Marco Solimene received his Ph.D. in social anthropology at the University of Iceland,with a dissertation entitled "Discourses of Power and Life. A Group of Xoraxané Romá Confronting the State Authorities in Rome (Italy)". Marco has held a post-doctoral fellowship from the EEA-Financial Mechanism 2009-2014 [contract n.14SEE/30.06.2014] in the project "The Untold Story. An Oral History of the Roma People in Romania- UnToRo". At the moment he is post-doctoral researcher and part-time lecturer at the Anthropology Department, University of Iceland, and investigates conceptualizations and practices of mobility among Roma families in Rome. Phone: 00354-6997195 Address: Hofteigur 42 105 Reykjavík Iceland
This article addresses the issue of sedentist bias in development by exploring nuances and contra... more This article addresses the issue of sedentist bias in development by exploring nuances and contradictions in local social cohesion policies that target the Roma and Sinti population in Italy. European cohesion policies are embedded in a decades-long history of development discourses aimed at economically underdeveloped regions within Europe as well as vulnerable social groups. The latter include groups like Roma and Sinti, who, although historically part of the European social fabric, are not always treated as such due to their alleged legacy of nomadism. We address interactions and hiccups between the policies for Roma/Sinti implemented by Italian regions and municipalities and the directives for Roma inclusion stipulated by national and EU frameworks. We argue that the translation of these directives meets and intersects with a pre-existing legislative framework consisting of regional policies for Roma and Sinti based on soft recognition and mainstream policies that revolve around...
A four week assembly-ban was declared in March 2020 in order to protect the Icelandic population ... more A four week assembly-ban was declared in March 2020 in order to protect the Icelandic population from the COVID-19 pandemic. This meant that the academic staff of the University of Iceland (UI) had to replace on-campus teaching with online teaching, while all vocational and clinical activities were suspended. Some UI academics had experienced digital teaching already, but for many this meant facing a steep learning curve. This paper examines how academic teachers dealt with a sudden shift in their teaching practices during COVID-19.
This camp is lousy. Ethnography of Romani adolescence between peripheries and global scenarios. [... more This camp is lousy. Ethnography of Romani adolescence between peripheries and global scenarios. [Questo campo fa schifo. Etnografia dell'adolescenza rom fra peripherie e scenari globali]. Ulderico Daniele. Roma: Meti, 2013, 382 pp. isbn 978-8-86-484010-9Reviewed by Marco SolimeneDanieles book is based on two years of fieldwork conducted at a Roma settlement, a so-called campsite for nomads' (campo nomadi), situated in the southwestern periphery of Rome, Italy. The author argues that the Italian institutions' increasing role in the educative processes of the inhabitants of authorized settlements is stretching the passage from childhood to adulthood (which in the Romani world appears as immediate and without any intermediary steps) over a relatively long period. Examining the experiences of some young inhabitants of the camp, he thus individuates what, from a non-Romani perspective, might be defined a 'time of adolescence'. This phase would be characterized by a se...
- The present contribution examines the rootedness of a community of xoraxané romá in the city of... more - The present contribution examines the rootedness of a community of xoraxané romá in the city of Rome; rather than simply the continuity of presence in a specific territory, under consideration is the development and maintenance of social networks with the Roman population, specifically in the territories romá reside and/or work in. Further on, the paper describes how rootedness may be conjugated with some forms of mobility: on the one hand, the continuity in specific areas (of work and in some cases of residence), can be maintained through practices of urban circulation; on the other hand, especially when mobility turns on national and transnational scale, the presence - although mobile and changing - of romá who belong to the same social network, spread among different territories, enables singular domestic units to maintain, despite mobility, a continuity with several non-rom realities.
