Gianpiero Cavalleri is Associate Professor of Human Genetics at the Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and is the lead author of a 2017 ...study into the genetic structure of the Irish Traveller community. The study provided an estimate of when Irish Travellers split from the ‘settled' population in Ireland. This population-based genetic research project involved researchers from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, University College Dublin, the University of Edinburgh and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and looked into the history and structure of the Traveller population in the context of ‘settled' Irish as well as neighbouring European and Roma Gypsy groups. A full-text version of the study first published in the journal Scientific Reports https://epubs.rcsi.ie/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.ie/&httpsredir=1&article=1100&context=mctart. This interview took place at RCSI on Tuesday 21st November 2017.
The romanticised and stereotyped construction of the Romani people absorbed by mainstream society has contributed to the obliteration of their cultural complexity and their ensuing alienation. The ...present article analyses how the memoir The Stopping Places (2018), by the British Romani writer Damian Le Bas, makes a case for the borderlessness of his people. It is the main purpose of this study to underscore Romani identity as inherently multidirectional, hence allowing for a relational, intercultural dialogue aimed at transcending the long-standing Romani vs. non-Romani tension. For this purpose, Le Bas' network-like journey across some key stopping places is read as an endorsement of the synchronicity and interconnectedness characterising our present world. His narrative is an empowering attestation that foregrounds the fruitful interactions between the Roma and other cultures and sets the assumedly distrustful and protective Romani as an example of cultural flexibility.
In Segregation of Roma Children in Education, Sina Van den Bogaert examines, from the perspective of public international law, how the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities ...(Council of Europe) and the Racial Equality Directive 2000/43/EC (European Union) have contributed towards desegregation of Roma children in education in Europe.
People of Romani background are usually labelled as members of an “ethnic minority” and identified along dominantly ethnicized notions and markers. Discursively, this neglects individuals’ different ...self-perceptions and multiple belongings. This contribution looks at interactional data and material from workshops conducted in Germany as part of the EU-wide initiative RoMed (Mediation for Roma). The initiative aimed to strengthen opportunities for local participation by people of Romani background in various European cities and communities between 2011–2017. A conversation analytical approach (e.g. at practices of categorization) is used to examine excerpts from group discussions ahead of a meeting with public officials. From an intersectional perspective I look at how boundaries are drawn, blurred, or destabilized between issues of religiosity and ethnicity. The article discusses boundary-drawing as a symbolic ordering process, highlighting the hegemonic discourses which are reproduced and challenged in the investigated linguistic material. The boundaries drawn and negotiated show the delicate balance between the staging of ethnic and religious affiliations and concerns and their political mobilization.
Through the example of specific locations settled by the Roma population in Slovakia, the study offers a grounded picture of Romani religiosity and spirituality in the twenty-first century. The ...author provides a brief overview of the analytical grasping of this phenomenon in the scientific community, as well as remarks on the seemingly neutral analytical terms used for the description of religiosity and spirituality among the Roma, which may contain clichés or be eventually culturally and intellectually colonialist. Based on multi-sited ethnographies in Slovakia, the author elucidates how traditional Romani Christianity is confronted with Pentecostal and neo-Protestant Christianity, which are considered non-traditional within the traditionally Roman Catholic Slovakia. To avoid scientific exotization of Romani religious culture, the author describes the main elements of traditional Romani Christianity based on the emic insights of non-Pentecostal Roma from various localities and through the lenses of the Pentecostal discourse (converts and pastors). She also mentions the fluid and postmodern features of Romani Christianity, which have preserved numerous traditional elements fluidly mixed with post-traditional and ultra-modern forms of spirituality and religiosity.
This book is the result of a series of studies devoted to assessing the consequences of migration from the perspective of the migration-identity-(in)security causality, with a specific focus on the ...Roma issue in France. It demonstrates that, in the context of the new European agenda on security, following the events of 9/11, immigrants, in general and the Roma, in particular, have found themselves trapped in a spiral of insecurity through which migration has been raised to the level of 'meta-problem' and they have become scapegoats. The book argues that these issues reflect a broader political discussion on the EU's identity and social policy. It shows that the socio-economic and security dimension of the 'Roma dossier' is a case that may require policymakers in Brussels to rethink the EU's social responsibilities towards its citizens, thus giving up their ambiguous attitude regarding migration.
Romanian State Secret Police (Securitate) files produced before 1989 can be accessed today through a lengthy process that requires official research authorization through a government office, the ...National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives (Consiliul Național pentru Studierea Arhivelor Securității - CNSAS). The CNSAS General Document Fund includes large issue-related files under the umbrella of “The Gypsy Problem,” with thousands of pages of both national and county-level reports and recommendations. This paper teases out the granular documentary clues (spie, as Italian historian Carlo Ginzburg describes them) in some of the Securitate files to explore the way in which a pattern of documentary communication is built to frame Romani identity as idiosyncratically marginal, oriental, and parasitic. A particularly interesting aspect of the knowledge production imposed through these files is reflected by anecdotes that purportedly illustrate the character of the Roma. This study analyzes the relations of power built through hermeneutic devices and language choices which build “truth formulae” (Weir) that reify a particular view of Romani ethnicity, class, and gender. This archival (de)construction has implications for a long view of policy, political memory, and exclusionary societal attitudes today and in the future.
Background
21‐hydroxylase deficiency (21OHD) is an autosomal recessive disorder with an incidence of 1:10,000‐1:20,000 and is the result of various mutations in the CYP21A2 gene. 21OHD has been ...described in many different populations, but it has not been studied in Roma individuals so far. The aim of the study was to analyse the genotype in Roma patients with 21OHD and the prevalence of the disease in the Roma population of North Macedonia.
Methods
Molecular analysis of the nine most frequent CYP21A2 mutations in all known Roma patients with CAH in North Macedonia, relatives and healthy individuals of Roma ancestry, using the PCR/ACRS method.
Results
Ten Roma patients with 21OHD were identified, of which nine had the salt‐wasting and one had the simple virilizing form. Calculated incidence of 21OHD in the North Macedonian Roma population was 1:3375. Interestingly, 9/10 patients (90%) were homozygous for the In2G splicing mutation (293‐13A/C > G). Standard therapy with hydrocortisone and fludrocortisone had been introduced according to the guidelines. In 16 healthy relatives investigated for CYP21A2 mutations, heterozygosity for the In2G mutation was detected in 13/32 (40.6%) alleles. In 100 healthy Roma individuals, none related to the analysed families, no CYP21A2 mutations were detected.
Conclusion
The Roma population in North Macedonia had a very high incidence of classic 21OHD. Almost all patients had the severe salt‐wasting form and the In2G/In2G genotype.
The book presents the life, visions and activities of the nascent Roma civic elite who initiated the movement for Roma civic emancipation. The book Roma Portraits in History, in the form of ...individual portraits, presents the life trajectory, visions and specific actions put forward by the nascent Roma elite and its leading representatives concerning the present and future of their community. The book is based on a rich source base of key original archival documents, in multiple languages, including Romani language, discovered in countries across the region of Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, all of which showcase ‘Roma elite’ visions and action. To fulfil the general picture case studies of representatives from Spain and the US are also included.
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