Roma Policy Research Articles

“If we Throw the Roma out of the Tent, we Throw Jesus out of the Tent”: Reflections on the Role of Religious Actors in Roma Inclusion in Oslo, Norway

Abstract This article presents reflections on Roma inclusion in the context of intra-European mobility. It begins with accounts of visits to two religious actors running centres providing humanitarian assistance, social services, and opportunities to exercise religion to Roma and other migrants in Oslo, Norway: the Lutheran Church City Mission welcoming Roma migrants as guests in the City Mission Centre at Tøyen Church and the Pentecostal organisation Evangeliesenteret, where Roma migrants receive food and participate in religious gatherings at the Contact Centre. The article reflects on the modes of inclusion represented in these two accounts in relation to three different approaches to inclusion: EU Roma policy, the work of the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, and diaconal theology. The article ends with reflections on what inclusion might mean in the context of intra-European Roma mobility.

The Fundamental Right Agency’s influence in reforming EU Roma policy

Six million Roma live in the EU, and most are EU citizens. Sadly, they are still the minority suffering the highest level of discrimination. To fight this, the European Commission has created and keeps reforming Roma-specific policies. In doing so, it usually relies on reports by the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA). Yet, in existing literature, the FRA’s concrete influence is not studied, and only partial information exists. This paper fills this gap by looking into the extent to which the FRA influences EU Roma policy reforms. Through a multi-level governance approach and by differentiating between institutional and political activism, it analyses key EU policies and related reports. Moreover, it analyses insights provided by high-level experts in and outside of the EU institutions. The results show that the FRA is clearly the driving force behind Roma related policies, but that its leading role is not abused for gatekeeping other actors. Instead, the FRA involves non-EU stakeholders wherever possible, trains and supports, and keeps expanding programmes for participation. Hence, it can be expected that the gap between the FRA and other actors will be reduced in the future. For now, however, it is the key player behind EU Roma policy reforms.

The New Political Discourse of Roma Activism: The International Romani Movement and the Language of National Self-Determination

Language and discourse are basic tools in political mobilization, interaction, negotiation, and legitimization. This article discusses discourse as a form of social action in the processes of politicization of Romani ethnogenesis and in the construction of Romani nationhood. The main research questions focus on the political language that the International Romani Movement (IRM) has been seeking to forge (mainly in the last two decades), on the alternative frames it can provide, and its unifying potential, serving as the basis for collective national identity. This new political discourse is viewed as performing several functions: creating a sense of homogeneity, devising strategies for interaction and self-reflexivity, providing collective coping mechanisms against internal divisions or external threats, and aiming at positive representation through normative transformation. Answers are sought to questions regarding how old and new values, meanings and traditions should be embodied in the language of Romani ethnonationalism, or when dealing with taboo and sensitive issues. A multiperspectival framework has been applied to analyse interviews, field data, and selected texts from Roma policy documents, media publications, and public speeches. Conclusions have been made regarding the choice of power relations Roma resolve to engage in and the contextual factors for achieving legitimacy.

Selective Memories: Finnish State Policy toward Roma in the 1930s and 1940s in Its European Context and Post-War Perception

Abstract In this article, we argue that the discriminatory acts and laws that the Finnish government issued in the 1930s and 1940s to regulate vagrancy and impose labor obligations on the population were intended first and foremost to put pressure on the Finnish Roma, an ethnic minority consisting of an estimated number of 4,000 persons at that time. Although the irtolaislaki (Finnish Act on the Regulation of Vagrancy) of 1936 did not mention the Roma explicitly, its content and intention is comparable to a series of similar acts directed against them in Europe before and after World War II. These similarities show that Finland's vagrancy legislation cannot be fully understood without a European perspective because Roma policies tend to have a supranational character. Up to now, the historiography on Finland's Roma policies has rarely gone beyond its Finnish and Scandinavian interpretive scope (Gasche 2016, 17–19). Yet, even during WWII, the development in Finland was comparable to some other countries allied with Nazi Germany, as we will show. At the same time, however, the postwar development in Finland seems to be unique in international comparison. Unlike the Finnish Roma, the Roma in Germany and other (West) European countries began a Roma rights movement and started to demand protection within the majority society along with political equality. This activism was primarily based on a consciousness of the centuries-old discrimination against “Gypsies” practiced by the majority, which culminated in the Nazi genocide of Europe's Roma (Matras 1998; Rose 1987; Wippermann 2015, 138–50). The Finnish Roma, however, identified themselves with a positive narrative about Roma soldiers fighting in the Finnish Army for their home country (Ruohotie 2007, 12). This strategy was successful, we argue, since it perfectly fits into the official Finnish narrative about a brave and fair “war of continuation” that Finland fought against the Soviet Union independently and separately from Nazi Germany—a point of view questioned in recent years in light of the information on Finnish Waffen-SS and Wehrmacht volunteers involved in Nazi atrocities against Soviet civilians, including the Roma.

