An inheritance of exclusion: Roma education, genetics and the turn to biosocial solutions

Martin Myers

doi:10.1177/0034523719880205

Abstract

Since the 1990s an increasing body of genetic studies of Roma people has been conducted and used to understand their lives. This includes research on health issues such as genetic predispositions to obesity or high cholesterol levels and the migration of European Roma from the Indian subcontinent. Such work needs to be contextualised within the wide-ranging historical oppression of Roma people including their enslavement, the Holocaust, denial of human rights and a lack of access to education. Aligning genetics research to educational policy has often been problematic in the context of discredited, ‘race’ science; recently more nuanced arguments have promoted ‘post-genomic’ solutions, such as biosocial strategies, that address social justice issues. This article argues that an economy of knowledge emerges in the ‘postgenomic era’ that privileges predominantly White European, majority populations and this is particularly apparent in the context of the Roma. The promotion of educational solutions framed by genetics research underpins how cultural capital, in this case scientific knowledge and its framing within social theory such as Deleuzian assemblage will, in all likelihood, maintain the status quo for the Roma.

Highlights

Since the 1990s an increasing body of genetic studies of Roma people has been conducted and used to understand their lives
It is potentially useful within political advocacy identifying and campaigning for rights to accrue to the Roma as a singular body of people (e.g. Ian Hancock’s (2010) work). It may be less helpful in neo-liberal political climates shaped by right-wing nationalism and populism, in which European development policies ostensibly designed to address social inequalities faced by Roma, “tend to socially isolate the poorest among them and contribute more to governing their poverty than to improving their living circumstances”. It may mistakenly assume a convergence of generic interests amongst people whose lives have been shaped differently; including differences between the economic, social and political experiences of Roma in western European countries compared to eastern Europe; different impacts derived from the initial creation and later dissolution of communist states; and, the impact of EU membership (Gheorghe and Mirga, 1997; Law and Kovats, 2018)
Within the field of Roma studies, genetic research is problematic on many levels, not least because it is routinely used to make arguments about identity rather than address the knowledge of genetic disorders it has produced

Summary

Introduction

Since the 1990s an increasing body of genetic studies of Roma people has been conducted and used to understand their lives. The Roma experience highlights how the high cultural and economic value of some scientific knowledge creates economies in which education policy based on a deficit model persists rather than addressing systemic inequalities.

Results

Conclusion