The Ethnobarometer Working Paper Series

Roma’s Identities in Southeast Europe: RomaniaNovember 2008

by Christian Giordano, Andrea Boscoboinik, Mihai Curelaru,Sorin Gog, Adrian Neculau, Teodor Nitu, François Ruegg,Daniela Tarnovschi e Daniela Zaharia

ETHNOBAROMETER

© CSS for The Ethnobarometer Programme 2008. All rights reserved

ISBN 978-88-88235-08-0

Keywords: Roma, Rroma, Romania, minorities, identities, religious conversions, gypsyhood

Ethnobarometer

Via Ovidio 2000193 [email protected]@gmail.comwww.ethnobarometer.org

Contents

Roles, Statuses, Positions Social Categories and Multiple Identities of Roma in Romania 7Andrea Boscoboinik, Christian Giordano (University of Fribourg)

Roma from Romania 24Daniela Tarnovschi (Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania)

Psychosocial perspectives on Roma communities in Northeast Romania 38Adrian Neculau, Mihai Curelaru, Daniela Zaharia (University „Al.I. Cuza”, Iasi, Romania)

Aspects of Religious Conversion among Rroma in post-socialist Romania 56Sorin Gog (Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania)

Acta est fabula. A Rome, histoire marginale d’un Rrom appelé Romulus 72Teodor Nitu (Université de Fribourg)

Postface 87François Ruegg (University of Fribourg, Switzerland - Institute of Social Anthropology)

Roles, Statuses, Positions Social Categories and Multiple Identities of Roma in Romania

Andrea Boscoboinik, Christian GiordanoUniversity of Fribourg

IntroductionThis is our third report on the research on Roma’s identities and the situation ofRoma in Central and Eastern Europe. The research is organized geographically: thefirst report concerned Bulgaria (Ethnobarometer, working paper N° 8, 2003), andthe second one, Macedonia (Ethnobarometer, working paper N° 8, 2005). The ideasand conclusions that will be presented in the following pages are the result of theresearch conducted in Romania, organized both by Ethnobarometer and a SwissNational Science Foundation Project (Scopes)1, during the period 2006 - 2007.As in the previous studies, the research followed a qualitative method based on inter-views with people that consider themselves Roma, as well as with people that do notacknowledge being Roma but are regarded as such by their neighbors. In total, 60interviews were carried out in Transylvania and the Moldovan region (in Coltau,Ticau, Sibiu, Chelinta, Ardusat, Somcuta-Mare, Remeti, Hadareni, Targu Mures,Gilau, Gherla, Cluj, Slobozia, Trusesti, Iasi, and Bucharest) by eight local socialresearchers. Besides this wide representation of towns and villages, the informants’characteristics cover a broad range of portrayals, which include men and women,both rural and urban, different religious affiliations, different levels of wealth, an agerange from 22 to 67, from almost no education to university studies, from non-activists to political or religious activists.This diversity has not only provided us with a rich and varied material to expandour knowledge, draw comparisons with the precedent case studies, and propose newideas and conclusions. It also shows that numerous social categories and multipleidentities, reflecting a remarkable range of empirically discoverable individual roles,status, and positions, can be observed in the different Roma communities.Following the lines set up in the previous Ethnobarometer studies, the presentreports on Romania focus on the ethnicization process, on the current overall situa-tion of Roma in Romania and the influence of religious conversion on identity and

8 ROMA’S IDENTITIES IN SOUTHEAST EUROPE: ROMANIA

self-perception given its incidence among Roma in Romania. Indeed, as Sorin Gog’sreport points out, the massive conversion of Roma to new religious movements, byrestructuring identity and their self-perception has given rise to a new kind of groupand a new self-understanding of Gypsyhood.

Roma in Europe at presentRoma and Roma-related groups in Europe began to gain prominence about twentyyears ago when the media, Internet and various political and cultural institutionsturned their attention on these communities, focusing either on their discriminationor romanticized existence. The complex features of these groups, along with therecent political transformations in Eastern Europe, would also explain academic andpolitical attention. Yet, despite several researches and discussions on issues and prob-lems concerning the Roma, the topic continued to be elusive and ideologicallyembedded.With the East European countries’ integration into the European Union, Roma andRoma-related group minorities are no longer an Eastern European peculiarity but havebecome a collective and general European concern. Specifically, owing to the integra-tion of Romania into the EU, the Roma represent the largest minority in Europe.Thus, they can no longer be taken only marginally into account, as until recently.There has been much discussion on the recent concern regarding immigrants in gen-eral and a specific fear of a ‘Gypsy invasion from the East’. The subject has movedto the top of the international political agenda, mainly due to the sudden increasedvisibility of Roma migrating from specific East European countries, namelyRomania, Bulgaria and the states of former Yugoslavia.At present, mobility is becoming a European value, suggesting the qualities of flex-ibility, multiculturalism, democracy and tolerance. However, this positively connot-ed social and cultural mobility is limited to an elite of European citizens engaged inhighly prestigious professional roles, thus occupying positions that determine theirhigh social status and distinctly remunerative economic resources. These wouldmainly be the winners in the current phase of globalization, i.e., industrial entrepre-neurs, financial managers, new technologies specialists, consultants and experts inthe field of communication, etc. In line with specific sociological and anthropolog-ical reflections on post-modernity, the gilded legend of the current transnational cos-mopolitism would have developed around these roles, status, and positions.

ROLES, STATUSES, POSITIONS 9

On the other hand, the mobility of nomads or less resourceful migrants is stillbranded with the negative connotations of profiteers, crooks and vagabonds. Formost Roma populations, i.e., the impoverished and marginalized ones, such a con-notation leads to their even greater exclusion or marginalization. Thus, Romamobility is considered a “problem” that could cause various complications and thathas an international dimension.

Roma in RomaniaIn most Central and East European countries, there is a gap between the official cen-sus results of the Roma population and the informal estimates, indicating that many‘so-called’ Roma do not publicly acknowledge their ethnic belonging. According tothe 2002 Census2, 535,140 Romanian citizens declared themselves Roma, whichrepresents 2.5% of the population. According to official census data, in percentagethey thus constitute the second largest ethnic minority in Romania, afterHungarians (6.6%). However, researchers and social organizations unofficially esti-mated the Roma population to be between 1,500,000 and 2,000,000, which mayrepresent around at least 8 to 9 % of the total Romanian population.Despite statistical inaccuracies, of the former communist-bloc States Romania hasthe largest Roma population in terms of absolute numbers. However, Roma are notexclusively Romanian, as many may think, nor do they represent the largest minor-ity in Romania in terms of percentage of the whole population. For instance, inBulgaria Roma represent 4.6% (officially) and between 9 and 10% (unofficially) ofthe total population, in Hungary 1.7% (officially) and 5.6% (unofficially) and inSlovakia 1.7% (officially) and 8.4% (unofficially)3. The disparity between official figures and unofficial estimates does not mean thatRoma people always want to hide or deny their identity, but that some might do soin formal contexts (especially the Census), depending on their perception of what isat stake, on the formulation of questions and the actor/s involved. Identity is knownto be contextual, thus different affiliations are summoned for different purposes andon different occasions.Unofficial estimates are provided by different sources and the defining criteria ofwho is Roma are not always clear. Roma organizations may legitimately seek to com-pensate for the evident failings of the census data for the purpose of policy andresource allocation, and in some cases they may possibly illegitimately exaggerate


data in order to heighten their prestige, or leverage or for other unspecified reasons.On the other hand, the results of a sociological survey mentioned in Cahn (2003),and published in the Hungarian daily Magyar Hirlap on March 28, 1998, showedthat police officers tend to drastically overestimate the size of Hungary’s Roma pop-ulation. Apparently, for a certain segment of the Hungarian police, all criminals areRoma, thus the number of “Gypsies” would represent up to a third of Hungary’stotal population. Therefore, though census figures do not reflect reality, neither dounofficial estimates. Fear, identity strategies, interests and migration complicate thearithmetic. The ‘real’ number would be in between.There may be various reasons why some people who are considered Roma by theirneighbors and who have self-declared themselves as such in other researches or inter-views do not publicly affirm their identity. Among others, we suggest the negativestereotypes and stigmatization implied by such a denomination. No one wants to belabeled with what is regarded as a pejorative name. Besides, there could be the fearof unknown consequences or further implications.The fact that the lives of Roma in Romania as well as in other post-communist EastEuropean countries have worsened in many ways over the last twenty years is nolonger news. Discrimination against the Roma minority continues to be widespreadin practice and the Roma community is still exposed to considerable social inequal-ities. Living conditions are poor and access to social services is limited. Lack of accessto adequate housing remains a major problem for the Roma population. At present,they are the most disadvantaged population in Europe in terms of employment,income, education and opportunities. Besides their marginal economic status, theyface violence and are often the scapegoat for society’s ills: Roma are blamed foralmost all of society’s problems and crimes. Moreover, their art of fortune-telling isviewed with a mixture of fascination and fear.The problems of most Roma communities in different countries are linked to socialand economic conditions: low level of education, low incomes, social vulnerability,social exclusion, precariousness, spatial segregation, discrimination in society, andenduring negative stereotypes.Common knowledge about Roma reflects the image conveyed by press and media.Particularly in Central and Eastern Europe, most papers have a standard attitudetowards Roma: they are all dangerous, criminal, evil, and dishonest. During the 1990s,in the Romanian press, these representations were invariably sketchy and constructed


around common stereotypes of Tsigani as grubby thieves and disastrous ambassadorsfor the image of Romania abroad. Nowadays, some journalists are trying to avoidstatements that could be discriminating, but some pejorative images are still employed.Moreover, Romanian nationals are very concerned about the misleading name sim-ilarity, especially abroad. In November 2007, after the “Italian event”, 76% of theRomanians declared that foreigners were mistaking “Romanian” for “Roma”. InRomanian official documents there was the tendency to modify the spelling with adouble letter r (Rroma) to indicate Roma people, in order to distinguish them fromRomanian nationals. However, this local distinction does not avoid confusions inforeign countries.The media’s approach reinforces the general public stereotypes and exacerbates anti-Roma feelings. In Western Europe, the press (but not only) tends to present Romaas if it were a homogeneous group. “Roma” then becomes a blanket term for differ-ent groups that supposedly share similar origins, cultural traits and social conditions.Indeed, very often the different Roma groups and Roma-related groups such asSinti, Travelers, Kale, Ashkali, Beas, and Yenisches, are considered as belonging to asame ethnic group with similar characteristics4. However, one should avoid fallinginto this trap.

The heterogeneity of Roma groupsAs the research in Bulgaria and Macedonia had already indicated, there is no homo-geneity among the Roma populations in Romania either. The community that fromthe exterior is called “Roma” in fact consists of large heterogeneous groups that mayhave very little in common. Our research leads us to conclude that there is not a sin-gle Roma identity but many Roma identities, and thus it is difficult to gather themall under a one label recognized by all groups. The groups’ heterogeneity explainswhy many members from the different groups do not recognize themselves underthe general designation Roma. As a Sinti from Switzerland said during a Romameeting organized by the Council of Europe in 2003: “We cannot give the name of asingle tree to a whole forest”.The heterogeneity is given by the different traditional groups, but not only. AsDaniela Tarnovschi points out in her report, in Romania there are more than 23 dif-ferent groups traditionally divided by occupation, including Caldarari (tinsmithsand coppersmiths, from the Romanian caldera, meaning cauldron), Fierari (black-


smiths), Ursari (bear trainers), Grastari-Geambasi (horse dealers), Lautari (musi-cians), Argintari (silversmiths), Caramidar (brick makers), Ciubotari (shoemakers),Nomazi (nomads), Rudari (woodcraftsmans), etc. Jean-Pierre Liégeois notes that theconnection between name and reality (filial, occupational or geographical) is oftenremote, but this definitely does not lessen the name’s social relevance (Liégeois 2007:52). What matters is the fact that a particular group exists here and now, and is con-nected to a specific origin.Each subgroup is divided in groups, defined by history or geography, which in turnconsist of a large number of extended families. This complexity is summarized bythe interviewed people who affirm, “there are different sorts of Gypsy”.There is no single definition of what a “Roma” is. Because of the diversity of Romapeople, what might constitute a Romani identity is uncertain. There are nomadsand sedentary, those who speak Romani language and those who don’t, those whofollow Romani traditions and those who don’t. They do not share a same religionor country of residence. Elements that one group could accept as intrinsicallyRoma, could be considered non-Roma (Gadje) by another. A kind of hierarchyemerges, each interviewed person having a different one; for some those who arecloser to Romanians are better, while for others those who keep traditions are thepurest.

Us and ThemThe different components of identity allow people to establish a clear distinctionbetween Us and Them. We were able to observe that interviewees expressed a starkdistinction between ‘Us’ and ‘the Others’. This aspect was already present in our pre-vious research results on Roma communities in Bulgaria and the Republic ofMacedonia, but was more marked in the Romanian interviews. We then exploredwho were represented by Us and who by Them in order to understand which iden-tity elements are most important in establishing the demarcation.Contrary to what could be expected, Them are not only the Gadje (the non-Roma)but rather a multitude of Others. Very often Them are the ‘other Roma’ (or the‘other Gypsies’), particularly the stereotyped image of the thief, swindler, liar andidler. It is always ‘the Other Roma’ who deserve all prejudices and negative stereo-types: those who steal, who are lazy and grubby, who bring the entire Roma com-munity’s name into bad repute. The ‘other Roma’ may also include the traditional-


ist Roma in contrast with the ‘modern’ Roma, the poor Roma in contrast with thewealthy Roma, the Orthodox Roma in contrast with the converted PentecostalRoma, the average Roma in contrast with those holding positions and resources oractively engaged in NGOs or political parties.Through the interviews carried out in Romania we were able to realize that talkingabout Us and Them involves value judgments, contempt, stereotypes, a determina-tion to distinguish and differentiate one’s self, etc. Thus, stereotypes and prejudicesabout other Roma people occur also in Roma individuals and communities: “Theyare not proper, they didn’t study, they are not intelligent”.Roma activists themselves have stereotypes concerning traditional Gypsies. In theinterviews, we noticed that at times ‘Us’ stood for Roma and ‘Them’ for Gypsy orvice versa. Therefore, the We/They dichotomy may indicate either Roma/Gypsy orGypsy/Roma. Indigent and uneducated Gypsies usually reserve the term Roma, which has a strongpolitical connotation, for the educated ones. They absolutely do not want to becalled Roma, a name by which they do not feel identified, but Gypsy. Some of themtruly mistrust the name Roma and criticize Roma political leaders for being corruptand taking advantage of projects aimed at the improvement of Gypsies’ situation.Some interviews with wealthy and educated Roma show that, even if they areengaged activists for the Roma unity, when they speak of the indigent ones they useGypsy, even in a pejorative and despising way. However, in political discourses, whenseeking to convey the Roma ethnic unifying dimension, they switch to ‘Us’, embrac-ing all categories. Of course, such statements are strongly dependant on the person-ality of those who express them and any generalizations could be risky.Clearly however, whatever the reason may be, for each group that endorses one or theother name what is implied by Gypsy is very different from what is implied by Roma.Thus, both ‘identities’ related to both names seem to be very different for the peopleconcerned. The reasons appear to be mainly related to the symbolical dimensionattached to each designation. Roma is considered the self-given name, thus political-ly correct. It is the term mostly used by the promoters of a common ethnicity and hasa positive connotation. On the other hand, Gypsy is considered the pejorative namegiven from the exterior, but to which some people seem to be used to or somehowattached. Besides, it could represent a way of resisting what could be considered a newimposition. “I have always been a Gypsy. Why should I be a Roma now?”


Ethnogenesis: identitary illusion or emancipatory alternative?Despite the groups’ heterogeneity, some Roma activists and Roma politicallyengaged seek to develop a sort of ethnic solidarity that should express the feeling thatall Roma belong to the same and distinct people who share common cultural traitsand common problems resulting from widespread injustice and prejudice, ethnichostility, and violence.At the risk of incurring the harsh criticism of some Roma (and not only) identitymanagers, the data gathered in our three researches substantiates the fact that Romaidentity is extremely diversified; therefore, using the plural form and referring tomultiple, flexible and situational identities would probably be more accurate andproper. Yet, this statement brings into question the relevance of discourses, still verypopular amongst influential members of the Roma political and cultural elite, whichaim at the emergence of a Roma ethnic nation born of an ethnogenesis process moreor less driven from above, if not indeed managed by transnational and/or suprana-tional institutions and organizations.At this point, we need to distinguish between what we call an ethnicization processand an ethnogenesis process. In previous reports and publications (see Giordano andBoscoboinik 2003, 2005; Boscoboinik 2006 a, b), we have concluded that at pre-sent there is a process of ethnicization, i.e., the willingness for the emergence of a col-lective ethnic identity among the disparate Roma groups, mainly led by educatedRoma elite. Indeed, we suggest that members of the elite are endeavoring to devel-op a shared ethnic consciousness across national borders in order to politically unifyand mobilize the Roma in the struggle for human rights, socio-economic justice andrecognition as a nation without territory. As such, this term has an instrumentalconnotation and implies the creation of an ethnic category with specific purposes.Roma elite members, on the other hand, prefer to point to an ethnogenesis process.This term holds a positive connotation suggestive of something already existent thatshould develop. Thus, the idea of manipulation implicit in the ethnicization processis overshadowed in the ethnogenesis process. Accordingly, the elite is not breaking newground, but rather recapturing and raising the consciousness of a preexisting ethniccategory.As a social process of mobilization, ethnogenesis would therefore be a feasible instru-ment by which the Roma can express a stronger feeling of cohesion and conse-quently a stronger political commitment (Barany 2002: 70).


According to these concepts and projects, ethnogenesis, which by now is quite anunfashionable neologism in addition to being a legacy of an essentialist anthropolo-gy, and the subsequent emergence of an ethnic-based collective conscience, thus onegrounded in the sharing of common origin and culture, should induce Roma pop-ulations to develop a necessary communitarian spirit. In turn, this would have anemancipating function and would help abate the prejudices and discriminations ofthe dominant ethno-national collectivities. Ethnogenesis would thus put an end tothe Roma’s serious social deficit compared to other communities. Paradoxically, theywould become less different, thus more equal in relation to others since they, too,would attain a higher level of social organization, comparable to the others’ one.From a strictly ethical point of view, the goal of the ethnogenesis process, as conceivedby its various advocates, is undoubtedly commendable. Yet, the point at issue is notso much the project’s moral validity as its practicability in this 21st century charac-terized by a phase of accelerated globalization. Actually, at least two major aspectsare grounds for some degree of skepticism in those involved in social sciences.Clearly, the model based on the idea of ethnogenesis is implicitly modeled on, or, as oneof its masterminds -sociologist of Roma origin Nicolae Gheorghe- highlights, is explic-itly reminiscent of 19th-century nation-building. In fact, the planned processes of pre-sent-day ethnogenesis for the Roma communities are somewhat along the same lines ofthe formation of the Kulturnationen in general and those of eastern-central and south-east Europe in particular between the late 18th century and early 20th century.To elite leaders the nation, as a social formation, seems a viable solution to fightagainst the stigmatization and marginalization of their people on the one hand, and,on the other, a way to handle the social and cultural problems they face (Fosztó2003: 102).Still, we need to distinguish between two schools of thought. More traditional andsimplistic, the first scheme abides by the classic models of ethnic nationalism bywhich, owing to ethnogenesis, the Roma culture and identity within each nationaland territorial context would be revitalized. Consequently, single Roma ethnic com-munities, not transnationally linked to each other, would emerge. Thus, ethnogene-sis would simply be a resurgence of processes that led to the formation over the pastcenturies of present-day European nations.The second scheme is far more ingenious and sophisticated since it is based on adeclaredly transnational and deterritorialized vision of the Roma ethnic identity.


Ethnogenesis would be the means to attain a Roma feeling of belonging, which wouldbe far more consequential and on a European scale. In more institutional parlance,it would involve the emergence of a Roma ethnic nation transcending the narrownational States’ borders and which would be constituted as a stateless political com-munity. Yet, this case as well clearly refers to the Kulturnation idea, though this con-cept is skillfully adapted to a spatially extensive reality, more socially disjointed andless culturally coherent.At this point, however, we can legitimately wonder whether an obsolete model isbeing put forward on the one hand and whether on the other hand lies an enticingbut rather unrealistic vision. As regards to the first project, suggesting that Romapopulations, nearly one hundred and fifty years later and under such dissimilar glob-al socioeconomic conditions, ought to follow the same route which led to the cre-ation of European nations seems rather anachronistic and, to some extent, antihis-torical as well. Actually, it would be like suggesting a simplistic theory of the sociocul-tural gap that would be redressed by replicating tout court a model successfullyemployed by other groups in a too distant past.The second project, regarding the emergence of a transnational and deterritorializedRoma community, though likewise harking back to 19th century models, cannot becriticized on grounds of anachronism since it takes into due consideration the cur-rent socio-political trends linked to the globalization process. Moreover, it seemsmore enticing precisely because it employs a postmodern parlance, which transna-tional and supranational organizations (such as the UE or some NGOs) hold in highregard. Yet, the wide variety of roles, statuses and social positions, striking culturaldifferences and territorial dispersion of Roma populations could become a virtuallyinsurmountable barrier on the road to this specific vision of ethnogenesis, turning itinto a hardly tenable if not an unworkable project, i.e., into an unlikely emancipa-tory alternative.As with any form of ethnicization, the concept of ethnogenesis is intrinsically basedon the fact of creating boundaries between us and the others, which are not perforceterritorial. From a theoretical point of view, Fredrik Barth has highlighted that eth-nic belongings are the outcome of a process, better yet of a social strategy throughwhich, by more or less intentionally employing single markers or highly varyingcombinations thereof, social groups mark out each others’ territorial and culturalboundaries (Barth 1969). This clearly involves a system of self- and hetero-attribu-


tions based on the representation of one’s self and of the others. That being the case,one may legitimately wonder whether ethnogenesis in general and the one concern-ing Roma in particular might not intensify the others’ old stereotypes and prejudicesabout Roma populations, thus increasing discriminations in social practices as well.Consequently, ethnogenesis might even worsen the exclusion processes.

