Martin Kovats

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As a political scientist, I have been following and trying to explain the emergence of Roma politics since the early 1990s. Between 2010 and 2014, I advised the EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion on the EU Roma Framework.The publications available on this site span the evolution of my perceptions of the subject from my doctoral thesis on the politics of Roma in late communist and early postcommunist Hungary (1998) through to Rethinking Roma (2018).

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Andreas Umland

National University of "Kyiv-Mohyla Academy"

Ilsen About

EHESS-Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales

Armando Marques-Guedes

UNL - New University of Lisbon

Remus Gabriel Anghel

National University of Political Studies and Public Administration

Ivan Katchanovski

University of Ottawa | Université d'Ottawa

Andrew N Liaropoulos

University of Piraeus

Nando Sigona

University of Birmingham

Olivier COSTA

Sciences Po, Paris

Mauro Grondona

University of Genova

Viacheslav Kuleshov

Stockholm University

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Rethinking Roma: Identities, Politicisation and New Agendas

This book provides the first comprehensive analysis of the emergence, development and implication... more This book provides the first comprehensive analysis of the emergence, development and implications of the Roma political phenomenon in contemporary Europe. It also challenges the conventional epistemological basis to political claims of distinct Roma people and argues that the contemporary politics of Roma is better understood as the public application of Roma identity. In recent times a new word has entered the political lexicon across Europe and beyond: Roma. Thirty years ago it would have been hard to encounter the public use of the word outside of a small number of academics and activists. In the second decade of the new millennium, Roma has become a dynamic political identity championed by hundreds of organisations, thousands of activists and applied to millions of people across Europe and beyond. Roma has become an agenda item for local and national authorities, as well as being taken up by the European Union and other international organisations. In challenging the conventional epistemology, this book examines the principal interests and processes that are constructing Roma as a public, political identity encompassing highly differentiated groups of people. This book brings together critical race theory and theories of ethnic mobilisation to provide a new critical framework for understanding Roma identity, history and transnational politics. It will be of particular interest to students and academics within the fields of global racialization and ethnicity studies.

Deracialisation

Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2018

Roma Identity and Diversity

This chapter examines the social, cultural and political diversity of the communities now include... more This chapter examines the social, cultural and political diversity of the communities now included within a broad public definition of Roma to demonstrate that the politics of Roma cannot be seen as that of a specific people but as the application of Roma identity for political purposes. It critiques the linguistic, biological and historical knowledge, as well as contemporary data collection informing public discourse about Roma, highlighting the preference for large numbers based on external categorisation over self-identification.

Problems of Intellectual and Policial Accountability in Respect of Emerging European Roma Policy

DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals - DOAJ, 2001

Open Democracy:Hungary: Between Ethnic Community and European State

European Programme Briefing Paper:The European 'Roma Question

Roma Activism

Roma Policy

Problems of intellectual and political accountability in respect of emerging european Roma policy

The paper argues that, at the European level, the situation of Roma minorities represent a new po... more The paper argues that, at the European level, the situation of Roma minorities represent a new policy issue. However, over the 1990s the level of understanding of this issue became increasingly distorted, reflecting more the interests of mainstream institutions than those of Roma people and communities. In particular, the Roma issue has been increasingly defined in cultural terms, as a matter of discrimination, rather than identifying the causes of and effectively addressing the considerable objective problems faced by many Roma people such as poverty, unemployment, poor housing, health etc. The role of scholars should be to develop methods and theories to aid policy makers' understanding of the complex conditions affecting the highly diverse people covered b the concept of 'Roma'. To date this has not been achieved, partly due to the blurring of boundaries between scholarship and political activism

Martin Kovats

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