Open Borders, Unlocked Cultures

Romanian Roma Migrants in Western Europe

Yaron Matras, Daniele Leggio

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780367884963
• eBook ISBN: 9781315295756
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

The book examines some of the dilemmas surrounding Europe's open borders, migrations, and identities through the prism of the Roma – Europe's most dispersed and socially marginalised population. The volume challenges some of the myths surrounding the Roma as a 'problem population', and places the focus instead on the context of European policy and identity debates. It comes to the conclusion that the migration of Roma and the constitution of their communities is shaped by European policy as much as, and often more so, than by the cultural traits of the Roma themselves. The chapters compare case studies of Roma migrants in Spain, Italy, France, and Britain and the impact of migration on the origin communities in Romania. The study combines historical and ethnographic methods with insights from migration studies, drawing on a unique multi-site collaborative project that for the first time gave Roma participants a voice in shaping research into their communities.

Chapters 1 and 7 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

1 How open borders can unlock cultures

Concepts, methods, and procedures*

Daniele Viktor Leggio and Yaron Matras

Who are the Roma?

Ethnicity vs. ‘nomadic lifestyle’

In March 2014, the e-mail list of the European Academic Network on Romani Studies¹ hosted a discussion on definitions of the population known as ‘Roma’. It began when one of the subscribers to the list – which at the time brought together some 350 academics who specialised in Romani/Gypsy studies – asked for reactions to two generalisations which she came across while preparing a legal review of a document on cultural rights: (1) that all Roma speak a variety of the same language, Romanes; and (2) that Roma generally consider themselves to be a nation. Some two-dozen scholars posted their reactions, which together offer a fairly exhaustive summary of contemporary views on the subject (for a full documentation, see Friedman & Friedman 2015: 186ff.).

Problems surrounding the definition of Roma/Gypsies are often attributed to the mismatch between internal labels and understandings of community boundaries among the populations concerned, and the prevalence of external definitions and popular imagery, which postulate a wholesale and much less differentiated category of ‘Gypsies’ (see Matras 2004, 2015a: 15–31). Some respondents to the e-mail discussion addressed the principle of individual self-ascription: A ‘Romani’ or ‘Gypsy’ person is one who identifies as such. Yet it was acknowledged that ‘Roma’ depicts an ethnic and therefore a collective identity, and so individuals’ self-ascription as ‘Roma’ is only credible if legitimised through descent. That, however, merely shifts the reference point back in time, for if descent is to be added to the definition, the question ‘descent from whom?’ cannot be avoided.

Some social scientists embrace the concept of ‘commercial nomads’ or ‘peripatetics’, first developed in a modern comparative perspective and applied to different societies by Rao (1987, see also Berland & Rao 2004). Here the focus is on endogamous population groups that occupy a particular socioeconomic niche in diverse societies around the world, specialising in a mobile, family-based service economy that often features a flexible portfolio of trades. Such communities are sometimes regarded as having a ‘contrast culture’, one that is dependent both culturally and economically on sedentary society but which cultivates its own particular identifiers in the form of both external emblems and appearance, and internal practices (cf. Streck 2008).

This approach is broadly aligned with popular notions of ‘nomadism’ that are associated with ‘Gypsies’ in literary and artistic depictions, as well as, punctually, in policy measures adopted at different times by various authorities and administrations. Policies toward ‘Gypsies’ in Europe ranged from late medieval edicts targeting all sorts of groups deemed to be non-sedentary ‘strangers’, through measures of control and surveillance during the eighteenth century that did not distinguish between individual ‘nomadic’ groups (cf. Lucassen 1996), to the Nazi view of ‘Gypsy’ as a genetic pre-disposition to criminality and anti-social behaviour, and, on the positive trajectory, to Council of Europe initiatives to set up camping and housing facilities for ‘populations of nomadic origins’ in the late twentieth century.²