The New EliteYet, despite all efforts, one can hardly declare that this goal of ethnogenesis and Romaunity has succeeded so far for the average Roma. The discourse concerning the eth-nicization process has been more successful among young, educated, and well-inte-grated Roma. Interviews with university students reveal the valorization of a largelystigmatized identity. There is also the discovery of an identity not wholly transmit-ted by the parents. Therefore, they declare their willingness to learn the languageand to begin to openly acknowledge the fact of being Roma, for instance. Theyexpress the importance of assuming the responsibility of being Roma. However,whereas they defend their Roma identity, they concurrently deny their ‘Gypsyhood’,an attitude that illustrates the previously-mentioned distinction between ‘Us’(Roma) and ‘Them’ (Gypsy).The valorization of learning the Romani language is explained as a means to be bet-ter integrated in the Roma community. Knowing the language allows contacts andwould foster a better status in the community, not only at a national but also at aninternational level. In an interview, someone mentioned having lost many possibil-ities by not speaking the Romani language. For instance, knowing the languagewould allow these young students to join the new Roma elite. It is very oftenthought that Roma who do not speak Romani are not entirely ‘fulfilled’.For Roma elite, the spread of a common Romani language is a key issue in defend-ing and supporting the unity and cohesion of the ethnic group, the central elementallowing them an identification as a Nation. In the absence of geographical borders,language takes on great importance as an element of one’s own identity and as a fac-tor that will be recognized by others. In this sense, there are current efforts to stan-dardize the many Romani dialects.Roma elite members are not the only ones who sustain the powerful element of aRomani standardized language. A standardized language is important to define thegroup, but also represents the practical aspect, allowing communication with other


Roma from different countries. Thus, those who have managed to travel abroad con-sider it a way to understand all gypsies: “with that language, you are fine even in Italyor Spain”. Another one explained: “I speak the language. I’m on good terms with gyp-sies in the Netherlands, Germany or Serbia and Slovakia, Russia or Hungary. This lan-guage is a sort of English in Europe”.Roma elite members mostly follow a constructivist approach of identity rather thana primordialist one. The primordialist perspective considers ethnic identity as anessentialist pre-existing given that defines belonging and social existence. The con-structivist approach, instead, argues that ethnic identity is situationalist, not essen-tialized but contingent. Consequently, according to a constructivist discourse youcould become Roma if you learn the language, if you feel part of this community orif you marry a Roma. On the other hand, the primordialist point of view, embed-ded in the discourse of most average Roma, considers Gypsyness as something innate:you cannot choose it and you cannot leave it. Discourses upholding one or the otherposition are so fervent that researchers now and then may fall in the discourse trap.According to interviewees who support essentialist considerations, if you are notborn a Gypsy you cannot become one, but you can loose your Gypsyhood. Even ifyou learn the Romani language, you will still be considered a Gadjo. You could becloser to the Roma community but never one of them because “Roma think and feelin a certain way” and “because it is in your blood”.The development of this new Roma elite increasingly deepens the gap between edu-cated and engaged Roma on the one hand and the poor, average Roma on the other.The interviews clearly indicate that poor Roma strongly mistrust Roma politicalleaders and NGOs whose sole aim is thought to be enriching themselves. Besides,many wealthy Roma publicly scorn the particularly impoverished quasi-majority byparading their affluence, thus inciting resentment in poor Roma and majority alike.

The religious dimension of identityGiven the importance gained by the religious dimension over the last years and themassive conversion of Roma to different new protestant movements, particularly thePentecostal one, we decided to explore how it influences identity.The reasons for conversion might be varied, but what is easily perceived in the inter-views is that religion, through a distinct worldview and strict behavioral rules,together with the regular meetings of religious groups, offers a clear and strong sense


of belonging to those who participate. Interviews show that people feel definitelymore united by religion than by ethnic belonging.Feeling part of a community, be it religious or other, ensures an important psy-chological benefit: being recognized by the other members of the community is away of affirming one’s self. Besides, religious groups constitute a retaining andsupporting group. As someone stated in an interview, now they (the convertedRoma) have the feeling of being more united. They feel they are “a united familywith new origins”.However, one should not think that religious conversion has achieved the union ofall Roma communities as it actually divided the Roma communities even more,opposing converted Roma to non-converted Roma. Indeed, as Sorin Gog points outin his report, the new rules and faith brought about by religious conversion, as wellas the fact that everything gets filtered through the Bible, leads converted Roma toquestion Gypsy traditional knowledge, life-style, behavior, holidays and values,clearly resulting in conflicts with non-converted Roma. Moreover, religious frag-mentation occurs among the converted Roma as well: for instance, there are BaptistRoma, Pentecostal Roma, Pentecostal dissident Roma, Adventist Roma, etc.Religion, in particular the new religious movements such as the Pentecostal Church,provides a clear moral to follow, offers a concrete code of action and influences theacceptance of social norms, moral as well as legal ones. Roma Pentecostalists, owingto their religion, began to respect the laws and the State authorities since such behav-ior conforms to a biblical precept. This new attitude towards law and society, as wellas the puritan behavior, improves their image among the Romanian majority.Consequently, religious conversion may lead, if not to integration, at least to a bet-ter acceptance in society.On the other hand, those who decide not to convert and remain Orthodox feel thattheir religious belonging conveys a better image thanks to a religion shared with theRomanian majority.

ConclusionIt would be possible to establish a typology of Roma people that would illustrate theheterogeneity of its members. From nomads to parliamentarians, Roma comprisesalmost all social categories. This means that besides the poor and discriminatedRoma, we find a Roma elite that includes Roma with a higher education, the


wealthy, the activists and the socially and politically engaged. There are also sociallyintegrated Roma who have achieved social integration through mixed marriages,economic success or even skin color5. Another category would be the religious con-vert Roma.Each category is not exclusive and presents members that stand up for their ethnicbelonging and others that seek assimilation or integration into the majority. Despitethis social heterogeneity that goes beyond the multiple clans and groups, there is thetendency “to put all Roma in the same bag”, making it easier to designate them asscapegoats.Besides, Roma elite members also seek the ethnic unity of all Roma through whatwe have called the process of ethnicization. However, we suggest that the ethniciza-tion process has not been highly successful until now.The failure of the ethnicization process could be due to the fact that its promotersconsider the undeniably difficult situation of Roma communities only in terms ofethnicity rather than taking account of other identity dimensions, such as the social,economic and religious ones. However, the conditions of the poor Roma are com-parable to those of the poorest Romanian nationals. Roma people are dissatisfiedand pessimistic about their life and the course of events and Roma’s opinions on thesubject are similar to those of the poorest Romanian nationals, regardless of theirethnic belonging. Nevertheless, the material factor is overlapped by other elementswhich help shape the Roma people’s mainly negative perceptions, among which thelack of confidence in institutions and the feeling that they are discriminated (Fosztóand Anastasoaie 2001).In our opinion, religion conversion has succeeded where ethnic promoters havemostly failed. Religion offers a symbolic dimension of truly being part of a group.They have regular meetings, they attend at rites, at prayer gatherings to study andread the Bible. The new churches grant a true sense of belonging, and that is whatmost Roma, especially the discriminated and excluded ones, are looking for. Theethnic unity of all Roma does not achieve this goal as it is perceived as somethingimposed from outside, whereas the decision to become Pentecostal is personal, basedgenerally on a personal mystical experience. By calling themselves “sisters” and“brothers”, they feel they are part of a new, large family. Moreover, the group basedon religious faith is perceived as having clear borders, which is not so with the indef-inite limits of Roma identity.


One of the goals of the ethnicization process promoters is to fight against discrimi-nation. However, one can hardly claim that the discrimination that Roma/Gypsiessuffer is always and unconditionally based on ethnic criteria. On the contrary, thediscrimination they have to endure is often established on a socio-economic basis.Therefore, they are mostly discriminated because they are poor and not because theyare Roma. Wealthy or well-integrated Roma, as we gathered from the interviews, feelthey are not discriminated at all. Moreover, since they do not feel discriminated theyassume there is not discrimination. Pentecostal Roma, though under some aspectsthey are better accepted by the majority as being more reliable, could be discrimi-nated as well on a religious basis. For instance, they are spatially discriminated incemeteries. Therefore, they are discriminated for being Pentecostal and not (or notonly) for being Roma.Even if differences based on religion and on economic and social levels are more sig-nificant than the ethnic division, very little attention has been paid to viewing Romaas belonging to different social groups. Besides, the religious belonging is sometimesmore significant than the ethnic one. Thus, there are Roma converts whose mostimportant identity element is religion. One clear example is that for many intervie-wees inter-ethnic marriage between Roma and non-Roma is permitted, whereasinter-religious marriage between Pentecostal and non-Pentecostal is utterly forbid-den. Accordingly, conflicts are more liable to be based on religious belonging thanon an ethnic one.Identities are not always primarily associated with ethnicity. Ethnicity is part of atotal identity, but not necessarily the central element. A key argument of our posi-tion is that identity categories are not fixed; they may shift from one dimension suchas ethnicity, to another such as religion or social level. It is then imperative to exam-ine how identity becomes a political resource used by Roma leaders and elites on theone hand, and from outside the Roma on the other. Some Roma leaders do not denytaking advantage of other Roma, specifying however, “positively, for their own good”.Nevertheless, when the ethnic identity is recalled from outside, it could have a stig-matizing goal and scapegoating intentions.These reflections, however, confirm that the basic issue in all ethnogenesis projectsremains the following: must the ethnic aspect of Roma identity be so predominantto the point of overshadowing the social problems that have always beset Roma pop-ulations? Definite misgivings persist as to whether ethnogenesis would be the suitable


course of action by which Roma populations, in particular those of Eastern Europeand Romania, could take charge of their own collective destiny, thus alleviating theiroverly precarious socio-economic situation and breaking free from a long history ofexclusion and discrimination based on cultural and racial prejudices and stereotypes.

ReferencesBarany, Zoltan. 2002. The East European Gypsies. Regime Change, Marginality andEthnopolitics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Barth, Fredrik (ed). 1969. Ethnic Groups and Boundaries. London: George Allen &Unwin.Boscoboinik, Andrea. 2006a. Becoming Rom: Ethnic Development among RomaCommunities in Bulgaria and Macedonia. In: Ethnic Identity. Problems and Prospectsfor the Twenty-First Century. Fourth Edition. Edited by Lola Romanucci-Ross,George de Vos and Takeyuki Tsuda. Lanham, New York, Toronto, Oxford: AltamiraPress, 295-310.Boscoboinik, Andrea. 2006b. Ethnicization Process among the Roma communitiesin Bulgaria. In: Interculturalism and Discrimination in Romania. Policies, Practices,Identities and Representations. Edited by François Ruegg, Rudolf Poledna and CalinRus. Münster: Lit Verlag, 95-103.Cahn, Claude. 2003. The Unseen Powers: Perception, Stigma and Roma Rights. In:www.errc.org/cikk.php?cikk=2870.Fosztó, László and Marian-Viorel Anastasoaie. 2001. Romania: Representations,Public Policies and Political Projects. In: Between past and future. the Roma of Centraland Eastern Europe. Edited by Will Guy. University of Hertfordshire Press, p. 351-369.Fosztó, László. 2003. Diaspora and Nationalism: an Anthropological Approach tothe International Romani Movement. In: Regio, p. 102-120.Giordano, Christian and Andrea Boscoboinik. 2003. Introduction. In: Roma’sIdentities in Southeast Europe: Bulgaria. Ethnobarometer. Working Paper N° 8, 14-29.Giordano, Christian and Andrea Boscoboinik. 2005. Roma’s Identity and thePolitical Arena. In: Roma’s Identities in Southeast Europe: Macedonia.Ethnobarometer. Working Paper N° 9, 7-17.Liégeois, Jean-Pierre. 2007. Roma in Europe. Strasbourg: Council of EuropePublishing.


1 “Nomads and Parliamentarians. The influence of mobility and religious affiliation on identity building and on the

development of integration social policies. Roma people in Northern, Eastern Romania and the Republic of Moldova”

2 Website of the National Institute for Statistics http://www.insse.ro

3 Unofficial estimates are provided in Liégeois 2007: 31. Official figures are the result of Census, available on

national statistics websites.

4 It should be noticed that in Romania most groups are Roma, and not Roma-related.

5 It was often stated in interviews that, “you can never say by his/her appearance that he/she is Roma”. These are the

ones who have better chances of finding a job or being less discriminated.

Roma from Romania

Daniela TarnovschiBabes-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania

Introduction – the general context In Europe, which is expanding its borders to include tens of millions of new citizens,Roma remain among marginal groups. With a population scattered across most ofEastern Europe they constitute the largest ethnic minority in Europe. The expansionof the European Union has brought attention to the plight of Roma and highlight-ed the challenges they pose in the old continent as a whole.In 2005, eight countries from Central and Southeast Europe adopted an initiative,supported by the international community, entitled “The Decade of Roma Inclusion,2005-2015”. It is intended as a cooperative effort to change the lives of Roma inEurope. The goal is to guide progress in accelerating social inclusion and improvingthe economic and social status of Roma across the region. The Decade aims to over-come centuries of marginalization and to change attitudes and behaviors toward theRoma minority. Each country has prepared an action plan with measurable goals tobe achieved in four priority areas - education, employment, health and housing. Recently, Roma leaders (intelligentsia) have agreed to advance a new, restructured,ideology of ethnic identity, to overcome a historically negative traditional Roma eth-nic identity (Gypsyhood). Especially in Central and Eastern Europe, in a part ofEurope affected by poverty, the social perception of Roma is negative and manifestracism is socially acceptable. The Roma are associated with larceny, verbal and phys-ical abuse, filth, looting, poverty, fraud, begging, etc.

Roma today in RomaniaIn Romania, 20 ethnic/national minorities have been officially recognized by thestate. The 2002 Census1 shows that ethnic/national minorities represent 10.5% of thetotal population. The Romanian Constitution grants each ethnic/national minority aguaranteed seat in Parliament, public funding for one of its organizations, and nativelanguage instruction in school for their children, as well as other rights.Roma constitute one of the major ethnic groups in Romania. According to the 2002

ROMA FROM ROMANIA 25

Census2, there are 535,250 Romanian citizens who declared themselves as Roma (orGipsy), 2.5 % of the total population. This means that Roma are the second largestethnic minority in Romania, after Hungarians (6.6%). Roma are, however, alsoRomania’s most socially and economically disadvantaged ethnic minority. Unofficialsources claim that the Census figures do not reflect reality and that in fact there areapproximately 2 million Roma in the country, or roughly 8% of the total popula-tion. The discrepancy may be due to the fact that many Roma did not declare eth-nicity at the census, or they have no identity card or birth certificate, meaning theyare not present in any official documents.Roma of Romania face specific problems, some of which are derived from the his-torical context. One should not forget their status as serfs up to the middle of the 19th

century3 and their exclusion from land reform in 18644, 1923, 1946 and 1991, aswell as the position of marginalization and discrimination maintained by the differ-ent regimes that governed Romania. We can not forget the deportations, thePorrajmos (as Roma call the Holocaust) during which 36,000 Romanian Roma diedduring the Second World War, the highest number of any European country, and anevent still very much present in Roma collective memory (Helsinki Watch, 1991: 13).During the communist regime, Roma were subject to a nationalist policy of assimila-tion and denial of their existence during the Census, official documents and speeches.Roma were considered to be foreign elements that had to become Romanian, their cul-ture being considered one of poverty and underdevelopment (Pons 1999: 29). Romawere forcibly settled, and had no right to ethnic representation or to promote their cul-tural traditions, as Hungarians and Saxons did. Police raids against Roma, duringwhich jewelry and other possessions were confiscated on the grounds that they werethe proceeds of black-market dealing, were allegedly a common occurrence (Kenrick1998: 140). After the December 1989 Revolution, the Roma minority was officiallyrecognized in the Romanian Constitution as an ethnic group and encouraged to freelydevelop its identity as a people and affirm itself. Some of the Roma associations andorganizations went into politics taking advantage of the 68/1992 Law5. Democracy brought some advantages for Roma but also disadvantages, one of whichis the community violence against Roma, a widespread phenomenon, which was tol-erated by the authorities even at the beginning of 1990’s. The 1998 report “RomaRights: Summer 1998” by the European Roma Rights Center revealed that a pat-tern of community violence was changing and that police raids on Roma commu-


nities were gradually replacing community violence against Roma (European RomaRights Center 1998).The Romani culture is varied, but there are attributes common to all Roma: loyaltyto the family (extended, the clan); faith – belief in God and the Devil; faith - beliefin predestination; varying standards and norms according to the tribe; and adapt-ability to changing conditions. The integration of a significant number of Roma tothe gadje (non-Roma) culture due to sedentarization diluted many cultural valuesand Romani beliefs. Not all tribes have the same definition of what a “Roma” is.What can be accepted as a “true Roma” by one group may be considered gadje byanother. The Romani culture is varied, with many traditions and customs, and eachRoma tribe and group has its own individual beliefs and principles. Applying strictrules and definitions would generalize and oversimplify. In Romania, there are more than 23 different groups including Caldarari (tinsmithsand coppersmiths), Fierari (blacksmiths), Ursari (bear trainers), Grastari-Geambasi(horse dealers), Lautari (musicians), Argintari (silversmiths), Caramidar (brick mak-ers), Ciubotari (shoemakers), Nomazi (nomads), Gabor (gabor), Rudari (wood-craftsman), etc. Many have foregone the more traditional nomadic lifestyle underduress rather than by choice.At the 1992 Census6 166,635 persons declared they speak Romani, which represents40.67% of the declared Roma. Ten years later, at the 2002 Census7 the number ofRomani speakers reached 241,617 (45.14%), meaning a rise of 5 percent in spite ofall projects and programs deployed during that time aimed at raising awareness andpromoting ethnic minority languages. In the same year as the 2002 Census, the survey Barometer on Ethnic Relations8

(2002) (which had a Roma sample statistically representative for all Roma fromRomania) found that 48.1% of Roma declare Romani as a mother tongue, 4.2%know it very well even if it is not their mother tongue and 3.7% have some diffi-culties in using it. This means that 60% of Roma population knows and usesRomani. The language is used mainly in informal situations: 50% use it at homeand with friends; and only 14% at the work place.

Religious affiliationIn most cases, Roma tend to follow the beliefs of the majority population, but wecan not say that they have a religious tradition, which is important for ethnic iden-


tification in Eastern Europe. Because the majority of Romanians are Orthodox,Roma follow the trend. The next important religious confessions are the Neo-Protestant ones, but only in fourth place for the entire Romanian population (Tableno. 1). In the third place for Roma are the Protestant confessions followed by theRoman Catholic and Greek Catholic. More and more Neo-Protestant confessionsare embraced by Roma. If in general Roma are not very involved in the religious life- 29.4%9 declared attending church or a house of prayer at least 2-3 times a month- the situation is changing with Neo-Protestant confessions. For the first time inRomania, Roma have Roma pastors and preachers in charge of Roma churches,autonomous missionary organizations and religious sermons in Romani. All of theserepresent an important step in the construction of Roma ethnic identity.

TABLE NO. 1

Religious confession All Romanians citizens10 Roma11

Orthodox 86.79% 79.8%

Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic 5.61% 3.3%

Reformed, Unitarian, Lutheran, Augustan Evangelic 3.69% 6.5%

Pentecostal, Baptist, Seventh Day Adventist, Christian by the Gospel, Evangelical 2.78% 9.2%

Ethnic belonging As regards their name – one of the important elements of ethnic belonging – we cansee that during history Roma were named “Tigani”, “Tsiganes”, “Gypsies”,“Zigeuner”, “Gitanos”, “Cigany” etc. by the people they have lived near. Some ofthese names have become pejorative. After the changes that took place in EasternEurope in 1989, some Roma leaders, NGO representatives (mostly non-Roma) andhuman rights activists drew attention to the negative stereotypes and the negativeconnotation of the term “Gypsy”. Roma representatives and elites then decided toaffirm a new identity started/developed/represented and defined from inside Romacommunity. In response to the recommendations advanced by Roma associations,the Council of Europe approved the use of “Rroma or Roma” in its official docu-ments (CLRAE Recommendation June, 11, 1995).The clear response to stigmas, negative stereotypes and discrimination has consistedin hiding and contesting ethnic belonging (or group belonging), accompanied by


the desire to assimilate into the majority culture (see Zamfir and Zamfir classifica-tion 1993: 5712). This is suggested by the low number of Roma who declared theirethnic background (Roma) during the two censuses that took place in Romania afterthe 1989 regime change, resulting in figures contested by Roma leaders and NGOrepresentatives (both Roma and non-Roma). In the course of research conducted under the project “Nomads andParliamentarians”13 both terms, “Roma” and “Gypsy”, were found to be used as syn-onyms by our interviewees (Roma) in self presentation; “Gypsy” was even used withpride, but only by them and in certain circumstances. All of our subjects were verymuch aware of the negative connotation the term “Gypsy” has and some of themmade the distinction between the meaning of a “good Gypsy,” a “bad Gypsy” or sim-ply “a Gypsy”; the latter expression can also be applied to other non-Roma people,as a slur or insult.The Barometer on Ethnic Relations14 survey (2002) revealed that 60.3% of Romacall themselves “Gypsy” and 39.7% “Roma” in situations defined as formal. Severalyears later, in 2007, the situation started to change and the Roma InclusionBarometer15 (2007) found that 55% used “Gypsy” to talk about their ethnic back-ground. The “activist” term “Roma” is used more frequently by the Roma and non-Roma, without any connotation but considered a euphemism, in areas where pro-jects aimed at Roma had been conducted by NGOs as well as where people haveaccess to mass media. According to context and the person speaking, therefore, bothterms can change their meaning (positive or negative).

How Roma conceive their identityThe Barometer on Ethnic Relations16 (2002) (see Table no. 2), revealed how Romaconceive their ethnic identity compared to two other samples of ethnic Romaniansand ethnic Hungarians from Romania. For Roma, the feeling of being Roma(Gypsy), the Romani language and parentage are the most important elements,which are almost identical to those mentioned by the Hungarians (the main ethnicminority, politically active in Romania). But for Roma the scores were very close forthese three elements, which were followed closely by other three elements, consid-ered not so important by Romanians and Hungarians: Roma customs, using theRomani language in the family and the feeling of belonging to Romani culture. Thedifference from Hungarians and their way of defining their ethnic identity lies in the


religious heterogeneity which characterize Roma, compared with the perceived reli-gious homogeneity reported by the Hungarians.

TABLE NO. 2

The data came from Barometer on Ethnic Relations (2002).

Five years later, in Roma Inclusion Barometer17 (2007), the ethnic criteria declaredremain the same (language, way of being, dress) but non-Roma interviewees alsomention the “skin color”, “physiognomy, the way they look”, “behavior, customs,personality type”, physical and behavioral traits which have their origin in thestereotypical image that the majority has of Roma.

State of the art: Different aspects concerning Roma in Romania

- Roma in public discourseThe phrase “the problems of Romanian Roma” is quite frequently used in the pub-lic discourse, even at the governmental level: in the city halls, to designate certain

“In your opinion, what are the

three most important things for

someone to be considered

Romanian?”

to have been born in Romania

his/her mother tongue should be

Romanian

to be a citizen of Romania

to feel Romanian

to be baptized in a Romanian

church



someone to be considered

Hungarian?”


Hungarian

to feel Hungarian

his/her parents to be Hungarians

to be baptized in a Hungarian

church

to speak Hungarian in the family

to feel the Hungarian culture

his/her own



someone to be considered Roma

(Gypsy)?”

to feel Roma (Gypsy)


Romani

his/her parents to be Roma

(Gypsy)

to respect the Romani (Gypsy)

customs

to speak Romani in the family

to feel the Romani culture

his/her own


officials (“Councilor for Roma problems”); the name of the program “ImprovingSituation of Roma”; the renaming of the “Department for Roma Problems” as the“National Agency for Roma”, etc. As O. Voicu (Roma Inclusion Barometer, 2007)points out, the phrase does not have negative connotations, but reflects the status ofRoma as a marginalized ethnic minority and that there is a project to address theproblem.

