“Lwów Saved Us”: Roma Survival in Lemberg 1941–44

The ritualized memory of genocide has been a cornerstone of Roma political mobilization during at least the last three decades. A uniqueness paradigm has been developing for some time, applying a memorial discourse inspired by the Jewish Holocaust model. While paralleling each other in time, the mass murders of Jews and Roma during the Second World War differed on several points. In the General Government of the Occupied Polish Territories and the territories occupied by Nazi Germany after Operation Barbarossa, the persecution of Roma took place largely in local initiatives. Consequently, the Nazi policies varied considerably, leading to territories in which Roma were annihilated and those in which about half of the Roma population survived. Considerable differences could also appear within the same administrative unit. In Distrikt Galizien, the southeastern-most district of the General Government, Roma were persecuted violently in the countryside, while the district capital of Lemberg (Lwów, Lviv) saw a different course of events. The picture that appears from the available documents also diverges from survivor testimonies and general accounts of the persecution of Roma as being similar and parallel to that of Jews. Roma were present in Lemberg throughout the Nazi occupation and the authorities were aware of their whereabouts. Roma were not confined to the ghetto, but many, along with Poles and Ukrainians, remained within the territory of the ghetto, parts of which had constituted areas of Roma settlement in Lemberg since the mid nineteenth century. Several Roma also lived in wagons in various locations in 1942–43, as well as in quarters close to the town’s centre. Altogether, several hundred Roma lived in Lemberg, and their treatment by the local courts was different from that of Jews, bearing more similarity to the way in which Polish and Ukrainian cases were handled.     

“Fraudulent” Citizens of a Small Town: Occidentalism in Turkey

Abstract: By looking at the electoral politics in a small town in Turkey, this article aims to illustrate how the political scene is polarised with counterpoised representations of East and West, alongside Occidentalist aspirations. The division supplies a set of ready‐made explanations regarding “backwardness, poverty and corruption”. However, although different frameworks are employed in line with the political orientations of respective parties, particular political demands and courses of action are systematically dismissed. The poor and the repressed are hardly listened to. Yet worse, they are “explained” in advance by the antagonistic pair of the East and the West. This article is an ethnographic exploration of how their demands fall in neither side, and how attending them could challenge the existing political realm.     

Romania's Roma Population: From Marginality to Social Integration

Abstract

Among several groups vulnerable to discrimination in 21st century Europe, Roma loom large because the poorer, traditionally-minded elements continue to resist integration and remain on the margins of society. Most of the people involved have become EU citizens as a result of recent accession by East Central European countries where marginalisation has been tolerated, with varying degrees of discrimination, ever since the 19th century abolition of feudalism. In the interest of a more inclusive society, Roma are now being encouraged to strive for living standards comparable with those enjoyed by the mainstream population. This paper concentrates on Romania, which has one of the largest Roma communities in Europe. We profile the situation with some reference to regional geographies and previous policy history. We examine the key concepts relevant to marginality, arguing for an element of self-exclusion, because while many Roma elements have been successfully assimilated over the years, a large residual element insists on preserving elements of ‘identity’, implying separation from the mainstream in terms of the modernising ethos and the rule of law. The main thrust of the paper rests with a comprehensive programme to improve the condition of the Roma community as a major element among a number of other factors which are working towards the same objective. We give particular attention to the education programme that is now making significant progress.     

The contentious sovereignties of the camp: Political contention among state and non-state actors in Italian Roma camps

The global proliferation of camps manifests an alarming phenomenon of burgeoning marginalization, and shows that the concept of ‘camp’ is today increasingly crucial to grapple with current changes in the world’s geographies of exclusion and inclusion. Specifically, this article focuses on ‘institutional camps’, i.e. created by government agencies in alleged emergency situations and aims to conceptualize sovereignty over this type of camp. After critically reviewing the ongoing scholarly debate on camp sovereignty, I situate my approach within the work of scholars who see political authority over the camp as comprising a multiplicity of both state and non-state actors. The article contributes to this perspective by drawing on the theory of ‘contentious politics’ advanced by McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly (2001). Through this analytical framework, I suggest construing camp sovereignties as contentious, i.e. inherently constituted by conflicting and ever-evolving power relations that change according to framing strategies, political opportunities, resources and repertoires of action. In order to show the benefits of such approach, the paper focuses on the empirical case of the Italian Roma camps in Rome, through which I show that camp sovereignty is not only fragmented into a multiplicity of actors but is also the result of conflict, compromise, negotiation, and co-optation among actors whose frames, opportunities, resources, and repertoires constantly change over time.     

