Gypsy Research Articles

Cinematic Cartographies

Patric Chiha’s film Brothers of the Night (2017) depicts a community of Bulgarian Roma sex workers in Vienna, all of them male and self-identifying as heterosexual although working in a gay establishment. Using queer theory and human geography, with particular emphasis on space and time, I analyse how the film shifts and contests the popular stereotyped cinematic representation of Romani people as well as homonormative and Western-centric notions of queerness. In its original aesthetic, narrative structure and hybrid genre it departs from a binary understanding of sexuality and identity, offering instead new ways of portraying queer and marginalised identities on screen.

Expanding the Molecular Spectrum of HK1-Related Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease, Type 4G; the First Report in Iran.

Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 4G (CMT4G) was first reported in Balkan Gypsies as a myelinopathy starting with progressive distal lower limb weakness, followed by upper limb involvement and prominent distal sensory impairment later in the patient's life. So far, CMT4G has been only reported in European Roma communities with two founder homozygous variants; g.9712G>C and g.11027G>A, located in the 5'-UTR of the HK1 gene. Here, we present the first Iranian CMT4G patient manifesting progressive distal lower limb weakness from 11 years of age and diagnosed with chronic demyelinating sensorimotor polyneuropathy. Whole-exome sequencing for this patient revealed a homozygous c.19C>T (p. Arg7*) variant in the HK1 gene. This report expands the mutational spectrum of the HK1-related CMT disorder and provides supporting evidence for the observation of CMT4G outside the Roma population. Interestingly, the same Arg7* variant is recently observed in another unrelated Pakistani CMT patient, proposing a possible prevalence of this variant in the Middle Eastern populations.

Nomadism as Ancestral Homeland in the Romani Culture

Nomadism is perceived as an essential trait of the Romani ethnic identity, both inside and outside the Romani communities. This paper explores the meaning of nomadism in the Romani culture by considering how this practice has been represented in the sociocultural imaginary. In particular, the paper analyzes the depiction of nomadism in the ethnopolitical discourse and the literary field, both in oral tradition and in written texts. The analysis examines works authored by representative Romani writers, such as Bronislawa Wajs “Papusza”, Mateo Maximoff, Menyhért Lakatos or José Heredia Maya, among others. Finally, the paper considers how in the literary text, the image of nomadism is produced and consumed as a mark of ethnic authenticity.

Nomadism as Ancestral Homeland in the Romani Culture

Nomadism is perceived as an essential trait of the Romani ethnic identity, both inside and outside the Romani communities. This paper explores the meaning of nomadism in the Romani culture by considering how this practice has been represented in the sociocultural imaginary. In particular, the paper analyzes the depiction of nomadism in the ethnopolitical discourse and the literary field, both in oral tradition and in written texts. The analysis examines works authored by representative Romani writers, such as Bronislawa Wajs “Papusza”, Mateo Maximoff, Menyhért Lakatos or José Heredia Maya, among others. Finally, the paper considers how in the literary text, the image of nomadism is produced and consumed as a mark of ethnic authenticity.

Influence of Clinical Factors on the Quality of Life in Romanian People with Epilepsy-A Follow-Up Study in Real-Life Clinical Practice.

This study aimed to assess the influence of various clinical factors on the quality of life perception of patients with epilepsy over a follow-up period in current clinical practice. Thirty-five PWE evaluated via video-electro-encephalography in the Clinical Hospital of Psychiatry and Neurology in Brasov, Romania, were included, and the quality of life was assessed using the Romanian version of the QOLIE-31-P questionnaire. At baseline, the mean age was 40.03 (±14.63) years; the mean duration of epilepsy was 11.46 (±12.90) years; the mean age at the first seizure was 28.57 (±18.72); and the mean duration between evaluations was 23.46 (±7.54) months. The mean (SD) QOLIE-31-P total score at the initial visit (68.54 ±15.89) was lower than the mean (SD) QOLIE-31-P total score at the follow-up (74.15 ± 17.09). Patients with epileptiform activity recorded via video-electro-encephalography, using polytherapy, those with uncontrolled seizures, and those with one or more seizures per month had statistically significantly lower QOLIE-31-P total scores at baseline and follow-up. Multiple linear regression analyses revealed seizure frequency as a significant inverse predictor of quality of life in both evaluations. The QOLIE-31-P total score was improved during the follow-up period, and medical professionals should use instruments to evaluate quality of life and identify patterns while trying to improve the outcomes of patients with epilepsy.