- State of mindAs the Roma Inclusion Barometer (2007) shows, Roma are not optimistic about thefuture. They are “dissatisfied and pessimistic about their own life” (O. Voicu, RomaInclusion Barometer, 2007: 17): 87% are dissatisfied with the way they live (com-pared with 63% for Romanians); 42% state that life is getting worse (only 15% forRomanians); only 26% have hope for improvement (32% for Romanians). O. Voicu(Roma Inclusion Barometer, 2007: 21) found that Roma’s opinions regarding thefuture are similar to those of the poorest Romanian citizens.

- Trust in state institutionsSeveral studies confirmed a characteristic of Romanian society: a lack of trust inpublic institutions. Among Roma, mistrust is higher for most of the institutionsand organizations mentioned in the survey (O. Voicu, Roma Inclusion Barometer,2007: 22). Like Romanians, Roma trust the Church, the army and the mass media,but with scores lower than those for the Romanian sample (see Table no. 3). Thesecond group of institutions trusted by Roma are the European Union, theMunicipal Government, the President and the Police, but as in the previous casewith lower scores than those for Romanians. Their confidence is lower in the veryinstitutions they are in direct contact and which can help them to solve their prob-lems: Municipal Government, Police and NGOs are considered not very trustwor-thy compared with the answers given by the Romanian sample. Very few Romaeven know of the existence of the National Agency for Roma (NAR) and theNational Council for Combating Discrimination (NCCD), two major state insti-tutions meant to protect and guarantee their support and protection. Only 10% ofthe respondents knew of the National Agency for Roma and 15% of NationalCouncil for Combating Discrimination (O. Voicu, Roma Inclusion Barometer,2007: 24-25).


TABLE NO. 3: LEVEL OF TRUST IN DIFFERENT INSTITUTIONS

Sample National Roma

little + very little much + very much little + very little much + very much

European Union 47 44 50 39

President 53 43 59 36

Government 73 23 71 24

Parliament 75 20 73 22

Justice 64 31 67 28

Army 39 57 50 44

Police 53 44 62 34

Town Hall 47 50 59 38

Political parties 77 17 75 16

Banks 53 39 63 24

Media (television, radio, press) 42 53 49 43

Non-governmental organisations 55 27 59 20

Church 18 78 28 68

Differences to 100% are NA/NR. Source: Roma Inclusion Barometer – Open Society Foundation, December 2006

- Political lifeRoma have many political parties: in 2001, 13 Roma political parties were identi-fied by the Ethnocultural Diversity Resource Center and by Mede EuropeanConsultancy18 project. But all of them “have awareness problems even among theirown public” (O. Voicu, Roma Inclusion Barometer 2007: 27) Even the Roma Party,the oldest and best known Roma party is chosen only by 29% of Roma, their votesusually going to other non-Roma political parties. Other Roma political parties(Roma Civil Alliance, the Alliance for Roma Unity and Roma Christian Centre) areless known by their intended base.

- Material situationThe precarious material conditions of Roma are very much present in the massmedia, discussed by different social actors from the public space. Most Roma - 60%- are living in rural areas (compared with 46% of Romanians), at the outskirts oftowns and villages where the roads are in bad shape and where public transportationis lacking. As a result they have less access to all kinds of services (shops, schools,kindergartens, etc.). Roma dwellings are built of poor materials, are overcrowded


(the number of persons per room is twice that of other ethnic groups) and an over-whelming percentage of Roma have no access to basic utilities (sewage, gas, water,power supply) and no durable goods (color TV, telephone, refrigerator, etc.). All ofthese are signs of persistent poverty in a population with little or no constant incomesource (V. Grigoras Roma Inclusion Barometer, 2007).

- IncomesIn a poor country, incomes are a source of discontent. 90% of Roma (comparedwith 71% of Romanians) consider their incomes insufficient, even for “daily needs”;73% are less than subsistence level (30% for Romanians). Social welfare is an impor-tant income for Roma: 38% state that someone in his/her family is receiving it.Almost half of the Roma respondents declared that they had no income source theprevious month and one tenth of the households received no income, which meansindebtedness is widespread (O. Voicu, Roma Inclusion Barometer 2007: 21).

- Formal exclusionThe Roma Inclusion Barometer 2007, as mentioned by C. Rughinis (RomaInclusion Barometer, 2007: 44), found that around 3% of Roma never registered inthe National Persons’ Register, and as a result have never had birth certificates, sothey do not legally exist for the Romanian state. The same percentage has never hadan identity card. These data indicate formal exclusion, including a lack of civil sta-tus, identity or dwelling documents.

- Level of educationAccording to Roma Inclusion Barometer 2007 data, 23% of Roma have neverattended school (2% for Romanian sample), 27% finished primary school (11% forRomanian sample), 33% had at least eight years instruction (24% for Romaniansample), and 95% never finished secondary school (60% for Romanian sample).28% of children between 7-14 have never attended school, 50% have gone only toprimary school, and only 1% are attending post-secondary school or university leveleducation. As C. Rughinis (Roma Inclusion Barometer 2007: 66-68) noted, there isan association between lack of formal education, poverty and living in a big city.10% of the Roma with no school do not have a birth certificate and many do nothave an identity card, compared with 3% of those who finish school and are in the


same situation regarding the official documents. Half of those who do not have abirth certificate/identity card are not registered with any family physician, so theydo not get medical assistance, except in case of emergency. Poor education andpoverty go hand in hand, in the case of Roma, with a low level of human and socialcapital for this ethnic group.

- Spatial/residential segregationC. Rughinis (Roma Inclusion Barometer 2007: 49-51) applies two subjective indi-cators of Roma residential segregation. According to these indicators, the researcherfound that Roma are living mostly in aggregated spaces at the outskirts of villagesand towns, but also in the centre of big cities where there are abandoned buildings.

- Early marriage and number of childrenRoma finish their formal education early and also start a family early. 51% of theRoma women have conceived their first child before the age of 18 (16% forRomanian sample), very similar to their parents’ model marked by an early maturi-ty (compared to prevailing contemporary patterns). As C. Rughinis (2007: 69)points out from the research, Roma people, regardless of their educational level,“think that the maturity age should be younger”. The marriage age is differentamong Roma and non-Roma: two-thirds of non-Roma people between (19-29) areunmarried, while only one third of the Roma young people are single. Because theystart their family earlier in life “Roma women are more likely to be found in the cat-egory of mothers having four, five, six and more children” (C. Rughinis, RomaInclusion Barometer 2007: 71).

- DiscriminationApart from violence, discrimination is another problem that Roma have to confrontin everyday life. According to the research “Intolerance, discrimination and author-itarianism in the public opinion” (Institutul pentru Politici Publice, 2003), Romaare the group with the highest rejection rate: 44% of the respondents don’t wantthem in the city they are living in, 36% consider that Roma should be forced to liveoutside society and 48.5% claim that the state should take measures in order to stopthe increase of the number of Roma people. M. Voicu (Roma Inclusion Barometer2007: 57) points out that the intolerance level of the majority population towards


Roma people decreased very much after 1990, as Romanians learnt tolerance andrespect for the Other. While more then 70% refused to have Roma as neighbors in1993, in 2006 (when the Roma Inclusion Barometer survey was made) that figurehad declined to 50%. Possible causes of this improvement (M. Voicu, RomaInclusion Barometer 2007: 57) could be the better economic situation, acquisitionof democratic principles of interethnic tolerance and respect, new laws, and pro-grams and projects aimed at encouraging social inclusion of Roma. Still, the level ofintolerance toward Roma is higher than that toward Germans or Hungarians; andinteraction between the majority and Roma is accepted by Romanians only in pub-lic spaces. While the level of prejudice toward Roma has decreased over time, thisethnic group still feels discrimination in day to day life, in interactions with publicinstitutions, and considers that ethnic background is important for success.

- StereotypesThe Barometer on Ethnic Relations (2002) provides data on the perceptions ofRoma by Romanians and Hungarians from Romania. In the survey, all three sam-ples (Romanians, Hungarians and Roma) were asked to choose from a series of fea-tures those which define the other two ethnic groups. Roma showed that they havea positive image about Romanians (decent, hard-working, hospitable, intelligentand honest) and Hungarians (hard-working, decent, civilized, egoistic, hospitable,intelligent, vain) and about themselves, in spite of the hardships, discriminationsand violence they were subject to. Romanians perceive Roma as thieves, dirty andlazy, backwards, united, divided and superficial. In the case of Hungarians the pic-ture does not change so much: Roma are perceived as thieves, dirty and lazy, back-wards and superficial, superstitious, divided and united.

TABLE NO. 4 FEATURES THAT BEST DESCRIBE THE ROMA IN ROMANIA

Romanians about Roma Hungarians about Roma

thieves, dirty and lazy thieves, dirty and lazy

backwards, united backwards and superficial

divided and superficial superstitious, divided and united

The data comes from BER 2002.


TABLE NO. 5 FEATURES THAT BEST DESCRIBE THE ROMANIANS/HUNGARIANS/ROMA

Roma about Romanians Roma about Hungarians Roma about themselves

Decent Hard-working hospitable

Hard-working, hospitable Decent, egoistic, civilized Decent, Hard-working, united

Intelligent, honest hospitable, intelligent, vain honest, divided

The data comes from Barometer on Ethnic Relations 2002.

Today in Romania, Roma communities are taking important steps to be and becomerespected as an ethnic minority in the modern sense of the term, as members ofRomanian society and not as a tolerated group. But integration is close to assimilation,the loss of ethnic and cultural identity. Many of the Roma non-governmental organi-zations are beginning to promote Romani culture and language as much as programsintended to improve the social and economica conditions of Roma in Romania.

Bibliography1998 Census. www.edrc.ro2002 Census. www.edrc.roBarometer on Ethnic Relations 2002. www.edrc.roAnastasoaie V., Tarnovschi D. (ed.) (2001). “Disseminating experiences of Romaprojects, 1990-2000”. (Cluj: Ethnocultural Diversity Resource Centre).www.edrc.roEuropean Roma Rights Center (ERRC) (1998). “Roma Rights: Summer 1998”.(Budapest: ERRC).Grigoras Vlad (2007). “Dwelling conditions and financial problems of the Romapopulation” (31-43). “Roma Inclusion Barometer”. (Bucharest: Open SocietyFoundation) Helsinki Watch (1991). “Destroying Ethnic Identity: The Persecution of Gypsies inRomania”. (New York: Human Rights Watch).Institutul pentru Politici Publice (2003). “Intolerance, discrimination and authori-tarism in the public opinion”. (Bucharest: Institutul pentru Politici Publice).Kenrick, Donald (1998), “How Many Roads?” in “Index on Censorship - Gypsies:Life on the Edge”. (Index on Censorship, 4/1998).Pons, Emmanuelle (1999). “Tiganii din România – o minoritate în tranzitie”.(Bucharest: Compania).


Roma Inclusion Barometer (RIB, 2007). (Bucharest: Open Society Foundation)www.osf.roRughinis Cosima (2007). “Formal exclusion of Roma origin citizens” in “RomaInclusion Barometer” (44-48). (Bucharest: Open Society Foundation) Rughinis Cosima (2007). “Residential segregation” (49-55) in “Roma InclusionBarometer. Roma Inclusion Barometer”. (Bucharest: Open Society Foundation) Voicu Malina (2007). “Tolerance and perceived discrimination” (56-65) in “RomaInclusion Barometer”. (Bucharest: Open Society Foundation) Voicu Ovidiu (2007). “State of mind, institutions, political options of the Roma inRomania” (17-30) in “Roma Inclusion Barometer”. (Bucharest: Open SocietyFoundation) World Bank website, www.web.worldbank.orgZamfir, Elena and Zamfir, Catalin (coordinators) (1993). “The Roma Population:Socio-economic situation and coordinates of a support program”. (Bucharest:Universitatea Bucuresti).

1 2002 Census. Ethno-demographic Structure of Romania. www.edrc.ro

2 Ibid. 1

3 The Roma were completely freed from serfdom in the two Romanian principalities (Moldova and Walachia) only

in 1864.

4 The land reform from 1864 aimed at liberating peasants from the last corvées, freeing their movements and redis-

tributing some land. The others had property redistribution as a main objective.

5 Law no. 68 from 1992 stipulates that organizations belonging to national minorities can participate in elections

and can have a representative in the House of Representatives.



8 Barometer on Ethnic Relations, a program of EDRC (a Romanian Ngo, www.edrc.ro) is a sociological survey

regarding ethnic identities and intercultural relations in Romania. The survey is representative for Romanian pop-

ulation. In 2002 the survey was focused mainly on Hungarians and Roma, having representative samples for

Romanian, Hungarian and Roma ethnic groups. www.edrc.ro

9 Barometer on Ethnic Relations 2002. www.edrc.ro

10 2002 Census. www.edrc.ro

11 Barometer on Ethnic Relations 2002. www.edrc.ro

12 Zamfir and Zamfir (1993: 57) made a classification of types of Roma ethnic identity:

a) Roma who show all traditional ethnic characteristics and who self-identified as Roma under any circumstances

(officially – administrative and informal);


b) Roma who show all traditional ethnic characteristics, who are also identified as Roma by others who see their

lifestyle, but who do not self-identify as Roma in official-administrative circumstances;

c) “modernized” Roma who change their lifestyle, acquiring modern behavior, and who don’t show any visible marks

of their traditional lifestyle, but who self-identify as Roma in both circumstances (ethnic militants, businessmen);

d) “modernized” Roma who tend not to identify as Roma anymore or to do it only from time to time, and whom

the others can or cannot identify as Roma;

e) “former Roma” who have integrated into the majority population and don’t have any traditional features left, and

who have quit self–identifying as Roma even to themselves.

13 “Nomads and Parliamentarians. The influence of mobility and religious affiliation on identity building and on

the development of integration social policies” was financed by the Swiss National Fund. It is a project between

Fribourg University, Switzerland, “Babes-Bolyai” University, Cluj, Romania, “Al. I. Cuza”, Iasi, Romania and “Ion

Creanga” State Pedagogical University at Chisinau, Republic of Moldova.

14 Ibid. 10

15 Roma Inclusion Barometer (RIB, 2007) is a social research program organized by the Soros Foundation meant

to measure the perception of the population towards Roma and understand and measure the main problems of the

Roma communities in Romania. It is a quantitative sociological survey using two samples: a nationally representa-

tive one, and another which is representative for the Roma population in Romania. www.osf.ro

16 Ibid. 11

17 Roma Inclusion Barometer (RIB, 2007). www.osf.ro

18 Anastasoaie V., Tarnovschi D. (ed.) (2001). “Disseminating experiences of Roma projects, 1990-2000”.

Ethnocultural Diversity Resource Center and of Mede European Consultancy. Disseminating experiences of Roma

projects, 1990-2000. www.edrc.ro

Psychosocial perspectives on Roma communities in Northeast Romania1

Adrian Neculau, Mihai Curelaru, Daniela ZahariaUniversity „Al.I. Cuza”, Iasi, Romania

ABSTRACT: The current study explores the psychosocial features of Roma communities in Northeast

Romania. Using the method of semi-directive interview, we investigated the following aspects: acknowledg-

ment of national, ethnic, and religious identity; the Roma relation with the majority population and their

mutual perceptions (stereotypes, prejudices, discrimination, segregation, etc); social and geographic mobili-

ty; religion; participation in socio-political life; knowledge of minority rights legislation. The paper analyzes

the reluctance of Roma subjects to openly acknowledge their ethnicity and the connection between strategies

of identity management and the social context within which they are used. The study also discusses the

impact of social, political and economic transformations in Romania on Roma communities as well as the

evolution of the majority population’s attitude toward the Roma during the same period.

1. IntroductionThis study is part of a more complex research regarding the ethnic and religious iden-tity of the Roma population in two Romanian provinces (Moldova and Transylvania)and in the Republic of Moldova. The main objective of this study is to analyze theidea of identity progress in Eastern Europe, which is socially and economically influ-enced by increased social and geographic mobility after the fall of Communism.The social context of our research of the Roma communities from this geographicarea is a particular one. The transformations that followed in the wake of the fall ofRomanian Communism impacted the Roma population on both economic andsocial levels. Freedom of speech allowed the political and social organizations of theRoma (the Roma Party, the National Agency for the Roma, various NGOs) to raisepublic awareness of the problems of this community. This in turn allowed for edu-cational programs to be set in place that enabled the social and professional integra-tion of the Roma. New economic freedoms, Romania’s integration in the Europeancommunity, and the removal of borders have led to greater mobility, vertical as wellas horizontal, within the Roma community. New business possibilities arose, bothlegal and illegal. Some Roma seem to have profited from them, based on our obser-vation of the great differences among the various strata of this community.Migration trends toward Western European countries confirm this newly acquired

PSYCHOSOCIAL PERSPECTIVES ON ROMA COMMUNITIES IN NORTHEAST ROMANIA 39

mobility. Nevertheless, these new opportunities have led to divisions within thecommunities; they corroded ethnic solidarity and created social frustrations. Thissituation has not occurred in the Roma communities of Western Europe(Deschamps, Mamontoff, Neculau, 2001).At the same time, and despite integration efforts by government authorities andRoma leaders, the ethnic image of the Roma community has worsened. Studiesshow that the negative prejudices and stereotypes of the majority population did notlessen, even though many measures were taken against discrimination and segrega-tion. Even the intellectual elite perpetrates the negative stereotypes about Roma eth-nics, which further influences the perception of this group by the majority popula-tion as well as hinders any constructive approach to solving their problems(Neculau, 1996). Meanwhile, the Roma developed deflective strategies for identitymanagement and adopted peripheral lifestyles, which usually involves accepting aninferior status, marginalization, and exclusion. (Neculau, 2002)Despite the methodological limitations of this study, we tried to observe as manyaspects as possible of the evolution of the Roma communities over the past years.We also wanted to analyze the results within both the Romanian context as well asthe narrower, regional context.

2. MethodologyThe study is based on the analysis of 15 interviews with Roma ethnic informants,which were conducted in several communities from Northeast Romania, in the dis-tricts of Iasi, Botosani, and Vaslui. We had 8 male informants and 7 female infor-mants, with an average age of 34.4 years (66 years for the oldest and 21 years for theyoungest). Seven of these came from rural areas and 8 from urban areas. With regardto religion, 10 were Orthodox Christians and 5 were Pentecostal. The interview guide contained questions that explored some of the followingaspects: national, ethnic, and religious identification (defining and adopting anidentity, etc.); relations with the majority and the mutual perception of the Romaand the majority (stereotypes, prejudices, discrimination, segregation etc.); socialand geographic mobility; religion; social and political participation; knowledge ofminority rights legislation.The informants largely cooperated with the interviewers. We only encountered a fewrejections; our strategy was to reach out to potential informants either through other


contact persons (community leaders, pastors, NGO activists, etc.), or based on rec-ommendations from persons we had already interviewed. This approach workedwell with the spoon makers, the laiesi, and with the bear handlers or ursari. In thesegroups, social hierarchy is less rigorous and families tend to be dispersed. The infor-mants are not part of a compact community. We were unable to contact personsfrom the caldarari (pot makers) community who are more faithful stewards of theRoma identity and maintain a specific social organization (with chieftain, commu-nity laws, many taboos, etc).We encountered the following difficulties with the persons we talked to: general ret-icence toward members of other ethnic groups (the interviewers were Romanian);lack of trust in the classified character of the data and the person’s anonymity wouldbe maintained, reticence toward the scientific activity of the NGOs and toward gov-ernment institutions in general; poor education, which accounts for the low intro-spective and reflective quality of some of the interviewees. Nevertheless, we believewe were able to overcome these obstacles by reaching out to contact persons who arerespected within the community; by doing everything possible to gain the intervie-wees’ trust; and, finally, by paying the informants for the interview. We took theseprecautions in order to make sure we have valid and correct data for our research.Based on the interviews, we present in our report four different aspects of the Romacondition: the self-perception of Roma ethnics; the Roma’s perception of how oth-ers relate to them; the economic situation and income of the Roma family; religiousconversions of the Roma.

