Agency and Perception: The Roma in East Central Europe

When

Thursday-Friday 18-19 April 2024, Central European Summer Time (UTC+2). A full program is available here.

About

Much scholarly attention has been paid to visible forms of historical anti-Ziganism/anti-Gypsyism/anti-Roma racism, hostility, discrimination, hate crime, harassment, and racial violence in east central Europe. Significantly less scholarly attention has been paid to the ways in which historical invisible prejudice and anti-Roma perceptions were constructed and shaped educational, health, employment, and housing policies targeted at and/or impacting Roma. What were the mechanisms of these policies and how were Romani individuals and communities involved, co-opted, or coerced? What kind of agency did Roma possess to challenge the ideological construction of these policies? What legacies have such policies left and how do they continue to shape Romani lives?

Individuals and populations identifying (or identified/perceived based on stereotypes) as Roma in east central Europe have historically had to navigate, transgress, or even subvert the assertions of both scholarly and bureaucratic authorities. Policy makers usually have perceived Roma as a social “problem”, typically to be “solved” by aiming to integrate through ambiguous social inclusion policies or implicitly (in some cases explicitly) erase Roma through assimilation or exclusion.

Angéla Kóczé, Romani Studies Program, Central European University
Sacha Davis, CSOV, University of Newcastle (Australia)

About the organisers

The Centre for the Study of Violence, University of Newcastle (Australia) is a multidisciplinary group with members from: history, criminology, sociology, law, social work, as well as health and medicine. Our aim is to advance humanity's understanding of violence, not only in the present, but through time. Members of the Centre explore every aspect of violence, including concepts of violence, issues of political and cultural violence, representations of violence, questions of interpersonal violence, trauma and the aftermaths of violence, sexual assault, domestic abuse, homicide and filicide. Researchers at the CSoV are focused on the origins, causes, and experience of violence throughout history and the present day. In this way we seek to understand the global roots of contemporary violence by examining the connections between the past and the present, and the range of cultural values and perceptions that surrounds both patterns of structural violence and individual acts of violence.

The Romani Studies Program at Central European University (RSP) aims to engage scholars, policy makers, and activists in interdisciplinary knowledge production and debate on Roma identity and movement; antigypsyism; social justice and policy making; gender politics; and structural inequality. RSP encompasses the Roma Graduate Preparation Program and the Advanced Certificate in Romani Studies. RSP offers courses for MA and PhD students of CEU and summer courses for graduate students and activist scholars from all over the world. RSP organizes annual academic conferences promoting critical approaches to Romani Studies and publishes Critical Romani Studies an international, interdisciplinary, double-blind peer-reviewed open access journal. RSP supports internships and offers various fellowship primarily targeting Romani students and scholars.