"Elena Bacaloglu and the Manifesto Nazionale Fascista Italo-Romeno: Analysis of Unconsidered Relations in the Interwar Period"

"This contribution aims at rediscovering a truly original figure of intellectual and trait d’union between Romanian and Italian culture sensibility during the interwar period. Elena Bacaloglu, born in Bucharest in 1878, moved to Italy in 1906. Here she began to frequent Benito Mussolini, founder of the Fascist Party and the most popular artistic and literary environment of the time, maturing her political‑literary interest for the Italian fascist movement. The goal is to analyze the idea of patriotism of the most important literary work by Elena Bacaloglu The Italian‑Romanian Fascist National Manifesto: Creation and Government. Written in a perfect Italian, the work is presented as the manifesto around which Romanian people should have tightened up to enhance the common cultural roots with Italy, trying to propose an ideological model extremely similar to the Italian fascist movement."

Genetic susceptibility to Insulin resistance and its association with estimated longevity in the hungarian general and roma populations

Genetic susceptibility to Insulin resistance and its association with estimated longevity in the hungarian general and roma populations

Cardiovascular Risk Factors, Angiographical Features and Short-Term Prognosis of Acute Coronary Syndrome in People Living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus: Results of a Retrospective Observational Multicentric Romanian Study.

People living with human immunodeficiency virus have increased cardiovascular risk due to a higher prevalence of traditional and particular risk factors such as chronic inflammation, immune dysregulation, endothelial dysfunction, coagulation abnormalities and antiretroviral therapy. In developed countries, coronary artery disease has become the most frequent cardiovascular disease and an important cause of mortality in these patients. The symptomatology of an acute coronary syndrome can be atypical, and the prevalence of each type of acute coronary syndrome is reported differently. Regarding coronary artery disease severity in people living with HIV, the literature data indicates that the presence of single-vessel disease is akin to that of HIV-negative patients, and their short-term prognosis is unclear. This study aims to assess the clinical characteristics, biological parameters, angiographical features and short-term prognosis of acute coronary syndrome in a cohort of Romanian people living with human immunodeficiency virus.

Representation of Roma Content in Curricula and Textbooks at the Initial Education Level in Serbia

The 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child guarantees all children the right to an education, and this paper focuses on Roma children and that right. The extent of Serbia’s strategy documents was reviewed, particularly in light of their responsibility for guaranteeing equity, accessibility, and equal educational opportunities for all children. The study’s objective is to assess how content related to the Roma is portrayed in current curricula (N = 16) and textbooks (N = 93) for the 2022–2023 academic year. It was discovered that despite the objectives in each of the analyzed courses (Serbian language, The World around Us, Nature and Society, Music Education, and Civic Education) clearly promote equality, diversity, and mutual appreciation, democratic values, inclusion, and anti-discrimination, none of them explicitly mention the words Roma or the Roma people. Only a few times do the Roma people explicitly appear in textbooks on nature, society, and music, and then only as a numerical representation of the national minority; no mention is made of the positive traits of the Roma people, who have their own identity, tradition, and culture as well as well-known members. The results highlight the need for textbooks to include specific content about the Roma people as fundamental teaching tools. This content should also be included in the curriculum because it would help students of Roma origin feel less excluded and more empowered to participate in school on an equal footing.

Successive Waves of the COVID-19 Pandemic Had an Increasing Impact on Chronic Cardiovascular Patients in a Western Region of Romania.