From Christian Mission to Transnational Connections: Religious and Social Mobilisation among Roma in Finland

Based on the analysis of archival material, and combined with ethnographic fieldwork conducted among the Finnish Kaale (the Finnish Romani population) since 2011, this article looks at the historical intertwining of Roma religious and social activism in Finland from the beginning of the 20th century. A focus is placed on the role of the Gypsy Mission (Mustalaislähetys), nowadays Romani Mission (Romano Missio), in shaping both historical and present-day Roma policy, activism and mobilisation within the country. Founded in 1906, and initially led by non-Roma Evangelicals, its impact has nevertheless moved beyond a strictly Roma-focused/non-Roma-led mission. While rarely mentioned, Kaale were active participants within the organisation, and some of the earliest Roma activists were shaped within its midst. Furthermore, Roma mobilisation in the country continues to have a religious undertone, particularly in the contemporary transnational humanitarian work conducted by Finnish Kaale missionaries among Roma communities in Eastern Europe. Tracing the legacy of present-day religious mobilisation among Roma in Finland, as well as Finnish Roma’s active involvement in shaping Roma-projects elsewhere in Europe, is therefore crucial in revealing not only contrasts in how Roma activism may have manifested during the interwar period in Europe (from political to religious, from Roma-led to Roma-focused) but points to the present-day influence of Evangelical missions in shaping particular visions of the ‘future’ among Roma communities across Europe.

Europejska polityka wobec Romów – w stronę inkluzji?

European Roma Policy – Towards Inclusion?
 This article aims to present the concepts of current European Union’s policy towards the Roma, starting with its origins up until recent years, as well as briefly diagnose the involvement of the EU’s institutions in developing and implementing programs and guidelines for national policies towards the Roma people in member states. This research paper also analyzes to which degree the activities of the European Union, with special emphasis on the period from 2011, positively influences the level of inclusion and integration of the Roma people into mainstream societies of EU member states. Finally, this article attempts to evaluate the results of the implementation of the above-mentioned policy as well as to predict the challenges which may arise in case of continuation of activities in this area.

The “pure Gypsy” revisited: The construction of citizenship for Swedish Romani groups, 1940s–1960s

The article deals with the notion of purity and its relation to Good Citizenship and the development of Roma policies in Sweden during the twentieth century. The case of the differentiation between “zigenare” and “tattare” is presented as an example of how ideas about purity informed processes of categorization, inclusion, and exclusion during the formative and expansive years of the Swedish welfare state. The medical sciences had a dominant role in these processes. Examining and defining “pure zigenare” was one of the ways in which experts would differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate Romanies – or Tolerated and Failed Citizens – in the post-war period. These differentiations had real and lasting consequences as they worked to support certain Romani groups while ignoring others, all of which are today included in the Swedish national Roma minority.

Power and Hierarchy among Finnish Kaale Roma

Despite the vast research on Roma in Europe and beyond, little has been written about Roma agency from a perspective that focuses on manifold dynamics of power. Having worked for two years on the Finnish Roma Inclusion Project in a dual role as ethnographer and project worker has inspired me to rethink concepts of power and to create an alternative narrative of the experience of marginalized and discriminated Finnish Kaale Roma. Encouraged by the current paradigm shift in Romani Studies (which increasingly focuses on Roma agency instead of objectifying the population), this paper explores Kaale power dynamics as part of the social order and empirically demonstrates two parallel and antagonist systems of power exercised by Roma: one that stems from the population’s traditional cultural customs and the other from Pentecostal/charismatic Christianity, agrowing trend among the Finnish Kaale. The purpose of this article is to underline Roma agency within the frame of national Roma policy practices in Finland.

