The Gypsy "Menace": Populism and the New Anti-Gypsy Politics

by Michael Stewart (Editor), Misha Glenny (Foreword)

As a new, populist politics sweeps Europe, Roma and Gypsies are experiencing increasing prejudice and hostility within their resident societies. This movement extracts political meaning from collective identity and values forms of solidarity rooted in towns, classes, communities, and nations, and it has found in Roma and Gypsies a suitable target for citizens' fears and frustrations. This particular strain of politics draws on a rising tide of xenophobia, perceived losses of sovereignty and democratic oversight, disillusionment with political elites, frustration with the failure of social welfare programs, the representation of social and political conflicts as cultural issues, and a growing rejection of a transnational European order. Ranging from Belfast to Sofia and Paris, from Rome to Budapest and Prague, this volume shows how, in their reaction to the ten million or so Romany in their communities, some Europeans are beginning to refashion their thinking about the ties that bind Europe's citizens and ways to sever them. Contributors include political scientists, sociologists, and anthropologists from across the continent, and they contextualize the rapidly evolving political debate regarding Roma within three decades of major social and economic change. They explain the reasons behind the recent, frightening resurgence of populist politics in Europe and the increase in interethnic violence and hate crimes. This volume offers a new understanding of Europe's largest minority, vividly portraying liberal politics' contemporary challenges while also recommending how to diffuse such tensions.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, History

384 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2012

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database. ^9

In his 1998 publication, The Time of the Gypsies, Dr. Stewart reflects on the survial of the gypsies through in Hungary and their refusal to assimilate into the majority population. A second book Lilies of the Field (a volume co-edited with Sophie Day of Goldsmiths College and Akis Papataxiarchis of the University of the Aegean) focuses on marginal people who live for the moment. Lilies presents an ambitious theoretical comparison of peoples across the globe who share some of the Gypsies’ attitudes to time and history.

Currently Dr. Stewart is working on a study of Romany historical memory in relation to the Holocaust. His other current projects include a scheme supported by the British Council in Romania encouraging the fledgling Romanian Farmers’ Association. As the project director of an ESRC Transnational Communities’ Programme he is also orchestrating research on languages of identity among the Hungarian diaspora in Romania, Serbia and Slovakia.

He is also a member of the HESP working group on educational needs of Romany students.