Three years since the COVID-19 pandemic started, there is still little information about patients with chronic medical conditions, such as cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), who become infected with SARS-CoV-2. A retrospective analysis was performed to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on patients with cardiovascular comorbidities hospitalized with positive RT-PCR results for SARS-CoV-2 during the highest peaks of the first three pandemic waves: April 2020, October 2020, and November 2021. The primary outcome was in-hospital mortality; the secondary outcomes were length of hospitalization and required mechanical ventilation to assess the disease severity. Data were extracted from the hospital electronic database system: 680 eligible cases were identified out of 2919 patients. Mortality was the highest in wave 3 (31.9%) compared to the previous waves (13.6% and 25.8%). Hospitalization was also significantly longer in wave 3 (11.58 ± 5.34 vs. 8.94 ± 4.74 and 10.19 ± 5.06; p < 0.001), and so was the need for mechanical ventilation (21.7% vs. 8.2% and 9%; p < 0.001). Older age and male gender were confirmed as highly significant predictors of unfavorable outcomes. Ischemic heart disease worsened the odds of patients' survival irrespective of the three pandemic waves (Breslow-Day test, p = 0.387), with a marginally significant Mantel-Haenszel common estimate for risk: OR = 1.604, 95% (0.996; 2.586). The significantly worse outcomes in wave 3 could have been influenced by a combination of factors: the low percentage of vaccinations in Romanian population, the more virulent delta strain, and pandemic attrition in the care provided to these patients with chronic CVDs.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL “TERRAIN” ON SOCIAL NETWORKS: THE IMPACT OF MODERN TECHNOLOGIES ON ROMA GROUPS IN MONTENEGRO

Modern technologies, i.e. the availability of the Internet on various modern devices, have enabled the opening of “new” social portals and the interweaving of the virtual and real worlds. Social networks have branched out the possibility of connecting between different subjects and different communities, but also created an opportunity for anthropologists to research different cultural phenomena in a different way. With just one click, that is, by accepting the friendship of Roma men or Roma women on social networks, we gained insight into new practices. Personally, I have over seventy friends from the Roma population on my Facebook list, so practically, for many years, I could do “field research from home”. Namely, considering the frequency of Facebook using, as well as the diverse content that Roma publish on a daily basis, which ranges from visual information about their everyday life, sharing videos and photos with religious themes, live broadcastsing of holiday celebrations, engagements and weddings, a whole field of possible anthropological research opened up. Regardless of the fact that this method always depends on the “traditional” way of research, it revealed new practices and mechanisms that are very useful in process of searching for answers to following questions: How much and how are Roma groups changing and in what way the modern technologies and especially young people had an impact on those processes? How powerful has the Internet become in reuniting and bringing together separated members of the Roma family? In the preservation of tradition, even language, through the broadcasting of ritual practices? In strengthening religious identity due to wider availability of religious content? More precisely, the answer to the question of how Roma “live” in the virtual world and how that world affects the entire community when they are offline?

Health of Roma People living in marginalized Communities in Slovakia

Introduction. The biggest Roma communities reside in the eastern part of Slovakia in the regions of Presov and Kosice, whose share is 35-40%. While the atlas of Roma communities from 2019 indicates that about 440,000 Roma live in Slovakia, only 156,000 Roma registered in 2021. Moreover, more than half of them stated Roma nationality only as a second nationality. Due to the fear of discrimination, racism and hate speech 10-15% of Roma did not state their identity because they consider it more advantageous in their efforts to integrate into society. It is also assumed that a significant part of the Roma (12- 15%) living in the south of Slovakia have adopted the Hungarian nationality. Objectives. The main goal was to map and analyse the development of civilizational and infectious diseases in the Roma population, taking into account the social, economic and cultural status of the Roma in Slovakia. Methods: The data were analysed on the basis of available statistics and forecasts of the development of diseases in the allSlovak databases maintained by the NCZI SR and the Statistical Office of Slovak Republic. We compared the development of tuberculosis, hepatitis, diabetes, and the overuse of psychotropic substances, which often occur in marginalized Roma communities. Results: The results showed that although some diseases such as tuberculosis and hepatitis are decreasing along with the general average of registered diseases in the population, their highest occurrence in terms of the number of registered cases still occurs in Roma communities. Among Roma, the proportion of people addicted to psychotropic substances is increasing, the risk of infectious and civilizational diseases such as e.g. diabetes, asthma, obesity and cardiovascular diseases. Conclusion. With the decreasing quality of life of the Roma, the number of infectious and civilizational diseases also increases, therefore we recommend that comprehensive prevention, education in the field of vaccination and support for early diagnosis of diseases be implemented.