3. How the Roma perceive themselves: ethnic, national, and religious self-perception Based on the interviews, we identified three main forms of self-relation that defineRoma identity. These identity management strategies are not elaborated in relationto a certain sociological variable, such as profession or religion (even though theseare also involved), but mainly in relation to positive identity valorization. We clearly see from the interviews that the informants disagree with the way theyare stereotyped by the majority population. The stereotype is loaded with negativefeatures, most of which are related to Roma criminality. This seems to be the mostfrequently mentioned feature of the Roma-Romanian relationship, which is why theinformants tried in the interviews to reject the label of “criminals” that is usually


attached to them by the Romanian majority. Of course, other stereotypes enhancedifferent negative features, but the informants do not mention these with the samefrequency or emotional intensity.One of the objectives of our research was to identify the strategies Roma use to man-age their identity when they feel overwhelmed by labels that bear negative connota-tions. The latter are elaborated by the majority population and then internalized insome degree by the subjects. Based on the expressed views of the informants, weidentified three mechanisms through which the Roma manage their identity: therejection of the Roma identity (through denial or avoidance); the substitution of thisidentity for another one (by devaluing it); and the acceptance of one’s belonging tothe Roma community.As far as the first strategy is concerned, the subjects deny their belonging to theRoma community. Here is the statement of an informant who defines his identityprimarily as a human being and a simple folk. In order to project a positive self-image, he rejects the negative features that are typically attributed to the Roma: “Iam a simple individual, I mind my own business and have no quarrel with anyone”(DMG, male, 38). Those who adopt this strategy are poorly educated, have a weakreligious and professional identification, and a lower capacity for introspection. A Roma public functionary, who deals with community problems within the IasiPrefecture2, explains the motive behind this behavior as she understands it: “TheRoma have always been seen as the less accepted ethnic community or the one with theworst features, which is even worse, and this is why many Roma deny their origins inorder to escape the label of criminals or avoid exclusion from certain groups. There havebeen centuries of slavery and, after being freed from serfdom, after 1859, the Romaniangovernment did not start programs aimed at the social and professional integration of theRoma.3 The Roma were just left out there, on their own, with no jobs, no land, no home,no protection. They had to survive in one way or another and so they had to find the bestway to succeed. Even though there were Roma NGOs in the prewar period that were setin place and run by the Roma intellectual elite, these organizations were banned at theend of the war” (M.H., female, 35). The second general way of shaping a Roma identity is in terms of a type of identitythat is affirmed more powerfully: a professional or religious identity. The informantsdo not deny their Roma origin, but believe it to be of secondary importance. Forthem, this is a way of escaping the negative stereotype, a tactic through which they


try to make themselves valuable in other ways. This mechanism is very obvious forthe converted Roma who joined the Pentecostal Church. Thus, they define them-selves first as Pentecostals and only second as being part of the Roma community.This is one way of “distancing” oneself from, while still being a part of, the Romacommunity (Cristea, Latea, Chelcea, 1996).In relation to this point, an informant (T.I., male, 28) presents his religious identi-ty as the most important. He says, “I am a Pentecostal above all.” Next in the orderof importance he lists his family and the fact that he has a job. He refuses to assumehis Roma identity. When the interviewer asks him about it more directly, he partiallyassumes this identity, while also trying to distance himself from the negative imageof the Roma community: “I am also part of the Roma community, but, you see, thereare different kinds of people, you know, and some are worse than others, I mean, they arenot all alike. Even though I am a Roma, and I am not ashamed to say it, I am also aPentecostal”. We do not see much pride in one’s religious identity among the Roma of Orthodoxfaith. We did however find an informant who emphasized his Orthodoxy and theimportance of the practices and traditions within his religion. We see here an iden-tity management strategy that sets out to improve the image of the Roma by relat-ing it to that of the majority population. Still, and in contrast to the Pentecostals,the Orthodox Roma do not prioritize faith and ethnicity: “Of course we believe inGod, we are Orthodox. The priest comes for Christmas and he goes to everybody, so healso comes to us, we are Orthodox, too, we have no other religion”. Finally, the third kind of identity management, which is characteristic of the Romawho climbed the social ladder, does not involve any kind of manipulation or iden-tity perversion. The informants state, without reservations, that they are Roma andrefuse to hide this fact. As M. H. (female, 35) says, “We always have to affirm ourethnic identity. I am a Roma and I cannot deny it. On the contrary, I feel that I have todefend my [Roma] identity”. The better educated among the Roma (students or university graduates) more read-ily assume their ethnic identity. However, they reject certain practices that themajority population disapproves of, such as the specific Roma clothing, or what themajority perceives as antisocial behavior (such as loud speech and aggressive conver-sation), etc. They wish to preserve their ethnic identity through language and tradi-tions, but they also strive to achieve social integration, substantive legal rights, and


equal status. D.E. (male, 48, Iasi) informs us: “The Roma in my family all enteredmixed marriages, and this integration process that we can see now existed many genera-tions before… I belong in a category of Roma who wanted to integrate…while preserv-ing their traditions and traditional occupations”.Integration is facilitated not only by mixed marriages, but also by access to highereducation. The university students among the informants feel more accepted by themajority than those without a degree. Professional success and working withRomanian colleagues favorably influence inter-ethnic tolerance. M.H. (female, 35)is married to a Romanian and considers herself an ethnic Roma who learned how tolive among Romanians: “I see myself as a Roma who always seeks her rightful place; Iwork with Romanians; I did not acquire my professional skills among the Roma. I stillam one of them, of course, and I need them, but I cannot go back there anymore and Iwould never feel at home there”. Her relationships with Romanians are good, mostlybecause of her university degree and because she works at the Iasi Prefecture. On thispoint she says, “I always socialized with Romanians, I studied with them, I can say thatI managed to become a part of the majority community. I have good professional rela-tionships, but I also have very good friends who belong to the majority”. There is no consistency in following one strategy or another. As we discovered fromthe interviews, the context plays an important role. The Roma identity is assumedonly when it brings with it some kind of advantage, as in cases of positive discrim-ination. But, when the informants perceive that a situation is not in their advan-tage, they try to hide their ethnic identity. This attitude is more frequently encoun-tered if the Roma are physically indistinguishable from the majority population.One’s identity therefore depends on the social context within which the individualfinds himself. The leaders of the Roma communities, who often have to mediate between theirpopulation and the Romanian majority, frequently adopt such “diplomatic” strate-gies. V.B. (male, 42) says that, whenever he interacts with people from his religiousgroup, he introduces himself as a Pentecostal; in other words, he activates the reli-gious component of his identity. When he interacts with people from his ethnicgroup or with the authorities, he introduces himself as community leader. Whenasked how he defines himself when he is by himself, he says he assumes his Romaidentity and that he wishes to change something in the mentality of his own com-munity, so that it may be perceived in a more positive way. We witness in this


instance the effort of building a positive self-identity and the attempt to distanceoneself from anything that is bad within the community, or what the majority callsthe “Gypsy way”, that is, living like the Gypsies, or doing what Gypsies do: “Ofcourse I care about my image. I am a Roma, I always introduce myself as a Roma, andI like the Roma very much. But I do not like the “Gypsy way.” And if I don’t, you mustnot despise me. I am the equal of any other person”.As a general rule, the Roma do not openly declare their ethnic identity, whichexplains the low percentage of Roma ethnics in the national census (Merfea, 1991;Zamfir and Zamfir, 1993).

4. How others perceive the Roma. Stereotypes, prejudices, discrimination, and ethnic segregation.As far as discrimination is concerned, our informants stated that they encounteredmany discriminating situations. The most frequently mentioned cases involvedRoma children being taunted by other children at school. The informants also men-tioned being discriminated against when applying for jobs, or when dealing with theauthorities (usually city hall clerks or police officers). They felt mistreated by salespeople or when using public transportation. A.D. (female, 28) mentions beingexposed to negative attitudes when using public transportations, but she attributesthese to the lack of education: “Yes, they do try to step away [in the bus], but what canwe do? But they are not all like that, these are only a few and generally they are not edu-cated people, because someone with education cannot behave like that”.M.H. (female, 35) believes that sometimes Romanians discriminate against Roma inpublic places such as department stores or restaurants: “…I have in mind certainrestaurants, certain public places where Roma have no access”. But these situationsoccur mostly when Roma ethnics apply for jobs in institutions or companies:“Studies revealed that discrimination and the racial problem is mostly institutional. Thefact that a person has a Roma neighbor is not a problem; but it does become a problemwhen the Roma want to work in a State institution, when they want to have an educa-tion. […] This is very well hidden. When it comes to job meetings in institutions, theRom is not invited; or he gets a less pleasant office, etc.” (MH fem 35 years)One of the female informants stated that discrimination also occurs in schools; butshe got used to it. Referring to her school-aged son: “There are problems, they callhim Gypsy, they don’t want to play with him. But we encourage and help him, we tell


him not to mind them calling him names and everything” (A.D., female, 28).Discrimination is enhanced by the fact that there are schools with special classes forRoma children, where they do not get the same conditions for a proper education.One of the persons we interviewed said: “At school, their classroom was the worst, itwasn’t even painted, and the chairs were not good, either” (M.H, fem., 35).Job discrimination was revealed to us by one of the interviewees; he believes that thispractice is determined by the mentality of the Romanians, which is anti-Roma:“There is no longer explicit discrimination, but if a manager has to choose between aRomanian and a Roma, of course he prefers the Romanian. I hope this will change intime”. (D.E., male, 48).As well, another informant told us that she thought the authorities discriminateagainst Roma when they mediate conflicts between Romanians and Roma, or whenthey distribute social allowances. She nevertheless admitted that it is not necessarilythe ethnic criterion which causes discrimination; instead, she blames the authorities’own financial interests, which makes them favor the people they know. This womansaid there were small chances that the Roma would win in a conflict with the major-ity, especially when the local authorities are involved: “There have been many con-flicts, but we slowly managed to overcome them. Many people discriminate against us,but we have to let it go; we cannot fight the powerful. We are lowly and they are highabove us” (A.D., fem., 28).The content analysis of the interviews reveals certain trends. First, discriminationoccurs more frequently and has a greater impact at an early age. Romanian children,not their teachers, discriminate against Roma children. The cases mentioned by theinformants refer to their children’s experience or even their own past experiences.Advanced education gradually reduces discrimination. For example, a student infor-mant (C.A., male, 22) said that he never tried to hide his identity in university andnever faced discrimination from either professors or colleagues. In general, adult dis-crimination has a weaker affective impact; it is less frequent, easier to manage, andallows one to react to it and defend oneself against it. Discrimination is also related to geography, it decreases when moving from rural tourban areas, or from Romania to Western Europe. An informant who workedabroad for several years said the following: “A Roma has better chances of integrationin a society that is more civilized, more intellectual”. The same person also believes thatthe rural areas of Romania do not facilitate Roma integration: “There are also intel-


lectual and civilized people in Romania, but not in the countryside” (A.D., male, 36). The passing of time also has a positive impact on discrimination. Thus, under theinfluence of Western European values, of the changes that were generated by the fallof Communism and Romania’s membership in the EU, the attitudes of both author-ities and the majority population have changed. An informant recounted life before1989: the police used to unlawfully break into the houses of the Roma and punishedeverybody for the crime of one. However, things improved somewhat in the last tenyears. The authorities show more respect for the rights of the Roma: “Before the [anti-Communist] Revolution, the police always used to break into our houses, with or withoutreason. We were sitting at the table with mom and they would surround the house and thenjust barge in. They were looking for criminals, and so they looked in every house. Thingsare different now, they have more respect for our freedom, for the law” (C.I. fem. 29).The fourth trend refers to visual and/or auditory features that reveal one’s ethnicbelonging. Discrimination is related to skin color, different kinds of clothing, or par-ticular accents. T.C. (fem., 48) states that it sometimes happened that her little girlwas discriminated against because of her darker complexion. However, “they onlyrarely call her Gypsy”. The same applies to her husband: “He also had problems... Thishappened mostly in jail, where he was held for several years”. Other intervieweesinformed us that most discriminatory acts occur in department stores because it isin such contexts that the Roma interact with the Romanian majority. M.H. (fem., 35) believes that the authorities’ attitudes changed soon after 1989,after the National Council against Discrimination and other NGOs that fight forthe rights of the Roma were founded. MH also says that there are government pro-jects on a national scale that were set in place to fight minority discrimination,which led to the relative improvement in the Romanians’ attitude toward Romaethnics. “After 1989, the Roma NGOs were resurrected and we can say that they have been work-ing hard to change mentalities: the majority’s attitudes, making them accept a differentperson, and accept that they have a different tradition and culture; it is important toeliminate Roma stereotypes. On the other hand, they are also working to change theminority’s attitudes, to help them overcome their reservations in relation to the majoritypopulation”. (M.H., fem., 35). Even though discrimination has decreased over time, the Roma are still facing neg-ative attitudes toward them that are based on stereotypes and prejudices. M.E. (fem.,


22) believes that the Roma feel excluded by the majority: “When people hear you areGypsy or Roma, the social distance grows and you can see specific behavioral reactions.Romanians want to keep their distance from the Gypsies. They become apprehensive, theystart checking their pockets, or end the conversation abruptly.” The negative stereotypes and prejudices that were mentioned most frequently dur-ing the interviews refer to two main elements: Gypsies are thieves and they are vio-lent people. An informant in the rural area recounted: “We had conflicts in the past,as I am Roma. And people know that Gypsies steal. But do they have any proof for this?Did they catch me in the act? If they did not, why do they still believe I am a thief?Should they blame me for everything bad that happens just because I am Roma? Manytimes, Romanians steal and the Gypsies have to pay for it” (A. D. fem., 28).As mentioned above, the Roma usually rejects these negative features. There arehowever subjects who internalize the negative stereotypes while trying to minimizetheir intensity in order to protect their positive self-identity. In our research, weidentified several such strategies. The first strategy is to concede the criminal natureof certain Roma actions but relegate these to the past. The second strategy is to showthat the majority population is equally responsible for these. A woman we inter-viewed summarizes both strategies in a single sentence: “Before, in Slobozia (hernative town), things were really bad, there were many violent, aggressive people, but now,thank God, it is different. As far as stealing is concerned, well…, Romanians do that,too, every once in a while” (B. E. fem., 66).As far as segregation is concerned, some progress was made, but the situationremains unchanged, especially when Roma property is located within Romanian vil-lages. For example, in Slobozia (Iasi), which boasts a large Roma community, thereis ethnic and religious segregation. Thus, the Romanian Catholics, the RomanianOrthodox, and the Pentecostal Roma live in separate areas. One of the persons inter-viewed admitted that there are only few cases of integration within and under-standing with the majority population: “For example, I went to visit some famousRoma musicians in Cozmesti (another community with Roma population)… I askedsome Romanians were I could find them and the Romanians said: in the Gypsy part ofthe village. So they live separately there, too” (D.E., male, 48).Segregation is also present in schools. M.E. (fem., 22) believes there is segregation inpublic institutions: “The Roma children sit in the last row of desks because of the stereotypethat they cannot learn, that they are not interested in school, that they are not clean enough.


This creates a kind of feeling of inferiority…that you will never be more than that…you arenot motivated to overcome your condition. Teachers don’t spend the same amount of timewith the Roma children, and they don’t believe that these children deserve more”.

5. Geographic mobility, income, and the underground economyA set of questions in the interviews addressed the economic problems of the Romacommunity, how they manage to support their families. We must say that we didnot have among our informants people employed in traditional Roma occupations,such as blacksmiths or pot makers. For this reason we only refer to this type of activ-ity in passing.The interview analysis shows a close connection between income and geographicmobility, both within and without the country. Of the three kinds of income gen-eration within households, two (number two and three below) are related to geo-graphic mobility. First, some Roma are employed in traditional jobs. There are those who work withmetals or wood (blacksmiths, silver workers, spoon makers, etc), but also masons,stove makers, and musicians. They tend to work in and around their village. Theyoccasionally venture outside it, but this is not a common practice. Recently, howev-er, geographic mobility is on the increase due to improved access to public trans-portation and superior information circulation (mobile telephony). One should add that these Roma enjoy a certain local reputation, which is essentialto finding customers. This is especially true for musicians. The musicians are muchrespected, at least locally, and they are generally not engaged in any local conflicts orbrawls, as their fame is mostly associated to their talent and occupation. In most ofthe cases, this is a family tradition based on skills and “trade secrets” that are trans-mitted from one generation to another. In our study, we had two informants who were musicians, one of whom is a violin-ist who graduated from the music Conservatory. D.E. (male, 48) is a professionalmusician who highly respects the family tradition: “On my father’s line, I am a sev-enth generation violin player. They were all very good and studied Romanian folklore alltheir lives (he emphasizes “Romanian”), they sang at many Romanian weddings. Thishas been the main occupation in the family. I can say that we reached a certain profes-sional excellence”. D.E. knows several communities of Roma musicians. He talkedabout the tradition that existed in his family and how it was passed down to him:


“My father’s native village is called Zmeu, Lungani (in the district of Iasi). It is regard-ed as the “Conservatory of Gypsy musicians”. They had this profession for generations.They each play a different instrument, not necessarily the violin. By playing the violin, Iwanted to keep alive my father’s tradition”. There are differences according to local tra-ditions in the choice of playing instruments: “The people from Cozmesti were verygood with blowing instruments, they had a great tradition in this”.There have also been changes. These groups of musicians expanded the geographicarea of their performances from neighboring villages to entire districts or evenregions. Some of the wedding orchestras became internationally famous. As D.E.recounts, “In the fifties, the orchestra in the village of Zmeu was awarded the gold medalat a national competition. Oh, yes, at the time it was considered the best band inRomania. In the same year, the Cozmesti orchestra also received a gold medal. After thesetwo successes, the two bands joined forces and together created the famous “DoinaMoldovei” orchestra. [T]hey had no musical training, but, as their musicianship reacheda certain level, they realized they had to play in a different way, so they became an orga-nized orchestra, they started playing in a uniform way, winning even more awardsbecause they were united in a single team…there was a certain discipline, a certain styleto this orchestra”. As we see from this quotation, a social shift has occurred towardprofessional music and musical education. The second type of employment entails mobility within the country borders. ManyRoma practice some kind of unauthorized commodity exchange, which consists inbuying cheap and selling at a small profit. One person has a car and the business ini-tiative to go with it. With help from two or three acquaintances, they buy wholesalefrom remote locations at great distances (400 km. or so), usually cheap householdobjects such as curtains, kitchen items, electronic devices, carpets, bed linen, etc,which they sell in villages as they make their way back home. This type of illegaltrade is gradually disappearing because of increased police control. To compensatefor this, the traders now go abroad. One informant tells us, “There was much busi-ness like this in the past, we would buy and sell things, but this isn’t working anymore.Now we have small registered businesses. We import cars and sell them locally. Most ofthe people around here made their fortune by importing jeans […]. Nowadays, severalfamily members go abroad and send money home” (M.R.I., fem., 21).The Roma know this trade is against the law, and so opinions about it vary. Onefemale informant has a low opinion of the “business people” in her village. Her fam-


ily managed to survive on whatever they produced in the household: “My family andI, we never sold stuff at a profit. We never did that. We ate what we produced” (B.E.,fem., 66). But others justify this petty trade by pointing out to the lack of jobs thatare available for the Roma. The third kind of mobility involves Roma who travel abroad. Some of them con-tinue to practice the same kind of illegal trade, now under the cover of legally regis-tered businesses. But most of them follow the example of the Romanians and goabroad in search of work for determined periods of time, usually between 3 and 12months. Their favorite destinations are the Czech Republic, Spain, and Italy. Theyusually work on construction sites in Central European countries or on farms inSpain. The jobs pay poorly and they rarely send money home. They often overstaytheir work visas, which brings them to the attention of the police authorities fromthe host countries. This life of hardship and the constant stress caused by the lack oflegal status create tensions that often degenerate into violent conflicts. In manycases, the hardship starts even before they leave for work. Some find it hard to gath-er the money needed for the trip. They cannot trust the middlemen who carry themto their destination and they have no relatives who could offer them shelter abroad. The Roma who cannot afford to leave for work are among the poorest. A.D. (male,44) says: “There are some from our community, those who can work, who have goneabroad, but those left at home are very poor. They are all poor. Before going abroad, theylived on social allowances and some petty trade, but it was hard. Those who stayed athome are happy for the ones who managed to leave and can send them some money. Butin some cases those left behind are helpless, they live in hardship, they suffer, and we suf-fer with them”. The dark, criminal side of Roma life in Western Europe is rarely mentioned. This maybe explained by the activation of “defense-mechanisms” aimed at protecting one’s eth-nic identity or by lack of trust in the interviewers. Nevertheless, S.C. (fem, 21) com-ments: “The sources of income for the rich are inheritances. However, they also go abroadand steal, and then they send money back home. They also traffic in human beings. Theyrecruit naïve girls from the countryside. The rich gained respect by using force”.

6. Religious conversionsIn one of the villages in which we carried out interviews, we met Roma converts toPentecostalism. In Slobozia (Iasi) we identified a community of converted Roma of


roughly 250 people, which represents almost half of its population. Our questionssought to uncover the reasons for conversion, the economic and social changes afterconversion, social relationships within the community, and inter-confessional per-ceptions.When asked to define their identity, the converted Roma generally ranked their reli-gious identity first and the ethnic identity second. We also noticed that the discus-sion generally focused on the event of conversion itself, whether in relation to one-self or to the life of the community. Two main explanations were given for the reasons for conversion. The first was the-ological, the call of God and His love for the downtrodden. On the other hand, con-version came as a solution to the severe problems of the Roma community: alco-holism, violence, and criminality. As a result of these personal and community prob-lems, changes in one’s lifestyle and values were needed, which only the church couldprovide.Conversion, the Roma argued, improved their personal life: lower levels of illiteracy, adecrease in alcohol consumption, less domestic violence, finding honest work, etc.One of the converted Roma gave us a comparative presentation of his new life: “Myneighbors see me now and say: ‘Look at you, now, Catalin! Before, you were a real bastard.And now we cannot believe that you changed so much.’ Before, I could not refrain fromdoing certain things and could not stick to any resolution I would make” (DMG, male,38). Reflecting on his life before conversion: “I worked hard chopping wood and spentall the money on booze. I could not manage my money properly and always had to ask myfather for more. There were always conflicts in the family because of this. Sometimes, whenI was out of money, I would pick up cigarette butts and smoke them. Then my sister con-verted and I saw how much her life had improved. I decided I wanted that, too. Then mywife saw the changes in my life and she also converted. Then my parents.” (DMG, male,38) Talking about other converted Roma, he said: “Their lives changed for the better.Before they would drink, smoke, and fight. Now it happens very rarely.” We also perceived a reduction in inter-confessional conflicts as well as improvementsin community relations. As the number of converts grew, Roma leaders focused onimproving the social life of their community: they tried to raise the educational levelin the village by building a school for Roma children, they initiated new socio-eco-nomic projects such as a small textile factory, and they began collaborating with var-ious NGOs.


The illiterate Roma, even the oldest ones, learned how to read, starting with theBible, as each family owns a Bible now. They learned how to cherish sedentarylifestyle and started to look after their property; they built houses, fences, and start-ed raising animals. They changed their attitudes towards hygiene and health, andstarted to care about their children’s education. The Neo-Protestant Roma is instantly recognized. These Roma have their specificlanguage, the women are required to wear headscarves, and they no longer wear anykind of jewelry (earrings, chains, rings, etc.). This causes no problems for the major-ity population. When it comes to their own people, the informants said they werefaced with various attitudes: some regarded their conversion as a good thing, whileothers (especially those who belong to the Orthodox Church and therefore are moreintegrated in the majority population) condemned this transformation. The inter-views reveal that in business and interpersonal relationships the Neo-Protestant Romaare regarded as more trustworthy by both their own and the majority population.We also explored the issue of the relationship between minority and majority with-in the Neo-Protestant Church. The converted informants still notice an ethnic dis-tinction. Romanians keep their distance but make efforts to close the ethnic gap inorder to fulfill the Biblical command of loving one’s fellow. The leaders of the con-verted Roma explain this through reference to general negative stereotypes.There are liturgical differences between the two ethnic groups. During prayer, Romaworshipers are more vocal, which brings them closer to the charismatic movement.Their musical sensibility is also different; their chants are warmer and more exuber-ant. However, the people we interviewed believe that beyond these irrelevant differ-ences, there is a religious proximity, a form of Christian solidarity that trumps eth-nicity. The phenomenon of New-Protestant conversion is not unique to Romania. Weencounter it in the majority of Western European countries with Roma populations.Experts regard it as a strong engine of social transformation (Liegeois, 2007).

7. ConclusionWe identified certain trends in our research regarding the evolution of Roma com-munities in Northeast Romania. We emphasized two aspects in our approach: theconstruction of social identity in relation to the attitudes of the majority populationand the economic condition of the Roma.


With regard to the first aspect, one notices the striving of the Roma to openlyassume their ethnic identity, which becomes increasingly visible as they gain accessto education. From the interviews, we learned that many Roma tend not to revealtheir ethnic origin, especially if they are physically indistinguishable from the major-ity population. They openly assume it only if they feel completely safe in their com-munity or if they feel unthreatened by potential prejudices (stereotypes, discrimina-tion, etc). One can say that they developed a certain versatility regarding their iden-tity. Depending on the context, they often espouse another dimension of their iden-tity – either professional, or religious – at the expense of the ethnic one. The changes in the global – social, political, and economic – context, as well as anincreased geographic mobility also determine the change of attitudes on education.Almost all the parents we interviewed wished for their children to have access toschool, which in their opinion warrants professional success and social integration.Without exception, Roma parents do not regard social integration as cultural assim-ilation, as they insist that their children study the Romani language in school andkeep their ancient traditions. At the same time, the tolerance level of the majority population has graduallyincreased after the fall of Communism. However, some of the informants believe itstill lags behind Western Europe. This growing openness is also visible in the author-ities, which are now more guarded in their actions and show more respect for minor-ity rights when trying to solve inter-ethnic conflicts. Needless to say, this attitudechange is also the result of increased EU pressure.Although important steps were taken in the fight against discrimination, segregationpractices, some of which are rooted in history, still persist. Regardless of educationor social status, Roma ethnics must often confront the stereotypes and prejudices ofthe Romanian population. The media could be decisive in changing the attitudes ofthe majority population toward the ethnic Roma (Constantin, 1996). This is noeasy task, as the Roma minority is burdened with the most unfavorable ethnic imageof all other ethnic minorities in Romania, whether Hungarian, Germans, or Jewish.(Turliuc, 1999),Second, the economic condition of the Roma communities is rather precarious. Theinformants have no regular income; they sometimes engage in economic practicesthat border the criminal; they live in underserved areas and have no prospects. Based on these, we believe that there is need for urgent social intervention through


programs, whether national or European, that should operate at the level of inter-cultural education (Cozma, Cucos, Momanu, 1996) and economic development.With respect to the latter, local production capacities using local labor could bedeveloped that would provide minimal living conditions and incomes for the Romafamilies.

