“Gypsyness” and the Rrom
Representations, Stereotypes and Performativity in the Romani Ethnic Recognition Process in Colombia
Keywords:
representation, stereotype, performativity, ethnicity, Rrom peopleAbstract
Romani groups in Colombia have debated on the popular representations of their lives even before they were officially recognized as a distinct ethnic group. Colombian Romani civil society organizations have taken it upon themselves since their inception to instigate dialogue about the negative stereotypes with which they coexist in daily life. This article sustains that the negotiations with the state which established Romani People as an ethnic minority in 1997 marked a shift in the strategies through which Romani families have adapted to the Colombian context, including their public image.
Grounded in the concepts of representation, stereotypification and performativity, the text sustains a critical perspective on the division between “gypsyness” and “non-gypsyness” that is part of the Romani experience. The argument is based on the
author’s fieldwork in Bogota and other Colombian cities from 2006 until the present. Ethnographic description is brought to the text through empirical moments, vignettes that demonstrate the co-construction of divisions between “us” and “them” through the constant (re)production and transformation of stereotypes about “gypsyness”. The article seeks to initiate a conversation that goes beyond creation of stereotypes of Romani families in Latin America by critically examining the contextual relevance of narratives.
References
Abad, Maria Mercedes (2004). “La Juventud de la Etnia Gitana en Colombia está entre la tradición y las exigencias del nuevo mundo”, El Tiempo, 6 de julio.
Acuña Cabanzo, Esteban (2008). Lo “gitano”. Estereotipos y etnicidad alrededor del 8 de abril, Día Internacional del Pueblo Rom, en Bogotá, Colombia. Tesis de pregrado. Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá. Departamento de Antropología.
Acuña Cabanzo, Esteban (2011). Between “flying away” and “being warriors”. The Construction of Ethnic Identity among Rrom (Gypsies) in Bogotá, Colombia. Tesis de maestría. Leiden University, Leiden. Social and Behavioral Sciences.
Acuña Cabanzo, Esteban (2018). “Romani Im/mobilities as Strategies of Resilience, Resistance and Cimarronería: Transatlantic Lives and Journeys”, en Daniel Allen, Margaret Greenfields, David Smith (eds.): Transnational resilience and change. Gypsy, Roma and traveller strategies of survival and adaptation. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 40-59.
Acuña Cabanzo, Esteban (2019). Tracing the Romani Atlantic. An Ethnography of Trans-local Interconnections and Mobilities among Romani Groups. Tesis doctoral. University of Freiburg, Freiburg. Institute for Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology.
Acuña Cabanzo, Esteban (2020). Roma in Colombia: Arrivals, lives and political organization. Project Education of Roma Children in Europe - Council of Europe. Strasbourg (Factsheets on Roma, 3.17). documento electrónico:
http://romafacts.uni-graz.at/view_pdf.php?t=culture&s=c_3_17&l=en. Acceso 21 de febrero de 2021.
Acuña Cabanzo, Esteban (2019). “A Transatlantic Perspective on Romani Thoughts, Movements, and Presence beyond Europe”, CRS, Vol. 2, N° 1, pp. 42-60.
Apiah, K. Anthony (1994). “Identity, Authenticity and Survival”, en Taylor, Charles y Gutmann, Amy: Multiculturalism. Princeton, Princeton University Press.
Ávila Molina, Freddy (2017). “Así es ser gitano en Colombia, en pleno siglo XXI”, El Tiempo, 2 de julio.
Bauman, Richard; Briggs, Charles L. (1990). “Poetics and Performance as Critical Perspectives on Language and Social Life”, Annual Review Anthropology, Vol. 19, pp. 59-88.
Bauman, Richard (1977). Verbal art as perfomance. Prospect Heights, Waveland.
Bauman, Richard (1986). “Performance and Honor in 13th-Century Iceland”, The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 99, N° 392, pp. 131-150.
Bauman, Richard (2000). “Language, Identity, Performance”, Pragmatics, Vol. 10 N° 1, pp. 1-5.
Begue, Michelle (2017). Colombia recognizes Roma people as an ethnic minority group, 7 de noviembre. Documento electrónico:
https://america.cgtn.com/2017/07/11/colombia-recognizes-roma-people-as-ethnic-minority-
group. Acceso 21 de febrero de 2021.
