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When National Assimilation Policies Encounter Ethnic Resilience: The Case of Western European Roma
TONINATO PAOLA
2020
Abstract
Soon after the first nomadic ‘Gypsies’ appeared in Western Europe they were labelled as ‘undesirable’ and subjected to state control. The chapter discusses in its first part the main types of public policies enacted from the sixteenth century onwards in order to exclude and ultimately assimilate Romani groups within mainstream European society. These policies were based on a number of deeply engrained views and stereotypical categories that still pervade the public and legal discourse on ‘Gypsies’. Focusing on the Western European context, the chapter deconstructs in the second part misleading ‘Gypsy’ categories by contrasting them with the Roma’s own experiences, and highlighting the non-binary, non-exclusionary logic underlying their self-definitions. In the face of relentlessly hostile attitudes, the resilience demonstrated by Roma and Sinti enabled them to actively adapt to the changing socio-political circumstances without losing their ethnic identity. Two recent instances of resilient cultural strategies are analysed: the rise of a transnational written Romani literature and the emergence of the Roma/Gypsies as a political subject which challenges the traditional national-identity paradigm through the adoption of non-territorial, diasporic models.
Publisher
EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste
Source
Paola Toninato, "When National Assimilation Policies Encounter Ethnic Resilience: The Case of Western European Roma", in: Cinzia Ferrini (Edited by), "Human Diversity in Context", Trieste EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste, 2020, pp. 267-290
Languages
en
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internazionale
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