Open Borders, Unlocked Cultures: Romanian Roma Migrants in Western Europe

by Yaron Matras (Editor)

The book examines some of the dilemmas surrounding Europe's open borders, migrations, and identities through the prism of the Roma - Europe's most dispersed and socially marginalised population. The volume challenges some of the myths surrounding the Roma as a 'problem population', and places the focus instead on the context of European policy and identity debates. It comes to the conclusion that the migration of Roma and the constitution of their communities is shaped by European policy as much as, and often more so, than by the cultural traits of the Roma themselves. The chapters compare case studies of Roma migrants in Spain, Italy, France, and Britain and the impact of migration on the origin communities in Romania. The study combines historical and ethnographic methods with insights from migration studies, drawing on a unique multi-site collaborative project that for the first time gave Roma participants a voice in shaping research into their communities.

Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. //s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/doc...

Chapter 7 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. //s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/doc...

182 pages, ebook

Published July 28, 2017

About the author

Yaron Matras is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Manchester, and Editor of the journal Romani Studies. His involvement with Romani issues began in the advocacy and civil rights arena. Matras was media relations officer to the Roma National Congress from 1988-1995, and founding editor of RomNews, one of the very first advocacy information services on Romani issues. He has worked closely with the Open Society Institute's Roma programmes, is a founding member of the European Academic Network on Romani Studies, and has led several large-scale research projects on Romani language and culture, including an international research consortium on Romani migrations. He is the author of over a dozen books and numerous chapters and articles on Romani language and culture, and speaks the Romani language fluently.