ReferencesConstantin, T. (1996). Minoritatea romilor – de la investigatii constative la inter-ventie sociala. In A. Neculau si G. Ferreol, Minoritari, marginali, exclusi. Iasi:Polirom.Cozma, T., Cucos, C., Momanu, M. (1996). Educatia copiilor de tigani: reprezen-tari, ipoteze, dificultati. In A. Neculau si G. Ferreol, Minoritari, marginali, exclusi.Iasi: Polirom.Cristea, O., Latea, P., Chelcea, L. (1996). Vinituri si Tigani: Identitati stigmatizateintr-o comunitate multiculturala. In A. Neculau si G. Ferreol, Minoritari, margin-ali, exclusi. Iasi: Polirom.Deschamps, J-C., Mamontoff, A-N, Neculau, A. (2001). Evolution des valeurs tzi-ganes. Etude comparée des Tziganes roumains et des Tziganes français, Psihologiasociala, 7, 2001.Liegeois, J-P. (2007). Roms en Europe, Strasbourg: Editions du Conseil de l’Europe.Merfea, M. (1991). Tiganii. Integrarea sociala a romilor, Brasov: Ed. „Barsa”.Neculau, A. (1996). Tiganii: personalitatea modala si caracteristicile grupului. In A.Neculau si G. Ferreol, Minoritari, marginali, exclusi. Iasi: Polirom.Neculau, A. (2002). Les Tsiganes de Roumanie. Lecture psychosociologique, Psihologiasociala, 9, 2002.Turliuc, N. (1999). Atitudini etnice la studentii ieseni, Psihologia sociala, 4, 1999.Zamfir, Elena; Zamfir, C. (1993). Tiganii intre ignorare si ingrijorare, Bucuresti: Ed.Alternative.

1 Project SCOPES/ESTROM JRP, NOMAPARLIA: Nomads and Parlamentarians. The influence of mobility and

religious affiliation on integration policies and the development of identities. Roma people in Northern Romania

(Transylvania), Eastern Romania (Moldova) and the Republic of Moldova, Fonds National Suisse, 2005-2008.


2 The informant is 35 years old. She was born in a small town, about 45 km from Iasi, and now lives in this city.

She has a degree in psychology and social work from a local university and is currently pursuing an MA degree. She

is married to a Romanian citizen who is also a Romanian ethnic and with whom she has a son.

3 The first document that mentions a Roma population in Romania dates back to 1385. The Roma were serfs who

belonged to monasteries and the landed aristocracy. The leaders of the 1848 revolution in the Romanian principal-

ities started a movement that led to the abolition of serfdom in 1859.

Aspects of Religious Conversion among Rromain post-socialist Romania

Sorin GogBabes-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania

1. IntroductionAfter the fall of communism, Romania experienced at a general level what somesociologists and anthropologists have called a religious revival. This issue is stronglydebatable and can be criticized from different perspectives (Gog 2006), but what iscertain is that the atheization of the Romanian society through ideological meansempowered by the Communist Party was a failure.This attempt, carried out through an elaborate program imposed on all levels ofsociety, church persecution, imprisonment of religious leaders and the marginaliza-tion of those that hung to “obsolete” religious thinking, left apparently only a lim-ited mark on the Romanian population, so that in spite of all this, social scientistsare able to speak now about Romania as one of the most religious societies in bothEastern and Western Europe. (Müller 2004; Tomka 2004; Pollack 2002, 2004)The same failure can be noticed in most of the ex-communist countries (Froese2003, 2004: 35, Bourdeaux 2000: 10) where similar intensive religiosity can befound after decades of a strong policy towards scientific atheism imposed by thecommunist leaders.After the fall of communism, an important actor on the religious market were theneo-protestant churches. They had been for quite a long time in Romania, but thestrong regulation imposed by the communist regimes and the state led persecutionof the “sectarian” activity made the neo-protestant churches not that visible on thepublic sphere. The communist authorities tolerated these religious cults, but imposed strong regula-tions regarding their activity and practiced a policy of marginalization of those belong-ing to such sects. Party memberships, good working positions, access to high educationwere things that were un-officially forbidden to the members of these religious com-munities. This led to the formation of a religious culture of resistance and martyrdom,with strong integrated communities that developed a genuine rejection of the world.

ASPECTS OF RELIGIOUS CONVERSION AMONG RROMA IN POST-SOCIALIST ROMANIA 57

After the fall of communism, the different persecuted religious movements saw inthe new era of post-socialism the chance not only to assume openly their religiousidentity but to start sharing their faith with others and preach the Gospel. Publicevangelization meetings, radio stations, newspapers, the proliferation of religious lit-erature, neo-protestant music and later on TV shows were used to achieve a moreintense presence on the public sphere. Although according to the latest NationalCensus there are only 2.5 % Pentecostal, Baptists and Adventists altogether, a lot ofpeople perceived their presence as ubiquitous.Gradually the martyrdom rhetoric and the rejection of the world were replaced by abold attempt to conquer modernity through the emerging of new elite: neo-protes-tant entrepreneurs, politicians, teachers, journalists, theologians, doctors were allfighting for the institutionalization of a neo-protestant counter-culture. To this wehave to add as well the presence of foreign missionaries that offered their help andexperience in founding new religious communities and tried to spread their religiousmessage all over the country. It is in this context that the massive conversion ofRroma to Pentecostalism, Baptism and Adventism emerged.My paper focuses on the spreading of Neo-protestant cults among one of the mostsocial marginalized ethnic minority, namely the Roma or Gypsy. I am trying to ana-lyze the way conversion to a new religion restructures their conception of self, life-style, world-view and ways of interaction (Rambo 1999; Snow 1983, 1984). Bydoing this I argue that the strong intensification of the Neo-protestant movementthat took place after the fall of communism led to the emergence of a new self-understanding of Gypsyness (Gay y Blasco 2000, 2000b). How does religious conversion changes the social and cultural identity of the Gypsy/ Rroma community and what are the features of the Neo-Protestant model ofGypsyness that emerges from such conversions? The restructuring of the identitythrough the conversion to a Neo-Protestant church (Pentecostals, Baptists, andAdventist) is always a very strong one. It operates a strong and violent separationbetween the old sinful person and the new born again person and it leads always tothe filtering of all the traditions, rituals and local way of life through the Scriptures.The resulting process is a new cultural code, a language code, a dressing code, arestructuring of the time and local space and eventually of their own identity(Slavkova 2003, 2005). They still regard themselves as Gypsy, but they attach to thisa whole new meaning.


My paper aims at analyzing the symbolic architecture of the discourse that sur-rounds the conversion and the model of Gypsyness that it institutionalizes. I try toargue that this is due to the changes brought by post-socialism that structurallyallowed a free religious market and the pluralization of religious movements. The data used in this paper is based on a research1 conducted in 2006 / 2007 thatused as a main instrument of research qualitative interviews and participatoryobservation. The advantage of such qualitative data over the narrow quantitativedata in analyzing ethnic identity and the way religious conversion re-structures thisidentity, is enormous. It allows us to see the diversity of images, arguments and nar-ratives that the converts themselves employ in constructing an own identity basedon their religious experience and the specific social and cultural meanings theyattach to this.

2. Against the economic explanation of religious conversionReligion always appealed to those that where socially marginalized and poor and, asmany anthropological and sociological studies have shown, the Rroma communityis the most poor and socially marginalized community in Romania. The unemploy-ment rate is very high among them. Only in Bucharest there is an estimation ofalmost 60 % of Rroma / Gypsy population that are unemployed. Of course some ofthem are self-employed or are working on the black market. But still, the economi-cal situation of the Gypsy / Roma community is extremely difficult. Because of the very poor condition of Rroma many have tried to explain the con-version of Rroma to Neo-protestant Churches in economic terms. The prevalentexplanation of the non-converted Rroma and of most Rroma political leaders is thatthe conversions are taking place because of the material aid that people receive fromforeign missionaries. The general perspective is that they are somehow tricked by thefood and clothes that the missionaries bring to attract many Rroma followers. Our research revealed that the common assumption among the non-convertedRroma is that you are asked to convert in exchange for different goods and materi-al aid and that the conversion leads eventually to the change of lifestyle, the laws youare living by and ultimately the social tradition that was handed down by the fore-fathers. I think that this theory fails to explain some very basic social facts regarding con-version. It is indeed true that the Neo-protestant Churches engage in social welfare


and social assistance and that the various international religious organizations werein the early 90’s involved in humanitarian relief to all Roma, regardless of their reli-gion, and that the agent through which this happened was of course the local Neo-protestant church.2

But in spite of this, it is very difficult to conclude that the act of conversion is aneconomic act: the adhesion to a new religion is not in exchange for intermittentmaterial aid. There are several reasons why we cannot stop at this economic explana-tion and have to go deeper:a) A lot of the Neo-protestant religious leaders we have interviewed declared thatthey have never received any material help from other people, foreign or local. Theyproudly say that they managed themselves to build a church (House of Prayers)through their own means and efforts. The cases of material aid delivered throughsome of the neo-protestant communities are limited mostly to the early 90’s or tothe present-day communities that struggle for their daily existence. When present,the foreign missionaries deliver material aid not only to members of the Church butto all other people in need as well.b) The involvement in delivering humanitarian aid is perceived by a great numberof the neo-protestant religious leaders as being a corrupt practice. There is an activeresentment regarding the collection of lists of names and signatures in order toreceive money or material aid, an activity in which were involved a lot of the NGOrepresentatives. Several people that where interviewed pointed out to communityleaders (most of them activating in the NGO sector) that where getting rich fromhandling such material aid. They have a very bad reputation in the Rroma commu-nity and that’s the reason why mediating material aid is sometimes perceived by theneo-protestant leaders as a questionable activity.c) The religious conversion requires a very hard price to pay: there is a strong moraland cultural code, and the requirements of a puritan life-style that one has to adopt.It does not make much sense to allow the total institution of the church to controlso strongly your life in exchange for some clothes and food that you might receive.Analyzed in strictly economic terms, the conversion leads to more costs than bene-fits. On a long term-perspective this explanation fails to account for why more andmore Rroma / Gypsy convert and re-structure their lives along the lines that we willdescribe below. d) The aspect of foreign religion that is brought inside Romania with foreign money


provides an easy explanation that non-converts can use to defend their local way oflife. There are a lot of struggles between Gypsy converts and non-converts and some-times such theories are used for apologetic reasons. I follow Clifford Geertz suggestion that in a traditional society, religion is stronglyfused with the ethos of a community because it needs to give the social values theneeded appearance of objectivity (Geertz 1973). If this is true, then forsaking yourreligion means adopting a new identity and denying your old one, and together withthis denying the entire ethos of the community that is legitimized by the former reli-gion. This restructuring of identity triggers sometimes violent consequences: a com-munity may not accept this challenge by the new religious minority and hence asymbolic violence is addressed at the converts (the separation of cemeteries is onesuch example of symbolic violence, see below).In what follows we will point out some very important ethnological data regardingthe socio and cultural implication of what religious conversion implies and the waythis leads to a restructuring of Rroma / Gypsy identity.

3. Rroma religious converts. Socio-cultural aspect of their conversion.

a) Miracles and healingsOne of the findings we came across while doing the field research, was that a lot ofinterviewed people placed the origin of their conversion in the claimed fact that theyhave witnessed a miracle, or a super-natural healing that led them to believe in thenew religious way. They say that they have seen people being cured of cancer orother life threatening diseases. This is much more often claimed by Pentecostal com-munities than by Baptist communities. Most of the people we have interviewedaffirmed they have had a strong mystical experience that opened their eyes to see thespiritual realm. Analyzing the type of rhetoric that they employ when they re-tell the mystical reli-gious experience on which their new life is based, can easily lead to see that the mir-acles and healings act as a proof that God exists, that He is present among them; allthis has an enormous apologetic weight in the discourse about which religion is “thetrue way” to Divinity and which life-style one has to adopt. This is a sample of a dis-course that can be heard in most of the Pentecostal churches: “A lot of people in ourchurch were miraculously healed. A girl in the Church was deaf and mute. After a


prophecy, she was healed and now sings in the church”. (A.S. 50 years old, wealthy busi-nessmen, converted in 2002). These types of individual and social experiences lead to a strong mystical encounterin which the complete transformation of self takes place: “Then (after the miraculoushealing of his father from cancer) I realized that God wants to talk to me and that I amchosen by God. When I prayed to God that night I felt that I was lifted up from the earthto the above. And then I said to myself: God, you really are a living God, a God that talksto us, a God that is close to us.” (A.S. 50 years old, wealthy businessmen, convertedin 2002).I leave it to professional theologians to debate whether or not they had a true spiri-tual experience or if they are just misleading themselves. It does not lay in the scopeof my anthropological analysis to debate whether there are such things as miraclesand supernatural healings. From a sociological and anthropological point of view itdoes not actually matter whether or not a supra-mundane religious experience ispossible or not (for this anthropology lacks the required analytical tools to decidewhether there is or not a sacred realm). What anthropology can do is to show thesocial and cultural implication of this belief in the spiritual realm and of the claimedmystical experience that acts as the touchstone of their religious conversion.And in the life of the converted Rroma / Gypsy, this belief has great and importantconsequences. The religious experience that they claim they have splits their life intotwo: a before and an after. Before (according to the testimonies of both converts andnon-converts, of Gypsies and non-Gypsies) they were sinful people that had nomoral standards and no God, after the conversion they changed completely. Theyrecall many such examples from their own life, how before they were cheating ontheir wives, stealing, drinking and now gave all this up in order to do what theScriptures tell them to do. There is always a strong moralization of conduct impliedby the religious conversion which is as well one of the most important criteria thatboth converts and non-converts use to distinguish between a “true” conversion and“false” conversion (see below).The mystical experience they claim they had is always employed as an apologeticalargument and proves in their opinion the truth of the new religious way they haveadopted. They always talk about this with great pleasure and point out that theOrthodox Rroma / Gypsies lack a religious understanding of life. They criticize theover-ritualized religion and the monopolization of the sacred realm by the priests:


“what type of faith do they have, if they do not believe that God is working through peo-ple?” (M.P. president of the Rroma Party, leader of a Pentecostal Church)Each believer can, in their opinion, experience the sacred and each can become apriest or a pastor without any formal training if he wishes to do this. We deal herewith a popularization of the sacred experience in which institutional hierarchies donot play an important role anymore.

b) Religious socialization and the empowerment of local religious communitiesIn most of the villages the Gypsy community is spatially segregated from theRomanian or Hungarian one. Generally, the Gypsy Quarter, as they call it, is locat-ed at the end of the village. The unspoken rule (of which all my interlocutors toldme very often about) is that the Gypsies are not allowed to buy land among themajority (Romanians or Hungarians) and build a house next to them. This social segregation is obvious as well when we look at how the cemetery space isorganized in a village. The ethnic and religious boundaries are prolonged in the after-life and they are immortalized and portrayed as strong identity borders. This gives youthe feeling that the Neo-Protestant Rroma are twice marginalized: first as Rroma andsecondly as Neo-protestants. The graveyard of a Romanian village (the same applies tothe villages where the Hungarians are the majority) is segregated according to ethniccriteria. Usually, the Gypsies are buried in their own section of the graveyard and exact-ly as they are not allowed to build a house next to the house of a Romanian but onlyat the end of the village in a special section, so the dead Gypsies are not allowed to bemixed with the dead Romanians and are buried in their own section. The Rroma Neo-Protestants are buried as well in a special segregated sector withinthe Roma section of the cemetery and are spatially segregated from the otherOrthodox Rroma. In one case, the Neo-protestant Rroma that I have interviewed,told me that in the section they received a few years ago when the first of theirbelievers died, an un-baptized child has been previously buried. Usually when thishappens is a sign that that piece of land is symbolically polluted and lies outside theblessed graveyard. Assigning such type of land to the Rroma is a social way of depict-ing religious conversion as a betrayal of the very ethos of the community. This is whythey have to be buried outside the cemetery: because they are de facto being per-ceived as outside the community. This exclusion is objectified in the after-life as well,which enforces even more the current use of such identity-stereotypes.


Another important finding we came across is that the Gypsy communities are notsocially integrated in the Orthodox religious communities. They visit the Churchonly on special occasions (Christmas or Eastern, weddings and funerals) and do nottake part in most of the religious celebrations the local church organizes. The sever-al Romanian Orthodox priests that we have interviewed confirmed that almost noneof the Gypsies visit regularly the Church. The reason for this is that they fill them-selves discriminated or treated badly by the Romanian believers. This leads to astrong lack of religious socialization on the behalf of the Rroma / Gypsy Orthodoxbelievers. (The priests that I have interviewed think that this is the reason of theirconversion to Neo-Protestant Churches ). “I don’t understand why. This is how theywere accustomed. I tried to bring them [to Church]. But they don’t like it. They say thatthe Romanians do not look nice to them.” (Father L., Romanian Orthodox Priest, 30years old, rural area)Whatever the reason of their exclusion from the religious local life is, this has a greatimpact on the access of Gypsies to religious institutions or institutionalized religion.They feel themselves excluded from the local church and claim that they are not reli-giously integrated into the wider community. (As we shall see this is the case some-times among the Romanian Pentecostal Churches as well.)In contrast to this social and religious exclusion the Neo-Protestant Gypsy commu-nity insists in building their House of Prayers in their own section (quarter) of theirvillage. This is a recurrent fact in almost all Gypsy quarters where there are Neo-Protestants. The Church, or Praying House, is always a very simple building wheremost of the religious activities take place. Not all of them, because an importantdimension of their religious life consists of home meetings for praying and studyingthe Bible.The House of Prayers is always open to all Gypsy and to the curious Romanians.The religious leaders that lead the local church (pastors, elders, deacons, preachers)are always recruited from the Gypsy community and allow them what theRomanian community refuses them: an institution of their own that enables themto institutionalize their culture and life-style. This leads of course to the empower-ment of local (religious) Gypsies communities. A local church has a great deal ofautonomy in relation to the other Pentecostal (Gypsy and non-Gypsy) churches.The members of a local Church become the agents of their own social and culturalmeanings in which their life is embedded.


The religious fellowship that they have leads to strong bonds between their mem-bers and so the feeling of a strong community in which all are equally part of. Theemergent community is an egalitarian one where all status and kinship differencesare leveled down. This provides the Gypsies the needed social integration that theRomanian Orthodox believers refuse them. This religious exclusion takes place not only in the Orthodox Church but, accord-ing to my interlocutors, in the Pentecostal Church as well. Although the GypsyPentecostals feel themselves very close to the other Romanian Pentecostals, ethnicfrictions continue to exist in this religious community as well. As one of the GypsyChurch elders expressed it: “There are brothers that, as the Word of God says, do notmake any distinction between Rroma or Gypsies and Romanians … we are brothers inthe Lord and they receive us exactly as they would receive a brother. But approximately90 % of them make a racial discrimination. […] Only 10 % of them do not make adistinction” (S.G., late 30’s, entrepreneur in the construction sector).Having their own religious community, their own church, their own means to insti-tutionalize their culture and all this in their own quarter of their village, permits themto articulate an integrated community that overcomes the strong fragmentation of the tra-ditional Gypsy /Rroma communities. The ecclesial structure of the Neo-Protestant church allows them to become religiousleaders (pastors, deacons) without any formal training. In their perspective, preach-ing the gospel is something that one is able to do by the grace of God and that is thereason why all male believers are encouraged to assume a religious leadership.

c) The importance of the Scripture and EducationWithin most of the neo-protestant movements the Bible plays an important role.This is the legacy of Luther’s Reform and his “Sola Scriptura” religious philosophy.The Bible is the center of religious life, and the religious source for each member ofthe church. “Only after I have studied, after I had a Bible, I understood what God’s mys-tery is, and what actually faith is.” (C.F. Rroma pastor and political leader, 55 years old,has converted to Pentecostalism in the early 90’s)The Bible is seen as “the Word of God” which offers the truth in each aspect of life.Its interpretation becomes the instrument of settling all religious disputes (with peo-ple from another religious confession) and of defining what an authentic religiouslife is.


Within the neo-protestant churches everything gets filtered through the Scriptures,and they have a great apologetic weight in the Pentecostal discourse. Within thiscommunity the Bible is seen as the cause that triggered the conversion of Rroma toPentecostalism. Several people that have converted talk about how important it wasfor them to read the Bible.They quote a lot from the Bible, they know a lot of the verses by heart and alwaystry to argue using the Scripture. For them, the Bible is the ultimate guidebook andbecause of this everything gets filtered through the Bible. If a Gypsy custom orholyday is not found in the Bible and it is not legitimized by it, they renounce it.This has a strong potential for contesting the traditional establishment and deter-mines them to question all Gypsy traditional knowledge, life-style, customs, habits,holidays and values. This is amplified by the church community that regulatesstrongly the life of their members. It leads to the formation of a Gypsy religiouscounter-culture that questions the established Gypsy tradition and the status-quoof the local Gypsy leaders. Of course this leads to a lot of struggles within theGypsy communities.Because there is a great emphasis on reading and knowing the Bible, after the con-version a lot of Gypsies start to learn how to read and write. People with no or lit-tle education learn to read Romanian so that they can read the Bible. This is linkedwith a strong emphasis on education that the Neo-Protestant make and the val-orization of studying in order to obtain a degree that would allow their children toobtain later on a good job.

d) The moralization of conduct and the puritan idealOne thing that you can notice very easy when you talk to Neo-Protestant Rromaconverts is the puritan ideals that they live by. They cease drinking alcohol, smok-ing and everything that creates addiction. Sometimes they even stop drinking cof-fee. They operate a strong dichotomy between the spiritual realm and the world anddeny all worldly pleasures as bars, parties, dancing and sometimes even sports. WhenI asked one of the Gypsy pastors how would I be able to make a difference betweena convert and non-convert Gypsy he said: “You don’t see him drinking alcohol, smok-ing, going to theater, to the cinema, to clubs. They have withdrawn themselves fromBabylon” (C.I. 63 years old, converted to Pentecostalism 30 years ago.)Babylon is a biblical symbol of decadence and worldly pleasures. The Neo-


Protestant Gypsies invest a lot of energy in restructuring their moral life. There werepeople that told me that before they had a mistress and were cheating on their wivesbut now family life is very important to them. Some of them talk about the fact thatthey were bandits and were imprisoned and that they were completely transformedby their faith.Because of this puritan ideal that they adopt, Gypsy Neo-Protestants are sometimesvery appreciated by the Romanian community. Some Romanians are very happybecause the Gypsies have started to assume a moral life. This gives them less trou-ble: no fights, no stealing and no social conflict. Assuming a strong work ethic theystart to be a very reliable cheap labor force and are often hired by the Romanians towork their land (not all the Gypsy have this “privilege”).Non-converted Rroma women appreciate very much this aspect of conversionbecause it usually leads to very integrated families, where the husbands are verysupportive of their wives and cease spending money on drinking and other hedo-nic consumptions. Of course the non-converted Rroma men see this in a total dif-ferent light. The puritan ideal of life can be seen as well in the way they manage their appear-ance, in the dressing code for example. The dressing code applies especially towomen and is meant to implement decency as a rule of conduct. According to myinterlocutors it is very easy to notice which women are Neo-Protestants and whichare not. “The women have to cover their head all the time, they have to wear long skirts,they are not allowed to be fancy, elegant, to wear earrings, bracelets, gold jewelry, neck-laces, and rings: this is the rule in our community”. (S.F. 42 years old, deacon ofRroma Pentecostal church).“A sister that is baptized in Jesus Christ has to dress herself properly (sexually non-provocative clothes)” (S.F. 42 years old, deacon of Rroma Pentecostal church).The moralization of their sphere of life has important consequences on the way theyorganize their life style. The religious conversion requires a very hard price to pay:there is a strong moral and cultural code and the requirements of a puritan life-stylethat one has to adopt.

e) Restructuring the self and the social networks As a consequence of this moralization of conduct, there is a total restructuring of theself. The converted Gypsy adopts a new sense of personhood that is expressed in a


new language code, a new dressing code and a new way of interaction. A Neo-Protestant Gypsy is not allowed to swear or insult people, they are not allowed tofight and argue with those that treat them bad. All the religious converts form a community and have to address to each other withthe appellative “brother” and “sister”. They have to do this not only inside thechurch, but outside the church as well. The entire concept of kinship is redefinedand reconfigured according to the religious values they adopt. They form an extend-ed family, a religious family that have the duty to care for each other, help each otherin times of need and sustain each other spiritually. As I pointed out earlier, this leadsto the emergence of a strong, integrating community that reduces the sorrows of life.Being part of a community gives them the communal experience that makes themfeel part of wider family and reduces the social anomy they experience in contem-porary society. Although the Neo-Protestants agree to inter-ethnic marriages and are happy tomarry a Romanian spouse they strongly reject inter-confessional marriage. APentecostal has to marry a Pentecostal and no one else. The future couple needs tobe “born again”; they have to share the ideals and values of the Neo-Protestant com-munity. These rules are thought to be for the good sake of the young people and ifthey do not conform to these rules they are in various way sanctioned by the reli-gious community. Most pastors would refuse to religiously marry them and wouldforbid the believer to take part at the Holy Communion or to be involved in certainactivities of the church. So not only their life is religiously restructured but theirsocial networks as well.

