Roma Woman Research Articles

A Romani woman in Eurovision: ethnic and gender stereotypes in the reception of Remedios Amaya (1983)

ABSTRACT Remedios Amaya was the first Roma woman to represent Spain at the Eurovision Song Contest. Chosen because of her ethnicity, Amaya’s Romani heritage was meant to commemorate the Samudaripen/Porajmos (Romani Holocaust) in the year Munich hosted Eurovision (1983). Despite efforts to foster an image of modernization and progressive values, the hostile reception that followed her performance being awarded zero points contributed to the perpetuation of various stereotypes of Romani women. Analyzing press reviews of Europe’s most popular music program, my aim is to explore the perceptions of non-Roma commentators with regard to the selection and reception of a Romani singer as Spain’s representative. Looking at reception studies and stardom, this article will analyze the intersection of ethnic and gender stereotypes in relation to a female Roma artist during the early years of Spanish democracy. It will explore the hypersexualization and exoticization of Amaya’s TV performance, which revived the image of the Gitana, a trope that under Franco embodied the image of an idealized Spain. Widely exploited by the tourist industry, Roma culture (or more precisely, the naturalization of certain stereotypes assigned to Gitanos) was blamed for reviving the association with the recent dictatorship, thus displaying the persistence of Spain’s unresolved past and ambivalent cultural identity that still destabilizes Spaniards with regards to their status in Europe.

4. Rosa Raidich. Persécution et trajectoire d’une femme rom dans l’Italie fasciste des années 1940 et dans l’immédiat après-guerre

Rosa Raidich is a Roma woman who was sent to confinement in Italy at the end of the 1930s and until at least 1944. We have tried to reconstruct her life with the help of central and local archives, press articles, and literature of the time, but also through the memories of survivors and the places of her internment. What emerges is the portrait of a woman struggling not against society but against the arbitrary rules that force her to be cut off from all society. A woman facing a society that rejects her, excludes her; confronted with institutional practices that condemn her to live in abject poverty and as an outlaw; practices, in fact, whose purpose was to make her disappear. Rosa’s “banal” story reflects that of all Roma and Sinti women and is emblematic of the history of exclusion and resistance of this community in Italy under fascism, after World War II, and still today.

Rural Bilingual Roma Children and Theory of Mind Competencies

Two age groups of Roma children (3;6-4;6 years old n = 20 and 4;7- 5;6 n = 20) from rural areas of Bulgaria were tested for understanding the classical Theory of Mind (TOM) task (False-belief) and the correlations with two language tests (Evidentiality and Yes/No Questions) were investigated. Coordinate with that the children were tested by means of the nonverbal Knox Cub Intelligent Test. The Theory of Mind tests and the language tests were conducted in both languages – L1 Romani and Bulgarian as their second language. The children attend kindergarten where they learn Bulgarian, but at home, they speak Romani as L1. All children were tested individually in a separate room by the researcher. A Roma woman member of the community and speaker of the dialect of the children tested them in Romani. All the results were analysed using ANOVA. The results frоm the study show that in the performance of both TOM tasks, the older children understand better the tasks and a high number of them have correct answers. The children performed equally well on the tests in both languages. The differences between Romani as L1 and Bulgarian as a second language are not significant. In the performance of the language tasks Evidentiality and Yes/No Questions there is a statistically significant correlation (p < .05000). There is also a correlation between L1 Romani and Bulgarian in performing the language tasks (p < .340526). However, there is no correlation between the language tasks and the TOM tasks. There are correlations between the variables Evidentiality Task Scores and Yes/No Question Task Scores (.4064); also between Evidentiality Task Scores and Knox’s Cube Nonverbal Intelligent Test Scores (.3969); and between the Yes/No Question Task Scores and Knox’s Cube Nonverbal Intelligent Test Scores (.5073). All correlations are only for the Romani language. The conclusion from the study is that the bilingual Roma children develop the Theory of Mind competencies around the age of 4;6 years old. Their language proficiency level in Romani and Bulgarian is basically equal, however when performing intelligence task the children are much better in their mother tongue. The children understand the Theory of Mind task in both languages in equal measure.

