two is comprised of edited versions of two e-mail discussions conducted under the auspices of EANRS. One discussion, which was initiated in late

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