4. “The heavenly citizenship” and the restructuring of ethnic identityAs other researches in Eastern Europe have shown, the Gypsy rely mostly on kingroups and form very fragmented communities. They lack a nation-wide unifiedethnic identity and the conscience of a common history and common language. Theproblem of their political unity is continuously raised by the Rroma leaders and therecent discussions regarding a Romanian national body of Rroma representatives hasto be linked with the struggles to overcome this fragmentation. There is as well a strong traditional professional division (caldarari, ursari, gabori,etc.) that builds up to rivalry and strong feeling of despise towards those that do notbelong to the kin or professional group. The “others” are perceived by their Rroma


fellows as being impure Rroma that mingled with Hungarians and Romanians andthat gave up the “true” traditions of the Rroma communities.As Gay y Blasco has shown in her research among the Gitano in Spain the Neo-protestant movement can be read as a way to overcome these kin barriers by under-ling the unity of those that believe and follow Christ and the equality and brother-ly love of all Gypsies regardless of their belonging to a professional or kin group (Gayy Blasco 2000, 2000b). As we have shown above, the religious conversion leads to a total restructure of iden-tity and to the integration of the believer in strong social networks. The local reli-gious community has a high degree of autonomy and this allows them to be theirown agents of institutionalizing their identity. On a local level the church as aninstrument of expressing a social and cultural narrative is a novel thing among acommunity that was marginalized and socially excluded. This leads to the empow-erment of local Rroma communities.The Church becomes the center of not only the religious life but of the social andcultural life as well. The spiritual kinship becomes more important than the actualkinship which leads to moral duty to support your new brothers and sisters and soto strong community ties. “The heavenly citizenship” (i.e. the status of saved peo-ple) replaces the earthly distinctions that humans make: between Gypsy andRomanians, between the different traditional kin groups, etc. They are all one, allthe same, all have the same status because they are all part of Christ body. This model of identity has the advantage of overcoming the stigmatization of Gypsy/ Rroma to which they are subjected by the dominant majority. It provides therequired resources of a moral life that invests itself in the ethic of work and sobersocial relations. This leads to a social mobility and a much better image among theRomanians, but with the cost of a religious exclusion among their fellow Gypsy /Rroma neighbours.The Neo-Protestant model of Gypsyness on the other side competes with the modelof Gypsyness that has been supported for the last decades by the International Rromapolitical activists and by literally thousand of NGO’s that are trying to unify all Gypsiesfrom Romania. To them the Neo-Protestant model of Gypsyness appears as being toodogmatically, morally uncompromising and too strict. They emphasize the ethnicunity of all Gypsy/Rroma, the common historical past, and different narratives aimedat empowering the local, oppressed and discriminated groups of Rroma / Gypsies.


That this is a top to bottom approach can be seen from the fact that most of theGypsy communities do not think about themselves in this way, do not refer to them-selves as Rroma that have India as a country of origin and do not share the politicalideals of these activists. This can be clearly seen in the way this community refers toitself. In Romania the word Gypsy has a pejorative meaning and usually refers to peoplethat are unclean, a bit savage and marginal. This is why the political activists arepleading for the institutionalization of the word Rroma that denotes a distinct cul-tural heritage, a beautiful tradition and the belonging to an international ethnicgroup that is spread all over the world. The problem with this name is that most of the people I have interviewed refuse it,and like to refer to themselves as Gypsy. Always when they do this they are veryproud of it and talk about the double meaning of the word Gypsy: 1) a moral Gypsycategory, i.e. people that steal, beg and are dirty and 2) an ethnic category which isalways very hard for them to define but which nonetheless they perceive it. What isfor sure is that they are not Gypsies in the first sense although some refer to themthis way.Under the pressure of the NGO’s and the state funded aid projects the local author-ities are involved in this naming policy as well. A Romanian school director from avillage where two large communities of Gypsies live told me in an interview that shetried to co-opt the local Gypsies in a PHARE project for the learning of rromani lan-guage, but nobody wanted to take part in such a program. She tried as well to “edu-cate” the Gypsy children and parents that the term Gypsy is very ugly, and that theyshould refer to themselves as Rroma, but they replied: “Madame, since we know our-selves we were Gypsies and we will stay Gypsies”.The term Rroma itself denotes an established political and social meaning that manypeople that belong to this community do not approve. They continue to refer tothemselves as Gypsies and this usually indicates the self-non-inclusion in this polit-ical project. The term “Rroma” on the other side, refers to a very recent political per-spective on Gypsyness, one that draws on the European model and concept of eth-nicity and can be strongly linked to the expansion of the European Union and thegrowth of Roma international political activism. Both the Neo-Protestant model of Gypsyness and the international activist model ofGypsyness represent attempts to overcome the extreme fragmentation of Rroma tra-


ditional kin-communities. They are two very different approaches that use differentmeans to achieve this goal: a new religious restructuring of identity, with the localchurch as an instrument of achieving integrated communities on one side, and thehuman rights campaign, with the NGO that try to improve the social condition ofRroma and make them political aware of their rights on the other side. I think that the most important social and cultural consequences of the massive reli-gious conversion that take place among this ethnic minority is the emergence of anew way of re-constructing Gypsyness. Whether this will be a successful attempt ornot only time will tell.

BibliographyBerger, Peter (1990) The Sacred Canopy. Elements of a Sociological Theory ofReligion. New York: Anchor Books.Bourdeaux, Michel (2000) – Religion Revives in all its variety: Russia’s Regions Today.Religion, State and Society, Vol. 28 (1), 10-21Froese, Paul (2003) After Atheism: An Analysis of Religious Monopolies in the Post-Communist World. Sociology of Religion, Vol. 65 (1), 57-75.Froese, Paul (2004) Forced secularization in Soviet Russia: Why an Atheistic MonopolyFailed. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 43 (1), 35-50.Gay y Blasco P. (2000) The Politics of Evangelism: Hierarchy, Masculinity andReligious Conversion Among Gitanos. Romani Studies, series 5, vol. 10, issue1, pp.1-22.Gay y Blasco P., (2000b) Gitano Evangelism: the Emergence of a Politico-ReligiousDiaspora. - www.transcomm.ox.ac.uk.Geertz, Clifford. (1973) The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books,Inc.Gog, Sorin (2006) The construction of the religious space in post-socialist Romania,Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies, Vol. 15, Issue 3, pp. 37-53, 2006.Horton, Robin (1975a) On the Rationality of Conversion, Part I, Africa, Vol. 45(3),85-108Horton, Robin (1975b) On the Rationality of Conversion, Part 2, Africa, Vol. 45(4),373-399Pollack D. (2004) Institutionalised and Subjective Religiosity in Former Communist


Countries of Central and Eastern Europe. in Jerolimov D. M., Zrinscak S., BorowikI. (eds.) Religion and patterns of social transformation. Zagreb: Institute for SocialResearch Pollack, D. (2001) Modifications in the Religious Field of Central and Eastern Europe.European Societies 3:135-165.Rambo, L. R. (1999) Theories of Conversion: Understanding and Interpreting ReligiousChange. Social Compass, Vol. 46, 259-71Slavkova, M. (2003) Roma Pastors as Leaders Roma Protestant Communities. - In:–Dord–evic, Dr. (ed.) Roma Religious Culture. - JUNIR (Ni?), 168-177.Slavkova, M. (2005) Gypsies in Lom: the Case of Gypsies who Convert to ProtestantChristianity.” - Conference ‘Religious Conversion after Socialism’, Max PlanckInstitutefor Social Anthropology, Halle, Germany, April 7-9Snow David and Machalek Richard, (1983) The Convert as a Social Type,Sociological Theory Vol.1, 259-289Snow, David A. and Richard Machalek (1984) “The Sociology of Conversion” AnnualReview of Sociology Vol. 10, 167-90

1 Nomads and Parliamentarians. The influence of mobility and religious affiliation on identity building and on the

development of integration social policies Roma people in Northern, Eastern Romania, and the Republic of

Moldova. 1989-2005. (NOMAPARLIA)

2 It is exactly what Mr. Cioaba, one of the most important Rroma Pentecostal leaders, has told us in the interview

about how the Rroma have converted to Pentecostalism: “They [the missionaries] brought not only material aid, but

brought Bibles as well. The Bibles entered with this occasion the Rroma communities.” The humanitarian aid was pre-

sent as well, but as we shall see this is often an exaggerated component.

Acta est fabulaA Rome, histoire marginale d’un Rrom1 appelé Romulus

Teodor NituUniversité de Fribourg

«Fleur de géranium»Pendant la dernière année de gymnase ma camarade de classe Muscata («Fleur degéranium») a quitté l’école pour se marier. J’ai été même invité au mariage, proba-blement parce que j’atténuais ma forcement repoussante image d’élève gadjo en par-ticipant avec égal enthousiasme dans les activités extrascolaires, tout aussi respec-tables aux yeux des collègues, surtout parmi les quelques roms qui fréquentaient tantbien que mal l’école. Je ne me rappelle pas avoir donné suite à l’invitation. Il se peutbien que mes parents me l’aient déconseillé, sous prétexte d’âge, je n’avais pas 14 ans,plus probablement parce que, on se disait, il valait mieux éviter de trop se mêler avecles tsiganes et leurs affaires. Les tsiganes étaient là, comme ça, depuis le temps, maisdifférents, présents et réels, bien que souvent invisibles, Autres, étrangers. La connaissance de par l’expérience et le vécu que l’anthropologue peut avoir d’unesociété parce que c’est la sienne ne rend certes pas sa perspective plus légitime qu’uneautre. Elle permet toutefois d’avoir plusieurs portes d’accès à des connaissancesautrement diffuses, latérales, à l’observation des faits dans la longue durée. Il ne s’agitpas, dans ce qui suit, de plaider pour une incertaine et peu probante «anthropologiede soi», ni même pour une certes plus intéressante et surtout plus redoutable anthro-pologie de l’expérience, mais juste de voir si le rendu de tout vécu peut servir, dansdes circonstances particulières, comme source, comme ersatz d’observation partici-pante. Sans pouvoir remplacer la recherche de terrain menée d’après les règles clas-siques de la discipline, les informations récupérées de nos mémoires peuvent nousaider à situer dans un contexte et surtout placer dans l’histoire récente notre objetd’étude2. Si le destin des roms roumains intéresse aujourd’hui un public qui dépasse les cerclesprofessionnels - chercheurs en sciences sociales, des activistes roms, des élus, desmanageurs des politiques publiques -, cela est certainement dû à la visibilité euro-péenne nouvellement acquise par les tsiganes3 après 1989. On redécouvre ainsi une

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communauté qui défie l’opinion commune de par le caractère «atypique» de son his-toire, qui semble avoir maintenu une existence communautaire sans territoire deréférence, sans élites, sans l’appui d’une forme d’organisation particulière. Ondécouvre une culture qui se nourrit en se délimitant de la culture des autres aumilieu desquels les roms vivent. On enregistre ensuite à quel point ils incarnentsocialement la marginalité, une vie en marge dont l’effet négatif en termes d’exclu-sion et d’ostracisme est déconcertant, bien que c’est cette même expérience qui,paradoxalement, contribue le plus à leur maintien et à leur reproduction en tant quegroupe (Okely 1994; Barany 1994, 2002; Asséo 2003). La marginalité reste encore le point nodal de l’expérience romani (Barany 2002),mais la chute du communisme, l’ouverture et l’accommodation des pays de l’Est àla libre circulation, l’apparition des élites romani et surtout une mobilité socialeinconnue jusqu’alors ont permis de relever à la fois l’hétérogénéité du peuple rom(multiplicité des groupes, clans, professions, statuts), les enjeux de l’identité et lesdifficultés d’intégration dans la société environnante, et somme toute le futur incer-tain d’un projet de l’élite rom qui imagine la communauté sur le modèle (ancien) dela nation ( Giordano & Boscoboinik 2003). Parmi les défis que l’intégration européenne pose aux certaines groupes de roms rou-mains, le traitement du binôme marginalité – libre circulation confronté à des nor-mativités sociales locales ou nationales n’est pas des moindres. Un fait divers tragiquequi a eu lieu récemment en Italie, dont le protagoniste est un rom de Roumanie, lenouveau Marginal man4 de notre siècle, pourrait bien s’avérer un point de départ«exemplaire» non seulement pour comprendre l’avenir des roms mais aussi celui d’unesociété européenne mise à l’épreuve par une mobilité spatiale et sociale nouvelle. Pour comprendre comment les roms de mon historie auraient pu devenir les romsroumains qui campent à présent aux alentours de Rome et autres grandes villes ita-liennes ou espagnoles nous devons nous pencher sur l’histoire contemporaine ettâcher de décrire la place que les roms occupent dans la société roumaine. La migra-tion ne produit pas qu’un simple changement de place dans l’espace, elle peut aussiamener un changement de position dans le social et remettre en cause la formationet la reproduction d’un groupe. Les relations spatiales sont une des conditions pre-mières de la constitution et du changement social. L’expression de la différence et lepositionnement dans le social s’articulent différemment par rapport à la marge, cellede Rome d’un coté, celle de Vurpar5 de l’autre.


La suite de l’historie de vie de Fleur de géranium6 m’est inconnue à ce jour. Il se peutbien qu’en ce moment même elle soit en voyage pour l’Italie ou l’Espagne, de retourde France après un circuit saisonnier de mangel, ou peut-être qu’elle travaille dans lafonderie de métaux gérée par son mari; ou dans le petit commerce détenu par lafamille; ou elle est employée à la voirie de la ville; ou tout simplement est-elle entrain de diriger ces autres maîtres maçons sur le chantier de sa nouvelle villa à plu-sieurs niveaux et aux nombreuses tours décoratives.

Le fait Le 30 octobre 2007 a eu lieu à Rome un incident dont on ne pouvait prévoir le len-demain ni l’impacte médiatique et politique, ni l’impacte sur le débat concernant lalibre circulation et l’immigration à l’intérieur de l’Union européenne, un crime quibraquait les projecteurs média sur une minorité encore mal connue, et, l’histoire vasouvent ainsi, mal comprise et mal aimé: les roms. En rentrant chez elle, le soir, une italienne est violemment agressée et se fait déroberson sac. La victime est grièvement blessée. Hospitalisée dans le coma, elle décèdemalheureusement deux jours après. L’agresseur, un tsigane roumain est mis en exa-men après avoir été dénoncé à la police par une compatriote, voisine dans le campde fortune sis à la périphérie de Rome. Une ample enquête est lancée en Italie ainsiqu’en Roumanie où, quelques jours à peine après l’incident, le téléphone mobile dela victime a été retrouvé. Ce qui c’est réellement passé n’est que d’une importancesecondaire pour notre propos, car il s’agit tout simplement d’un crime odieux et ilest du ressort de la justice d’en faire le traitement approprié. C’est la mise en récit et les conséquences autant de la communication du fait que del’acte lui-même sur la perception et la situation du groupe rom en rapport avec lasociété d’accueil, et par rapport à sa société d’origine qui sont signifiantes. La presseitalienne présente le parcours d’un pauvre marginal qui a transgressé les limites de samarginalité vers l’acte criminel, un acte crapuleux et dont la violence inouïe choquel’opinion. La diaspora roumaine se démarque de l’acte, et de l’auteur, introduisantdans le récit une frontière nationale et l’assignation des caractéristiques négatives aux«étrangers» roms. Dans la perception de la diaspora roumaine l’acte et la mise enrécit de ce crime ignoble ont jeté l’opprobre sur les roms et Roumains à la fois7. Des mesures juridiques et politiques s’ensuivent, autant de prises de position et degrands gestes que leur pendant en incidents et discours regrettables et entachés d’ex-

ACTA EST FABULA 75

clusivisme8. Des prises de positions collectivistes, où le peuple entier est coupable depar son ignominie historique par rapport aux roms (Cartarescu 2007) rivalisent avecdes approches individualistes où l’individu est responsable de ses actes (Manea2007). Le gouvernement italien adopte une loi qui permet de renvoyer chez eux,sous l’ordre du préfet, les citoyens européens qui portent atteinte à la sûretépublique. La Roumanie dépêche des officiers de police pour assister leurs collèguesitaliens dans l’effort de «contrôler la criminalité de l’immigration». L’Italie, l’Espagne et dans une moindre mesure la France sont aujourd’hui les paysde prédilection pour l’immigration économique roumaine. Les dernières donnéesconnues font état de la présence de 556 0009 Roumains détenteurs d’un permis deséjour en Italie, ce qui pourrait bien signifier que le nombre total des roumainsvivant en terre italienne dépasserait le million d’individus. D’après les informationsfournies par la police italienne, les ressortissants roumains détendraient aussi la pre-mière place dans une statistique des délits et autres actes illicites, un nombre impor-tant se trouvant actuellement incarcérés pour toutes sortes d’infractions. Le cas«Romulus» nous semble donc être mis en récit comme le cas exemplaire. Les raisonssont multiples: elle parlent de gestion de la libre circulation, de la mise à l’épreuve,autant en Roumanie qu’en Italie, de la capacité de l’Etat à gérer son monopole nonautant de la violence que du contrôle des transgressions. Le drame relance le débatautour du «problème rom», cette fois dans un contexte d’immigration et de contac-te culturel, et pose des questions quant aux enjeux et processus sociaux à l’œuvredans l’Europe de la mobilité.

Courte histoire pratique des roms Plusieurs moment importants marquent l’histoire du peuple rom10 de Roumanie:l’esclavage, son abolition, les vagues de migrations successives, la déportation tra-gique vers la Transnistrie d’un certain nombre pendant la deuxième guerre, le com-munisme et le changement global, social et économique d’après 1989 (Achim 1998;Asséo 2003). Pour le besoin de la démarche présente seule la période communiste etpost communiste sera traitée, car, sans nier aucunement la nécessité d’étudier l’his-toire des peuples rom en entier, ce sont les temps modernes qui ont les plus marquéles communautés tsiganes actuelles.L’historien cherchant à connaître la vie des roms pendant le communisme en seracertainement déçu, car les roms, très présents au quotidien, sont absents des docu-


ments de l’époque. Les tsiganes ne sont pas reconnus comme minorité ethnique, ilsne bénéficient pas du statut que le régime définit comme «minorités co-habitante»,à l’exemple des minorités hongroise et allemande. Les roms, pratiquement jamaismentionnées, sont peut-être enregistrés avec «autres minorités» (Achim 1998). Ilnous sera donc plus profitable d’utiliser un artifice de composition et de compilerdans un portrait d’individu rom protéiforme les hypothétiques, mais autant pos-sibles que plausibles, trajectoires de vie rom. Cela nous permettra de situer les romsroumains arrivés ces dernières années à Rome dans un schéma temporel et social quipuisse rendre compte de leur place et changement.Leur idéal typique naît dans une famille nombreuse, habitant le plus souvent à lapériphérie d’un village ou d’une ville, parfois dans ce qu’on appelle quartier défavo-risé, rarement dans une famille dont le métier du père bénéficie d’un certain presti-ge social, tel les musiciens (Beisinger 2001). L’imaginaire social des gadjé dépeintsouvent le rom comme nomade, fausse mais tenace croyance entretenue par la cir-culation saisonnière des groupes tels les chaudronniers ou les rétameurs (Grigore2005) et dont l’entreprise économique est au service de l’économie paysanne (cf.Stewart 1991). L’espace réservé aux habitations tsiganes prend des formes et organi-sations aussi diverses que les groupes roms: quartier des pavillons, amas de baraques,HLM délabrés, plus rarement agglomération de huttes ou tentes, sises souvent dansdes courts sans clôtures ou il n’y a pas de jardin, ou l’on ne cultive ni fleurs nilégumes comme pour marquer la différence avec leur voisins gadjé.A la campagne, le rom travaille comme journalier dans une des coopératives agri-coles de productions (kolkhoze). Ou peut-être pratique-t-il un des métiers appréciésjusqu’à récemment dans les villages, maréchal-ferrant ou forgeron, parfois officielle-ment pour la coopérative et dans l’économie parallèle à son compte. Certains romspratiquent le glanage dans les champs collectifs, bien que souvent comme prétextepour puiser dans la récolte commune, aussi larcins et arnaques ne manquent pas. Lapériode de disette des années 80 et le durcissement des peines concernant les délitsde vol agricole – c’est l’époque ou l’on risque 5 années de prison ferme pour le vold’un sac de mais – les expose plus souvent aux raids de la police et aux sanctions dis-proportionnées.Ceux qui y travaillent comme saisonniers dans l’agriculture reçoivent une partie dupayement en nature ce qui revient à faciliter l’élevage des animaux, surtout des che-vaux et donc aussi à reproduire une logique économique traditionnelle. Ce rapport

