America has always been a land of fascinating cultural diversity. From the extremely wide range of cultural groups on the American scene today, Gypsies, or Roma, are among the most extraordinarily elusive and complex. For more than forty-five years, social scientist Anne Sutherland has researched and objectively written about the American Roma worldview. She honed traditional research methods to study the Roma, who normally obscure the truth about themselves to outsiders, dispelling centuries of misinterpretation, bias, and romanticism that have led to discrimination. In this latest work, Roma: Modern American Gypsies, she succinctly portrays their twenty-first-century lives and identifies how their realities have been shaped by global processes and agents of power. Throughout complex stages of change and adaptation, Sutherland concludes, Gypsies have managed to retain, not lose, their identity. Ideal for classes in introductory sociology and cultural anthropology, Roma is also an excellent supplement in courses on ethnicity, immigration, and American culture since Gypsy culture also vividly illustrates the strength of ethnic boundaries, the channeling of interethnic relations, subcultural differentiation, and adaptation.

The collapse of communism and the process of state building that ensued in the 1990s have highlighted the existence of significant minorities in many European states, particularly in Central Europe. In this context, the growing plight of Europe's biggest minority, the Roma (Gypsies), has been particularly salient. Traditionally dispersed, possessing few resources and devoid of a common "kin state" to protect their interests, the Roma have often suffered from widespread exclusion and institutionalized discrimination. Politically underrepresented and lacking popular support amongst the wider populations of their host countries, the Roma have consequently become one of Europe's greatest "losers" in the transition towards democracy. Against this background, the author examines the recent attempts of the Roma in Central Europe and their supporters to form a political movement and to influence domestic and international politics. On the basis of first-hand observation and interviews with activists and politicians in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia, he analyzes connections between the evolving state policies towards the Roma and the recent history of Romani mobilization. In order to reach a better understanding of the movement's dynamics at work, the author explores a number of theories commonly applied to the study of social movements and collective action.

Drawing extensively on the author's archival research, this is the first major study in English of the first three and a half centuries in Spain of a people, its 'gitanos', who, despite their elevation by Spaniards and non-Spaniards alike to culturally iconic status, have until now remained invisible to history in the English-speaking world.

Now available in a new edition, this book is photographer Iain Mckell's extraordinary and breathtakingly beautiful glimpse into the lives of present-day nomads whose culture is built around ideals of freedom, nature, and simplicity. With sensitivity and honesty he captures a way of life that seems at once romantic, strange, beautiful, and simple. The result is a deeply insightful portrayal of a culture that eschews the traditional creature comforts of urban life in favor of the simplicity and freedom of the natural world.

Little is known about Egypt's Gypsies, called Dom by scholars, but variously referred to by Egyptians as Ghagar, Nawar, Halebi or Hanagra, depending on their location. Moreover, most Egyptians are oblivious to the fact that there are today large numbers of Gypsies dispersed from the outskirts of villages in Upper Egypt to impoverished neighborhoods in Cairo and Alexandria. In Gypsies in Contemporary Egypt sociologist Alexandra Parrs draws on two years of fieldwork to explore how Dom identities are constructed, negotiated, and contested in the specifically Egyptian national context. With an eye to the pitfalls and evolution of scholarly work on the vastly more studied European Roma, she traces the scattered representations of Egyptian Dom, from accounts of them by nineteenth-century European Orientalists to their portrayal in Egyptian cinema as belly dancers in the 1950s and beggars and thieves more recently. She explores the boundaries-religious, cultural, racial, linguistic-between Dom and non-Dom Egyptians and examines the ways in which the Dom position themselves within the limitations of media discourses about them and in turn differentiate themselves from the dominant population. This interplay of attitudes, argues Parrs, sheds light on the values and markers of belonging of the majority population and the paradigms of nation-state formation at the governmental level. Based on extensive interviews with government workers and ordinary individuals in routine contact with the Dom, as well with Dom engaged in a variety of trades in Cairo and Alexandria, Gypsies in Contemporary Egypt is about the search for the fragments of identity of the Egyptian Dom.

