Those Who Count

Expert Practices of Roma Classification

Description
Table of contents
Reviews

The way in which researchers, experts and scientists classify people—in this case the Roma—can have serious consequences. Highly repetitive Roma-related themes and in conjunction with mass media production, the topics such as poverty, lack of education, unemployment and welfare dependency, and all these were transformed into an iconic depiction of Roma. A critical reading of Roma-related literature illuminates the implications of the objectification of people's private lives, and that the scientific and expert findings circulated by Roma-related research are highly influenced by the political regimes in power.

As a result of this a consistently negative image of Roma persists. Many of those labeled as Roma internalize these enduring stereotypes, which limits their expectations, and often negatively influences their life course.

In the author’s view, the best way is not to analyze the Roma themselves (since ethnic identity is contextual and fluid) but to look at their various classifiers—and especially to the expert categorizers—and to the various means of objectification. The study contributes to a critical debate which could lead to more sensitivity, more prudent assumptions, descriptions and methodological designs, and may assist in depoliticizing Roma ethnicity.

Acknowledgments
Introduction

CHAPTER 1: EPISTEMIC AND POLITICAL CLASSIFICATIONS
1. Classifications that Matter
Strengthening the object of study
Static and Variable in Roma classifications
2. Scientific Interests and Political Relevance
The political economy of knowledge production
3. From Expert to Self-Ascription

CHAPTER 2: ETHNICITY THEORIES AND RESEARCH PRACTICES
1. Constructivist Theories vs. Essentialist Practices
Ethnicity as a fiction made by science
The entrepreneurial side of ethnicity
Ethnicity as an artificial boundary
Ethnicity as an uncritical circulated category

2. Roma Ethnicity Measurement in Sociological Surveys
How Roma representative samples are made
Framing questions and interpreting findings in Roma-related surveys

CHAPTER 3: DISCIPLINARY TRADITIONS IN THE STUDY OF ROMA
1. From Police Profiling to Policy Research Profiles
2. Anthropological, Historical, and Linguistic Accounts of Roma
Linguistics and historiography of Roma
Social history on Roma minoritization and stigmatization
Anthropological views on Roma origin: Exoticization and irrelevance
3. Roma Identity between Activism and Politics
4. Studies on Roma Discrimination

CHAPTER 4: ETHNICITY INSCRIPTIONS IN CENSUSES AND SURVEYS
1. The Census in Racial Policy Regimes
The Census in Nazi Germany
The Census in apartheid South Africa
2. Ethnicity Inscription in Modern Censuses
Governmental practices of recording ethnicity in censuses
The Census as a tool of governance
Resistance to census categorization
3. From Fiscal to Ethnic Categories and Further On to ‘Ethnic Unavailable’
Gypsies as a social and fiscal category
Gypsies as an undercounted census category
Roma as an unavailable ethnic category
4. Problematic Consensus on the Roma Undercount in Censuses
5. Representative Surveys Samples Built on Unrepresentative Census Data

CHAPTER 5: INFLUENCERS OF ACADEMIC AND EXPERT DISCOURSE ABOUT ROMA
1. A Bibliometric Approach
2. Institutionalization of Roma Category in Academic Discourse
3. Disentangling Influence
4. Who is Who in Expert Discourse about Roma
CHAPTER 6: CASE STUDIES ON ROMA-RELATED DISCOURSE
1. Recycling Frames in World Bank Publications (Case Study 1)
Cultural frames
Repetitio est mater studiourum
Selectivity of sources and assembling evidence in Roma-related research
2. Roma Welfare Dependency:
How Representations are Created and Dismantled (Case Study 2)
Unmaking public opinion
3. Genetic Studies: Interest in Roma Origin(s) and Mobility (Case Study 3)
Endogamy as a master narrative frame in Roma-related genetic papers
The unbearable generalization: From convenience samples to Roma population
Roma as subjects of medical genetic research
4. “The Sun is a Gypsy Stove” (Case Study 4)

CHAPTER 7: VISUAL DEPICTIONS OF ROMA IN EXPERT PUBLICATIONS
1. Reading Photography: Pretext, Text, and Context
Selection of photographs for analysis
2. Roma Images in Policy Literature
Roma girl writing in a schoolbook
Children by the garbage dumpsite
The smoking Roma
3. The Untold Roma Story or the Repressed Normalcy

Conclusions
Bibliography
Index

East Central Europe

"Those who name have the power to decide who and what something is. It follows then that groups who name themselves get to control their narratives and ultimately who they are as a people. Naming and its consequences for the Romani peoples occupy Mihai Surdu’s thought-provoking and timely volume Those Who Count. Rarely has a volume that I have read caused me as a scholar to be so circumspect about my scholarship and the analytical means that I use to arrive at conclusions. But if we consider that most fundamental information about who we have termed “Roma” is incorrect, then what should we consider those products that were created on the basis of that information? Surdu challenges those whose work is focused on Roma in some way to engage with that question and challenge our assumptions and fundamental understanding of those who we call and count as “Roma.”

Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas

"Der rumänische Soziologe und Wissenschaftsforscher Surdu beschäftigt sich seit Jahren mit der Lage von Roma in Europa und untersuchte beispielsweise die Segregation von Roma in der Bildung. In der rezensierten Abhandlung, die aus insgesamt sieben Kapiteln besteht, stellt er zunächst die wichtigsten akademischen und politischen Akteure der Wissensproduktion über Roma vor. Obschon diese Akteure oft eng zusammenarbeiten, die Öffentlichkeit für die Probleme von Roma zu sensibilisieren suchen und in der Regel auf die Verbesserung ihrer Situation bedacht sind,konstruieren sie nicht selten eine negative Roma-Identität und verstärken dadurch die in der Gesellschaft ohnehin verbreiteten Vorurteile und Stereotyp. Seine interessante, lesenswerte aktuelle Arbeit ist ein wichtiger Schritt in diese Richtung. Sie beleuchtet die Situation von Roma unter neuen Perspektiven und gibt neue Impulse für die... more

Slavic Review

"Mihai Surdu's study is interesting and reminds us of the importance of being sensitive to words and ideas that might unintentionally promote age-old stereotypes."