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avec les chevaux, moyen de transport et symbole à la fois de la liberté de mouve-ment, occupation prestigieuse et signe de richesses, fait que même des roms depuislongtemps sédentarisés dans des villes vont travailler à la campagne (cf. Stewart1997). Ce sont eux les ouvriers agricoles du communisme dans son expression laplus épurée, étant donné que les paysans gèrent leur petite ferme / maisnie à coté deleur emploi dans la coopérative. D’autres rom s’occupent du ramassage des métaux, quand ils ne les dérobent pas,avec le ramassage des bouteilles à consigne abandonnées, du papier et restes de bois,etc. L’industrie socialiste est une économie de la déperdition et de la dispersion, elleconcentre dans un point des quantités énormes de matières et force de travail dansun but politique et non économique (Verdery 1991). Cette tradition de ramassagedes «déchets» des années 70 et 80 fera ses millionnaires après les 1989, certains deve-nant des patrons des véritables entreprises de ramassage de métaux, fonte et expor-tation de lingots. Il faut aussi rappeler ceux qui font le commerce des habits usagéset ceux qui, en fonction du point de vue adopté, font soit du trafic et du marché noirsoit pallient les manques chroniques dans la distributions communiste des biens enfournissant des produits de consommation introuvables dans le commerce d’état(jeans, bijoux, cigarettes etc.). Le marchand de glace, le vendeur de graines de tournesol grillés, le «commerçant»des bonbons et autres petits fours maison est souvent un rom, tout comme romssont les prestataires des certaines services, comme les vidangeurs, les éboueurs, lesramasseurs des déchets, nettoyeurs et autres travailleurs à l’heure employés par lesmunicipalités. Certains font le tour de villages en proposant leurs services, en ven-dant de babioles, en réparant des bijoux ou des seaux, tout en déchargeant les mai-sonnées paysannes de leurs bouteilles vides, des leurs habits anciens ou, le caséchéant, de leurs poules.Les différents groupes sont connus aujourd’hui sous des dénominations au point derevêtir un sens ethnique décrivant leur occupation actuelle ou passée: Caldarari(chaudronniers), geambasi (vendeurs de chevaux), zlatari (anciennement des ramas-seurs de minerais), des rudari (travailleurs du bois), des spoitori (peintres en bâtimentmais aussi rétameurs), caramidari (briquetiers) etc.11

L’enfant rom doit aller à l’école publique gratuite et obligatoire. On le dénombresouvent parmi les plus démunis des élèves, souffrant parfois du handicap de lalangue d’enseignement, quand la langue maternelle est le romani, et ne pouvant pas


recevoir d’aide à la maison du fait des parents eux même illettrés et dont lescroyances, les besoins de survie ou l’ignorance font que l’école n’est pas valoriséecomme chez les gadjé. L’absentéisme sera plutôt la règle que l’exception. A la fin dela scolarité obligatoire12 un pourcentage important d’élèves d’origine rom ne comp-tera que parmi les partiellement lettrés. En outre, certains ont été déclarés, souventpour de raisons sociales, porteurs d’un handicap et envoyés dans de redoutées «écolesde soutien». Larcins et «destruction de propriété du peuple» peuvent renvoyer desadolescents dans des «écoles de correction» à la réputation effroyable. Les élèves romsqui arrivent à la fin du gymnase ne sont pas rares, mais ceux qui continuent vers lelycée sont des exceptions. L’absence de maturité ou baccalauréat condamne lesjeunes roms au travail le moins rémunéré, le moins valorisant. A cela s’ajoute la pra-tique sociale spécifique du mariage précoce qui fait qu à la fin du gymnase (à l’aged’environ 14 ans) une majorité des roms a déjà fondée une famille. Pendant le communisme l’armée participe plus à la construction du socialisme, dansle sens littéral du terme, qu’à la défense de la patrie, car beaucoup de soldats fontleurs armes en travaillant dans l’agriculture, bâtiment, industrie. L’état socialistebénéficie de la force de travail presque gratuite, mais il arrive que des jeunes issus desmilieux défavorisés puissent profiter des cours du soir pour l’alphabétisation et sur-tout de l’apprentissage d’un métier, très envié étant le permis de conduire uncamion.Certains peuvent avoir l’opportunité d’obtenir une qualification chez l’employeur,mais les roms ont une réputation sociale de plus mauvaises, et l’employeur non-romne leur accorde pas souvent le bénéfice du doute. L’exclusion, bien que moins agres-sive est, quelque soit les dénégations des administrations, à base raciste, les roms sesont confrontés depuis toujours au rejet. C’est ce qui fait que ce «repêchage» socialest beaucoup moins souvent couronné de succès dans le cas des tsiganes que dans lescas des membres de la majorité. Il n’est pas donc surprenant que beaucoup sont amenés à reprendre le métier ou l’oc-cupation des parents, restant ainsi dans le cadre traditionnel de la famille et repro-duisant parfois contre leur volonté et malgré les promesses d’une société égalitaire lalogique sociale en place. Dans ce tableau, il y a certes des exceptions, des enfants qui arrivent à la fin de lascolarité obligatoire, qui font un apprentissage dans un métier industriel ou bâti-ment et qui trouvent un poste dans une entreprise. Ce qui ne veux pas dire qu’ils ne

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seront pas confrontés à la discrimination du fait de leur appartenance. Malgré cela,ces rom sont intégrés, certains ne parlent plus autre langue que celle de la majorité,leur mode de vie a changé en s’approchant à celui de la société englobante.Historiquement rom, il est socialement membre de la majorité avec laquelle il s’iden-tifie pour cause de raison de vie en commun et idéaux partagés13. Après 89, les roms ont subi aussi de plein fouet les changements14, une bonne partieétant parmi le plus défavorisés: ceux liés à l’économie agricole n’ont pas reçu de terrescomme la plupart des paysans, car ils n’avaient tout simplement pas cédé lors de lacollectivisation. Le démantèlement des grandes usines et autres «combinats» stali-niens a offert aux ramasseurs l’opportunité des s’emparer des grandes quantités demétaux et de mettre ensuite sur pied de vrais circuits d’exportations. La discrimina-tion, la marginalisation avait fait des victimes pendant le communisme, les nouvellesopportunités en ont fait tout de suite après. La libéralisation post-communiste acontribué largement à l’amplification du mouvement centrifuge qui caractérisaitdepuis le temps les rapports des différentes branches de la communauté rom.Nouvelles opportunités, mobilité sociale accrue, nouvelle visibilité: la distance n’ajamais été aussi grande entre les élites et les marginaux. Le mouvement rassembleurd’une fine couche des élites qui tentent a réunir les rom au nom d’un idéal de«nation transfrontalière» (Mirga & Gheorghe 1997) se trouve contrecarré d’un côtépar les effets de la nouvelle et rapide stratification sociale et de l’autre côté par le pro-cessus d’intégration des nouvelles élites économiques et culturelles, et, sur un autreregistre, par l’émigration.

L’étranger et les étrangersEn Roumanie les roms continuent d’être perçus et représentés par la société commeformant des groupes extérieurs à la communauté roumaine, et cela malgré des sièclesde présence, malgré la communication sociale et culturelle incessante, malgré leurévidente ubiquité géographique et leur visibilité sociale en augmentation. LesTsiganes demeurent des «étrangers» dans le sens sociologique attribué au terme parSimmel: membres d’un groupe dans un sens spatial, non membres dans un senssocial, ils se trouvent évidemment dans le groupe sans pouvoir s’y fondre, sans pou-voir voir leur appartenance sanctionnée, reconnue par la majorité (Simmel 1908). Ce rapport natif (roumain) vs étranger (rom), ainsi que les frontières de groupe etles enjeux communautaires changent le moment où membres en nombre important


de deux groupes émigrent. Dans un pays tiers les natifs roumains et les roms «étran-gers» devraient abandonner leur frontière et établir la communauté roumaine, elle-même devenue étrangère par rapport à la société d’accueil, nouvelle société englo-bante. La nouvelle position «étranger» devrait, de par effet de conséquence logiqueréunir les deux communautés. Minoritaires et héritant d’une position subalterne lesroms devraient chercher à s’accommoder non seulement aux pratiques supposéesdéfinir l’appartenance à la nation roumaine mais aussi à partager une mythologie etdes «traditions». C’est précisément ce qui ne s’est pas passé en Italie qui a connu une augmentationimportante de la migration roumaine ces dernières années, au point que les ressortis-sants roumains forment en 2008 la principale communauté étrangère du pays. Lamigration n’a pas changé le rapport entre majorité roumaine et minorité rom. Lesroms n’ont pas pu devenir des «vrai étrangers», ils ont tout juste reproduit leur modè-le social, leur économie basée sur la récupération, leur mouvement saisonnier et fina-lement leur marginalité autant spatiale que sociale. Certains comportements et codesculturels de leur pays d’origine se sont avères source des conflits incessants avec le paysd’accueil, d’autres disparaissent pour la simple raison qu’il ne peuvent pas être repro-duits autrement qu’à la confluence des rapports avec les gadjé roumains.Le groupe rom est autonome par rapport à sa société englobante mais jamais auto-suffisant, le changement ou l’occultation de cette société ne peut avoir, dans un pre-mier temps qu’un effet déstructurant. De l’autre côté, les natifs roumains15 devenusétrangers de par leur nouvelle position réunis dans la même position que les romspar les catégories locales, et se retrouvant dans une position subalterne, ont tout sim-plement essayé de rétablir le rapport de domination et de prestige, et insisté sur ladistinction rom – roumain en rejetant la «culture de la pauvreté» et de la criminali-té définissant, d’après eux, seuls les roms. Les roumains, des étrangers en Italie vont,pour des raisons d’identification mais surtout de prestige, de reconnaissance, de pou-voir et en vue d’accès aux ressources, essayer de minorer la composante rom de leurcommunauté devenue étrangère. La propagation et l’adoption du terme rom dansles médias italiens, montre que les roumains ont réussi à reléguer les roms dans leurdifférence et, prenant appuis sur quelques exemples, dans leur marginalité. Dès lors,même devant un Etat tiers leur citoyenneté se retrouvera mise en cause par la défi-nition «ethnique». Le paradoxe de la migration rom est contenu dans l’inversion del’ordre d’importance entre rom et roumain, entre social et national.

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S’ils gardent la frontière communautaire héritée du pays d’origine, ils deviennent àleur tour des étrangers en marquant leur distinction avec la communauté roumaine.De ce fait les roms ne peuvent pas s’inscrire dans le même schéma de définition queles roumains et seront amenés à construire leur «frontière ethnique» avec les italiens.Il y aura certainement des rom qui vont s’inscrire dans la trajectoire générique desroumains, tout comme des roumains peuvent se retrouver de par leurs actionssociales dans la position étiquetée marginal. En regardant le schéma simple qui articulent les paires d’opposition minorité –majorité, rom – roumains, immigré roumains – italiens, immigré rom- immigrésnous allons observer que la définition prochaine des roms comme des étrangers enItalie (ou dans d’autre pays européens) se fondera sur le rapport entre les roms entant que rom et la société d’accueil, dans notre cas la société italienne.

Conclusion: le proche et le lointainLorsque deux activistes et chercheurs roms représentatifs avaient affirmé que «Il estcertain, que les roms se trouvent maintenant, au début du 21e siècle, dans la période deplus grande incertitude de leur histoire Européenne» (Mirga & Gheorghe1997) ils necroyaient pas si bien dire. L’incertitude ne vient pas seulement des choix à faire, elleest intrinsèque à la multiplicité des communautés roms et des interactions et tran-sactions que celles-ci mènent constamment avec une culture autre, ici ou ailleurs. Les roms roumains de l’émigration semblent se retrouver depuis un moment dansune position particulière, dans un cadre de relations où, en changeant de société, ilss’ouvrent vers la production d’une nouvelle altérité. Le peuple rom est né en Europe,sans qu’on puisse lui attribuer d’endroit particulier. Mais la mobilité nouvellementacquise, qui, surtout pour les roumains, suit une longue période d’enfermement,loin de donner lieu à une réunion des groupes roms dans une «nation paneuro-péenne» semble plutôt générer de nouvelles configurations, nouvelles interactions et,peut-être, de nouveaux groupes. Pendant très longtemps les roms de Roumanie n’ont pas eu, sauf rares cas, accès à lacommunauté imaginée. Vivant en marge, sans pouvoir et parfois sans intérêt àacquérir le capital social nécessaire, ils ont bâti leur niche, une alvéole sociale qui leurpermettait de perpétuer une culture et un mode de vie, de transformer leur étiquet-te «étranger» en atout pour la survie. Les groupes roms, historiquement marginali-sés, n’ont pas connu l’effet de simultanéité que la modernité offre à une commu-


nauté, la possibilité de communier avec les autres à travers des média comme la pres-se, la littérature ou les musées (Anderson 1991).Il n’est pas dans le pouvoir des anthropologues de prédire les développements futursdes processus sociaux à l’œuvre dans les communautés et groupes tsiganes deRoumanie. Il est néanmoins possible d’enregistrer des exemples suggestifs. Car, pen-dant que des tsiganes établissent leur quartier à Rome ou à Paris, certains roms deRoumanie sont peut-être en train, eux aussi, de se forger une nouvelle identité. L’ouverture du pays au capitalisme, la société de consommation, les manele16, la com-munion télévisuelle17 semble à la fois motiver et donner les moyens aux certainsgroupes de roms à chercher définir leur place dans la nation. A l’exemple de la chanson suivante, leur imaginaire semble être devenu local etrégional, être tsigane rime aujourd’hui avec oltean, moldovean, ardelean18:

«Même si tu es moldave, oltéan, transylvain ou tsigane

Nous sommes tous made-n Romenia19…

Peu importe où tu habites

Ou le dialecte que tu parles

Nous sommes tous made-n Romenia…

(Ionut Cercel – Made-n Romenia)20

BibliographieAchim, Viorel, 1998, Tiganii în istoria României, Bucuresti: Editura EnciclopedicaAchim, Viorel, 1999, Cât de veche este “problema” tiganilor (romilor) ?, Dilema,314, 12-18 févrierAnderson, Benedict, 1991, Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin andSpread of Nationalism, London: VersoAsséo, Henriette, 2003, Les Tsiganes dans les Balkans, dans Matériaux pour l’histo-rie de notre temps, no. 71, juillet – septembre 2003, p. 30-39Agentia pentru strategii guvernamentale, 2007, Comunitatea româneasca în Italia:conditii sociale, valori, asteptari - Studiu sociologic, http://www.publicinfo.ro/ libra-ry/sc/cri.pdf, consulté le 22.02.08Caritas / Migrantes, 2007, Immigrazione, Dossier Statistico, XVII Rapporto sull’immi-grazione, www.dossierimmigrazione.it/schede/pres2007.htm, consulté le 28.02.2008

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Barany, Zoltan, 1994, Living on the Edge: The East European Roma inPostcommunist Politics and Society, Slavic Review, vol. 53. no 2, pp. 321-344Barany, Zoltan, 2002, The East European Gypsies, Regime Change, Marginalityand Ethnopolitics, Cambridge: Cambridge University PressBeissinger, Margaret H.,2001, Occupation and Ethnicity: Constructing Identityamong Profes- sional Romani (Gypsy) Musicians in Romania, Slavic Review, Vol.60, 1 (Spring,), pp.24-49Cartarescu, Mircea, 2007, Falimentul nostru moral, Evenimentul zilei, Bucarest,2.11.07Giordano, Christian, Boscoboinik, Andrea (2003), Introduction, dans C. Giordano,A. Boscoboinik, D. Kostova, M. Benovska-Sabkova, A. Chanteraud, Roma’sIdentities in Southeast Europe, Roma: Etnobarometer 8, Working Paper, June 2003,15-29Golescu, Dinicu, 1971 (1828), Însemnare a calatorii mele, Constantin Radovici dinGolesti facuta în anul 1824, 1825, 1826, Bucuresti: Editura EminescuGrigore, Delia, 2005, Curs de antropologie si folclor rrom: introducere în studiulelementelor de cultura traditionala ale identitatii rrome contemporane, Bucuresti:CredisGuy, Will, 2001, Romani Identity and post-Communist policy, dans Guy, Will (ed.)Between Past and Future, The Roma of Central and Eastern Europe, Hatfield:University of Hertfordshire Press, 3-32Manea, Norman, 2007, “Crime et châtiment”, pour les réfugiés, http://www.pro-ject-syndicate.org/commentary/manea5/French, consulté 12.02 .2008Marushiakova, E. Popov, V., 2004, The Roma – a Nation without a State? HistoricalBackground and Contemporary Tendencies, dans Streck, Bernhard (ed.),Segmentation und Komplementarität, Halle, (Orientwissenschafliche Hefte 14Mitteilungen des SFB 586 “Differenz und Integration” 6 ) , 71-100Mirga, Andrzej, Gheorghe, Nicolae, 1997, The Roma in the Twenty First Century,A Policy, PER, http://www.per-usa.org/21st_c.htm , consulté le 20.02.2008Okely, Judith, 2003, Review: Deterritorialised and Spatially unbounded Cultureswithin Other Regimes, Anthropological Quarterly. Vol. 76, no 1 (Hiver), 151-164Park, Robert E., 1928, Human Migration and the Marginal Man, The AmericanJournal of Sociology, vol. 33 no. 6 , pp.881-893


Radulescu, Speranta, 2000, Musique de métissage pan-balkanique en Roumanie,dans Métissages / Ateliers d’ethnomusicologie: Genève, p. 151-162Sarau, Georghe, 1998, Rromii, India si limba rromani, Bucuresti: KriterionSimmel, Georg, 1971 (1908), “The Stranger,” in Levine, D (ed.) Georg Simmel onIndividuality and Social Forms, The University of Chicago Press, pp. 143-9.Simmel, Georg, 1979 (1908), Digressions sur l’etranger, dans L’Ecole de Chicago,Paris: AubierStewart, Michael, 1991, Un peuple sans patrie, Terrain no 17, octobre, p. 39-52Stewart, Michael, 1997, The Time of the Gipsies, Boulder [Colorado.]: WestviewPressVerdery, Katherine, 1991, National Ideology under Socialism: Identity and culturalPolitics in Ceausescu’s Romania, Berkeley: University of California PressVerdery, Katherine, 1996, What was Socialism and What comes Next? Princeton[NJ]: Princeton University PressZamfir, Elena, Zamfir, Catalin (ed.), 1993, Tiganii între ignorare si îngrijorare,Bucuresti: Alternative

1 La graphie rrom est utilisée en Roumanie dans le souci déclaré d’éviter la supposée confusion rom – roumain. La

Roumanie a changé d’appellation indicative dans des documents officiels en passant de ROM à ROU à la fois pour

permettre à l’ancien terme d’être employé par la communauté rom et pour éviter la confusion mentionnée. Le débat

sur les indicatifs et la dénomination des roms dans les documents officiels roumains a été très récemment repris au

Parlement de Bucarest par des sénateurs et députés d’orientation nationaliste qui, sous l’impression des récents évé-

nements en Italie, voudraient revenir sur ce point et officialiser l’appellation «tsigane». (Adevãrul, février 2008). Il

faut noter aussi qu’en Roumanie le redoublement de la consonne transmet un sens figuré, l’ironie: au 19e siècle le

patriote démagogue apparaît comme un «rroumain» dans la littérature.

2 Les roms ont attiré l’attention des historiens roumains et autres sociologues sporadiquement après 1989 et aujour-

d’hui encore. Malgré une certaine augmentation de l’intérêt, on ne peut pas véritablement parler d’un corpus de

recherches qui leur serait dédiées (Achim 1999). L’élite rom joue aujourd’hui un rôle important, et il n’est pas sans

intérêt de remarquer qu’elle a choisi de suivre un type de management culturel qui rappelle étrangement celui des

intellectuels roumains de 19e siècle, en combinant l’action sociale, management culturel (par le truchement des

ONG) avec les études d’histoire ancienne, langue, ethnographie et folklore rom (Sarãu 1997, Grigore 2005)

3 Nous suivons ici l’exemple de Zoltan Barany qui utilise en alternance, pour de raisons stylistiques, rom et tsigane

(Barany 2002)

4 “One of the consequences of migration is to create a situation in which the same individual-who may or may not

be a mixed blood-finds himself striving to live in two diverse cultural groups. The effect is to produce an unstable

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character-a personality type with characteristic forms of behavior. This is the “marginal man”. It is in the mind of

the marginal man that the conflicting cultures meet and fuse. It is, therefore, in the mind of the marginal man that

the process of civilization is visibly going on, and it is in the mind of the marginal man that the process of civiliza-

tion may best be studied.” ( Park 1928: 881)

5 Nom du village dans le département de Sibiu d’où est originaire Nicolae Romulus Mailat.

6 Elle faisait partie du groupe appelé spoitori (rétameurs), probablement originaire du sud du Danube, si on note

leur nom de famille turque, qui étaient depuis un temps sédentaires mais qui faisaient un circuit saisonnier dans les

campagnes des départements au bord du Danube et autour de Bucarest (cf. aussi Grigore 2005) en offrant des ser-

vices spécifiques à l’économie domestique paysanne (réparation, rétamage des chaudrons et autre cuivrerie, divers

trocs, etc.).

7 Notre démarche n’aspire nullement à traiter «le cas» comme une enquête ou reconstruction judiciaire. Il appar-

tient aux juges et autres personnes habilitées d’établir la vérité, d’en tirer les conclusions juridiques, pratiques et de

faire subir les conséquences légales aux acteurs de ce drame malheureux.

8 Des roumains et leur logements de fortune ont été la cible des attaques d’extrémistes italiens; un conseiller muni-

cipal de Rome a dû démissionner après avoir proposé que les élèves roms ne se mélangent pas dans les bus avec leur

collègues italiens; le ministre des affaires étrangères roumain a publiquement «regretté de ne pas pouvoir acheter des

terres dans le dessert égyptien pour établir un camp et pouvoir enfermer ainsi tous les criminels» etc.

9 Dossier Immigrazione Caritas / Migrantes 2007.

10 La description qui suit utilise les quelques recherches roumaines sur les communautés roms (Zamfir & Zamfir

1993, Mirga & Gheorghe 1997, Achim 1998), mais se base surtout sur des observations directes des trajectoires

sociales des roms que j’ai intersecté ou seulement connu pendant les dernières décennies. L’espace ne permet pas

d’ouvrir un débat concernant le traitement de la période de l’esclavage de roms en tant que singularité. On notera

seulement que la Roumanie de l’époque (avant 1848) s’inscrit dans l’espace dit du «deuxième servage», qu’un

nombre important des paysans dans la partie est de l’empire austro-hongrois, dans les pays roumains et en Russie

mènent eux aussi une existence pour le moins misérable autant économiquement que socialement (Cf. Golescu

1828).

11 Si des dénomination tels kãldãrari (chaudronniers) sont en passe de devenir «ethniques», d’autres comme kopã-

nari (berceaux et seaux en bois), tolari (marchands de vieux habits, couvertures), pletosi (pletos - long cheveux, hir-

sute ), netoti (netot – troglodyte) ou baiesi (travailleurs en mine) n’ont que le mérite de montrer la difficulté de fon-

der une classification des groupes roms sur de telles basses.

12 La durée de la scolarité obligatoire a connu des fluctuations pendant le XXe siècle: 7 années d’école dans les

années 20, 10 pendant le communisme, 9 années actuellement.

