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Wolfgang Benz: Sinti und Roma: Die unerwünschte Minderheit. Über das Vorurteil Antiziganismus
review of: Wolfgang Benz: Sinti und Roma: Die unerwünschte Minderheit. Über das Vorurteil Antiziganismus, Berlin, Metropol-Verlag 2014, 316 pp.
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review of: Wolfgang Benz: Sinti und Roma: Die unerwünschte Minderheit. Über das Vorurteil Antiziganismus, Berlin, Metropol-Verlag 2014, 316 pp.
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This study deals with a still not sufficiently studied phenomenon of social exclusion in the Czech rural regions. On the case of Osoblaha, we point out the influence of regional characteristics of social inclusion on the transformation of the region’s social structure. The disadvantage of a region in the spheres of employment, education, community facilities and transport services contributes to emigration of relatively educated population able to work; such population is, to certain degree, substituted by socially excluded persons seeking relatively cheaper housing; and that contributes to increasing local social tension. Together with the analysis of the current status of social exclusion in the Osoblaha Region, based on quantitative and qualitative data, we present, as the main finding, the need of further dealing with the impact of public policies on shaping of social exclusion in excluded rural regions.
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For a long time, university education for national minorities has been a blind spot in minority research. The situation of university education in South Tyrol seems to be an exception, because in South Tyrol the question of higher education, for many years, has been the subject of intensive political and academic discussion. This discussion may be seen as paradigmatic since it includes both the concept of ethnic segregation and the concept of universality. In this paper, we focus on the legal basis and the praxis of university education in South Tyrol which is a compromise between ethnic segregation and multicultural universality. In recent years, the Free University of Bozen has become a symbol for overcoming segregation and it opened a new perspective to the members of the two major language groups in South Tyrol.
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The author addresses on a multidisciplinary platform and from the theoretical legal and philosophical legal perspective the issue of minorities and multicultural education at universities. Through its criticism she reveals the emptiness and confusion of the concepts of social sciences and humanitarian disciplines and brings to light the ‘asset stripping’ of the normative systems. Multiculturalism in the context of a value-based university education is presented as relativism applied in the field of the social sciences with repercussions on social engineering and complete transformation of cultural and social values. Her conclusions about value perception and interpretation of multidisciplinary concepts of multiculturalism unearth in the final analysis concurrent processes leading to ideologization of scholarly disciplines and in particular law, which ceases to be a value and becomes a means used by the power structures of the globalized world.
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Drawing on theories of identity postulated by cultural theorists, scholars of gender identity, and critical race theorists, I explore issues of identity politics and “Otherness” as they pertain to Romani identity, history and activism. By critiquing the latent bifurcation of identity and subjectivity in Judith Butler’s theory of performativity as well as her explicit adherence to universalism, I begin to outline a (post-Hegelian) hermeneutic in which narratives of self enable political processes of self-determination against symbolic and epistemic systems of racialization and minoritization.[1] Roma identity both serves as an oppressive social category while at the same time empowering people for whom a shared ethnic group provides a sense of solidarity and community. In re-conceptualizing, reimagining and re-claiming Romani-ness, we can make movements towards outlining a new Romani subjectivity – a subjectivity that is firmly rooted in counterhistories of Roma, with porous boundaries that both celebrate our diversity and foster solidarity. I come to the subject of Romani identity from an understanding that our racialized and gendered identities are both performed and embodied – forming part of the horizon from which we make meaning of the world. I wish to recast the discourse surrounding Romani identity as hybridized and multicultural, as well as, following Glissant, embedded into a pluritopic notion of history.
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In this study I aim to summarize the main characteristics of the friend- and relationship structure, and the life-organising functions of poor Roma families in the Magdolna district of Budapest. I try to answer the questions whether the segregated areas in my research – segregated streets and apartment blocks – have definable limits in terms of social connections, if they can be defined in a geographical or social sense, or if these relationships have ethnic boundaries. I also intend to figure out the differences in the relationship structure of women and men, and whether rehabilitation attempts offered real opportunity for social dialogue. In terms of methodology, I supplemented my semi-structured interviews with tools for participatory observation and contact and consumption diaries. Based on my findings, the exclusion creates specific economic co-operations and exchange networks, in which, besides kinship, members of a given neighbourhood and permanent participants of income-generating activities are becoming more valuable. In these communities, strong relationships are complemented by functions related to livelihoods and running households.
