The Gypsy Lore Society

THE GYPSY LORE SOCIETY

2006 ANNUAL MEETING

PROGRAM ABSTRACTS

Thomas A. Acton
"Mainstreaming - An Alternative to Assimilation and Integration?"
The dilemma of Romani studies mirrors that of the Romani people(s) themselves, and of smaller groups within the larger constellation of Roma/Gypsies/Travellers. Should they seek respect and acceptance by trying to fit into larger discourses? Or should they preserve their integrity by shaping their own discourses at the risk of public incomprehension or rejection? The perceived strategies of assimilation, acculturation and integration lead to well-known impasses and paradoxes. This paper will draw empirically on the author's recent experience to speculate as to whether a strategy of "mainstreaming" can avoid these dilemmas in diverse contexts such as land use planning, education, and cultural politics. It will also, by comparison of specialist and generalist papers at the 2005 International Institute of Sociology Congress, investigate whether the Romani Studies community can reflexively apply such a strategy to its own practice.

Mathias Bhuriya
"Banjaras of India: Threats to Their Survival and Ways to Sustain Them in a Humanitarian Manner."
Banjara Gypsies are scattered over many communities in India, as well as elsewhere in South Asia. They engage in many professions, speak various languages, belong to many races and are found in both urban and rural areas. Due to modernization and globalization, their language, culture, religious rituals, occupations, nomadic life style and identity are seriously threatened. Today Banjaras are on the verge of losing their past heritage, oral traditions and even their means of survival. After presenting an overall view of the Banjaras of India this paper presents some suggestions as how these Banjara nomads of India and South Asia can be helped by India and world community in best possible way and in a humanitarian manner.

Sandeep Gabriel
"The Physically Handicapped among the Nomad Banjaras of India:Their Survival and Future Perspectives"
Banjaras (Gypsies) are found in dozens of socially, linguistically and occupationally varied groups in all regions of India. The elders of the community report that today, as compared with earlier times, many are physically handicapped. When others in their kin groups are mobile, these handicapped individuals become a problem for their society. Is it possible to find lasting solutions for the physically handicapped Banjaras in India? What is the future for the handicapped Banjaras in India?

Jean Berko Gleason
"Language Acquisition and Socialization among Gypsies in Hungary: Zita Réger's Legacy"
This paper discusses Zita Réger's unique contributions to our understanding of the role that language addressed to children plays in the preservation of the oral traditions and culture of Gypsies in Hungary. Before Zita Réger began her research, the general belief was that Gypsy mothers do not speak to their children and that Gypsy children suffer from grave cognitive and linguistic deficits. Data from a dozen communities reveal that adults not only speak to children, but that they do so employing a distinct baby talk register. Adult-child language also has specific features related to Gypsy/Romani oral culture, including special narrative styles, the use of test questions, and particular forms of teasing. Children themselves help enculturate other children through highly ritualized games and re-enactments of adult ceremonies. Zita Réger's work has documented complexity and creativity in Gypsy children's linguistic socialization. It also holds implications for our understanding of the role of child-directed speech in children's attainment of communicative competence and personal and cultural identity.

Margaret Greenfields
"Employment and Travelling Patterns: Findings from British Gypsy and Traveller 'Needs Assessments'"
This paper briefly describes the emerging process of undertaking Gypsy and Traveller "Needs Assessments," a requirement following recent British legislative changes arising from official recognition of shortage of accommodation, and gross disparities in community access to, and use of, a range of statutory services including health and educational facilities. The presenter of this paper is part of an academic/Gypsy and Traveller community team working in partnership on several needs assessment projects across the UK. In this session some findings are presented from two recently completed needs assessments (Cambridgeshire sub-region - the largest study undertaken in the UK since 1965 - and a smaller study in the county of Dorset), enabling an exploration of differences and similarities in employment and travelling patterns of respondents from a range of Travelling communities: English Gypsies; Irish Travellers; New Travellers and a small sample of Showmen and 'Welsh Gypsies'.

Yvonne Hunt
"Dance on the Knees"
In a few villages of sedentary Roma in the Serres Prefecture of Greek Macedonia, there exists (or existed in some cases) a mystical magico-therapeutic ritual, "The Ababas." The practitioners, known as ababines, abajidhes, or bajikes, utilize music, incantations, and ecstatic dance to accomplish the desired results whether they be the casting out of evil spirits believed to be causing illness or preventing evil spirits from appearing during wedding celebrations. When the initiates are in full ecstatic state they frequently dance on the knees. This paper will describe the ritual based on witnesses' accounts, compare its similarities and differences from village to village, and explore the status of the practitioners within the greater village community.

