Research and the Many Representations of Romani Identity
Research and the Many Representations of Romani Identity

Summary/Abstract: This epigram from Mevlana Celaladdin Rumi leads me to the consideration of Romani identity in scholarship and research, and suggests one of the principle phenomena that appear in these, namely the construction of Gypsies in the imagination of the observer. Like beauty, the image of the various peoples described as Gypsies is frequently to be found in the eyes of the beholder. The repetition of various attributes of Rom, Dom or Lom that are the subject of research, concerning all manner of behaviour that is defined in ‘ethnic’ or cultural terms (both of which are often thinly disguised alternatives to the less acceptable term ‘race’), is another. [....]

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