ERIAC launches the Barvalipe blog – So Nakhlo

ERIAC launches the Barvalipe blog – So Nakhlo with editors Dr. Adrian Marsh, Dr. Anna Mirga-Kruszelnicka, Dr. Dezso Mate, and Dr. Maria Bogdan.

The launch of the Barvalipe blog – So Nakhlo, marks the advent of a new initiative in the development of a ‘space’ for Romani ‘voices’ to be ‘heard’. Since the arrival of the new HTML 5.0 Internet (c.2008), with commercial sites and social media dominating the World Wide Web in a way that Tim Berners-Lee must never have envisaged, the loss of most of the older Romani and Traveller websites and blogs has meant a significant reduction in online ‘spaces’ for wider, accessible Gypsy, Roma, Traveller discussion and debate. The Barvalipe blog – So Nakhlo, intends to address this and offers a platform for inclusive, critical, and expansive op-ed pieces, scholarship, research summaries, reviews, conversations, and communication to Romani and Traveller scholars, academics, researchers, intellectuals, and creatives. Invitations to write for the blog in the first few editions will be made, with an open call for submissions, eventually providing the majority of the regular content, moderated by editors. A thoughtful, high-quality, and most importantly, innovative approach to new topics and subjects, or fresh, creative engagement with existing areas of Romani Studies, are at the core of this endeavour. Expanding the online presence of Romani and Traveller discourse and debate, through discussions that resonate and inform, are the aims and intentions behind this cultural enterprise, an electronic samizdat for the new generation of Gypsy, Roma, Traveller intellectuals…”

Read here the first article of the blog written by Dr. Adrian R. Marsh on “Re–inventing the Wheel: Romani ‘voices’, knowledge and the erasure of the past”

Dr. Dezso Mate, one of the editors of the Barvalipe blog – So Nakhlo shares his thoughts on this initiative:

“Antigypsyism is a transhistorical phenomenon that comprises special forms of racism and intolerant attitudes that directly affect Romani people regardless of time and place. Antigypsyism is not only transhistorical, but also transgenerational, which subconsciously deprived Romani people of their own identity politics, practices, memories, and knowledge productions. This transgenerational trauma is based on the day-to-day “otherings”, social distances and exclusions, and on the pejorative thoughts towards those who are known as “Gypsy” in the public imagination.

Recognizing Romani history, knowledge and cultural productions, past events and lived experiences allows us to cultivate collective memory and consciousness. Understanding Romani history could empower an elevated appreciation of today”.

“The Barvalipe blog – So Nakhlo has the potential to enter into, and maintain in the public consciousness, Romani and Traveller knowledge production, in a contemporary platform that can give a voice to previously ‘voiceless’ communities. It ushers in a new era of challenging old materials, and encouraging insights, autonomous perspectives, and ‘voices’ from a wider community of Gypsy, Roma, Traveller intellectuals, scholars, and a growing community of content producers. I wish the editors of the Barvalipe blog, and the contributors, both now and in the future, success, and hope that they will reach the widest possible public, staying relevant, exciting, and innovative” – Emese Molnár, European Institute for Arts and Culture project manager for this initiative.

The Barvalipe Digital Library of Critical Romani Scholarship and the Barvalipe blog – So Nakhlo are part of the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture (ERIAC)’s International Cultural Outreach Program. With the support of the Federal Foreign Office of Germany, this initiative builds on the results of the international Outreach projects 1-5, to strengthen the existing digital and physical infrastructures, collaborations and communication with the aim of enforcing ERIAC’s role as a referential source for Roma identity and cultural discourses.