The Double-Edged ECtHR Lăcătuş Judgment on Criminalisation of Begging: Da Mihi Elimo Sinam Propter Amorem Dei

Judgment: European Court of Human Rights, Lăcătuş v Switzerland 14065/15 (ECtHR, 19 January 2021), Judgment (Merits and Just Satisfaction) Section of the Court: Chamber (Third Section) Applicable Convention Rights: Article 8 echr (Right to respect for private and family life) – Violation Primary Legal Issues: Did Switzerland violate Article 8 echr by imposing a fine and subsequent imprisonment for five days for non-payment on a poor and vulnerable Roma woman for unintrusive begging? Link to Case: <http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-207377>

Education Transforms Lives: from Deep Poverty to Cultural Agent and Activist. Anikó Orsós and the Amrita Association

Roma women are the focus of this article and the Spotlight offers a Roma woman’s testimony as a starting point. The article weaves in the personal narrative of the now director of a Roma organisation based in Hungary and combines the individual journey of Anikó Orsós , a Roma woman, educator, activist and human rights defender. Orsos is the president of Amrita Association and this paper describes the work of the association while also allowing her own reality to reflect the transformative potential of education.

Hyperparathyroidism-Jaw Tumor Syndrome in a Patient With Colon Cancer: A Case Report

Abstract Background: Hyperparathyroidism-jaw tumor syndrome (HPT-JT) is a rare autosomal dominant disease, caused by mutations in the CDC73 gene, characterized by parathyroid tumors in association with fibro-osseous lesions of the mandible or maxilla. The occurrence of renal cysts or tumors, uterine and thyroid tumors has been reported. The association with other neoplastic lesions has been described, but its meaning and frequency are not well established. Clinical Case: A 48-year-old Roma woman was admitted to our hospital due to severe abdominal pain and constipation. She had a past history of kidney stones with several episodes of acute renal colic and had been recently diagnosed with colon cancer. Her family history was positive for colon cancer. Disease staging suggested the presence of liver metastases and multiple lytic lesions of the axial skeleton, pelvis and femurs. Laboratory investigation disclosed high calcium levels (15 mg/dL) and cancer associated hypercalcemia was suspected. However, PTH was markedly elevated (2979 pg/mL), in favor of a parathormone dependent cause. Further imaging procedures showed a heterogeneous mass, posterior to the right thyroid lobe and bone lesions on the left mandible, likely to correspond to brown tumors. Once the hypercalcemia was controlled, she was submitted to parathyroidectomy and right thyroid lobectomy plus sigmoidectomy and liver biopsy. The histology revealed an atypical parathyroid adenoma with 3,5 cm and papillary thyroid cancer with 1,2 cm, as well as colon adenocarcinoma metastatic to the liver. Postoperatively, the patient developed a hungry bone syndrome needing adequate treatment. Two months after surgery, the patient initiated chemotherapy for colon cancer. Screening for germline mutations in the CDC73 gene (formerly HRPT2) was positive for a deletion (c.765_766delTG/p.Val256LysX10). Conclusions: Hypercalcemia in a patient with malignant disease may be independent of malignancy. In the patient presented herein her past history of kidney stones and the involvement of the mandible were highly suggestive of HPT-JT. Missing the diagnosis would negatively impact in the patient′s prognosis and in the management of her family. Further clinical and genetic studies are ongoing trying to clarify whether the patient has two inherited conditions or a phenotype of HPT-JT including colon cancer.

Meaning making and resilience among academically high-achieving Roma women

This paper investigates the self-narratives of academically high-achieving, first generation college educated, and highly resilient Roma women. We place their meaning making and social navigation processes at the centre of our inquiry, understanding it as an important element of the resilience process of upward mobility (Ungar 2012). Self-narratives describing their changing social class and the corresponding dilemmas offers us the opportunity to understand their strategies, and how to accomplish a resilient minority mobility trajectory, by mitigating the tension and the emotional cost that unavoidably comes with the large social distance they travel between their community of origin and the newly attained class (Naudet 2018). The article draws on two research projects; the first conducted in Spain (2015-17) among 35 Roma university graduates, and the second in Hungary, (2018-20), between 150 Roma and non-Roma university graduates. We have selected one ‘resilient minority mobility trajectory’ as an ideal type from each database for the purposes of this comparison. In this category, upwardly mobile Roma graduates achieve their aspired self- development with the minimal ‘emotional cost’ possible. Our main argument is that a ‘minority path of social ascension’, in itself, is not enough to mitigate the high emotional costs of changing social class. It also requires negotiation, meaning making or reframing work. In this thesis, we support Michael Ungar’s proposal that resilience during upward mobility is a process in one’s ecological context and not an individual asset, and that meaning making work is a crucial part of it. We expand this thesis, however, by demonstrating how navigation among the available resources, and the negotiation of what a ‘proper Roma woman’ and a ‘successful life’ means, in the community of origin, plays a crucial part in accomplishing a resilient upward mobility process.