Hepatitis C and hepatitis B virus infection in hemodialysis patients after nationwide direct antiviral agents therapy-experience of 10 Romanian HD centers.

End-stage kidney disease patients (ESKD) receiving hemodialysis (HD) are at a greater risk of hepatitis virus (HV) infections due to the invasive nature of the procedures, frequent hospital stays and surgeries, as well as the immune deficiency status of ESKD. This study was to reassess the hepatitis virus infections prevalence in the HD population in Romania after 5years of oral DAAs therapy and assess the impact on HD patients' outcomes in two cohorts (2015 and 2019). We compared ESKD patients treated with HD in 10 HD centers from the historical regions of Romania in 2015 (n = 1401, Mean age 59.7 ± 12.92years) with patients treated in the same centers in 2019 (n = 1698, mean age 61 ± 12.93years). All patients went through HD therapy for more than 90days. The patients from the 2019 cohort were significantly older (p = 0.005), had a longer duration of HD therapy (p < 0.0001), and had more vascular calcifications (p = 0.015); the crude one-year mortality rate did not differ from the 2015 cohort (9.9 vs. 10.7%, p = 0.46). The prevalence of HBV infection did not differ between the cohorts (4.7% vs. 4.8, p = 0.604) but the prevalence of HCV significantly decreased from 2015 to 2019 (16.9 vs. 10.5%, p < 0.0001). After 15years of a nationwide infection prevention program for HV infections and 5years of DAAs treatment in Romania, the prevalence of HBV did not change but HCV infections decreased significantly, however, it still remained high.

Preparation of Two Participatory Social Housing Interventions in a Marginalised Roma Community in Romania

The first desegregation efforts in the marginalised and segregated communities in the Pata-Rât area were carried out within the frames of two social housing projects (between 2014–2017 and 2020–2023). Although a housing first methodology would have been more adequate in the context of a marginalised community, given the shortcomings of the Romanian social assistance system, implementation was impossible. In this context, it was necessary to develop a system to access social housing but also to create a reasonably ‘fair process’ at the community level. Thus, in both interventions, the starting point for developing the social housing criteria was to survey the community in order to explore the community members’ preferences regarding the criteria to be considered in the selection of the beneficiary families for the social houses. The surveys covered all the inhabitants of the Pata-Rât area, that is 219 households in the first survey and 282 households in the second. The survey results served as the basis for the development of the criteria for accessing social housing. In this article, we present and discuss the results of the community surveys from 2016 and from 2020, the year of the pandemic outbreak. Differences were found in the prioritisation of criteria, with an increasing preference for those reflecting vulnerability/needs (e.g., number of children, years spent in the community, disability) and decreasing preference for the ones indicating family resources (e.g., employment, income, education). These differences reflect the increase in poverty and loss of resources occurring in the community during this period, due both to the COVID-19 pandemic, and to the relocation of the 35 better-off families in the first Pata-Cluj project.

Romské obyvatelstvo a vybrané aspekty stomatologické péče ve vyloučených lokalitách

Romské obyvatelstvo a vybrané aspekty stomatologické péče ve vyloučených lokalitách

Bulgarian Roma at the Dawn of the COVID-19 Pandemic

With the establishment of the state of emergency in Bulgaria on 8 March 2020 due to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, several restrictive measures aimed at social distancing were being introduced, to which the public had a contractionary reaction. The so-called “COVID-19 nests” led to the quarantine of a number of settlements. The ski-resort town of Bansko and the village of Panicherevo were the first isolated settlements targeted by our study. We focused on the reactions of the local Roma population, which were largely determined by their perceptions and understandings of infectious disease. The research methodology included ethnographic field research carried out in 2021. The data from the semi-structured interviews and focus-group discussions presented local responses to the pandemic, which to a large extent also represented the diversity of attitudes not only in the Roma community but also in Bulgarian society. The main questions we focused on were the great extent to which Roma are creating ethno-cultural strategies to cope/overcome the pandemic and how they are responding to the emergency measures and subsequent vaccination at the national and local levels.

