‘Nous, les Artistes Tsiganes’. Intellectual Networks and Cultural Spaces for Ethnic Assertion in France (1949–1989)

Abstract

This article focuses on the cultural and artistic side of Tsigane associationism in France. Its purpose is to demonstrate that a new identity was created between the 1950s and the 1980s: the Tsigane artist and intellectual. This identity resisted both primitivist, naïve, folkloric stereotypes and the label ‘Rom’ coined by the Romani movement. For this to happen, several other transformations were necessary, which this article will also explore, such as the resignification of the exonym ‘Tsigane’ as a national and ethnic identity marker. These processes are explained with reference to two closely linked objects of study: the Association des Études Tsiganes (Association for Tsigane Studies), a circle of ‘experts’ on the Tsigane world, founded in 1949, and second, the Association Initiatives Tsiganes (Tsigane Initiatives Association), which was created from within the previous movement in 1983, but was led by Tsigane artists and intellectuals who put their own form of cultural activism into practice.