Who are the Romani people? -- Romani society -- Customs and traditions -- The Romani language -- The Roms among the nations -- Between romanticism and racism -- A modern Romani identity -- Appendix: The mosaic of Romani groups.

Jekatyerina Dunajeva explores how two dominant stereotypes—“bad Gypsies” and “good Roma”—took hold in formal and informal educational institutions in Russia and Hungary. She shows that over centuries “Gypsies” came to be associated with criminality, lack of education, and backwardness. The second notion, of proud, empowered, and educated “Roma,” is a more recent development. By identifying five historical phases—pre-modern, early-modern, early and “ripe” communism, and neomodern nation-building—the book captures crucial legacies that deepen social divisions and normalize the constructed group images. The analysis of the state-managed Roma identity project in the brief korenizatsija program for the integration of non-Russian nationalities into the Soviet civil service in the 1920s is particularly revealing, while the critique of contemporary endeavors is a valuable resource for policy makers and civic activists alike. The top-down view is complemented with the bottom-up attention to everyday Roma voices. Personal stories reveal how identities operate in daily life, as Dunajeva brings out hidden narratives and subaltern discourse. Her handling of fieldwork and self-reflexivity is a model of sensitive research with vulnerable groups.

The interest in Romani, the language of the Roma or "Gypsies", has grown considerably in recent years. Romani has drawn attention from a.o. grammarians, sociolinguists, Indologists, language contact researchers, language planners, educators, typologists and historical linguists.This Indic language is spoken by between five and ten million people world-wide. The bibliography also covers two other Indic languages spoken by peripatetic groups, Dom or Domari from the Middle East, and Lomavren or Bosha of Eastern Turkey and Armenia.The bibliography contains over 2500 titles in more than thirty languages, published between 1900 to 2003. English translations are provided for all titles written in less common languages. There are indexes for general and linguistic terms, Romani varieties, other languages and geographical terms.The book further contains a very useful "Guide to Romani Linguistics", which should enable newcomers to enter this highly interesting field by pointing to the essential titles in different subject areas.

One of the greatest challenges during the enlargement process of the European Union towards the east is how the issue of the Roma or Gypsies is tackled. This ethnic minority group represents a much higher share by numbers, too, in some regions going above 20% of the population. This enormous social and political problem cannot be solved without proper historical studies like this book, the most comprehensive history of Gypsies in Romania. It is based on academic research, synthesizing the entire historical Romanian and foreign literature concerning this topic, and using lot of information from the archives. The main focus is laid on the events of the greatest consequence. Special attention is devoted to aspects linked to the long history of the Gypsies, such as slavery, the process of integration and assimilation into the majority population, as well as the marginalization of Gypsies, which has historic roots. The process of emancipation of Gypsies in the mid-19th century receives due treatment. The deportation of Gypsies to Transnistria during the Antonescu regime, between 1942-1944, is reconstructed in a special chapter. The closing chapters elaborate on the policy toward Gypsies in the decades after the Second World War that explain for the latest developments and for the situation of this population in today's Romania.

At the age of twelve, Jan Yoors ran away from his cultural Belgian family to join a wandering band, a kumpania, of Gypsies. For ten years, he lived as one of them, traveled with them from country to country, shared both their pleasures and their hardshipsand came to know them as no one, no outsider, ever has. Here, in this firsthand and highly personal account of an extraordinary people, Yoors tells the real story of the Gypsies fascinating customs and their never-ending struggle to survive as free nomads in a hostile world. He vividly describes the texture of their daily life: the Gypsies as lovers, spouses, parents, healers, and mourners; their loyalties and enmities; their moral and ethical beliefs and practices; their language and culture; and the history and traditions behind their fierce pride. The exultant celebrations, the daring frontier crossings, the yearly horse fairs, the convoluted business deals in which Gypsy shrewdness combined with all the apparatus of modern technology are all brought to life in this memorable portrait of the most romanticized, yet most maligned and least-known people on earth. An insiders story, The Gypsies lifts the veil of secrecy that for so long has enshrouded this race of strangers in our midst.