The literary scholar Klaus Michael Bogdal \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\twrote a book about the representation of Rroma in European literature during \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthe last centuries. Before, he intensely concerned himself with historical \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tdiscourse analysis and Foucault (Bogdal 2011). He unfolds a story of the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\trepresentation of Rroma in Europe from the Middle Ages to the present, in which \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\the shows how they have always been constructed as an antipode to bourgeois \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tvalues \u200b\u200bin order to differentiate and depict oneself in opposition to them. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Roma were portrayed as savages, who live in an anachronistic, archaic \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tsociety. Through depicting them as a \u00abnomadic horde\u00bb in a state of nature, they \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tbecame the antipodes of bourgeois values \u200b\u200band the source \u00aba permanent civil \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\twar against state order\u00bb (Bogdal 2011: 162).<\/p>\n
The images that are evoked about them \u2013 \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\twhich rarely have to do anything with reality \u2013 were passed down over centuries \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthrough literature and oral tradition. Negative literary descriptions were \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\toften used as ethnographic facts and further disseminated. All the pejorative \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tstereotypes that are attributed to the Rroma \u2013 that they are thieves, children \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\trobbers, vagabonds, spies for the Ottomans \u2013 constitute a form of negative \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tdialectics, a form of domination of men over men through knowledge. In this \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tcase, the quality of knowledge plays a secondary role. For the public it \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tdoesn\u2019t matter if the negative stereotypes correspond to reality, but that they \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tbecome the dominant narrative about the Rroma, which dominates all other narratives. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThis form of disciplining of humans through knowledge by misattribution is also \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tcalled \u00abepistemological violence\u00bb. Bogdal states: \u00abDie Argumentation \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tder Kontrahenten ist weniger durch den Willen zum Wissen, als durch deutende \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGewalt charakterisiert. In ihren Abhandlungen erzwingen sie die Lesbarkeit des \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFremden, Anderen, indem sie dessen Zeichen nahezu beliebig innerhalb des \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\teigenen Verstehenshorizontes deuten\u201c (Bogdal 2011: 146).<\/p>\n
Miss-ascription of knowledge about the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRoma was not confined to verbal forms of racism and social exclusion and \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tdiscrimination, but was applied to control them. In Switzerland one used the knowledge \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tabout them, to identify, intern and chastise them. As part of the initiative “Kinder \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tder Landstrasse” hundreds of Roma and Yenish were taken away their \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tchildren and placed in orphanages, psychiatric and educational institutions or \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tfoster families. In several lectures the fascist attitude of the supervisor \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlfred Siegfried became evident. However, he remained head of the organization \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tuntil shortly before the dissolution in 1973. He continued to separate children \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tfrom their parents, order sterilizations and internments in psychiatric \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\thospitals and thereby made the lives of many Roma and Yenish an agony. The \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRroma children were often declared mentally incompetent and therefore remained \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tin the power of the patronizing organization (Meier 2003).<\/p>\n
In Germany, institutionalized pejorative \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tknowledge was distributed about them \u2013 based on pseudo-scientific racial \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\ttheories that were then classified as science\u00a0 \u2013 which allowed their systematic murder by the Nazis. Bogdal \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\temphasizes that it is not knowledge about the Roma that allowed their exclusion \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tand extinction, but the power to enforce a certain knowledge about them. He \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tstates: \u00abEs ist also nicht das Wissen \u00fcber die Zigeuner, das \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tbestimmte staatliche Gewaltmassnahmen erforderlich erscheinen l\u00e4sst, sondern \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tist umgekehrt nach 1933 die Macht vorhanden, ein bestimmtes Wissen in allen \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tgesellschaftlichen und staatlichen Bereichen weitgehend durchzusetzen\u00bb (Bogdal \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t2011: 337). One accuses the Rroma of the destruction \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tof the foundations of society, caused by their lack of possessions and \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tdiffering lifestyle. Through this they would illegitimately demand the work of \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthe majority. Poverty is therefore criminalized a declared a stigma. One also \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tattributes them hereditary criminality and begins to physically measure them. In \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthe wake of the Nazi extermination policy \u00abactions should no longer prevented, \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tbut lives exterminated\u00bb (Bogdal 2011: 340). State racism, which builds on the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tdeviation of a defined norm, and decides over \u00abuseful\u00bb and \u00abuseful\u00ab lives as \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tform of biopolitics, becomes and institutionalized variable. Positive knowledge \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tabout the Rroma, as produced by the Enlightenment anthropology and ethnography, \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\twhich propagate for the integration of the Roma, remain unheard. Bogdal sees a \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tsupremacy of the positivist sciences, which have dedicated themselves to \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tprogression and applied knowledge, but unfortunately create a form of negative \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tdialectics through unethically applying their knowledge. He states: \u00abDie beiden \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tf\u00fcr die Wahrnehmung und Verortung der epochalen Wissensformationen, die \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\taufkl\u00e4rerische Anthropologie und die Ethnographie, brachten vor allem in ihren \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tphilosophischen und kulturhistorischen Dimensionen immer auch positive Aspekte \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tzur Sprache und zogen, wenn auch nur f\u00fcr kurze Momente, die M\u00f6glichkeit einer \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAssimilation und Integration in Erw\u00e4gung. Hingegen haben ausgerechnet die \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tmodernen, sich dem gesellschaftlichen Fortschritt und der praktischen Anwendung \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tverschreibenden Wissenschaften der ersten Jahrhunderth\u00e4lfte die Politik der \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tVerfolgung, Ausgrenzung und Vernichtung bewusst bef\u00f6rdert und gerechtfertigt\u00bb \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t(Bogdal 2011: 342).<\/p>\n
Source:<\/p>\n
The literary scholar Klaus Michael Bogdal wrote a book about the representation of Rroma in European literature during the last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[597,14,16,15],"tags":[92,35,63,24,23,133],"class_list":["post-1469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-germany","category-news-eastern-europe","category-news-switzerland","category-news-western-europe","tag-discrimination","tag-education","tag-racism","tag-roma","tag-rroma","tag-stereotypes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1469"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12496,"href":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1469\/revisions\/12496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}