Quarmby interviewed on Channel 4 News, 22 October 2013) What happens when two different, but related, moral panics collide? When prejudice and hysteria join forces? What impact does racial profiling have on those communities who find themselves in the crosshairs of the state? In late 2013, various central and Eastern European Roma (‘Gypsy’) communities living in Britain faced an unwelcome and overtly hostile media spotlight. Politicians openly spoke about needing to ‘change’ the ‘behaviour and culture’ of Roma migrants who were allegedly behaving in
majority of the Roma in Eastern Europe live on the brink of survival experiencing poverty and hunger. In 2003 the international development fund the United Nations Development programme (UNDP) found that the living conditions of the Roma in Eastern Europe were at the level of those in sub-Saharan Africa. (Klopčič 2007: 37) The European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) in its quarterly publications often presents similar findings: Even today the Roma (Gypsies) remain the most de- privileged ethnic group in Europe. Their basic rights are endangered almost everywhere. In
interviewed on Channel 4 News, 22 October 2013) What happens when two different, but related, moral panics collide? When prejudice and hysteria join forces? What impact does racial profiling have on those communities who find themselves in the crosshairs of the state? In late 2013, various central and Eastern European Roma (‘Gypsy’) communities living in Britain faced an unwelcome and overtly hostile media spotlight. Politicians openly spoke about needing to ‘change’ the ‘behaviour and culture’ of Roma migrants who were allegedly behaving in ‘intimidating’ and
presumed slayer, a political commitment to achieving full employment – via the lens of ‘first hand’ experiences of Central and Eastern European (CEE) migrant Roma (‘Gypsy’) communities who have moved to the UK in the past decade or so from countries such as Slovakia and Romania. To do this, a few words will first be said about how we both understand and interpret ‘idleness’ and employment in the historical and contemporary age. This section will necessarily investigate the specific Beveridge approach to combatting ‘idleness’ and look at some of the fundamental
implementation of a ‘Social Europe’ can offer innovative solutions to these intransigent dilemmas. Finally, our work aims to serve as a policy instrument for planning and implementing new socio-economic policies on Roma in the European Union (EU). Roma, Gypsy and Traveller communities form the largest minority ethnic group within the EU. According to the European Commission, there are an estimated 10–12 million Roma; ‘Roma and Travellers’ is used as an umbrella term in the definition of the Council of Europe. It encompasses Roma, Sinti, Kale, Romanichals, Boyash
The focus of the book in its examination of policy and practice is mostly located in Britain; however this is achieved within a framework of understanding wider European and global issues for Roma, Gypsies and Travellers. Xenophobia against Roma appears to be on the rise, but there may be potential for European wide social policy to address these issues in the form of the European Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies. Rostas and Ryder argue such an initiative could give impetus to new forms of empowerment and social policy models that avoid the failed paternalistic welfarism of the past.
155 Section Three Working with Roma communities Introduction Gary Craig This small section (and I should also point to Chapter Twelve, on work with Roma youth from Romania, in the following section) quite deliberately focuses on community development work of different kinds with Roma, Gypsy and Traveller groups as a contribution to redressing the imbalance whereby these most deprived groups – by any measure and within every European country – have been the most profoundly ‘invisibilised’ (a term I used in relation to the treatment of the issue of
, and the highest by those from Black African, Arab and Chinese groups. Most ethnic minority groups (with the exception of Roma, Gypsy/Traveller and White Eastern European groups) report higher levels of political interest than the White British group. People from the Roma group are the least likely to report having a political party preference, while the White Irish group has the highest proportion of people who identify with a political party. The distribution of political party preferences varies considerably across groups. Among ethnic minority people
academics, policy makers and the communities themselves. Confusion and distortion often feature in the issue of identity, which Chapter Nine notes has been in part a product of unequal and hierarchical relations between ‘researchers’ and the ‘researched’; a problem that, as noted in Chapter Ten, has been compounded through unbalanced media representation. In legal terms, defining Roma, Gypsies and Travellers in Britain is difficult (this is partly because different definitions apply in equalities cases, in housing law and in planning law). In this book, the
Lives Matter were found among people from Roma, Gypsy/Traveller and White Eastern European backgrounds, but nevertheless more than a quarter of the Roma group and close to two fifths of the Gypsy/Traveller and White Eastern European groups did express support. It is also important to note that only a small minority of people in each ethnic group reported that they opposed BLM. We do not know from these analyses why there was variation in support for BLM across ethnic groups. This, in part, might reflect the salience of experiences relevant to the movement, with