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Tachjian, Vahe: Oszmán-örmények. Élet az anyaországban, a száműzetésben, a társadalom újjáépítése a diaszpórában. Bp., L’Harmattan – Pázmány Péter Katolikus Egyetem, 2019. 215 p. (Studia Armenologica Hungarica, 2.) Fordította Mikó Katalin és Szűts Dávid. A magyar szöveget az eredetivel egybevetette Szabó Krisztián. A magyar nyelvű kiadásban közreműködött Poósz Lóránd és Sándor Márta
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In this paper, my objective was to show the actual assimilation strategies of the Hungarian Gypsy musician families in the 21st century, using interviews and my own experience. I also present a possible course of total social integration that can become a reality in a relatively short period of time. I try to reveal some aspects of the story of certain Gypsy families and their assimilation strategy. I give a detailed picture of the different tools used by different generations to accomplish social integration. The interviews are made with selected family members of different families. Through analyzing the interviews, I present the importance of the connection and relationship between the family members that helps them on the way of social integration and emancipation, but may be a way to conserve some aspects of their Gypsy identity as well. I have chosen 11 families, including my own. The selection has been made to be representative for the Hungarian Gypsy population.
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Resentment is a widely analysed, complex socio-cultural phenomenon in the social sciences as well as in philosophy. In this paper – using some historical aspects of the topic – I try to demonstrate the analytic value of the term concerning the comprehension of contemporary ethnic relations of Hungarian-Romani coexistence. According to my anthropological researches that have been conducted in local peripheral communities in Hungary, resentment is a mutual social psychological attitude that determines the quality of interactions between the Hungarians and Romanis. The first part of the paper has briefly revealed the conceptual background of aspects of resentment, quoting Kierkegaard’s, Nietzsche’s and Jameson’s thoughts. In the second part I analysed two field narratives with special regard to the structural-functional role of resentment in interethnic relations between Hungarians and Romanis.
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The article analyzes the capacities and channels of Lithuania's minority representation in the European Parliament. Possible minority representation can potentially be achieved through representation of minorities in the electoral lists of Lithuania's mainstream parties or by self-organization around minority coalition led by the Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania – Christian Families Alliance (EAPL-CFA). However, these two channels demonstrate two different outcomes. First, the article discusses the role of minority representatives in the mainstream parties focusing on the cases of Viktor Uspaskich and Leonidas Donskis. It is followed by the analysis of the electoral performances of the EAPL-CFA with the emphasis on the party’s general political capacities, abilities to keep its current and attract the new electorate, and the leadership issues taking into account personalistic factors and a series of scandals that happened in 2018 and involved the leadership of the Union of Poles in Lithuania.
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The aim of the paper is to examine the relationship between the European Commission and the minorities. The European Commission is the EU’s executive body, the guardian of the Treaties, responsible for proposing legislation and managing the Union’s policies and budget on a day-to-day basis. The study starts from the assumption that today’s European Commission is embroiled in self-controversy over minority policy and applies a double standard. Although the Union’s primary law prohibits discrimination against all minorities, the European Commission highlights some of the minorities listed in the EU’s primary sources of law, while neglecting others and deliberately sweeping their citizens’ initiatives off the table. In this study, I examine why, and by which legal means, political methods, and ideological convictions the European Commission reaches its goals. In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, minority policy falls within the competence of the Member States, and the European Union does not have a system of norms for minorities, yet the Commission is ready to propose a series of laws, regulations and budgetary frameworks in favour of immigrant and sexual minority groups. What will be the long-term social and demographic consequences of these decisions? What kind of Europe do our children inherit from the Juncker and Von der Leyen Commissions?
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This article focuses on the recent developments of minority protection within the European Union though the case of Roma. The author first draws a sketch of the different models of Roma integration within the majority societies, then focuses on the post-World War Two architecture of the international treaties and monitoring mechanisms. Coming closer to the present, the text presents the political process which led to the establishment of the EU Framework Strategy for Roma inclusion. As a consequence of the second wave of Eastern enlargement of the EU (2007), the mobility of the Romani citizens increased within the European countries. Reactions such as the “the Nomad emergency” in Italy or the deportations of Romanian and Bulgarian Roma by the Sárközy administration created a human rights crisis which exposed that the rights of the Roma citizens are violated not only in their home countries but also at the destination. The EU bodies created the Framework Strategy for Roma inclusion in 2010 with the support of the Council of Europe. The article concludes with a critical assessment of the present situation (post 2020) after the second cycle of the Framework Strategy was launched.
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The text focuses primarily on the issue of the stratification of the Armenians in Romania as an ethno-political category, drawing attention to the processuality of its internal heterogeneity and the need for its periodic review. Starting from the general premise that this is not a single ethnic group issue, but a general phenomenon due to the regional and historical complexity of Romania, the study of each group – whether we consider them as a national minority or as part of a global diaspora – requires the application of dynamic analytical models based on the situation of multiple social actors. Accordingly, the analysis will outline the historical, cultural, and institutional profile of Armenian communities living in present-day Romania, with a special focus on the changes in the internal composition of the category in the decades after the regime change, by sketching the specific dynamics that determine the group’s current image and identity processes.
