3.5 Us and Them: What Categories Reveal About Roma and Non-Roma in the Czech Republic

“Struggle” for Trust – Unintended Consequences of an “Integration Project”

“…OnesolutiontoapproachtheissueistounderstandtheRomainanunclearfamilyresemblance category driven by a prototype or a cultural model (Doubek & Levínská, 2015;Lakoff, 1990;Wittgenstein,2001)inthecontextofdistributedculture (Schwartz,1978).Theboundarymarker inthismodelistowhopeoplearerelatedto.Thisoperatorworksfortheinsidersaswellasthe outsidersofthegroup.Thisprototypeisclearlyastereotypicalimageofdark-skinnedpeoplewho shareotherfeatureslikepovertyorgeneralunruliness,butalsospontaneity,musicality,andmany otherstereotypicalfeaturesthatdon'thavetobeallpresentandstillapersoncanbecategorisedand attributedthesefeaturesnotbecauseofrealitybutbecauseoftheprevalenceofthemodel.While actualattributionoftenfollowsdescentandkinship,ifthereistoobigadifferencefromthemodel, peoplecanbeextractedfromthegroup.ThiscanbeseeninthetestimonyofanoldresidentofAlpha belongingtothenon-Romamajority (Fieldnotes,2008). "ThefamilyofXYareGypsies,whowere takenoffthelistofGypsiesinthe1950sbecauseoftheirgoodbehaviour.…”