Subjects supposed to know,believe, and enjoy: The geopolitics of ideological transference in the Swedish begging question

This article aims to contribute to the emerging field of psychoanalytic geopolitics by introducing a conceptualization of a geopolitics of ideological transference of political knowledge and belief. This is done through an extensive theoretical application of the Lacanian- Žižekian concepts of the “subject supposed to know,” “subject supposed to believe,” and “subject supposed to enjoy” on an empirical case study. The case concerns the discourse, ideology, and politics of the Swedish state hegemony regarding its handling of the territorial presence of impoverished and excluded EU citizens with Romanian/Bulgarian passport and Roma heritage – popularly called “the beggars” – with a focus on the crisis-laden year of 2015. The government, state, and the media elevated key actors into the ideological status of subjects supposed to know how to end the “beggars’” presence in Sweden in a rational and yet caring way, thus enabling the continuous belief in the Swedish ideology of moral exceptionalism although the practical outcomes effectively hindered the EU citizens from obtaining better life conditions. It is argued that a geopolitics of transference through the application of said concepts enable us to further understand how political actors can simultaneously act cynical and idealist, which both illuminates and complicates notions of what knowledges and beliefs inform politics and political geographies in general.     

European Union at the Crossroads: A Framing Comment

In a framing comment embracing the preceding four papers devoted to the enlargement of the European Union in 2004, a prominent American geographer reviews some of the major problems confronting the European continent. The paper, which begins with the author's view of Europe's dilemma in late 2006, covers a number of geographic implications of the May 2004 expansion. Noted are Russia's overland access to Kaliningrad, the addition of ca. 8 million underprivileged Roma (presently the Union's largest minority population), the potentially divisive new boundary with Russia, the future candidate states emerging from the former Yugoslavia, the prospects of Ukraine's possible membership, and the challenge of Turkey's quest for admission to the EU. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F02, F20, P20. 2 figures, 34 references.     

A Theological Response to ‘The Case for a Pre-emptive Strike’

Abstract

After the enlargement of the European Union at the beginning of 2007, Western Europe has seen an enormous migration of East European Roma people begging in the streets. In this article, I will focus on some juridical as well as moral dilemmas these street beggars, mostly Romanian Roma, have raised in the EU territory and especially in the Nordic countries. I will also reflect on the historical facts and on past legislation where it is necessary to provide the background for the current situation. I shall argue that to hinder the right to free movement of Roma beggars in the European Union territory by criminalizing their begging and camping violates their fundamental rights. Moreover, such treatment in this case is tantamount to ethnic discrimination.     

Rome's ‘legal’ camps for Roma: the construction of new spaces of informality

This article examines the ways in which Italian legislation and local policy in Rome since 2007 have aimed at containing and controlling the Roma population, but have resulted instead in the Italian state's own violations of national and international human rights standards. Roma have been relocated to isolated mega-camps subjected to regulations, surveillance and ‘workfare’, which, rather than reducing crime and increasing formal employment, leave residents few alternatives to illegal or semi-legal income generation. These camps also appear to generate ambiguous relationships between local officials, police officers and powerful individuals within the communities. They are thus loci in which various dimensions of illegality and power intersect and merge. The analysis explores the grey areas created by contradictory and hyper-bureaucratic regulations and attempts to shed light on the strategies of survival through informality that emerge within the interstices of the law.     

古罗马"赋税名目"考略

关于罗马赋税,拉丁税目较为清楚,现代学的英解释多有歧义,译为中更不确切。罗马“赋税名目”是否繁多,这涉及到税种分类知识,现代学恰恰把问题搞复杂了。事实上,古罗马的固定税与临时税、常规征收与附加税、主要税项与次要税项之间比较容易区分。运用现代税收学的方法研究古罗马的税种分类,应使其更明晰,而不应使其更含糊．     

Historic and symbolic violence in the Romani Fuenteovejuna by TNT-El Vacie: Gender,ethnicity, and interculturalism

Abstract

I address here the performance of Lope de Vega’s Fuenteovejuna undertaken by TNT-El Vacie, giving particular consideration to the ways in which Antonio Álamo’s adaptation, Pepa Gamboa’s direction, and the staging of El Vacie, a company composed exclusively of Roma women, constitute a site of resistance as well as a performance of gender, identity, and place. From this vantage point, I wrestle with issues of agency, dialogism, and intercultural communication to make sense of ontological as well as hermeneutic aspects of the performance text: deletions and additions; orality and authority; meta-theatricality and self-reflexivity; acting and becoming. In addition, I bring to bear the fact that the name of the company, El Vacie, bears witness to the impoverished settlement or shantytown where the women reside, which stands within a mere two hundred yards of the theater where the play is performed. The name of the company signals the identification of the actresses with the marginal space in which they live, enriches the text, and further complicates their reading of Fuenteovejuna by adding levels of referentiality and indexicality that redefine boundaries as well as processes of exclusion and inclusion. While this is not the first collaboration between TNT and El Vacie—it was preceded by the successful and award-winning 2009 staging of La Casa de Bernarda Alba—I consider this performance a particularly important contribution to the construction of a historicized cultural politics of identity that makes the Romani community visible by positioning the women of El Vacie center stage as participants, creators, and interpreters of the national cultural patrimony. Through this cultural intervention, certain spaces and markers of the Roma community acquire visibility as they get inserted into a national historical discourse from which they previously had been historically excluded.