DINCOLO PRACTICI ȘI CONVENIENȚE DISCURSIVE PRECEDENTE. REPREZENTĂRI ALE ROMILOR ÎN PRESA CENTRALĂ DE LIMBĂ GERMANĂ DIN ROMÂNIA COMUNISTĂ ȘI MIZELE LOR POLITICE

The present paper addresses a topic entirely ignored in the studies dedicated to the Roma people during communism times. I am interested to highlight how Roma were accounted for in the German speaking central press published in communist Romania. I am setting my research in the field of representation of otherness but I am setting the resulting rhetoric dedicated to the Roma in the context in which the journalists and the readership were also embodying an ethnic other that had to be surveilled and policed - it is true in a particular fashion and with other means –, by the Communist Romanian state authorities. Remarks concerning the Roma, made in a more or less fugitive fashion in various and scattered press articles, can be regarded as of secondary interests. They appear to be more likely to be a pretext to debate about the challenges encountered by the communist social engineering program. Publication of texts involving interactions between ethnics of different origins, including Germans and Roma, was also a communist journalistic strategy to propagandistically present the advancements made with regard to a provocative social issue which had been wrongly addressed by previous political regimes. In the following pages, I am examining the narratives of the articles published in the “Neuer Weg” and its yearly almanac for a period of fifty years. The objective is to illustrate how Roma were instrumentalized in a propagandistic campaign to reshape modes of thinking of the Germans from communist Romania. Different references to Roma were exploited to nurture a collective feeling of common belongingness to an imagined working - class society that had to transcend preexisting ethnic prejudiced thinking. Hints to sensitive topics like the slavery or the radical wright wing exterminations policies against the Roma were referred to in a cunning attempt to convey to the German readership a sense of guilt, and, thus, to neutralize its eventual reactions in the context of collectivization, systematization, educational, policies.

ELITA ROMÂNEASCĂ DIN SIGHIȘOARA ÎN A DOUA JUMĂTATE A SECOLULUI AL XIX-LEA

The second half of the 19th century finds Sighișoara in a fast economic and social transformation. Obvious steps on the path of modernization had a positive impact upon the Romanian population of the town. The present study highlights that, similar to other towns from Transylvania, here one can witness a diversification of the composition of the Romanian elite. The number of the priests remains high, but there is also a significant percentage of nonclerical elites. To these categories, one needs to add the emergence of a tenuous but increasing craft and commercial elite, which will show signs of exponential growth during the first decades of the 20th century.

Roma people and their road to cultural identity.

Roma people and their road to cultural identity.

An HLA map of the world: A comparison of HLA frequencies in 200 worldwide populations reveals diverse patterns for class I and class II.

HLA frequencies show widespread variation across human populations. Demographic factors as well as selection are thought to have shaped HLA variation across continents. In this study, a worldwide comparison of HLA class I and class II diversity was carried out. Multidimensional scaling techniques were applied to 50 HLA-A and HLA-B (class I) as well as 13 HLA-DRB1 (class II) first-field frequencies in 200 populations from all continents. Our results confirm a strong effect of geography on the distribution of HLA class I allele groups, with principal coordinates analysis closely resembling geographical location of populations, especially those of Africa-Eurasia. Conversely, class II frequencies stratify populations along a continuum of differentiation less clearly correlated to actual geographic location. Double clustering analysis revealed finer intra-continental sub-clusters (e.g., Northern and Western Europe vs. South East Europe, North Africa and Southwest Asia; South and East Africa vs. West Africa), and HLA allele group patterns characteristic of these clusters. Ancient (Austronesian expansion) and more recent (Romani people in Europe) migrations, as well as extreme differentiation (Taiwan indigenous peoples, Native Americans), and interregional gene flow (Sámi, Egyptians) are also reflected by the results. Barrier analysis comparing DST and geographic location identified genetic discontinuities caused by natural barriers or human behavior explaining inter and intra-continental HLA borders for class I and class II. Overall, a progressive reduction in HLA diversity from African to Oceanian and Native American populations is noted. This analysis of HLA frequencies in a unique set of worldwide populations confirms previous findings on the remarkable similarity of class I frequencies to geography, but also shows a more complex development for class II, with implications for both human evolutionary studies and biomedical research.