Keyword Search and First Annotation

Key Word Search:

  • Ethnic Identity
  • Diversity
  • Romani
  • Romani identity
  • Anti-Gypsyism
  • Romani Scholars
  • Ethnic Identity
  • Animation
  • Social Impact
  • Cultural Appropriation / identity

 

Additional Key Word Search:

  • Ethnonational Identities
  • Critical Romani Studies
  • Homogenizing narratives
  • heterogeneous understanding
  • Them versus Us
  • Otherness
  • Differentialist Racism
  • Biological Racism
  • ‘Scientific’ Racism
  • Gypsy Lorism
  • ‘true gypsy’
  • epistemology

 

First Annotation: 

Mirga-Kruszelnicka, Anna. Challenging Anti-Gypsyism in Academia: The Role of Romani Scholars. Accessed March 7, 2019. https://www.academia.edu/36651250/Challenging_Anti-gypsyism_in_Academia_The_Role_of_Romani_Scholars. 

Key Words:  

Anti-Gypsyism 
Roma 
Essentialism 
Romani Scholars 
Ethnic Identity  

This paper argues that to challenge the anti-gypsyism paradigm in academia that Romani scholars are vital to overturning the status quo of knowledge production of Romani Studies. The voice of the Romani scholar is a valued asset for dismantling commonly held and generalized beliefs of Romani ethnic identities. This paper covers Anti-gypsyism and the notion of Ethnicity, the role of academia in sustaining essentialized discourse on Roma, challenging essentialised discourse though definitions, Brubaker and the notion of ‘groupness’, Vertovec and ‘super-diversity’, possibilities and limits of de-essentializing Romani studies, and the role of Romani scholars and the importance of self-identification.  

I agree that the voice of the Romani scholar is very important; reading this text has instilled my direction with even greater importance than I already felt; I feel the weight of my own responsibility. 

Dr Mirga-Kruszelnicka appears to be a respected and valued member of the Romani studies, who has amassed a following for her dissertations, and specialisation in Romani matters.  She has been chosen to speak as a keynote speaker and of what I have read of hers rings true with what I know of my Romani ethnicity. I did not feel any obvious bias, Dr Mirga-Kruszelnicka even points out that just because a scholar is Romani, does not automatically validate their knowledge production, and it should be subject to the same standards as those of researchers of non-Romani decent.  

I found this text incredibly useful in terms of defining my research direction and crafting the right narrative for my artifice. I found myself engrossed for two hours reading this paper for critical Romani studies, and although I felt uncomfortable with some of the supposition surrounding the labelling of the ‘true gypsy’ or if in fact the Romani ethnicity is a fallacy. Some of this supposition I have witnessed first-hand in my own family, in particular, the ‘them and us’ mentality, and the concept of some Romani being ‘more gypsy’ or of ‘pure’ blood, and therefore being of greater value to our people.