The 3-step Greek protocol of neck skin rejuvenation inspired by a case of pseudoxanthoma elasticum: combination of laser skin resurfacing, collagen booster and PRP

Aim: The physiological ageing process causes significant changes in the extracellular matrix (ECM) of the neck skin, which are the first signs of ageing witness for women. We are inspired by a young woman, who suffers from a rare genetic disorder called pseudoxanthoma elasticum (PXE), which manifests irregular, thickened, fragmented and haphazardly orientated elastic fibers. We herein present a combination of three different therapies (laser skin resurfacing, type I horse collagen boosters and platelet rich plasma)as an approach to ameliorate neck skin sagging. Methods: A 28-year-old Roma woman with a clinically diagnosed PXE, verified by ophthalmologic evidence and skin biopsy, underwent 3 sessions of this combined protocol every 3 weeks. One month after the last treatment session, a new biopsy was taken. During this period, the patient was encouraged for daily topical application of collagen mousse and vitamin C combined with sun block SPF50, along with limited exposure to sunlight. Results: Clinical assessment supported by photographic documentation was performed at each session. Severe changes in hydration and tightening of the neck skin were obvious 3 weeks after the second session, although the verification of the results was substantiated with the pathology of the post treatment skin biopsy obtained 1 month following the completion of the protocol. The elastic fibers in the mid-dermis were dense, non-fragmented and parallel oriented. The aesthetic performance was evident until the final follow-up visit. Conclusions: Nowadays, the primary goal of aesthetic medical research is oriented to the dermis bio-reconstruction, where specific treatments try to improve the dermis quality from the inside to repair imperfections of skin ageing. The key of success is attributed to the best possible treatment combination capable of fibroblast stimulation.

Out of the Shadows: A Young Woman's Journey from Hiding to Celebrating her Identity

In April 2019 the UK government reported that little progress had been made to remedy social outcomes inequality between Roma and the wider population, recommending further recognition of Roma, for example in census data, to enable identification of Roma, their needs, and how to meet those needs. In this article we present an account of one Roma woman’s journey from hiding her identity to celebrating it. We expose five critical incidents that challenge and mould her sense of identity and career aspiration, with insights into her hopes and dreams as she reflects upon the barriers she faces and attempts to overcome. The narrative enhances understanding of the intersection of experience and ethnic identity formation, Marcella’s (pseudonym) case study emerges verbatim through quotes; we do not alter or correct her English. In our exploration, we follow the six classical steps recommended in case study analysis (Yin, 2009) and ground some of the key analytical concepts in Goffman’s theories of stigma (1963) and theatrical performances in everyday life. We conclude by identifying key parallels in her experience, relevant regardless of socioeconomic status to further debate on the nature of internalised shame, stigma, and class.

Family Roles of Roma and Ways to Overcome its Socio-Cultural Isolation

The cultural factor has always played an important role in the lives of peoples. The ethnic specificity of life developed over the centuries has been embodied in customs, language, family traditions, consciousness, psychology, and character. Their formation and development have always been accompanied by a significant transformation of stereotypes in the minds of a particular society. Accompanying on the whole path of socio-cultural development, ethnic stereotypes are passed from generation to generation, becoming an element of ethnic consciousness in family relationships. Gender stereotypes are closely linked to gender roles. The formation and regulation of state policy on gender equality are carried out in accordance with the international obligations and legislation of each state. The differences in gender roles depend on the degree of masculinity or femininity of a culture. Each ethnic group has its own socio-cultural role adaptation to the family life. Different ethnic cultures have their own stereotypes about the family responsibilities of husband and wife, and marital relationships have national specifics. It is especially true of such a non-territorial nation, which is as widespread around the world as the Roma. The traditionalism and conservatism of their gender stereotypes hinder socialization and self-realization, especially for women who suffer from double discrimination on the basis of ethnicity and gender. Gender inequality and discrimination against Roma women remained an acute problem in various spheres of life and in the family in particular at the beginning of the third millennium. And since the Roma are a fairly closed ethnic group, the shifts in their consciousness of women’s and men’s roles and relationships are changing rather slowly. Consideration and comprehension of the essence of gender roles and stereotypes in relation to Roma woman, on the example of research by Ukrainian scholars, will allow to analyze the causes and consequences of gender issues of Roma, which also exist in other countries, and also, to offer the mechanisms for overcoming the negative phenomena and the ways of forming gender family relations of Roma, which are based on the idea of social equality and justice, stability of Roma woman self-realization, opportunities to live a full life based on their closed environment.

Reproductive health of Roma women in Slovakia.

