The Roma in Contemporary Europe Struggling for Identity at a Time of Proliferating Identity Politics

This chapter takes stock of how diverse debates about Roma identity have developed since the fall of communism. The chapter begins with an extensive discussion of three general dimensions of identity that are related to the denial of racially motivated violence against Roma, to radical practices of marginalization and exclusion and to the interconnection of outside identification and self-representation. The chapter’s second half discusses identity issues more specifically in the context of identity politics and critiques thereof. Moreover, it explains how the contributions to the book articulate identity beyond the binary of essentialism versus constructivism that is still dominant in Roma-related scholarship.