Western Donors, Romani Organizations, and Uses of the Concept of Nation after 1989

Sambati, Douglas Neander (2020) Western Donors, Romani Organizations, and Uses of the Concept of Nation after 1989. Critical Romani Studies, 3 (1). pp. 26-45. ISSN 2560-3019

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Abstract

This article discusses the relationship between Western donors and Romani and Romani-friendly organizations in Central and Eastern Europe after 1989. Based on literature review, interviews, reports, and websites, this paper upholds that the burst of Romani and Romani-friendly organizations in Central and Eastern Europe after 1989 primarily was made possible by financial support and expertise coming from Western organizations. Together with their work methodology, so-called donors took their own framework on understanding groupings and enforced the concept of nation upon Gypsy/Romani populations. Therefore, Western donors and Romani activists and intellectuals alike essentialized (claimed) Gypsy/Romani traits in order to support a nation-building rhetoric. These Romani activists and intellectuals, in turn, are a legacy of policies from planned economies, and they actually might represent Gypsy/Romani communities from a privileged perspective – no longer fully insiders but as a vanguard.

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