In most indicators of the way of life, the Roma community is generally different from the majority population and dominant culture. The objective of the study was to describe factors affecting the health of the Roma living in Slovakia, with an emphasis on the sexual and reproductive health of Roma women, and report on the results of analysis of high-risk pregnancies of Roma women in the district of Rimavská Sobota, Slovakia. A retrospective study of medical documentation was used. The results were analyzed using the absolute and relative frequencies. Statistical methods were used. A total of 1,256 high-risk pregnancies were analyzed, of which 622 (49.52%) were in Roma women. The average age of Roma respondents was lower by 5 years compared to non-Roma. The age of Roma women at the first pregnancy was statistically significantly lower compared to non-Roma (p < 0.001). The Roma respondents achieved statistically significantly lower levels of education than non-Roma. There was a demonstrably higher number of pregnancies as well as a higher number of artificial and spontaneous abortions per Roma woman. These results were statistically significant. For Roma women, pregnancy began to be risky demonstrably earlier than for non-Roma (p < 0.001). There was a statistically significant difference in attending prenatal counselling. Roma women attended prenatal counselling statistically significantly less frequently than non-Roma (p < 0.001). A significant statistical dependence was found between attending prenatal counselling and the onset of pregnancy problems in Roma women. There was no significant difference in the incidence of other diseases associated with high-risk pregnancy among Roma and non-Roma respondents. The findings indicate that Roma women are exposed to health problems in the area of sexual and reproductive health in Slovakia. In the approach to the Roma, it is essential to focus on improving accessibility to health care, prevention, knowledgeableness and effectively preventing, eradicating and strongly penalizing all forms of discrimination in access to health care, especially for Roma women, who are more likely to receive health care.

Gitanas without a tambourine: Notes on the historical representation and personal self-representation of the Spanish Romani woman

The performative representation of the Spanish Roma woman reveals a historical journey that brings her closer to many symbolic elaborations of the feminine, giving her a special affinity with the imaginary concerning the colonized woman, particularly with the Orientalist vision. Developed initially by the travelling intellectuals in Spain who sought a fusion of the topics of sexualized exoticism, the myth was reworked by local artists and thinkers without undermining their power to silence and make invisible the reality of the most vulnerable and most represented members of the ethnic group, their women. Today, a growing awareness of the importance of collective action directs Roma women to initiatives such as the revision of their historical memory, at the intersection between the external gaze and self-perception. These searches lead to the pioneering creation of community museum institutions, which have arisen around feminine Roma associations and are a symptom of an emerging desire to be heard. Based on the terminological tools shared by women and memory studies, this article seeks the personal dimension of this invitation to listen. The authors analyse a series of interviews with Roma women that investigate the social agents of representation, self-representation and their conceptual and experiential foundations.

American Roma: A Cultural Care Case Study.

This case study depicts the cultural conflict that occurred when an American Roma (Gypsy) woman delivered her baby at a small hospital that had no knowledge or experience with the Roma culture. The case is analyzed based on the three modes of nursing actions and decisions for culturally congruent nursing care, an important tenet of Leininger's culture care theory. Culture care preservation and maintenance efforts included enabling family presence, respecting the culture's moral code, and acknowledging child-rearing norms. Cultural care accommodation and negotiation focused on the patient's hospital room accommodation, negotiating adherence to identification and security measures, and formulating the discharge plan. Cultural care repatterning and restructuring was not attempted. Recommendations for nursing practice are made based on this case, migration trends, and recent cultural changes.

Walking with Lina in Zamora

This paper discusses how concreteness of place and locality matter for Roma in negotiating belonging and in engaging with home-making practices. The idea of ‘fluid identities’ or ‘flows’ permeated Roma/Gypsies related scholarly approaches and migration studies to a point that corporeality and materiality of movement and settlement became rather marginalised. Criticising this trend, the translocality perspective (Brickell and Datta, 2011) emerged as an agency-oriented approach that sheds more light on how local-to-local connections are made. To tackle these facets, in this article I analyse a walking tour in Zamora with Lina. With the ability to stimulate embodied, exploratory and relational experiences of space (O’Neill and Hubbard, 2010), this walking episode enabled Lina, a Romanian Roma woman, to reflect on the places that mattered to her life abroad. Based on her reflections, the article discusses how Lina dwells simultaneously ‘here’ and ‘there’, and imagines dwelling translocally.