It is interesting to note that in the early 1980s, the Council of Europe included both Romanies and Sami under its definition of ‘nomadic populations’,³ while contemporary definitions of ‘Roma’ in European policy documents tend to view peripatetics as commercial rather than pastoral nomads. As a definition of ‘Gypsy’, the plain attribute ‘nomadic’ is clearly problematic. It cannot explain why the Luli beggars of Uzbekistan are regarded as ‘Gypsies’ but not the Kyrgyz herders of Kazakhstan, and it fails to differentiate between the Dom (Gypsy) tent-dwellers of Jordan and the (non-Gypsy) Bedouin tribes of the Sinai. It also conflicts with the self-perception of groups such as the Sinte of Germany, who speak the Romani language and practise seasonal travelling for the purpose of work as well as social gatherings but who strongly resent being depicted as nomads. A definition of ‘Gypsies’ as ‘historically nomadic’ or ‘nomadic by descent’ might include the sedentary Roma of the Burgenland in Austria, who are regarded as ‘Gypsies’, but not the Karaim of Lithuania, who are not seen as such. The concept of ‘service economy’ that is associated with ‘commercial nomadism’ fails to capture the difference between the Halab blacksmiths of Sudan (Streck 1996) or the Kelderash coppersmiths of Bulgaria, both considered ‘Gypsy’ populations, and the Jewish goldsmiths of Yemen, who are not associated with that label. These comparisons, as well as the ‘branding’ (cf. Matras 2015a) and marketing of certain social and cultural attributes through the term ‘Gypsy’, testify to the way in which the term widely evokes associations with a particular ‘lifestyle’ as well as a very particular social stigma. It is therefore tempting to generalise that ‘Gypsies’ are ‘those who are defined by others as Gypsies’ (cf. Ries 2008), yet that notion contradicts self-ascription as well as, potentially, descent. Explicitly linking lifestyle with self-ascription, on the other hand, risks essentialising ideas of cultural heritage and behaviour and denying that Romani/Gypsy society, like any other, is permeable, potentially porous, and subject to constant change and development.

Matras (2004) identifies two distinct uses of the term ‘Gypsy’, which represent realities that overlap only partly or historically. The first (‘Gypsy 1’) focuses on social status and socioeconomic profile. It captures both external attitudes and self-depictions, and the objective reality of relations and patterns of interaction with majority society. Each individual population in this category can be regarded as an ethnicity in its own right to the extent that group membership is (barring individuals) principally by descent rather than through the acquisition of a ‘lifestyle’. Yet, there is no overarching relationship among these different populations save occasional manifestations of mutual solidarity during casual encounters, or else, when mobility or migration lead to more intense contact and convergence (not unlike those that exist among co-territorial sedentary populations such as ethnic Germans and ethnic Poles in pre-war Silesia). Populations belonging to ‘Gypsy 1’ constitute a ‘nation’ only in the very metaphorical sense of the term, as groups that might be seen as having a similar ‘destiny’ in regard to their individual relationships with their respective majority (sedentary, or ‘host’) societies.

A separate category (‘Gypsy 2’) pertains to the very specific population whose language is or was a dialect of Romani. These populations tend to use the term ‘Rom’ or a word that is derived from it (e.g. Romnes, Romnichal) as a meaningful signifier of in-group identity, either with reference to the group as a whole, or specifically to its language, or sometimes just to denote a ‘man/woman in-group member’ or the family role ‘husband/wife’. The majority of the Romani population (so defined) lives in eastern Europe, often in century-old, established and segregated settlements, where they maintain family networks, the Romani language, and to some extent separate traditions, while others have relied until recently on commercial mobility and may in that sense, be regarded broadly as ‘nomadic’. In western and northern Europe, by contrast, Romani settlement has been sparse; groups of Romani origin have tended to maintain itinerant traditions, they have tended to mix with indigenous peripatetic populations of non-Romani origin, and they have often lost command of the Romani language (save a limited Romani-derived vocabulary that is embedded into in-group interaction in the majority language). There is therefore some degree of historical overlap between the Roma (‘Gypsy 2’) and the various ‘nomadic’ populations (‘Gypsy 1’), especially if one subscribes to the view that the historical origin of the European Roma is in the caste-like ḍom-communities of India (cf. Matras 2002, 2015a); yet the contemporary category ‘Roma’ cannot be taken to be synonymous with commercial nomadism, and so such overlap is only partial.

Policy-related definitions

The distinct realities of Romani presence in western and eastern Europe (broadly speaking) have given rise to distinct points of emphasis when it comes to defining and describing Roma both in academic traditions and in policies. Marushiakova and Popov (2015) regard eastern European approaches as having been more willing to accept a concept of Romani ethnicity, while western approaches are said to have tended to emphasise Gypsy nomadism. In reality, government initiatives in Finland, Sweden, and Germany, for instance, recognised Roma/Sinti as a cultural minority long before 1990, while by contrast measures in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and other Eastern Bloc countries were often repressive and directed precisely against the so-called nomadism of Romani populations. Such contradictions also appeared in academic traditions on both sides of the pre-1990 political divide. The emergence in the late 1960s of an international discussion context of Romani activists, pitched around an emphasis on shared language and historical origins (based on the proven connection between the Romani language and the Indo-Aryan languages of the Indian subcontinent) introduced a challenge to the political discourse. It framed ‘Roma’ as a nation without a coherent territory or territorial aspirations but with a claim nonetheless to some form of political representation, and demanded acknowledgement of the term ‘Roma’ as a unifying self-appellation. European political institutions have since tried to respond to this challenge while embedding it into continuing initiatives in support of diverse populations of ‘nomadic origin’. The resulting vagueness has allowed these institutions to construct a politically correct concept of ‘Roma/Gypsies’, while at the same time, linking it to the traditional imagery of nomadic lifestyles, legitimised through an accompanying expert discourse that speaks somewhat poetically of a ‘mosaic of small diverse groups’ (Liégeois 1986: 49–50).

