Exploring Racial Capitalism: Critical Romani Studies in Central and Eastern Europe 19-21, October 2023
Conference Dates: 19-21, October 2023
Venue: Online
Keynote Speakers:
Angéla Kóczé (CEU)
Aleksandra Lewicki (University of Sussex)
Béla Greskovits (CEU)
Don Kalb (University of Bergen)
Registration: The conference is taking place online and participation is free of charge, but it requires registration. After registering for the event you will receive details about the conference program and the Zoom links. You can register here: https://forms.office.com/e/MSAgrAiZWd
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‘Exploring Racial Capitalism: Critical Romani Studies in Central and Eastern Europe’ is the closing conference of the research project ‘Precarious labor and peripheral housing. The socio-economic practices of Romanian Roma in the context of changing industrial relations and uneven territorial development’ conducted at Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania, between 2020-2023. Embracing PRECWORK’s approach, the conference opens up a dialogue about the condition of impoverished Roma in the field of housing, labor and migration, viewed in the wider political economy context that affected them through deindustrialization, uneven development and racialization processes. The project team from Babes-Bolyai University, in collaboration with academics of the Romani Studies Program at Central European University, invites distinguished scholars to present their findings on these themes and foster alliances between Roma and non-Roma researchers to understand racial capitalism from an East European perspective. We are convinced that Critical Romani Studies could and should have a contribution to the international investigation of racial capitalism.
As an emerging academic inquiry, Critical Romani Studies challenges the negligence of Roma in mainstream political economy in which they have been invisibilized and sidelined. Several scholars observe that European scholarship faces a significant obstacle, what Lentin (2008) aptly describes as Europe’s post Shoah silence on race. The silence and abandonment of Roma racialization led to the failure to acknowledge and address contemporary forms of structural racism that have manifested in various forms. Critical Romani Studies seeks an academic intervention to expose the logic of capitalist accumulation and the global hierarchical division of labor reproduced in the political economy of Eastern Europe, in which the (unproductive) “surplus” population become differentiated both socially (racialized) and spatially (segregated). The conference will bring together scholars to create new alliances to critically reflect and explore the modalities in which racial capitalism functions in Eastern Europe.
Conveners: The conference is organized in the frame of the research project ‘Precarious labor and peripheral housing. The socio-economic practices of Romanian Roma in the context of changing industrial relations and uneven territorial development’ conducted at Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania in colaboration with The Romani Studies Program from CEU and the international journal Critical Romani Studies.
Critical Romani Studies is an international, interdisciplinary, double blind peer-reviewed journal providing a forum for activist-scholars to critically examine racial oppressions, different forms of exclusion, inequalities, and human rights abuses of Roma. Without compromising academic standards of evidence collection and analysis, the Journal seeks to create a platform to critically engage with academic knowledge production, and generate critical academic and policy knowledge targeting—amongst others—scholars, activists, and policymakers. Scholarly expertise is a tool, rather than the end, for critical analysis of social phenomena affecting Roma, contributing to the fight for social justice. The Journal especially welcomes the cross-fertilization of Romani studies with the fields of critical race studies, gender and sexuality studies, critical policy studies, diaspora studies, colonial studies, postcolonial studies, and studies of decolonization.
The Romani Studies Program is an independent academic unit of Central European University since 2017. The Romani Studies Program (RSP) aims to engage scholars, policy makers, and activists in interdisciplinary knowledge production and debate on Roma identity and movement; antigypsyism; social justice and policy making; gender politics; and structural inequality. RSP encompasses the Roma Graduate Preparation Program and the Advanced Certificate in Romani Studies. RSP offers courses for MA and PhD students of CEU and summer courses for graduate students and activists scholars from all over the world. RSP organizes annual academic conferences promoting critical approaches to Romani Studies and publishes Critical Romani Studies an international, interdisciplinary, double blind peer-reviewed open access journal. RSP supports internships and offers various fellowship primarily targeting Romani students and scholars.
The research project ‘Precarious labor and peripheral housing. The socio-economic practices of Romanian Roma in the context of changing industrial relations and uneven territorial development’ provides a comprehensive understanding of the living and working conditions of Romanian Roma faced by changing industrial relations and uneven development. We address responses to social marginalization, which is subjecting people both materially and symbolically at the intersection of precarious labor, peripheral housing and migration. Our case study is located in Baia Mare, the administrative and industrial center of Maramureş region. Based on this analysis, we are looking for the establishment of new connections, partnerships and solidarities between local actors at multiple levels dedicated to the empowerment of dispossessed Roma. This project is financed by the Research Program associated with Norway Grants 2014-2021 and administrated by UEFISCDI. The project is hosted by Babeș-Bolyai University and is implemented by a multidisciplinary and trans-national team. Contract 22 from 01/11/2020 (RO-NO-2019-0496). http://precwork.granturi.ubbcluj.ro/en
Organizing committee
Angéla Kócze (Central European University), Márton Rövid (Central European University), Enikő Vincze (Babeș-Bolyai University), Sorin Gog (Babeș-Bolyai University), Macrina Moldovan (Babeș-Bolyai University), Esther Holbrook (Central European University), Mădălina Elena Tohănean (Babeș-Bolyai University), Andreea Ramona Popa (Babeș-Bolyai University), Annamaria Major (Babeș-Bolyai University), Daria Maria Oțel (Babeș-Bolyai University)
Registration: The conference is taking place online and participation is free of charge, but it requires registration. After registering for the event you will receive details about the conference program and the Zoom links. You can register here: https://forms.office.com/e/MSAgrAiZWd
For more details you can contact us at: racialcapitalism2023@gmail.com