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Planning is a social activity which aims at creating better places for communities. Participatory and communicative planning is gaining ground also in Romania, and there is plenty of research on the theory, practice, and ideology of planning regarding the involvement of the public, but there is a need to understand if there are language barriers here which might represent a bottleneck for linguistic minorities. The paper discusses this latter issue in the case of Romania’s design, town planning, and strategic planning.
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The present work draws some lines concerning the vision the Yenish Romani have on the concept of Tradition, as an ensemble of imprescriptible behaviours that ensured and still do an unalterated existence, since time immemorial, according to the ancestors’ principles. Tradition is not in the case of Yenish a passive patrimonialization of material and spiritual cultural elements, but a set of active and articulated practices to normalize the raports between age and gender categories. Within a world exclusively directed toward future and individualism, the Yenish’s values speak about past and collectivity, about tradition and the reference points it can offer, living and living-together models, and solutions in managering the various problems the community metabolism can generate.
More...Analysing the types, functions, and meanings of capitals that shape the upward educational mobility path of Roma in Romania
The aim of the present research is to analyse how some Roma in Romania become educationally mobile. Based on the cultural wealth model and the constructivist approaches to ethnicity and scholarship in relation to cultural racism, I intended to take stock of the forms of capital Roma persons make use of when ascending. I considered that the narrative type of interviews could be a successful means of generating a better understanding of the meaning and functioning of capitals. Narratives inform us that the same type of capital may appear in different forms: family capital may denote not ‘just’ the transmission of the importance of education to children but protection from racial insults, too. Institutional agents (as sources of social capital acquisition) – despite their good will – may equally facilitate the inclusion of and reproduce unequal racial categorization. Behaving differently, in opposition to the stereotypes associated with the Roma (low educational attainment, early marriage, poverty), is a conscious choice that may help many of the Roma to resist racial attacks.
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The article concerns relations between Slovaks and the Hungarian minority in Slovakia. The aim of this study is to determine current Slovak attitudes towards the Slovak Hungarians and to analyse differences in attitudes held by Slovaks in regular direct contact with the Hungarian minority and those with almost no contact. Another aim is to map current attitudes among the Hungarian minority towards the Slovak majority, and to find out how Slovak attitudes are perceived by the minority. The data collection methods were a survey (N = 107) and focus group interviews (N = 36). The results show that Slovaks in regular contact with Slovak Hungarians have significantly more positive general feelings, are less socially distant, and feel less anxious about the Hungarian minority than Slovaks with almost no contact. There were no statistically significant differences between the two groups in terms of trust and behavioural intention. Group interviews with Slovaks and Slovak Hungarians showed that the biggest obstacle in relations between Slovaks and the Hungarian minority is first language use and the language barrier.
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In his article, the author offers an overview of the presentations given at the international conference entitled 100 Years of Hungarian Minorities, organised by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
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This paper shows how history is rewritten in China by shaping the memories of its youth, who create new communities by sharing and renarrating new memories. They can become a powerful channel to convey an official interpretation of local histories to a larger public, by marginalizing and appropriating local narratives. The idea behind the program for voluntary narrators under analysis1 is to shape memories of China’s young and wealthy students about a place, by transforming its rich cross-cultural fundamentals, symbolic and inner meanings, into a representation of the Nation, able to convey powerful declinations of official narratives on the history of China. The analysis is conducted in consideration of the larger context of the construction and transmission of the official discourse on national identity in contemporary PRC. Specifically, the author provides evidence of how young Chinese internalize and disseminate the party line on Chineseness, and the subordinate role assigned within this process to “minorities.” Minorities are seen both as a threat and an opportunity: a threat to the Party and social cohesion as carriers of diverse identities, an opportunity for contrasting Chineseness with the Other, a backward entity, inadequate and unable to embrace—if not help— the path to modernity.
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This paper will discuss the Wiindigo, a cannibalistic character among some Indigenous peoples of North America. Illustrated through the Anishinaabeg and Oji-Cree, two Algonquin-speaking Indigenous groups, the Wiindigo serves as a personification of fear and hunger, and alludes to the cultural heritage elements of the boreal forest food system as well as the differing legal systems in Canada. In examining the Wiindigo from the Indigenous cultural and historical perspec- tives related to the author by several knowledge-holders, as well as from Euro- Canadian popular culture representations, the paper illustrates the importance of the Wiindigo to Anishinaabe and Oji-Cree world views, customary governance, and contemporary lived experience.
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