The Limits of Rights-Based Discourse in Romani Women’s Activism: The Gender Dimension in Romani Politics

Kóczé, Angéla

doi:10.1057/9780230281165_7

Cited by 26 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Additionally, both "groups" suffer from a wide range of social inequalities, vulnerabilities and a lack of empowerment. Despite reflecting a situation characterized by complex inequality, an intersectionality approach can however result in empowering and emancipatory debates and experiences, as the flourishing discourse on Roma gender studies and Romani women's struggles stand to testify (Kóczé et al 2018;Kóczé 2009;Vincze 2014). The question for further potential research is whether treating the mobility of Roma individuals within the framework of migration studies -rather than, as most research currently does, within the framework of Romani Studiescould contribute to the de-essentialization of Roma identity.…”

Section: Conceptual and Methodological Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conceptual and Methodological Considerations in Researching “Roma Migration”

Messing

2019

IMISCOE Research Series

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This chapter provides a critical overview of research trends on "Roma migration" as they developed over the last decade, contextualizing the issue and setting the stage for the following chapters. Due to the alleged increase in the number of Roma individuals exercising their mobility rights from Eastern European countries to Western Europe-mainly after the 2004 and 2007 EU accession-researchers' interest has shifted towards this new topic. Many scholars have started focusing in the past decade on the causes and consequences of Roma's migration patterns, their life in the new countries, and the legal, citizenship and policy questions posed by the appearance of non-Western Roma in Western Europe. Although Romani studies have long been in the constructivist paradigm, "Roma migration" has spurred new tendencies to essentialise Roma groups, at least in political and public debates. This chapter reflects on the conceptual and methodological aspects of researching "Roma migration". This main question will be addressed through the following subquestions: What kind of analytical and conceptual tools do researchers employ in order to understand the current migration trends of Roma citizens? What approaches do we adopt, and how do we use 'old' concepts, such as "Roma" or "migrant"? In this chapter I also raise the issue of research ethics and of the responsibility of researchers during the processes of knowledge-production on "Roma migration".

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Section: Conceptual and Methodological Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conceptual and Methodological Considerations in Researching “Roma Migration”

Messing

2019

IMISCOE Research Series

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“…While some have argued that color should not be the foundation for understanding racism within Europe (Anthias and Yuval-Davis 1992), EU-propagated cosmopolitan discourse should be understood as an iteration of "colorblindness. " For Roma, the types of social programs that these policies produce deploy a rights-based narrative of Romani "inclusion" (Kóczé 2009;Trehan 2009;Kóczé and Rövid 2012;Vrabiescu 2014), which have eluded a structural critique of racism within the European context.…”

Section: Racial Origins Of Neoliberalism: Bridging the Gap Between Thmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Class-to-Race Cascade

McCombs

2019

CRS

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This paper explores neoliberal discourse as a racial discourse in relation to how Roma are conceived by academics and policymakers. I develop the concept of the class-to-race cascade as a way to describe the phenomenon, whereby the marginalization of racialized minorities is attributed entirely to their classposition. The cascade flows as follows: neoliberal policies slash benefits to low-income people, low-income people are disproportionately racially marginalized, thus neoliberal policies affect different racialized minorities, perpetuating racism. I trace the lineage of the class-to-race cascade to the concept of the“underclass” as it was developed in the U.S. particularly through the work of William Julius Wilson after the neoliberal turn. I then critique the work of Iván Szelényi and János Ladányi who adapted the “underclass” thesis to Roma, using the class-to-race cascade. Finally, I apply the concept to urban policy discourse inBudapest’s Eighth District, where a large Roma community has lived for nearly a century. I show in this paper that the class-torace cascade is a prominent discursive feature of both policy and academic concepts of Roma.

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“…Drawing from postcolonial and black feminist streams and from specific and diverse experiences of Romani women across the world (e.g., Kóczé 2009; Biţu and Vincze 2012; Brooks 2012), they expose culturalist representations of Romani women "as sexually available objects of fantasy, […] as old witches […], as passive victims of patriarchy who need saving and as thieves and beggars getting rich off of the welfare state" that prevail in many societies (Brooks 2012, 3). They describe different manifestations of state violence that such representations can lead to, such as the neglect and lack of intervention on the part of state authorities when Romani women reach out for support (Oprea 2004), or paternalistic programmes that reify them as a "vulnerable group, " construct certain forms of violence as "Romani problems" (Jovanovic 2015), and do not take their real needs into consideration (Kóczé 2009). In December 2015, a group of Romani feminists translated these analyses into a political statement they issued in Brussels, notably demanding that European Union institutions and members states address "the intersectional discrimination affecting Romani women in relation to their access to social services, such as women's shelters" (Caro Maya et al 2015).…”

Section: Towards a Critical Race Critique Of "Gadjo Feminism"mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As Angéla Kóczé and Margareta Matache argue, the tendency to disregard race and instead focus on ethnicity and the study of Romani people as a marginal ethnic group and "culture" is symptomatic of the colonial traditions underlying Romani Studies and continues to obscure racial hierarchies (Kóczé 2018;Matache 2016). In line with Critical Race theorists who unveil the whiteness at the foundation of legal language in the United States (Wing 2000), Matache refers to epistemological "gadjo-ness" in scholarly work on Roma: "Categorizing Roma as an inferior, subordinate race fixed white cultural norms as the standard against which Roma were described" (ibid.).…”

Section: Towards a Critical Race Critique Of "Gadjo Feminism"mentioning

confidence: 99%

“They’re Saying That to Us?”

Boada

2019

CRS

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The Spanish state advertises itself internationally as a leading example of “Roma inclusion” and takes particular pride in its policy towards women from the Kalé minority, the main Romani group in Spain. This is reflected in a carefully deployed political communication that centres on the trope of the “empowered Gypsy woman” who will soon reach emancipation thanks to state-funded programmes. On the ground, however, Kalé women’s persistent social marginalisation is imputed on them, while antigypsyism remains unaddressed by institutions.This paper investigates the discursive strategies mobilised by institutional actors in order to rule out discussions on racism. Based on eight months of ethnographic observations as well as semi-structured interviews with professionals in Madrid, I argue that this occurs through a translation of feminist agendas,particularly on intimate partner violence (IPV), into discourses that stigmatise Kalé “culture” as intrinsically patriarchal while promoting a gadjo (non-Romani) norm. This phenomenon, which I refer to as “gadjo feminism,” manifests itself within the justice system, where professionals disproportionately resortto culturalist representations of IPV in Kalé communities, and also within NGO-piloted empowerment programmes for Kalé women which rely upon racial hierarchies while systematically dismissing women’s experiences of institutional racism.

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The Limits of Rights-Based Discourse in Romani Women’s Activism: The Gender Dimension in Romani Politics

Cited by 26 publications

References 11 publications

Conceptual and Methodological Considerations in Researching “Roma Migration”

Conceptual and Methodological Considerations in Researching “Roma Migration”

The Class-to-Race Cascade

“They’re Saying That to Us?”

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