This article reflects on the conceptual debt that anthropology has developed towards the peoples ... more This article reflects on the conceptual debt that anthropology has developed towards the peoples it studies, by exploring the case-study of Gypsy/Roma anthropology. We argue that ethnographically-grounded research has enabled anthropologists to access and incorporate Gypsy/Roma visions and practices of the world. The flexible Gypsy epistemologies, which Gypsies/ Roma use in the social and cultural construction of particular forms of identity and mobility, have thus translated into a specific practice of theory, which has provided more adequate tools for grasping the complexity of reality and contributed to a decolonialisation of anthropological thought.
This article addresses the issue of sedentist bias in development by exploring nuances and contra... more This article addresses the issue of sedentist bias in development by exploring nuances and contradictions in local social cohesion policies that target the Roma and Sinti population in Italy. European cohesion policies are embedded in a decades-long history of development discourses aimed at economically underdeveloped regions within Europe as well as vulnerable social groups. The latter include groups like Roma and Sinti, who, although historically part of the European social fabric, are not always treated as such due to their alleged legacy of nomadism. We address interactions and hiccups between the policies for Roma/Sinti implemented by Italian regions and municipalities and the directives for Roma inclusion stipulated by national and EU frameworks. We argue that the translation of these directives meets and intersects with a pre-existing legislative framework consisting of regional policies for Roma and Sinti based on soft recognition and mainstream policies that revolve around...
A four week assembly-ban was declared in March 2020 in order to protect the Icelandic population ... more A four week assembly-ban was declared in March 2020 in order to protect the Icelandic population from the COVID-19 pandemic. This meant that the academic staff of the University of Iceland (UI) had to replace on-campus teaching with online teaching, while all vocational and clinical activities were suspended. Some UI academics had experienced digital teaching already, but for many this meant facing a steep learning curve. This paper examines how academic teachers dealt with a sudden shift in their teaching practices during COVID-19.
This camp is lousy. Ethnography of Romani adolescence between peripheries and global scenarios. [... more This camp is lousy. Ethnography of Romani adolescence between peripheries and global scenarios. [Questo campo fa schifo. Etnografia dell'adolescenza rom fra peripherie e scenari globali]. Ulderico Daniele. Roma: Meti, 2013, 382 pp. isbn 978-8-86-484010-9Reviewed by Marco SolimeneDanieles book is based on two years of fieldwork conducted at a Roma settlement, a so-called campsite for nomads' (campo nomadi), situated in the southwestern periphery of Rome, Italy. The author argues that the Italian institutions' increasing role in the educative processes of the inhabitants of authorized settlements is stretching the passage from childhood to adulthood (which in the Romani world appears as immediate and without any intermediary steps) over a relatively long period. Examining the experiences of some young inhabitants of the camp, he thus individuates what, from a non-Romani perspective, might be defined a 'time of adolescence'. This phase would be characterized by a se...
- The present contribution examines the rootedness of a community of xoraxané romá in the city of... more - The present contribution examines the rootedness of a community of xoraxané romá in the city of Rome; rather than simply the continuity of presence in a specific territory, under consideration is the development and maintenance of social networks with the Roman population, specifically in the territories romá reside and/or work in. Further on, the paper describes how rootedness may be conjugated with some forms of mobility: on the one hand, the continuity in specific areas (of work and in some cases of residence), can be maintained through practices of urban circulation; on the other hand, especially when mobility turns on national and transnational scale, the presence - although mobile and changing - of romá who belong to the same social network, spread among different territories, enables singular domestic units to maintain, despite mobility, a continuity with several non-rom realities.
This article reflects on the conceptual debt that anthropology has developed towards the peoples ... more This article reflects on the conceptual debt that anthropology has developed towards the peoples it studies, by exploring the case-study of Gypsy/Roma anthropology. We argue that ethnographically-grounded research has enabled anthropologists to access and incorporate Gypsy/Roma visions and practices of the world. The flexible Gypsy epistemologies, which Gypsies/ Roma use in the social and cultural construction of particular forms of identity and mobility, have thus translated into a specific practice of theory, which has provided more adequate tools for grasping the complexity of reality and contributed to a decolonialisation of anthropological thought.
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