Equality in the Making? Roma and Traveller Minority Policies and Basic Education in Three Nordic Countries

ABSTRACTThe article examines policies intended to promote the basic education of Roma and Traveller minorities in Finland, Sweden, and Norway by analysing key national Roma and Traveller policy (n = 5) and education policy documents (n = 3). Analysis shows how the Finnish, Swedish, and Norwegian Roma policies translate the general policy aims of improving the social positioning of people identifying as Roma consistently into policy measures responding to the special needs of Roma pupils. These policy measures are validated by problem representations regarding Roma parents and families. All the policies also problematise the relationship between Roma and Traveller cultures and schools. It is argued that the focuses of the current policy measures constrain opportunities for a change in terms of equality.

Roma Representation in Danish Roma Policy and Public Discourse—A Critical Analysis

Imagined stereotypes of Roma are prevailing across Europe and have an impact of discrimination and social exclusion of the Roma. In 2011, Denmark published their National Roma Inclusion Strategy as a response to the Europe 2020 Growth Strategy. This study analyses how the Roma are represented in the national policy and in ongoing discourse regarding Roma in newspaper articles published around the time of the publication of the Strategy. A critical discourse analysis was conducted, and the findings show that a profound stigmatization of the Roma was common and acceptable in both Danish nationalistic media discourse and in the paternalistic policy discourse. The Roma were represented as an alienated, non-empowered group in contrast to the majority population and lacking any useful qualities. There was a lack of Roma voices in both policy and newspapers. The discourses regarding Roma in Denmark are lacking both Roma influence and initiatives to change Roma conditions.

‘Non multa, sed multum’: EU Roma policy and the challenges of Roma inclusion

The Roma face widespread discrimination and marginalisation in the EU. To address these, the Commission adopted an EU Roma policy—‘EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies’ (2011)—which is implemented with the support of EU legal, financial and soft law instruments. This paper investigates the effectiveness and implications of EU Roma policy in addressing the social exclusion and discrimination faced by the Roma by assessing the policy framing, the key EU instruments and whether they address the root causes of Roma marginalisation. It is argued that the socio-economic framing of Roma exclusion—underpinning the EU Roma policy—along with the EU instruments upholding its implementation, both blurred the responsibility boundaries for Roma inclusion between the EU and national levels, and also proved ineffective and ill-designed in addressing the root causes of Roma exclusion and discrimination.

Roma Integration ‘All the Way Down’

This article argues that critical Romani studies should examine the EU’s top-down policies of Roma integration as an exercise in federalism, since the EU’s quasi-federalist structure both accommodated and co-opted the fight for Roma rights. To bolster its analysis, this article draws comparisons to the actions of the United States (“U.S.”) federal government during Civil Rights. Of course, both Roma integration and Civil Rights are still inchoate projects. However, the longer arc with which scholars have assessed Civil Rights, including its periods of progress and retrenchment, can help develop a framework for predicting how Romani rights within the EU’s federalist system might fare during similar cycles. Three lessons flow from the comparison. First, integration policies spurred by the top rung of the federalist architecture can foment a populist backlash, especially if disparities in competence or enforcement prompt deficits in legitimacy. Second, governmental efforts are necessary for integration but not sufficient; they must work in tandem with advocacy at the grass-roots level. Finally, pushing federalism “all the way down” to incentivize local experimentation with Roma policies might counteract obstructionism to Roma integration at the national level, but this is not a panacea. Local experimentation might take the form of self-governing districts and economic set-asides, but they can just as easily permit local institutions to perpetuate exclusion and marginalization.

A Means to an End or an End in Itself? EU Roma Policy, Human Rights and the Economic Investment Myth

AbstractThe Roma face a dire socio‐economic situation and structural discrimination across Europe. To address the challenges experienced by this community, the EU adopted a specific EU Roma policy – the ‘EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies’ (2011) – which, together with EU funds, supports Member States with integration of the Roma at the national level. This article argues that the economic framing of the EU Roma policy is underpinned by an economic investment myth: namely, that the EU can only address rights violations as a means to achieving the EU's economic ends. It is shown that this myth undermines the EU's legal and constitutional human rights commitments post‐Lisbon, according to which the EU has now the legal capability – but lacks the political will – to tackle rights violations such as discrimination in a manner that is not linked to the functioning of the common market.

