As part of the JEKHIPE project – Reclaiming our Past, Rebuilding our Future – six research fellows were selected across Germany, Spain, Italy, Romania, Czechia, and Sweden. Their task: to produce in-depth research papers (minimum 40 pages) documenting historical and contemporary forms of antigypsyism, Roma civil rights movements, and cultural history in their national contexts.
The research papers are designed to generate new historical evidence, enrich academic and policy debate, and inform public-facing outputs. Each paper is produced in the respective national language and in English, ensuring accessibility at both local and European levels. Importantly, these papers provide the foundation for a series of masterclasses, translating the findings into accessible audiovisual formats for broader audiences.
Maria Bogdan
Maria Bogdan is a media and cultural theorist with a background in social sciences. Her research explores media representation, racism, cultural memory, and cultural trauma, with a focus on Roma. She earned her Ph.D. in Film, Media, and Culture Theory from Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest in 2018. A Fulbright alumna, she has been a Fortunoff Research Fellow at the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies and the first Romani Rose Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Heidelberg University. She is a founding member and managing editor of Critical Romani Studies and has extensive experience as a journalist and film critic.
Maria Bogdan: Antigypsyism in Germany: Historical Continuities, Civil Rights Movement, Scholarship, and Artistic Resistance
This paper examines antigypsyism in Germany as a persistent and multifaceted form of racism, analyzing its historical continuities, the development of the civil rights movement, recent scholarship, and Roma artistic resistance. From the earliest records of Roma in German territories, Sinti and Roma were treated as outsiders, subjected to expulsion, criminalization, and stereotyping. These patterns culminated in the Nazi genocide, which drew on long-entrenched categories of exclusion and pseudo-scientific racial theories.
After 1945, survivors faced marginalization, denial of compensation, and renewed hostility, prompting the emergence of a civil rights movement that challenged discrimination through protests, hunger strikes, and legal advocacy. The work of activists such as Vinzenz, Oskar, and Romani Rose was decisive in securing recognition of the genocide in 1982 and in building institutions of remembrance and education.
Since the 1990s, research initiatives have documented antigypsyism as a structural problem, extending from media representation and digital hate to institutional discrimination in schools, housing, and policing. Roma artistic practices—memoirs, music, theater, and memorial art—have further transformed trauma into cultural memory and resistance. Together, these perspectives show that antigypsyism remains deeply embedded in German society, while Roma activism and art continue to challenge erasure and claim presence.
Fernando Ruiz Molina
Fernando Ruiz Molina is a Ph.D. Candidate in Criminology at the University of Plymouth, funded by a Marie Sklodowska-Curie fellowship. A human rights lawyer by training, he has over 14 years of experience in Roma activism at local, national, and international levels. He worked at OSCE/ODIHR on Roma and Sinti issues and currently presides over CHANIPEN: Research, Memory and Justice, a Roma organization in Spain. His work focuses on hate perpetration against Roma and developing theoretical frameworks for anti-Roma racism.
Fernando Ruiz Molina: Anti-Gypsyism, Resistance, and Cultural Memory: A Critical Perspective from Spain
(in English / en español)
This report, developed within the JEKHIPE project: Joining Efforts for Knowledge, Memory and Justice, analyses antigypsyism in Spain as a long-standing structural ideology. Through a historical-critical approach, it examines the succession of laws and royal decrees since 1499, the attempt at extermination of Spanish Roma people during the Great Round-up of 1749, the cultural and administrative repression under Francoism, and the persistence of legal inequalities during the democratic transition.
The study highlights both the mechanisms of persecution—from the use of prisons and galleys to school segregation—and the forms of political and cultural resistance deployed by the Romani people. Special attention is given to the associative movement since 1978 and the central role of Roma women in the creation of Romani feminist organisations.
Finally, the report addresses contemporary manifestations of antigypsyism, the ambivalence of public policies, and the tensions surrounding cultural heritage. It argues that only a critical and emancipatory memory can serve as the foundation for justice and a true reconciliation process.
Federica Scrimieri
Federica Scrimieri is a professional anthropologist with a Ph.D. in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the University of Milano-Bicocca. She has lectured at the University of Verona and is a member of the Permanent Seminar on Roma Studies at CREAa. She has worked with Roma communities since 2013, focusing on Roma civil rights in Albania and anti-Gypsyism in Italy. Her research combines anthropology, oral history, and participant observation to study activism, memory, and Roma/Sinti resistance.
Federica Scrimieri: Antigypsyism in Italy through the History of the Roma Civil Rights Movement
(in English / in italiano)
This research provides an overview of historical and contemporary manifestations of antigypsyism in Italy, including systemic and institutional forms such as state and non-state violence, persecution, and structural discrimination against Roma and Sinti communities. It highlights underrepresented cases of resistance, solidarity, and resilience, with particular attention to the Roma and Sinti civil rights movements and the contributions of Roma arts and culture to identity, memory, and political struggle.
The first part of the analysis traces major acts of antigypsyism from the 1920s through the present, contextualizing them within broader political and cultural frameworks. The second part reconstructs the history of the Roma civil rights movement in Italy, drawing on testimonies and oral histories from its protagonists. This reconstruction highlights two main generations of activism: the “pioneers” linked to international organizations, academia, and faith-based groups, and a new wave of “artivists” and influencers whose activism is shaped by social media and artistic expression.
