Citizenship Studies has just published a thought provoking review essay by Huub van Baar on recent work on the emergence of the Romani movement, the EU and neoliberalism. The essay reviews three recent books on the topic: Romani Politics in Contemporary Europe edited by Nando Sigona and Nidhi Trehan (Palgrave, 2009); The Romani Movement by Peter Vermeersch(Berghahn, 2006) and Who Speaks for the Roma? by Aidan McGarry(Continuum, 2010).
van Baar’s main interest is to suggest novel ways to understand Romani political movement in the EU and move toward a politics of Roma’s representation beyond hegemonic neoliberalism. In such endeavour, he challenges current understandings on the relationship between grassroots and elitist mobilisation among Roma, the relationship between neoliberalism and human rights, and contribution of international NGOs and supranational institutions to the definition of EU agenda on the Roma issue.
The Roma and the EU: a book review
The Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies has published a very positive review of Romani Politics in Contemporary Europe (Sigona and Trehan, Palgrave 2009). Besides the overall positive assessment of the collection, it is particularly pleasing thethe ability of the reviewer, Katherine Hepworth, to crystallise in a few words the originality and uniqueness of the work and its aspiration to mainstream the debate on Romani politics. As the reviewer rightly notices, the book aims to show how relevant the situation of the Roma and their political trajectory is to understand current transformations in the EU and to unpack the intimate link between neoliberal policies and the affirmation of the human rights regime as dominant frame to understand and address the ‘Roma issue’.