{"id":1657,"date":"2013-09-20T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-09-20T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/%20rroma.org\/20-09-2013-rroma-and-experts\/"},"modified":"2022-08-04T11:48:43","modified_gmt":"2022-08-04T10:48:43","slug":"20-09-2013-rroma-and-experts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/fr\/20-09-2013-rroma-and-experts\/","title":{"rendered":"20.09.2013 Rroma and Experts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Lausberg \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t(2013) raises an important question on the relation of knowledge produced by \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRroma experts about Rroma and its appropriation by the public. Lausberg \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tcriticises Rolf Bauerdick \u201cGypsy: Encounters with unpopular people\u201d for the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\treproduction of centuries-old stereotypes, because Bauerdick, in addition to \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthe descriptive plane of his book, did not manage to address other levels of \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\treality such as the dominant social discourses, the heterogeneity of the Rroma \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tor the xenophobic instrumentalisation Rroma. Bauerdick’s critique of the common \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tview of the Rroma as victims, deprived of their own power to act, is an \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\timportant objection to public views of the Rroma. Also they are responsible for \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\ttheir own destiny, not only the structures of society. However, in this \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tcriticism, he commits the mistake to unilaterally describe Rroma \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\trepresentatives as elitist, overly moralistic and haughty, and himself as an \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tempirical journalist, a revealer of objectivity: \u201cThe reference to his decades-long meetings with Roma displays his \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tintention to make him appear as a reliable insider, to strengthen his \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tcredibility. His point of view as he approaches the target group under \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tinvestigation (Roma) is highly questionable and dubious. Bauerdick is not able \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tto distance himself from the normal ideas of his own Western culture and to \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tunderstand Roma from their own cultural and social context. […] Bauerdick wants \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tto refute the theory that the majority of society is always the perpetrator and \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthe minority always the victims. On the questions of who ever set up this \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\ttheory and why it supposedly has hegemonic character, he is going into. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBauerdick even claims that “the Gypsies are exploited far less than the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGadsche by members of their own people. ( Bauerdick, 2013, p 14).\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Lausberg so \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\trightly criticized the ambivalent role of self-appointed Rroma experts. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tExpertise usually works according to the logic of stabilization, reduction, \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tpurification and synthesising of heterogeneous and often contradictory \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tknowledge. Complex phenomena such as the highly complex issue of the Rroma identity \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tappear in their statements as clearly analyzable and describable. In the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBauerdick case, he commits the serious mistake to reduce the reality to what he \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\twas able to observe during his research trips. That the Rroma identity also tocuhes \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\ttopics such as self-and external attribution of identity, dominant societal \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tviews and different opinions and lifestyles among the Rroma themselves, he is \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tnot taking into account. Instead of a complex, sometimes even contradictory \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tpicture,\u00a0 he creates a one-sided \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tcaricature of Rroma living in slums, who have fallen into apathy and who call \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthemselves “Gypsies”. Towards \u201cinvisible Rroma\u201d, to which one simply \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tcannot even go fast by car, Bauerdick is not fair: they too form part of the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tsocial reality of the Rroma. They do not live in slums and do not conform to questionable \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tstatistics on illiteracy and to the exorbitant numbers of Rroma children. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBauerdick could exactly as well have written a book about well-integrated Rroma. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tHe would then admittedly have disregarded a part of reality, but he would have \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tstimulated critical thinking, that what must be all good journalism goal. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tInstead, one is now forced to read a lot of positive reviews about his book, \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tpraising uncritically Bauerdicjk\u2019s supposedly objective empiricism\u201d \u201cThe book convinces because the author is \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\taware of the situation at all focal points of the gypsy life in Europe itself, \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\the knows the people, he knows those who, in the northern city of Dortmund, \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\texperienced the onslaught of enslaved women, the portrait of Radka Inkova \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t[…], whom he meets in the northern city of Dortmund, we read with a great sad \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\twave. Radka was born in Stolipinovo, into a family with twelve children. The \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tparents did not send them to school, they married after Gypsy law as they were \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\ttwelve years old. The man beat her every day and she left him, and since fell \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tinto the clutches of Arslan P. He enticed her to Dortmund\u201d <\/em>(Neudeck 2013). Individual \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tstories are presented as tangible cultural traits and thereby convey a point of \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tview that present the Rroma as responsible for their own social exclusion. Moralistic \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tviews need to be carefully questioned, as they often hide the complexity of \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\treality behind one-dimensional opinions. His book, which without doubt was \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\twritten with a lot of empathy towards Rroma, is now instead exploited by \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tright-wing politicians to create propaganda against Eastern European \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\timmigrants. A critical analysis of knowledge generation and appropriation is therefore \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tso important. Adorno and Horkheimer have referred to this problem in \u201cDialectic \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tof Enlightenment\u201d as early as 1947.<\/p>\n