The Everyday Life of a Homo Sacer. Enclave Urbanism in Podgorica, Montenegro

Abstract This article ethnographically follows the everyday life of a homo sacer—a young Roma woman who has lived her whole life in a camp for displaced persons. The camp has been built for Roma, Ashkalias, and Balkan Egyptians who in 1999 fled from the violence in Kosovo to Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro. The key aim of the article is to see what happens with the concepts of ‘homo sacer’ and ‘bare life’ when ethnographically engaged in the context of Southeastern Europe. The article argues that ethnographic fieldwork in urban settings reveals in what way a homo sacer has an everyday life and a complex sociopolitical existence, and that camps are urban formations that can be related to very different sociohistorical and political projects.

Moving images of exclusion: Persisting tropes in the filmic representation of European Roma

ABSTRACTThis paper analyses the most prominent tropes in the earliest and most recent filmic representations of Roma. Stereotypical images of Roma abound in many fictional features as well as documentaries, from the representation of Roma as eternal nomads to racially prejudiced depictions of Roma women and the alleged innateness of music to Roma. Because images and modes of representation change over time, the paper juxtaposes the earliest portrayals of Roma with those produced in the last 15 years. The analysis particularly centres on two dominant reoccurring tropes: types of spaces typically occupied by Roma in film, that is the lack of a place or so-called placeless-ness of Roma; the gendered other, or the Roma woman and the culturally and ethnically othered Roma musician. Ultimately, by analysing how these tropes have persisted in varying forms over 100 years, this work points to the filmic imagery that perpetuates antiziganism, but also how the same has changed over the years to offer possible counter-narratives.

An exploration of social representations of the Roma woman in Italy and Brazil: Psychosocial anchoring to emotional reactions

This study investigates the content of the system of representations of Roma women as they emerge from a free-association task, collected from a sample of university students in Italy and Brazil. Available data on the situation of Roma women show that they experience greater social exclusion than the Roma men and the women of the majority community, especially in accessing employment, education, health and social services.The sample consists of 643 participants (mean age 22.9), 50.4% of whom are Italians and 74.3% female. Data were collected via a free-association task, the prompt word being “Gypsy woman”. SPAD-T software ran a lexical correspondence analysis, extracting two factors. We defined the first axis: “The mysterious Roma woman vs. The Outcast Roma woman”, and the second axis: “The seer Roma woman vs. Different sides of Roma woman”.Moreover, psychosocial anchoring to the emotional reactions towards Roma people was studied, showing how different groups of individuals, characterized by specific emotional reactions to Roma people, were attuned to certain social representations of the Roma woman.The implications of these results are discussed in terms of the role played by Roma women in traditional Roma and western societies.

Alice: Overcoming the Border Motto: “I Am No Longer Afraid of the World”

In our paper, we present the story of emancipation of a Roma woman, who works as a social outreach worker. Our method is based on ethnographic approach and our paper focuses on the study the emic perspective of participants in our research. The aim of the paper is to show the tension arising between the actions and expectations of Alice and the actions and expectations of those who are the important others in relation to her. There are two planes present in the personal story of Alice’s emancipation: the plane of Alice’s agency, which is represented by actions, decisions, self-determined will, versus the plane of cultural models, schemata, roles, status positions, images that are in some way offered to Alice or even forced upon her or with which she herself identifies. We will follow the contradictory process of establishment of personal identity of a woman who takes endeavours in several social fields constantly trying to maintain the permeability of these fields and their meanings, which is not an entirely trivial matter.

SOCIAL PROGRESS AND ECONOMIC PROJECTS FOR DISADVANTAGED GROUPS IN ROMANIA

The paper aims to analyse the social progress, social politics, social law and successful projects applicable to the some disadvantaged groups: Roma people and woman. Inclusion of Roma people is analysed from economic point of view. The economic problems of equality by gender is presented in terms of labour rate and other relevant ratio. For Roma people the focus of analyse is also on labour involvement. The chapters of the communication are: introduction, literature review ( state of art ) in the field of social progress, theoretical background, tools for social progress in EU, economic inclusion of Roma population, economic equality by gender, conclusions.

Ana’s tragedy – and Europe’s a contemplation over Romani, belonging and the conditioned citizenship making in a Europe of migration

This article deals with the notion of belonging in today’s multi-ethnic Sweden and hints at perpectives of future European identity-building. On the basis of Frantz Fanon’s understanding of colonialism and the colonized mentality as theoretical, the article deals with the situation of Roma in Sweden – and Europe. With the story of a young Roma woman that has migrated to Sweden from Hungary as point of departure, the article addresses the situation for Romani people, but also for other migrants in Europe, with particular focus on who are allowed to belong to the community of Swedish and European citizens, and who are not.