13 Il s’agit du rom «surnuméraire» qui n’apparaît pas dans les statistiques puisqu’il se déclare toujours comme fai-

sant partie de la majorité avec laquelle il partage langue et moeurs. Le cas de musiciens roms est significatif

(Beisinger 2001)

14 Au début des années 90 les roms ont été la cible de quelques violences, surtout dans le milieu rural. Les anthro-

pologues ont essayé d’expliquer ces explosions en parlant de vide après changement, de recherche de nouveau enne-

mi et service de bouc émissaire (Verdery 1996). Néanmoins les affrontements violents du début des années 90 sem-

blent avoir pour cause plutôt la démission de l’état causée par la perte de légitimation des forces censés exercer la

violence légitime (police, administration locale etc.)


15 Il faut noter l’origine majoritairement rurale des immigrés roumains, et l’importance du rapport rural – urbain

à la fois dans la production des conflits et dans les processus de structuration d’identités.

16 Les manele sont des chansons d’inspiration pan balkanique (R?dulescu 2000), avec de vagues touches disco, très

prisées en Roumanie, bien que fortement critiquées et rejetées par la «haute culture». Les paroles parlent d’amour,

argent, pouvoir et même, comme c’est le cas ici, nation imaginée. Les interprètes, généralement de tsiganes, mais

pas exclusivement, portent des noms de scène comme Adrian L’Enfant Miracle, Florin Salami, Florin L’Enchanteur

ou la Princesse d’Or et sont connus dans tout le pays.

17 La communion des individus dans l’imaginaire national dont parle Anderson (Anderson 1991) se réalise aujour-

d’hui à travers de moyens de communication de masse et des rencontres à travers la «communion des objets», dont

les marques sont l’expression classique. La communion des membres d’une communauté se fait aujourd’hui à tra-

vers la télévision, la musique, Internet etc. et à travers le partage, pour utiliser une formule désuète, d’une même

culture matérielle.

18 Dénomination des habitants des provinces historiques roumaines: Moldavie, Transylvanie, Olténie etc.

19 La transcription des lignes essaye de signaler aussi la prononciation „à l’anglaise”, car cela est utilisé à bon escient

pour montrer les compétences culturelles des roms interprètes.

20 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJpFV-dTtck, consulté 22.02.2008

Postface

François RueggUniversity of Fribourg, SwitzerlandInstitute of Social Anthropology

Following the completion of our research project Nomads and Parliamentarians. Theinfluence of mobility and religious affiliation on identity building and on the develop-ment of integration social policies. Roma people in Northern, Eastern Romania and theRepublic of Moldova (1989-2005)1, it seemed interesting to make a few generalremarks. These comments, of course, do not claim to summarise the effectuatedresearch throughout the project but rather to underline its main outcomes.What has changed about the Roma in the last 20 years, since the end of Communistregimes and more recently, with their migrations to the West? It seems Roma havebecome a European cause, a visible, mostly disliked and discriminated minority andtherefore a centre of interest for politics, humanitarian concerns and social sciences,without forgetting the media, of course.From an international European political perspective, Roma have essentially beenconsidered an opportunity and tool for the EU administration to strongly bargainthe access of new comer Nations (Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria) intothe EU (Schüler 2007: 90). This supposedly “Human Rights-oriented” pressure onEastern European Governments for a “proper” treatment of their minorities couldalso be seen as a means to avoid their migrations to the West, an aim that has, onceagain2, not been reached.The results of these pressures and negotiations could be summarised as follows: • the emergence of a new set of national laws concerning the Roma minority, includ-ing their right to education and access to Romani language and culture• new opportunities for the Roma themselves to defend their cause as a recognisedminority in the political sphere, as well as access to social and cultural rights and themeans to implement them• the opening of political institutions (the Parliament and Government, politicalparties) to Roma representatives, and finally • a variety of lobbies for Roma, as it was also conceded to other national minorities3


For humanitarian international organisations, Roma in Eastern Europe have been anopportunity for a renewed engagement in the fight for human rights and equality aswell as against discrimination. The Roma campaign followed other similar actionsdirected against the “barbaric” or “despotic” Eastern European Governments andtheir inability to handle the disabled and other marginalised people, mainly streetand disabled children. The economic aspect of these political-humanitarian under-takings should not be undermined, since the funds they were able to raise are con-siderable and have contributed towards an “awareness” of the Roma, as well as in cre-ating, or at least stimulating the formation of many local NGOs related to the“Roma-question.” These NGOs, mostly run by Roma people, have therefore creat-ed a remarkable opportunity for new jobs to arise as well as for the development ofa Roma elite. As one may notice in other similar circumstances, this has neverthe-less also given way for corruption to infiltrate the various projects put in place andhas increased mistrust among the Roma population itself.

Poverty and CultureIn reading the recent publications and research materials on the Roma (publishedboth in Romania and Western Europe), one soon realises that the majority of theseconcentrate on two main aspects regarding their emergence on the European stage.On the one hand, we find the “poverty aspect”, which is supposed to explain theirmarginalisation. On the other, we see the emergence of an increasingly constructedRoma culture. This in turn contributes in defending their social and cultural rightsas a newly acquired identity as national and transnational minority. The study of theRoma’s history also bears witness to the trend of linking Roma with poverty, focussingmore particularly on the poor social status of the Tsiganis in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe (Crowe 1994; Achim 1998; Marushiakova 2001; Barany 2002). Concerning Roma culture, one can still distinguish two major domains. A first oneis consecrated to its celebration – in all its guises – following the model of nationalcultures (language, traditions, customs, folklore, arts). This also allows for the con-stitution of a common Roma cultural heritage. Nevertheless, this movement is notparticular to Romania, but originates in fact from Western Europe, where culturalminority “causes” are better defended. The second deals with the study of identities,such as the ones Roma ascribe to themselves and those which are ascribed to themby non-Roma. Moreover, the intercultural relations which this “minority” entertains

POSTFACE 89

within the nation in which they live (in this case Romania) enter very much intoconsideration (Ruegg, Poledna & Rus 2003) in the forming of these identities.These aforementioned relations are for the most part, as we may already know, dis-criminatory and mutually exclusive, based on an ethnic hierarchy. This hierarchy hasbeen established and made resolute through many centuries of juridical and socialpractices, clearly distinct from one another – depending on which Province is con-cerned. The “historical” minorities of today (German and Hungarian) once ruledover Transylvania as “governing” minorities. Still to this day, these “historical”minorities in Transylvania have apparent advantages over other “ethnic” minorities,notably the Roma, who are sometimes not even mentioned as a recognised minori-ty but feature in the “other” minority categories. In this context, it is important toremember that Romanians have only been in power, as a majority, since the Treatyof Trianon in 1920.

Poverty: from assimilation to ethnicisationOne might ask: why the concern with poverty? Indeed, various statistics inform usthat Roma populations live in precarious conditions, here as much as elsewhere(Comparative Economic Studies 2006)4. Moreover, the States’ politics as well asthose of intergovernmental and non governmental organisations also base theirstrategies on these very statistics, to “improve the fate of the Rom” (this expressionwas adopted for a PHARE project title)5. These undertaken improvement measuresallow us to identify what poverty these politics and strategies are aiming to remedy.Essentially, the “betterment measures” consist in the setting in place of governmen-tal institutions which are to provide, hand in hand with non-governmental organi-sations, educational and health programmes, as well as take anti-discriminationmeasures. However, if we lend our attention to the historical literature dedicated to“Gypsies”, as they were called until the recent use of the ethnonym “Roma”, we soonrealise that this perception of them as a problem to solve has been long-lasting.Moreover and most importantly, the undertaken efforts to resolve the problem of the“Gypsies” have been recorded ever since the 18th Century; this then, is not a newphenomena, both in the wider perception of the Roma population and in the strate-gies and measures taken to better their fate (Ruegg 2009). Without going into fur-ther detail about what each measure and strategy assumed by the various govern-ments entailed, we realise that since the 18th Century and up until very recently, the


policies have generally been of the same ilk; in other words, they mostly fit into the“assimilation agenda”. At that time in history, these measures already had for pur-pose the eradication of Roma differences, which were, according to the law makers,at the source of their discrimination and intolerable marginality. With little varia-tion, similar means were applied to other nomadic minority populations. As anexample of this we find the Indians in the Americas upon which was forced a seden-tary lifestyle, the prohibition to speak their vernacular language, education (com-pulsory schooling), forced religious conversion, and at times separation of childrenfrom their parents to avoid the generational reproduction of misery – if not physicalelimination of entire families: We know of the pogroms which were perpetratedagainst Roma notably in Bessarabia where they had previously been deported to.In considering Roma as being essentially or naturally poor, one believes to havesolved the question of their “ethnic difference”, which supposedly causes their mar-ginalisation (Ruegg 2009). Thus, taking Sonja Schüler’s example in a volume enti-tled “Die ethnische dimension der Armut” (the ethnic dimension of poverty), pub-lished in 2007, one draws the conclusion that Roma are “naturally”, and thus by def-inition, “ethnically poor”. Today therefore, the preconised “solution” to this more orless widely accepted “problem of Roma poverty” within the political and humani-tarian milieus, is to resort to the classical measures of economical and social aidand/or positive discrimination. Other authors dedicated to drawing up the historyof Roma populations in Central and Eastern Europe reach the same “doomed-to-poverty” conclusions (see Crowe 1994). However, other data collected by Neculauand Curelaru (2003) in a survey on poverty in Romania stands as a remarkably starkcontrast, as it reveals that poverty concerns the entire Romanian population and isnot particular to the Roma. The term “Gypsy” only appeared twice in the survey andthis, only when regarding questions about who, in the country, deserves financialhelp. Additionally, in no instance was the ethnic origin of the poor mentioned, butrather that of social class, unemployment and levels of education6.Lastly, let us also stress that in emphasising poverty, national and international poli-cies for Roma highlight their ethnic differences. This, in turn, inevitably promotesand reinforces the Roma’s communitarian conscience of poverty (Schüler 2007: 94)which helps them in their effort to fight for their social and cultural rights.Furthermore, Roma adopt this poverty dimension into their self perception and inso doing, become a “nation” of beggars to the point where they even present them-

POSTFACE 91

selves as such. We can nevertheless wonder whether this amalgamation of povertyand ethnicity has not brought about a new and amplified source for discriminatingagainst them. Indeed since 1989, other poor, or the “new poor” in Romanian soci-ety have not benefited from such wide attention, or from the same positive dis-crimination measures. This, in turn, could cause these “others” to put the blame onRoma populations for their anger and frustration, displayed through the awakeningof age-old prejudices and attitudes of rejection.

Culture: cultural rights and the construction of ethnicityAt the same time, various national and international authorities have introducedcultural policies in favour of the Roma, inspired by multicultural practices appliedin other locations, and at other times. These are implemented in defence of theircultural rights and aim to reinforce their collective ethnic identity through the cre-ation of a common “national” Roma culture. Measures taken to facilitate their accessto education and “civilisation” are those that were applied through older assimila-tion-oriented policies. This time, however, they are axed towards the construction ofa Roma culture rather towards an access to the majority’s culture. In this instance wewitness a positive recognition of differences; a celebration of “National Roma” cul-ture (in the old sense of the word; that is to say the “nationality” or ethnicity),through the establishment of a common standardised language, common traditionsand folklore. Alongside this, international and national activists’ associationsencourage the production of Roma art and literature, which will build and consti-tute part of the “cultural Roma heritage”. The convening of World RomaniCongresses, for the first time in London in 1971 certainly was a milestone in theprocess of the creation of a Roma nation, at least as it can be seen from the outside7.These measures veering towards the celebration of “Roma national culture”, a trendwhich, as previously mentioned, is already particularly well established in WesternEurope, is strongly supported at the European level by the Council of Europe. A ver-itable “national Roma movement” has thus emerged; only a territory would sufficeto compete with other European nation-states. The idea and solution of creating aRomanestan was already envisaged as early as the 1930s, by Polish Roma (Barany2002: 257) and has been many more times since8.Through the mix of nativism and revivalism, a return to imagined roots and com-munities9, as B. Anderson phrases it so poetically, many cultural manifestations have


emerged. These, however, seem only to affect a minority of the concerned popula-tions. The reasons for this are various, and sometimes as simple as that the majorityof Roma do not necessarily recognise themselves in this “national” construction.There is no need to recall the different ways in which Roma identify themselves,according to the time and place, nor is it opportune to reiterate here the ambiguityof the censuses results. We shall, at this point, also look over the different aspects ofreciprocal social representations between the various national “ethnic” identities inRomania (such as Nastasa & Salat 2000). What we do nevertheless wish to high-light, is that the communitarian-inspired policies of today have a high chance ofreinforcing the cleavages between Roma and non-Roma populations which contin-ue to be firmly established throughout the centuries.

Our researchFaced with these two main tendencies, poverty and ethnicity constructs, it appearedpertinent to apply the tools given to us through anthropology and social psycholo-gy and distance ourselves from these trends, as they essentialise, focus on the obvi-ous and overlook the intricacies of Roma diversity. Indeed, the poverty-identity con-demns Roma to be, as we see in certain “Third World” countries, eternally assistedby outside agents. The other trend based on the ethnic identity tends to make anethnographic or “national” curiosity out of Roma.This is why we chose the following two different directions to conduct our research:social and geographical mobility, linked to the formation of elites on one part, andreligious conversion, which gives rise to new forms of identities, on the other. Thestudy of these two dimensions enabled us to disclose social integration strategies,developed by Roma themselves, from opportunities that have been offered them,thanks to the opening of borders and also to public or private socio-economicalpositions which they have accessed for the first time. The break with ethnicity thatreligious conversion represents was also a strong factor in the Roma developing thesestrategies of social integration. From here onwards, we will focus on our two maingroups of interest: the elite, and the converted.

The study of the elitesBy naming our project “Nomads and Parliamentarians”, we wanted to emphasise thediversity of the Roma, their occupations and social status through which mobility

POSTFACE 93

has favoured diversity. We were not entirely sure with the results this study wouldensue. It is nevertheless absolutely remarkable that, as Professor Adrian Neculau dis-closed, the Roma elites defend their cultural identity very well necessitating no exte-rior support. It is the elites that establish the credibility of Roma difference, sincethis one is positive, contrary to the differences drawn up through marginalisation.In considering the elites, one should not forget the economical Roma elite, i.e. suc-cessful “businessmen”. Even though they represent a minority of the Roma popula-tion and contradict the “doomed-to-poverty” theory, they can in no case beignored.10 Upon closer inspection, one would be able to identify the affiliation ofrich Roma with certain lineages (neamuri) only – an important criteria of self-iden-tification.11 Furthermore, as the example of minorities in the United States portrays,it takes a couple of generations before the new comers obtain public recognition onthe social, political, economical and intellectual scenes (Schnapper 1998). Elitesimpose themselves as such firstly on the society and then indisputably contribute tothe approval and recognition of minorities from whence they originate.

Religious conversionFrom our research work, religious conversion proved to be an important elementin the social integration of Roma into the Romanian global society. Nevertheless,it can difficultly enter the sphere of social integration policies since this, of course,would be perceived as interfering with the individual’s private life. Moreover, ourinterest in Roma conversion does not suppose a belief on our part that this couldbe an alternative solution to their integration. Indeed our only purpose was toobserve the identity strategies set in place by Roma themselves through these con-versions. The religious conversion phenomenon and its social repercussions are wellknown and have also been observed in colonial and post-colonial contexts. We arenot talking here of envisaging (forced) conversion as did the Austrian Emperors inthe 18th Century, or as did the 19th Century missionaries: a systematic policy whichwould ensure the education and civilisation of a “savage” population in an effort toassimilate it. Instead, we observed and took note of the effects of these willed con-versions. Indeed in this case, though we could have guessed otherwise prior to ourresearch12, these conversions did not occur as a result of “foreign” missionary pro-paganda aided by material provision, but instead we observed a process which engen-ders differentiation and permits social integration. Interestingly, a large majority con-


vert into Pentecostalism (our research went to show this trend to be true as muchin Transylvania, Moldavia, the Republic of Moldova as well as in Bulgaria). Thiscould lead us to interpret this very phenomenon as dissident behaviour, rather thanintegrative, vis-à-vis the national Orthodox Church which after all is the tradition-al Church to which Roma belong to. But what we must understand is that to beable to socially integrate, one must first escape the marginalisation that occurswithin the dominant religion, as also takes place within the dominant society. Thisis why many Roma find a new cultural identity through their conversion toPentecostalism, free of ethnic (Roma) stereotypes. But there is more: beingPentecostal also means escaping the Roma destiny or “nature” – they now liveaccording to a puritan ethic, which strongly contrasts their old identity. The stereo-types concerning “Roma destiny” are no strangers to our Western societies: low-paid despised jobs, never having any money – or spending it all on parties, a mar-ginal lifestyle of financial inconsistency, and living the “Bohemian” lifestyle, as wesay with à propos. To be Pentecostal (according to an informant) means to be ableto lead a normal life, to stop drinking without limits, to send one’s children toschool and become a respected entrepreneur. Once the following generations areestablished and socially recognised, they will be able to assert once again their“Roma origins” – as have done so many immigrants in North America and else-where, be they Jewish, Irish or Italian.Through these thoughts and reflections, we wish to convey that in observing themargins, rather than the centre, we soon realise that, said clumsily: “things move”.Indeed, these minority movements within Roma communities will sooner or lateraffect the wider Roma majority. In so doing, new ways of social integration willinevitably be brought to the surface, and alternative routes to their “destiny of mis-ery”, revealed.In our opinion, global studies that are based on the average financial income ofRoma without making the distinction between groups and communities nor thelocal comparative context, and/or documentaries on Roma beggars in WesternEurope (when these are not voluntarily chocking documentaries on “forced wed-dings”), or inversely, the hailing of Roma’s cultural richness and particularities, willnot allow or help us in getting to grips with the mutations and subtleties which takeplace behind the scenes. These global accounts will only reinforce and foster thestereotypes that have been far too long-lasting.

POSTFACE 95

BibliographyAchim, V. 1998: Tiganii in istoria Romaniei. Bucuresti: Editura EnciclopedicaAchim, V. 2004: The Roma in Romanian History. New York: Central EuropeanUniversity PressBarany, Z. 2002: The East European Gypsies, Regime Change, Marginality andEthnopolitics. New York: Cambridge University Press.Comparative Economic Studies, 2006: Symposium on the Roma, Vol. 48, Number1, March 2006; 1-49Crowe, D. 1995: A History of the Gypsies of Eastern Europe and Russia. New York:St. Martin’s Press.Fonseca, I. 2003: Enterrez-moi debout: L’Odyssée des Tziganes. Paris: Albin MichelMariushiakova, E. & popov, V. 2001: Gypsies in the Ottoman Empire. Universityof Hertfordshire PressMartiniello, M. 1995: L’ethnicité dans les sciences sociales contemporaines. Paris:PUFNastasa & salat 2000: Interethnic Relations in Post-Communist Romania. Cluj Neculau A. & curelaru, M., 2003: La Rappresentazione sociale della poverta. Unstudio realizzato in Romania, in: Le Dimensioni psicosociali della Poverta.Un’analisi cross-culturale, a cura di Ida Galli, Roma, 73-106Okely, J. 1997: Some political consequences of theories of Gypsy ethnicity. Theplace of the intellectual, in: After Writing Culture New York, 224-243Polek, J. 1908: Die Zigeuner in der Bukowina, CzernowitzRuegg, F. (with Poledna, R. & Rus. C. eds) 2006: Interculturalism andDiscrimination in Romania: Policies, Practices, Identitites and Representations.Berlin: LIT(2009) Ethnicisation of poverty: Poverty of Ethnicisation. Roma in Eastern Europe.In: “Trugschlüsse und Umdeutungen. Berlin: LITSchnapper, D. 1998: La relation à l’autre. Paris: Gallimard.Schuler, S. 2007: Die ethnische Dimension der Armut. Stuttgart.Toma, S. 2006: Ethnic relations and poverty in a multi-ethnic community inRomania, in: Interculturalism and Discrimination in Romania: Policies, Practices,Identities and Representations, Berlin, LIT, 155-172.


1 The current issue of Ethnobarometer covers the section concerning Northern and North-Eastern Romania.

2 It is worth mentioning that agreements between Western European and Eastern States on a forced repatriation

of Roma are not at all a new invention. On June 30, 1776, a Convention was signed between the Ottoman and the

Austrian Empires according to which any Gypsies trying to escape in one or another country would be repatriated

immediately and given back to his owner (Polek 1908: 4).

3 It is necessary to recall here the distinction made in Romania between historical and ethnic minorities, the latter

being of course of a lower status as the first which includes Germans and Hungarians. A similar distinction is made

in the USA between racial and ethnic minorities, the racial (African and Asian) taking the place of the ethnic one

in Eastern Europe.

4 It is important to note that as far as social anthropology is concerned, poverty, solely identified by one’s annual

income or a poverty line establishing that one’s expenses limit themselves to $4.3 a day (Michler) does not consti-

tute a satisfying concept, nor is it considered functional, unless it is plunged back into its context, in terms of social,

cultural, historical and political background. Without these wider considerations, the monetary measurement of

poverty becomes a convenient means to resolve the “Rom issue”.

5 For details concerning the negotiations between the European Commission and Romania, see Schüler 2007: 90-

102.

6 Additionally, one can also find field analyses on inter-ethnic relations and poverty: see Toma (2006)

7 According to Barany (2002: 258) «These congresses have rarely been the serious affairs one might expect», see

similar considerations in Fonseca, passim.

8 For a detailed account of the emancipation of Roma in Romania, see Crowe 1994: 107-149.

9 Meanwhile, as Okely (1993) rightfully pointed out, the invented ideologies concerning Roma’s ethnicity, by both

non-Roma and Roma (especially that of their Indian origins) play a considerable role in influencing social repre-

sentations of Roma.

10 Their seeming absence of solidarity with poor Roma does not highjack their Roma identity. Interestingly, there

is no more solidarity between the new Romanian rich and their poor “co-nationals” than between rich and poor

Roma.

11 See Boscoboinik & Giordano in this volume.

12 The prevalent explanations for their conversion (even among scholars) refer only to material and financial benefits

and are thought to occur strictly for opportunistic purposes.

The Authors

Andrea Boscoboinik is doctor lecturer at the Institute of Social Anthropology,University of Fribourg, Switzerland.

Mihai Curelaru is doctor lecturer at the Laboratory of Social Psychology, at“Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University, Iasi, Romania.

Christian Giordano is full Professor at the Institute of Social Anthropology,University of Fribourg, Switzerland, Doctor honoris causa of the University ofTimisoara (Romania) and President of Ethnobarometer.

Sorin Gog is PhD student and assistant lecturer at the Faculty of Sociology andSocial Work, Babes-Bolyai University from Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

Adrian Neculau is full Professor at the Laboratory of Social Psychology, at“Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University, Iasi, Romania.

Teodor Nitu is PhD student at the Institute of Social Anthropology, University ofFribourg, Switzerland.

François Ruegg is associate Professor at the Institute of Social Anthropology,University of Fribourg, Switzerland.

Daniela Tarnovschi is a PhD student at the Babes Bolyai University, Cluj,Romania and program coordinator at Soros Foundation Romania.

Daniela Zaharia is PhD student and assistant lecturer at the Laboratory of SocialPsychology, at “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University, Iasi, Romania.

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