Peter Kabachnik
"Nomad's Land? Place, Exclusion, and Sedentarism in England"
Conflicts over where nomads can live have continued to escalate in Britain. Discrimination against nomads has recently been theorized as being underpinned by sedentarism, or anti-nomadism. While it is crucial to highlight the normativity and hegemony of settled ways of life in today's world, the focus on the settled/nomad or fixed/mobile dichotomy still obscures a major aspect of how and why exclusion of nomads continues today. In this paper, I will draw attention to the concept of place, both conceptually and empirically, to better understand the process of othering of nomads. I will draw on both historical and contemporary circumstances of English Gypsies, Irish Travellers, and New Travellers in Britain. To illustrate these issues, I identify several narratives that appear repeatedly in the media debates about nomads that point to the importance of place.

Ilona Klímová-Alexander
"Is there a Transnational Romani Movement and Does it Matter?"
Based on my recent book The Romani Voice in World Politics: The United Nations and Non-State Actors, the paper analyzes the Roma-related agenda, discursive and procedural/institutional developments in the UN system and their relationship to the interaction between Romani activists and the UN system between 1977 and 2002 in order to contribute to the debate over whether there is a transnational Romani political movement of any significance

Katalin Kovalcsik
"From Professionalism to Amateurism: The History and Repertoire of a 'Traditionalist' Boyash Band in Hungary"
After World War II, the Gypsy bands of villages and small rural towns who had played folk and popular music were gradually pushed into the background and expired in Hungary. The reason was the spread of international popular music, the gradual increase in the role of the mass media and not least the current cultural policy. Around the political turn of 1989/90, rural "traditionalist" (folk revival) groups also appeared among the Roma on the model of the Hungarian revival of peasant music. In theory, they were to perform the local traditional Romani music, but in practice their repertoire and performing style increasingly shifted towards popular musical genres in line with local demand. The paper presents a Boyash folk revival group whose members wanted to be professional village musicians in their youth but whose generation had no chance any more to play. This launched them into folk revival after the political turnover, changing (partly simplifying) the instrumental array, performing style and repertory of their band.

Trajko Petrovski
"Romany Folk Music in Skopje"
Systematic research of Romany folk music has a long tradition in Skopje. The folk songs of the Roms of Macedonia are today represented by thousands on recordings in the archives of the Institute of folklor "Marko Cepenkov" Skopje. Stating that Romany linguistics, dance and especially musical folklore still present a precious and lively picture of their specific cultures, which is not only to be preserved, but further promoted as well, the author offers a possible classification of Romany folk music groups in Skopje: 1) Zurla groups, 2) Orchestars or chalgadzije groups and 3) Trumpet groups. Typologically speaking the songs can be divided into two music types: 1) love songs (kamipaskere gilja) and 2) songs for dancing (kelibaskere gilja).

Matt T.Salo
"Gypsy Identity in US Immigration Courts"
Since the dissolution of communist rule in Eastern Europe the hitherto suppressed traditional prejudices and hatreds against Gypsies reappeared full force resulting in overt discrimination and outright physical attacks against Gypsies in many countries. After years of maltreatment many Gypsies have decided to leave those countries and seek their fortunes in Western Europe and North America where they expect their families to be relatively secure and free from persecution. For the last eight years I have been engaged in assisting legal counsel on cases of East European Gypsies seeking asylum. Applicants have come from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Poland, Romania, Ukraine, and the former Yugoslavian areas. My paper will look at the legal hurdles they have to face, the strategies for obtaining proof of Gypsy identity, proof that outsiders can identify them as Gypsies, and the kinds of questions the whole process raises about the use of ethnicity in the asylum process. The legal process is illustrated through case studies examining especially problematic aspects of Gypsy ethnicity and social situation in regard to seeking asylum.

Sheila Salo
"Slovak Gypsies in America, c. 1882-1945 (Part 2)"
This paper continues the presentation of the results of an historical study, based on documentary sources, of "Hungarian-Slovak musician Gypsies" in the United States. The first part dealt with patterns of immigration and the development of the Slovak Gypsy settlements. This presentation will concentrate on the economic history of this group, particularly conditions for musical performance.

Irén Kertész Wilkinson
"Innovation, Transformation and Hungarian Romani Music"
Innovations, transformations and any other types of change have for long been considered as inevitable parts of any music tradition which sustain and keep it alive. Indeed, it is so much so, that the really interesting thing would be to come across a musical practice which is characterized, not so much by change, but by non-change, as John Blacking has pointed out. In this paper I will focus on the above ideas and illustrate, through the music and interpretations of the Vlach and Romungro Gypsies, that both musical "change" and "non-change" cover a wide range of innovative musical behaviors, many of which are in relation to various forms of practices that "took place before." In short, musical innovation, change and non-change are the result of complex conception, practice and interpretation, which is culture-, group-, and individual-specific and which embodies both continuity and break with the old.

Revised: 05/10/2006