With growing attention to Roma in response to east–west migrations following the collapse of the iron curtain and subsequent EU enlargement, European institutions took to defining ‘Roma’ even more explicitly as an ‘umbrella term’ that included both Romani-speaking populations such as the Sinte of Germany or the Kale of Finland in the West, along with the Roma minorities of eastern Europe, as well as sedentary populations of assumed nomadic and/or Romani background such as the Beaš of Hungary or the Ashkali of Kosovo, and non-Romani populations that maintain nomadic traditions such as the Gens du Voyage of France, the Travellers of Ireland, and the Woonwagenbewoners in the Netherlands – all referred to as sharing, supposedly, ‘cultural characteristics’ (see Matras 2013). Such use of ‘Roma’ in the European political discourse has been criticised not just for its lack of accuracy but also for its tendency to be linked to generalisations about poverty and deprivation, thereby running the risk of ‘ethnicising’ economic deprivation among Roma populations or even linking it explicitly to culture (see, e.g. Vermeersch 2012; Magazzini 2016). As Surdu and Kovats (2015) show, such policies not only seek confirmation from, but also reinforce and often directly commission expert discourses that purport to be able to identify Roma as a particular problem population. The aftermath of the launch of the EU’s National Strategies for Roma Inclusion in 2011 has seen a further proliferation of expert initiatives addressing ‘Roma health’, ‘Roma education’, ‘Roma unemployment’, and ‘Roma housing’, all framed as issues that are particular to a (vaguely defined) population of Roma.

Defining Roma communities

In this volume, we use the term ‘Roma’ specifically to refer to those populations that employ that label as their community-based self-ascription, irrespective of lifestyle, social status or occupational patterns, or who otherwise self-identify explicitly as belonging to communities whose members self-ascribe as Roma. In practice, this definition is strongly aligned with the use of the Romani language either synchronically or historically, that is, either as the active language of the home or the wider kinship group and affiliated families, or else as a language that is the subject of collective memory having been the vehicle of communication of recent generations (parents or grandparents). As described below, the MigRom research targeted families who were Romani speakers as well as families who interacted with Romani speakers and were referred by them, and referred to themselves, as ‘Romanianised Gypsies’ (ţigani românizaţi), entertaining a collective memory of having lost the Romani language and having shifted to the majority language, Romanian, yet having retained an awareness of a distinct ethnic identity and a sense of affiliation with Romani speakers.

In connection with this, it is important to emphasise that Romani is a language just like any other: it shows variation in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammatical inflections on a par with dialect differences in other European languages that show regional variation, such as Dutch, German or Italian, and which therefore does not justify a plural classification as ‘Romani language-s’ any more so than Dutch, German or Italian dialects might be regarded, respectively, as distinct languages. Indeed, the characterisation in the plural, which is often used by non-specialists with reference to Romani, is itself derived from the vagueness of the ‘mosaic’ concept (Liégeois 1986), that is, from the notion of ‘Gypsy’ as a lifestyle and of ‘Roma’ as a cover-term that captures all populations with a supposedly similar lifestyle, irrespective of their language. Those who speak of ‘Romani language-s’ intend to refer, at least implicitly, to any mode of speech, be it a form of English, Dutch or another language, that is used for communication among ‘Gypsies’ in the sense of commercial nomads (‘Gypsy 1’). We follow the convention of specialised academic discourse and the practice of Roma who are speakers of Romani and use the term to refer exclusively to a very specific language, clearly defined in terms of its diachrony and synchronic structures including its internal dialect differentiation (see Matras 2002).

The absence of territorial concentration, varying cultural practices, lack of a political entity or legal categorisation, and indeed different degrees to which the Romani language is actively maintained, create potential ambiguity in identifying the boundaries of Roma ‘communities’. This is partly reflected by the reality of multi-layered internal labels or self-appellations. Alongside the use of Rom as a meaningful in-group signifier, self-appellation l...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• List of contributors
• Preface
• 1 How open borders can unlock cultures: concepts, methods, and procedures
• 2 Romania’s Roma: a socio-historical overview
• 3 Romanian Roma at home: mobility patterns, migration experiences, networks, and remittances
• 4 Founder effects and transnational mutations: the familial structure of a Romani diaspora
• 5 Romanian Roma migration to Italy: improving the capacity to aspire
• 6 Life and death of a French shantytown: an anthropology of power
• 7 Community identity and mobilisation: Roma migrant experiences in Manchester
• Index