Suchergebnisse

State education is neo/liberalism's preeminent form of self-governance, included in programmes of governance, which aim at integrating into the structures of the state populations (e.g. Roma) whose cultural constituencies and forms of knowledge are not yet subjected to market rationality. Based on interviews and participant observation, the dialectical communication between Roma local forms of knowledge and state education is critically explored by looking at interactions between teachers, school mediators, and Roma adults. Cultural idiosyncrasies are further analysed in relation to the utopian character of European neoliberal programme of social integration for the Roma. The article argues for a constructive dialogue between state education and idiosyncratic Roma forms of knowledge and culture, which can engender authentic forms of empowerment.

By limiting Gypsy Travellers' mobility, the state has restricted their subjectivities and their mobile lifestyles. In this context, Pentecostalism, an egalitarian doctrine based on the privatization of relations with God, creates new spaces for Gypsy Travellers' self-expression, and further premises for their ethnic and cultural revivalism. Through a symbolic interactionist approach, this paper argues that Gypsy Travellers obtain individual authority through religious reflexivity and performativity. It examines ethnographically the inter- and intra-personal religious conversations among believers in a Gypsy Pentecostal church in Edinburgh, UK. It shows the ways in which Gypsy Travellers use internal dialogues with God and symbolic interactions with significant others in the church as means of self-expression. God is the relational conversational partner and facilitates the believer's self-mediation. It is the symbolic interface and signifier who can delegate authority to believers or preachers. Through the process of self-mastery, the practitioners of religious reflexivity gain control over themselves and perform authority in front of others. Thus, internal dialogues and symbolic interactions become the important experiential domains of a complex dramaturgy of Gypsy believers' struggles for individual and collective authority.