Prowzrostowa orientacja polityki wobec Romów w Europie

The EU is focused on the pursuit of the objectives of economic, social and territorial cohesion. They are closely linked with sustainable growth, which is impossible without the development in these areas. The EU Roma strategy is strongly linked to the Europe 2020 strategy, aimed at cohesion objectives. The practical realization of pro-Roma strategy assumptions is entrusted to the Member States. In this regard, it comes to concretization of EU framework principles in accordance with their developmental orientation. However, taking into account the final stage of implementation of the EU, being the practical implementation of measures addressed to Roma, there is a problem with different systems of values. Objectives of the European Union are based primarily on the development and pursuit of growth. Roma culture-shaped by the need for survival – is associated with a value system which is based on the duration, permanence and strong intracommunity ties. Assessing with this point of view progrowth orientation of Roma policy, we should adopt other criteria than those resulting from the Europe 2020 strategy. However, even the Human Development Index is not possible to assess fully appropriate to the system of Roma culture. Therefore the most appropriate are the EU's progrowth policy orientation evaluation criteria. The basis for this assessment are the assumptions set out in the EU Framework and the annual European Commission communication summarizing the progress made by Member States. On this basis, it can be stated that the EU Roma policy is focused on economic growth and social development.

Roma Identity as an Expert-Political Construction

The creation of an EU Framework for national Roma integration strategies (2011) marks a significant step in the politicisation of Roma identity by ensuring a further increase in the number of initiatives, projects and programmes explicitly targeting Roma. The Framework itself is part of a process that began with postcommunist transition and which has produced historically unprecedented levels of Roma political activism along with a proliferation of national and transnational policy initiatives focussed on Roma identity. In seeking to explain this contemporary political phenomenon, the article argues that Roma is an identity constructed at the intersection of political and expert knowledge by various actors, such as policymakers, Romani activists, international organizations and scholars. This political-expert identity is applied to groups that are not bounded by a common language, religion, cultural practice, geographic location, occupation, physical appearance or lifestyle. The article explores how this collation of disparate populations into a notional political community builds upon a centuries-old Gypsy legacy. It scrutinizes five strands of identification practices that have contributed to the longue durée development of today’s Roma as an epistemic object and policy target: police profiling of particular communities; administrative surveys; Romani activism; Roma targeted policies; quantitative scientific research. The article argues that the contemporary economic and political conditions amidst which the politicisation of Roma identity is occurring explain how the ideological and institutional construction of the ethnic frame tends toward the reinforcement of the exclusion of those categorised as Roma, thus increasing the perceived need for Roma policy initiatives. A self-sustaining cycle has been created where Roma knowledge identifies Roma problems requiring a policy response, which produces more Roma knowledge, more needs and more policy responses. Yet, there are consequences to racialising public discourse by presenting Roma as both problematic and essentially different from everyone else. Hostility towards Roma has increased in many states indicating that the expert framing of Roma groupness affects social solidarity by disconnecting and distancing Roma from their fellow citizens.

European Framework for National Roma Policies and the Roma in the Western Balkans

European Framework for National Roma Policies and the Roma in the Western Balkans

The Role of NGOs in Promoting Minority Rights in the Enlarged European Union

In the field of minority protection, several concepts have been utilized to explain domestic change – like policy transfer, norm diffusion and emulation – to name only a few. But how and why have some EU policies been transferred and others not? Why do accession countries introduce antidiscrimination laws but at the same time undermine individual or collective minority rights in the (post-) enlargement process? When looking for variables of successful EU conditionality in the field of minority policy, the role of non-state actors and advocacy group influence is often neglected in the Europeanization literature. Thus, the article examines and compares the impact of NGO advocacy in the EU enlargement process with a focus on Roma policy. EU enlargement shows that compliance with EU norms can be enforced through transnational advocacy networks (TANs), lobbying on behalf of an ethnic minority. While in non-discrimination, a causal relationship between the advocacy of intermediary institutions and policy reform can be detected, NGOs seem to have less influence on special minority rights. Moreover, the emergence of TANs formed around the issue of the Roma demonstrates that advocacy groups appear to substitute other ‘norm entrepreneurs’ like kin states or minority parties.

