Abstract
Scientific literature has focused on the constraints that Roma women have faced to overcome the racism and inequalities that they and the Roma people as a whole have suffered. However, less attention has been paid to how Roma women organize to challenge this reality. Drawing on a qualitative case study about the Roma Association of Women Drom Kotar Mestipen (Barcelona) and specifically on the analysis of one of its activities, the ‘Roma women student gatherings’ (known as ‘Trobades’ in Catalan), this article contributes evidence to show how Roma women are fighting to improve their own living conditions and those of their people by organizing at the grassroots level. The communicative analysis reveals the impacts that these gatherings have on the individual and societal levels. First, the gatherings have impacts on the individual level, as many of the women who participate in them are exposed to and embrace new educational projects, thus acquiring more skills to be better prepared to later access the labor market. Second, their impact is also evidenced on the societal level, as the gatherings enhance Roma women’s associational life, resulting in new mobilizations and often making women who were once in the shadows become community leaders.
Highlights
Several authors have recognised the role of Roma women as agents of social transformation within the Roma community [1,2,3,4,5], research still needs to better identify and explain the specific ways in which grassroots Roma women are working for their individual and collective empowerment while shaping a more inclusive feminism that listens to the voices of all women in an egalitarian way
The research consisted of a case study of a grassroots association, the Roma Association of Women Drom Kotar Mestipen; the case study was conducted employing the communicative methodology of research [28]
The case study analyzed in this article, that is, the ‘Roma women student gatherings’, constitutes a specific example of how Roma women are organizing at the grassroots level
Summary
Several authors have recognised the role of Roma women as agents of social transformation within the Roma community [1,2,3,4,5], research still needs to better identify and explain the specific ways in which grassroots Roma women are working for their individual and collective empowerment while shaping a more inclusive feminism that listens to the voices of all women in an egalitarian way. An example of this is the second International Conference of Roma Women, organized in Barcelona in 2018, which gathered approximately 300 Roma women from 16 European different countries to debate and build networks of solidarity to find a common way out of poverty and advocate for their rights. For many of these women, going to Barcelona meant leaving their hometowns and flying in a plane for the first time in their lives. Habermas’ [7,8] concept of the ‘lifeworld’ enables us to capture the richness of the transformative potential of Roma women’s interactions in their daily lives and within all the social spaces in which they are engaged
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