Many examples of unreconstructed perceptions of Roma litter our daily lives and it is incumbent upon us to ask why this somewhat unreflected, retrogressive view of Roma continues to persist. To this extent, the current article will aim to address the hitherto now accepted "common-sense" notions of Roma and their attendant cultural practices and behaviour. 4 The aim of this exegesis is to provide insights into what sociological and phenomenological factors have an impact on the variegated realities of Europe's Romani communities. I hope to rise to these challenges and produce a piece that succinctly presents the core issues as well propose suggestions aimed at addressing the ongoing, pervasive facile and spurious perceptions of Roma in Europe and their deleterious impact upon these oftentimes desperate people.Īt this incipient phase, I would like to posit that the lines of distinctions that demarcate the relative dynamics of influence in this process between "Roma" and "non-Roma" are arbitrary and become blurred when one accepts that the continuum of perceptions that I am assessing here is indeed contingent upon the symbiotic relationship between the two categories. EYE OF THE BEHOLDER 3 CHEATS SERIESIn order to do this, I will rely upon some anecdotal insights that I have accrued over the past eight years as well as deploy a series of academic arguments/positions alluded to above in my introductory paragraphs. More pertinently, I face the challenge of producing an enquiry that is not solely an abstract pontification about concepts of identities, but one that can be informative to the reader and lead to a more pronounced involvement in the struggle for social justice and equality for "Roma". I also run the danger of offending many sensibilities, both Romani and non-Romani, in the process since I will be critiquing their interpretations of the social, economic, cultural, and political world they inhabit. I run the danger of sliding into a purely academic discussion about perceptions and for some this would be no more than pseudo-psychobabble. The challenges in composing a piece on this subject are manifold. In proceeding in this fashion, the focus will be split between conducting an internal enquiry, i.e., Romani self-perceptions as well as an external one, i.e., perceptions of Romani people amongst non-Romani communities. This analysis will employ theories and perceptions of "difference" and "otherness" expressed in other societies such as the United Kingdom (where there is a visible, if not significant, ethnic minority presence), in order to apply a critical lens to the situation developing regarding Romani individuals and communities across Europe. In this article, I intend to present an analysis of current perceptions of "Roma" that are being deployed in a variety of ways and occasions to explain particular "cultural", "social", "political", and "behavioural" trends associated with contemporary Europe's many Romani communities. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.)" 3 I mean, the number of those who will succeed in developing this happy instinct will be greater or smaller, in proportion both to the force of the original instinct within them, and to the hindrance or encouragement which it meets from without." 2 "My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. " Therefore, when we speak of ourselves as divided into Barbarians, Philistines, and Populace, we must be understood always to imply that within each of these classes there are a certain number of aliens, if we may so call them, - persons who are mainly led, not by class spirit, but by a general humane spirit, by the love of human perfection and that this number is capable of being diminished or augmented. In the Eye of the Beholder: Contemporary Perceptions of Roma in Europe
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