Social disability: Roma and refugees in Swedish welfare

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to discuss the importance of the disability category in Swedish welfare policies. The paper seeks to focus on two cases that illustrate how the social dimension in the understanding of disability permitted the inclusion of individuals, previously considered as “unwanted strangers”, in the Swedish welfare context. The first case is that of refugees classified as unfit for work after the Second World War. The second deals with the Roma groups who obtained the right of formal Swedish citizenship during the same period.Design/methodology/approachThe analysis is based on data collected during two research projects. The first concerning the Roma policy of the Swedish Government from 1880 to 1970, primarily based on the analysis of public documents collected in the Swedish National Archives, including government reports and accompanying background material. The second research project deals with the development of an institutionalised reception of refugees by the Swedish welfare services after the Second World War. This research mainly uses documents produced during the international negotiations dealing with refugees interned in different camps in Europe and related documents in the Swedish National Archives related to the history of the organised reception of refugees in Sweden. In the case of refugees, the analysis focuses on the construction of disability in the classification system of the international refugee camps and in the organised reception of these refugees in Sweden. In the case of Swedish Roma, the analysis focuses upon the construction of social disability both in the arguments elaborated by Swedish authorities for the inclusion of Roma and in the practical organisation of their inclusion in the Swedish welfare system.FindingsThe paper provides insights about the crucial importance on the disability category in the organisation of Swedish social welfare after the Second World War. The policies developed raise important questions about basic requisites to obtain citizenship and also call into question the unequal conditions of citizenship. The case of Swedish Roma and the refugees interned in international camps illustrated how changing perceptions of poverty and deviance were strongly influenced by medical representations of disease and disability. Disability, previously perceived as a principally medical category with social consequences, now acquired a social dimension that enabled new refugees and Roma groups to be considered as members of the nation state.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper is primarily descriptive. Further research is needed in order to develop a better understanding of how the social dimension of disability is constructed and how this social dimension was used to include new groups. The contents focus on the emergence of new social policies in Sweden after the Second World War; further research should focus on how these policies and processes still have a considerable influence on present policies and representations on migrants and Roma groups.Practical implicationsThe paper provides important insights on taken for granted representations in Swedish welfare authorities' work with refugees and Roma groups. The institutionalised representation of Roma and refugee groups as disabled probably is an obstacle in the social incorporation of these groups.Originality/valueBased on two cases the paper discusses how the concept of social disability, with its origins in medical sciences, was adopted by the Swedish welfare authorities and applied to groups considered deviants. In later policies the authorities widened social disability to include culture and ethnicity. Refugees and Roma groups classified as disabled were treated according to established practises created for people classified as unable to be incorporated into a “normal” social life.

The dilemma of the European Union’s Roma policy

Roma are one of the most discriminated and marginalized groups in the European Union (EU). The EU has emerged as a potential ally for the transnational Roma community as it possesses normative power when espousing values such as inclusion, yet is able to elaborate policy at a supranational level which has supremacy over domestic policy. Thus far EU Roma policy has failed to address the complex issues facing Roma owing to inadequate policy interventions. This can be explained by the policy choices open to the EU which appear to be built on diametrically opposed foundations, posing a dilemma for EU policy-makers. This article focuses on the redistribution/recognition dilemma which EU institutions must negotiate in order to address economic and cultural injustices. For their part, transnational Roma activists have demanded the creation of an EU Roma Strategy which could address the needs and interests of Roma across the Union.

Europeanisering en de Roma: op zoek naar maatschappelijke inclusie in een nieuwe politieke en institutionele context

Since the enlargement of the EU to Central Europe, the EU institutions have been particularly concerned about the problems facing Roma populations in various European countries. This has signalled a new critical phase in the debate about European Roma policy. The EU has built on views and policy frames that have emerged from discussions held by other international actors, but it has also highlighted new priorities. The involvement of the EU thus represents the most recent phase in an ongoing (and far from complete) policy discussion in which European institutions, national governments and Roma activists each have their own voice. In this recent period new lines of competition have emerged between these actors. There is, in other words, a growing European discursive space where the development and contestation of new policy frames and narratives about the Roma can take place. This article explores this new European discursive space and concludes that a new political opportunity structure for Roma activism has emerged with important implications for the way in which the Roma are framed.