Queer Roma (Transforming LGBTQ Lives)

Description

This book offers in-depth insight into the lives of queer Roma, thus providing rich evidence of the heterogeneity of Roma. The lived experiences of queer Roma, which are very diverse regionally and otherwise, pose a fundamental challenge to one-dimensional, negative misrepresentations of Roma as homophobic and antithetical to European and Western modernity. The book platforms Romani agency and voices in an original and novel way. This enables the reader to feel the individuals behind the data, which detail stories of rejection by Romani families and communities, and non-Romani communities; and unfamiliar, ground-breaking stories of acceptance by Romani families and communities. Combining intersectionality with queer theory innovatively and applying it to Romani Studies, the author supports her arguments with data illustrating how the identities of queer Roma are shaped by antigypsyism and its intersections with homophobia and transphobia. Thanks to its theoretical and empirical content, and its location within a book series on LGBTIQ lives that appeals to an international audience, this authoritative book will appeal to a wide range of readers. It will a be useful resource for libraries, community and social service workers, third-sector Romani and LGBTIQ organisations, activists and policymakers; an invaluable source of information for scholars, teachers and students of bigger modules in undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate courses in a cross section of academic disciplines and subject areas. These include, but are not limited to, LGBTIQ/Queer Studies; Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies; Romani Studies; Sociology; Anthropology; Human Geography; Area Studies; Cultural Studies; Social Movement Studies; Media Studies; Psychology; Heath Science; Social Science; Political Science. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Contents Figures Acknowledgements Part one: Introduction Locating queer Roma From researching segregation in education to researching sexualities The book and its structure Terminology Who are Roma? A brief historic overview of Roma in Europe Turn of the 20th and 21st centuries: Rising antigypsyism vis-à-vis increasing acceptance of LGBTIQ people The emergence of the LGBTIQ Roma movement Notes 1. Understanding Romani identities beyond ethnic and binary frames Theoretical considerations: Individual and collective social identities Ethnicity/'race' and 'new ethnicities' Reconciling binary essentialist and constructionist understandings of Romani identity Romani identities across disciplines Linguistics Anthropology Sociology Political science Romani individual and collective identities Transcending the 'ethnic' frame? Alternative conceptualisations of Romani identities Understanding Romani identities through hybridity and super-diversity Understanding Romani identities through intersectionality 'Queerness' and queer (of colour) theoretical concepts Intersectionality or queer assemblages? Queer intersectionalities? Between methodology and theory: Critical perspectives on non-Romani researcher positionality and reflexivity A queer approach to ethics, the 'field' and ethnography-informed research Insider/outsider research? Critical reflections on non-Romani researcher privilege Notes 2. 'Perverse' and 'deviant' queer sexualities, genders, ethnicities and 'racialities' Ethnicisation and 'racialisation' of Roma 'Stigmatised' and 'deviant' identities: Sexual and ethnic/'racial' difference Ethnic/'racial' identities, the closet and passing Belonging Non-normative queer and ethnic/'racial' visibilities Identification and disidentification Conclusion of Part One Notes 3. 'We're here, we're Roma and queer!' Navigating antigypsyism Living at an intersection of identities Family, kinship structures, community and queer Roma Conclusion Note 4. Visibility in spaces between difference and sameness The closet Passing Commonality, ordinariness and strategic sameness Conclusion 5. Queer belonging Identification, disidentification and queer belonging: Belonging with Roma and LGBTIQ? Queer belonging as a strategic response to the identity dilemma Conclusion Notes 6. Towards non-stereotypical understandings of Romani identities Using sexuality and gender identity to trouble the 'canon' in research on Roma Impactful transdisciplinary knowledge production at the interface between community organising, policy and academia Visualising the lives of queer Roma Queer(y)ing identity politics: Avenues to new forms of queer intersectional politics Notes References Index