Reflections on Roma Research and Activism
29 October 2015
In this guest blog Andrew Ryder argues for collaborative and inclusive approaches to Roma research to ensure that community voices are heard and taken into account. You can join the debate at Corvinus University on the 2nd of November. Event details below.
Relationships between researchers and the researched is one of the key dividing lines of debate within knowledge production, Romani Studies is no exception to this rule. For a significant period the discipline known as Romani Studies has been dominated by outsider researchers who, in the traditions of the Gipsy Lore Society, have valued narrow notions of objectivity and emphasised the importance of positivist distance from the researched, and the primacy of professional expertise. In a commodified research environment contracted and adlected expertise translates into academic prestige and status, in the process though it could be argued that in fact the academy has at times lost its critical objectivity producing tepid research which has failed to challenge and has filled a vacuum for policy makers who should have been more reliant on dialogue and engagement with actual Roma communities.
There is another tradition and this is the path of the activist-scholar. Perhaps the first adherents of this approach were Donald Kenrick and Thomas Acton who from the 1960s alongside and through their scholarship closely allied with the struggles and campaigns of Gypsies and Irish Travellers in the Gypsy Council, one of the first and for many years most active organisations working with and for these communities. Through my involvement in the Gypsy Council in the early 2000s I was myself eventually swayed to take the activist-researcher path leading to me service a network of community activists, supporters and academic researchers in a umbrella organisation called the Gypsy and Traveller Law Reform Coalition. These days I strive to fuse my activism with research and teaching interests.
The path of the activist-researcher can be a treacherous one to take, the restraints of academic positions with burdensome teaching and administrative workloads and limited opportunities for research funding imposes huge restraints on activist-research. Balanced with this we need to also acknowledge the timidity of some researchers who are cowed by their peers’ accusations that collaborative research no longer merits scientific value as the researcher has ‘gone native’, leading to their objectivity being consumed by activist agendas. In one review for research funding I was recently referred to by the anonymous academic reviewer as a ‘community organiser’, no doubt in contrast to being a fully-fledged and bone fide member of the academy.
Such critique can be seen as redolent of scientism and a belief that academia in the formal sense is the best and most objective arbiter of what can be considered as the truth. Universities often seek to ‘sacrilize’ their hegemony, a term Bourdieu coined to describe how academic institutions seek to justify the pre-eminence accorded to them through notions of expertise and approaches which it is claimed adhere to the strict and requisite standards of scientific objectivity (Wacquant, 1993). Of course, looking beyond this stratagem of ‘misrecognition’ which seeks to legitimise the status quo and cast critique of such as unfocused, emotive and unprofessional (Jenkins, 2007), academics can indeed be partisan, and it is argued that many are imbued with elitism, racism, sexism and notions of meritocracy which marginalise outsider and minority voices.
Despite the disparagement from the academic establishment, the ranks of critical researchers interested in collaborative research with communities has in recent times been swollen by a growing number of scholars emerging from Roma communities and or civil society who are influenced by post-colonial narratives, questioning and challenging academic orthodoxy and hierarchicalism. What advice and suggestions can be given to this emerging cadre of community orientated researchers?
One suggestion to researchers seeking to create partnerships and alliances with groups outside of the academy and who desire putting their knowledge production at the service of communities and activism is to look to participate within local research empowerment networks. My first experience of such a network came to me in London in the early 2000s through Thomas Acton’s seminar series which was staged at the University of Greenwich and which attracted researchers and community activists. A similar network was established in Budapest in 2010 which promotes participatory research and grassroots activism by hosting seminars and conferences held in community venues and if staged within universities such events are open to and target a mixed audience of researchers and community workers. Similar clusters of researchers and activists in other countries are conducting similar activities and it would be useful if others were established so that activism and community voices can shape, guide and participate in knowledge production ventures. I would not argue for such localised forums to be joined in any form of formal network as this might again, to use a term adopted earlier, sacralise and institutionalise.
Instead through the promotion of ideas and research outputs shaped by local empowerment research networks, researchers and activists can learn and be inspired through informal and loose networks. In this respect what is needed in particular are a greater range of digital forums which can host blog statements and open access publications related to Roma knowledge production. With reference to publications many of us involved in the publication of work related to the Roma are aware of the considerable time it can take for an article or book chapter to eventually see the light of day, in some cases such processes can take years. However, some times the need and value of circulating papers which are timely and more relevant to the here and now is of paramount importance. I for example, have published a number of embryonic ideas as online working papers with the Third Sector Research Centre, allowing me to feed into and contribute to ongoing debates and discussions but more importantly to connect to a non-academic audience who are often locked out of access to academic journals by the prosaic language of academic articles and or the costs of subscribing to such journals. Of course academic journals have an invaluable role to play in knowledge production but more open access publications would do much to enhance the relationship between researchers and the researched in the field of Romani Studies.
Critical researchers wishing to nurture means of marrying research with community needs may also be interested in supporting a venture being developing which is called a Roma Research Exchange. The Roma Research Exchange is inspired by the Science Shop movement which originated in the Netherlands in 1970s when a group of students decided they wanted to work on grassroots issues. Such exchanges link civil society with research groups that are generally based in universities and research institutions, creating a mutually beneficial flow of information and scope for collaboration. Basically, the Roma Research Exchange will through a webpage and research grid allow Roma community groups and activists to outline key concerns and current information gaps, in turn students and experienced researchers can highlight their research interests. It is hoped that through such information flows researchers and community organisations can form collaborations which can guide and enhance research ventures. Students in particular will benefit by gaining better access to communities, being guided by the community in tandem with standard academic supervision and producing work which has a life and relevancy beyond the strictures of academic assessment and securing credit for the award of degrees.
It is hoped that a Roma Research Exchange will provide opportunities for researchers to link up with community interests or give advice to those engaged in such ventures. The primary agenda of the Roma Research Exchange would be to merely create a meeting place. The initiative would be serviced through voluntary contributions and to date no funding has been sought as it is hoped the exchange will grow and develop organically rather than follow a fixed and rigid sequence of steps, a danger inherent when donors and ossified project plans are followed.
With the EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies there will be a need for ongoing monitoring and comparative analysis of attempts to reverse Roma exclusion, it is in this context that inclusive research approaches and collaboration will be of value ensuring that community voices are heard and taken into account. In addition inclusive research approaches has a role in helping to frame and articulate the narrative of Roma social movements at a national and international level, providing insights into the socio-economic and nationalist trends which are increasingly playing a role in the ongoing marginalisation of Roma communities across Europe.
Collaborative approaches to research, empowerment networks and the Roma Research Exchange will feature in the seminar Reflections on Roma Research and Activism featuring Thomas Acton, Andrew Ryder, Marius Taba and Maria Bogdan (Chair) to be held at 16.00 on the 2nd November in the Aquarium Room (adjacent to the library) at the Corvinus University, 4-6 Közraktár u, Budapest 1093.