Bereményi, Bálint Ábel (2007). “Claro hijo, vaya a la escuela y si se aburre lo sacamos”. Relaciones y experiencias de los gitanos de Badalona y los rom de Bogotá con la educación escolar. Tesis doctoral. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. Departament d´Antropologia Social i Cultural.
Blommaert, Jan; Backus, Ad (2013). “Superdiverse Repertoires and The Individual”, en de Saint-Georges, Ingrid y Weber, Jean-Jacques (Eds.): Multilingualism and Multimodality. Current Challenges for Educational Studies. Rotterdam: SensePublishers, pp. 11-32.
Brubaker, Roger (2004). Ethnicity Without Groups. Cambridge, Harvard University Press.
Bustamente, Carolina (2020). “La resiliencia del pueblo gitano ante el Covid-19. Radio Nacional de Colombia”, Radio Nacional 14 de mayo, documento electrónico:
https://www.radionacional.co/noticia/gitanos/resiliencia-del-pueblo-gitano-covid-19. Acceso 21 de febrero de 2021.
Butler, Judith (1988). “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution. An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory”, Theatre Journal, Vol. 40, N° 4, pp. 519-31.
Deman, Katharina (2005). Untersuchung zur Grammatik der Romani-Varietäat der Kumpanja in Bogotá/Kolumbien. Tesis doctoral. Graz, Karl-Franzens-Universität, Graz. Geisteswissenschaftlichen Fakultät, Institut für Sprachwissenschaft.
Durkheim, Émile y Mauss, Marcel (1970) [1903]. Primitive classification. London, Cohen and West.
Dyer, Richard (1999). “The Role of Stereotypes”, en Marrias, Paul y Thronham, Sue (eds.): Media Studies: A Reader. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press.
Galeano, Hernando (1997). “Tiempo de Gitanas”, Vanguardia Liberal, 12 de diciembre.
Gay y Blasco, Paloma (2008). “Picturing ‘Gypsies’. Interdisciplinay Approaches to Roma Representation”, Third Text, Vol. 22, N° 3, pp. 297-303.
Gómez Fuentes, Vénecer; Gamboa Martínez, Juancarlos y Paternina Espinosa, Hugo Alejandro (eds.) (2000). Los Rom de Colombia. Itinerario de un Pueblo Invisible. Bogotá: Prorrom.
Hancock, Ian (1997). “The Struggle for the Control of Identity”, Transitions, Vol. 4, N° 4. Documento electrónico: https://www.oocities.org/~patrin/identity.htm Acceso 21 de febrero de 2021.
Hall, Stuart (2003a) [1997]. “The Spectacle of ‘The Other’”, en: Representation. Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London, SAGE Publications.
Hall, Stuart (2003b) [1997]. “The Work of Representation”, en: Representation. Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London: SAGE Publications, pp. 1-47.
Hasler, Juan A. (1970). “Los gitanos o ‘húngaros’”, Boletín de Antropología, Vol. 3, N° 12, pp. 45-81.
Holloway, Sarah L. (2005). “Articulating Otherness? White rural residents talk about Gypsy-Travellers”, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Vol. 30, N° 3, pp. 351-367.
Lee, Ken (2000). “Orientalism and Gypsylorism”, Social Analysis, Vol. 44, N° 2, pp. 129-156.
Lemon, Alaina (2000). Between Two Fires. Gypsy Performance and Romani memory from Pushkin to post-socialism. Durham, Duke University Press.
Malik, Kenan. (2015). “The failure of multiculturalism: Community versus society in Europe”, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 94, N° 21.
Mina, Carolina (2008). “Una familia de gitanos en el Restrepo. Gypsy Kings Criollos”, El Espectador, 24 de mayo.
Mirga-Kruszelnicka, Anna (2016). “The associations are all we have”. Comparative Study of the Romani Associationism and Ethnic Mobilization in Spain and Colombia. Tesis doctoral. Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona, Barcelona. Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology.
Mirón, Louis F. e Inda, Jonathan Xavier (2000). “Race as a Kind of Speech Act”, Cultural Studies: A Research Annual, Vol. 5, pp. 85-107.
Mojica, José Alberto (2008). “Niños gitanos en Colombia conviven entre la modernidad y sus costumbres ancestrales”, El Tiempo, 16 de agosto.
Modood, Tariq (2010). “Difference, ‘Multi’ and Equality”, en Seymour, Michel (ed.): The Plural States of Recognition, Vol. 44. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp. 152-171.
Moscovici, Serge (2000). “The Phenomenon of Social Representations”, en: Social Representations. Explorations in Social Psychology. Cambridge/Oxford, Polity Press.
Okely, Judith (1983). The Traveller-Gypsies. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Okely, Judith (2014). “Recycled (mis)representations. Gypsies, Travellers or Roma treated as objects, rarely subjects”, People, Place and Policy, Vol. 8, N°1, pp. 65-85.
Pande, Raksha (2016). “Strategic Essentialism”, en Richardson, Douglas; Castree, Noel; Goodchild, Michael F.; Kobayashi, Audrey; Liu, Weidong y Marston, Richard A. (eds.): International Encyclopedia of Geography: People, the Earth, Environment and Technology, Vol. 9. Oxford, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., pp. 1-6.
Paternina Espinosa, Hugo Alejandro (2013). El Proceso Organizativo del Pueblo Rrom (Gitano) de Colombia (PRORROM). De la Auto-invisibilidad como estrategia de resistencia étnica y cultural, a la visibilización como mecanismo de reconocimiento de derechos económicos, sociales, políticos y culturales. Tesis doctoral. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid. Departamento de Antropología Social y Pensamiento Filosófico Español.
Pérez Romero, Ricardo; Armendáriz García, Lorenzo (2001). La Lumea de Noi. Memorias de los Ludar de Mexico. Mexico D.F., CONACULTA, FONCA.
Prorrom (2008). Le Paramici le Romege kay bes en Akana ando o Bogotá. Fortalecimiento y recuperación de la tradición oral de la kumpania de Bogotá a través de cuentos, mitos, leyendas y música. Bogotá, Prorrom.
Said, Edward (2003) [1978]. Orientalism. London, Penguin Books.
Segato, R. L. (2007). La nación y sus otros: raza, etnicidad y diversidad religiosa en tiempos de políticas de la identidad. CABA, Prometeo Libros Editorial.
Selling, Jan (2018). “Assessing the Historical Irresponsibility of the Gypsy Lore Society in Light of Romani Subaltern Challenges”, CRS, Vol. 1, N° 1, pp. 44-61.
Schechner, Richard (2010). Performance theory. New York, Routledge.
Sibley, David (1995). Geographies of Exclusion. Society and Difference in the West. London, Routledge.
Silverman, Carol (1982). “Everyday Drama. Impression Management of Urban Gypsies”, Urban Anthropology, Vol. 11, N° 3/4, pp. 377-398.
Silverman, Carol (1988). “Negotiating “Gypsiness”. Strategy in Context”, The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, N° 401, pp. 261-275.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (1988). “Can the Subaltern Speak?”, en: Nelson, Cary y Grossberg, Lawrence (Eds.), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Basingstoke, Macmillan Education, pp. 271-313.
Sutherland, Anne (1975). Gypsies, the hidden Americans. Prospect Heights, Ill., Waveland Press.
Taylor, Charles y Gutmann, Amy (1994). Multiculturalism. Examining the politics of recognition. Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press.
Taylor, Diana (2016). Performance. Durham, N.C., Duke University Press.
Theodosiou, Aspasia (2011). “Multiculturalism and the catachresis of otherness: Settling Gypsies, unsettling Gypsy belongings”, Critique of Anthropology, Vol. 31, N° 2, pp. 89-107.
Trumpener, Katie (1992). “The Time of the Gypsies. A “People without History” in the Narratives of the West”, Critical Inquiry, Vol. 18, N° 4, pp. 843-884.
Vargas, Carolina (2006). “Los Gitanos”, Revista Semana 1278, 30 de octubre.
Wallace, Arturo (2014). “Lo que el conflicto le hizo a los gitanos colombianos”,
BBC Mundo, 10 de diciembre. documento electrónico: https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias/2014/12/141209_colombia_gitanos_rrom_conflicto_aw.
Acceso 21 de febrero de 2021.
Ward, Rebekah; Zapata, Juan Carlos; Hemar, Ben (2018): ¿Gitanos en Colombia?: El Pueblo rom hace presencia en Bogotá (En Foco). France 24, 19 de abril. documento electrónico: https://www.france24.com/es/en-foco/20180419-gitanos-en-colombia-el-pueblo-rom-hace-presencia-en-bogota. Acceso 21 de febrero de 2021.
Willems, Wim (1997). In search of the true Gypsy. From enlightenment to Final Solution. Oxon/NewYork, Psychology Press.