The research also examines artistic responses to antigypsyism, from music and theater to literature and visual arts, showing how cultural production in Italy functions both as memory work and as resistance. The findings suggest that antigypsyism in Italy is a deeply institutional form of racism, particularly evident in housing and education, but also that Roma and Sinti activism remains vibrant, adaptive, and increasingly intergenerational.
Adrian-Nicolae Furtună
Adrian-Nicolae Furtună is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the Research Institute for Quality of Life, Romanian Academy. His doctoral thesis addresses the social memory of Roma slavery. He coordinates the Romano Rodipe Research Program on Roma History at the National Centre for Roma Culture and is a member of the Centre for the History of Eugenics and Racism in Cluj-Napoca. His work focuses on memory–history relations, Roma slavery, and the deportation of Roma to Transnistria during the Holocaust.
Adrian-Nicolae Furtună: The Construction and Deconstruction of a Hero: Ruler Ștefan Răzvan in Romanian History and Roma Memory
(in English / în limba română)
This paper examines the historical figure of Ștefan Răzvan, ruler of Moldavia between April and August 1595, and the ways in which his short reign has been remembered, contested, and reconstructed in Romanian cultural memory. Despite ruling for only a few months, Răzvan became a central symbol in debates around history, identity, and collective memory, particularly because of his disputed Romani origins and his role in supporting Mihai Viteazul against the Ottomans.
The first part of the study outlines historiographical debates about Răzvan’s ethnic background. Nicolae Bălcescu, one of the leaders of the 1848 Revolution, highlighted Răzvan’s Romani descent, presenting him as a symbol of equality and emancipation in the struggle against slavery. His position sparked controversy, as a Romani ruler challenged nationalist narratives. Other historians and writers, such as Ion Heliade Rădulescu and Gheorghe Șincai, cast Răzvan in negative terms, portraying him as a usurper and embedding stereotypes of collective shame in historical memory.
The second part of the paper explores Răzvan’s literary reception, particularly in Bogdan Petriceicu Hașdeu’s 1867 play Răzvan Vodă, which reimagined him as a heroic national figure. This reinterpretation reflected broader needs for identity construction in nineteenth-century Romania, though it was contested by conservative voices like P. P. Carp.
The paper highlights the recurring theme of “low birth” and legitimacy, encapsulated in proverbs such as “When the Gypsy becomes emperor, he hangs his father first,” which reflect deep ambivalence about power, ethnicity, and modernity. For Romani activists today, however, Răzvan represents reclaimed heritage, integrated into a narrative of resistance and empowerment. His story demonstrates how history, literature, and memory intersect in shaping collective identities in Romania.
Nikola Ludlová
With the background in contemporary history and Romani studies, Nikola Ludlová works across multiple disciplinary and professional contexts. As independent historian, she has focused on the entanglement of science and politics, specifically in the area of knowledge production on Roma. In cultural sector, she is dedicated to advancing social justice and environmental responsibility in the arts, rethinking institutional models to make them more inclusive and accessible. Her expertise spans decolonial aesthetics, critical museology, relational and identitarian art, and participatory art mediation that opens space for both broad audiences and groups historically excluded from access to culture. In her emerging curatorial practice, she approaches curatorship as a social practice grounded in dialogue, care, and collective agency.
Nikola Ludlová: Roma Cultural Production as Political Practice: Histories, Legacies, and Contemporary Strategies. A Case Study of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic
(in English / v češtině)
This study examines both contemporary and historical cultural and artistic practices to highlight their potential as antidotes to anti-Roma sentiment and other forms of hate-based ideology. The first part reconstructs the discontinuous history of Roma cultural organizing in Czechoslovakia, which has developed through sustained activism since the late 1960s and, together with parallel developments in Hungary, has become one of the most visible and structurally advanced minority-led cultural movements in Europe. This historical account offers a longue durée framework for situating contemporary cultural production (analysed in the second part) and shows that culture and the arts have carried a political edge and a strong emancipatory ethos since their inception.
Since the 2004 accession of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary to the European Union, EU cultural policies have increasingly supported minority cultures and sought to expand access to the arts for historically excluded groups. These top-down initiatives have intersected with bottom-up efforts led by artists, curators, and activists working to counter systemic discrimination and promote racial equity. The convergence of institutional and grassroots strategies has been crucial in reshaping cultural narratives and enhancing the representation of racialized minorities, particularly Romani artists.
The article explores a spectrum of curatorial and artistic strategies emerging in this context that directly confront racial discrimination and violence, as well as the historical and ongoing erasure of Roma and other non-white individuals from cultural narratives and artistic practice. It critically considers how these initiatives contest the invisibilization, stereotyping, and racialization of Roma and other people of color within dominant cultural discourses and contribute to more socially responsible and inclusive representational frameworks. The discussion also illustrates how Roma artists engage with themes of racial and ethnic identity—both through individual practice and collective projects with communities. Particular attention is given also to projects formed around intersecting or transcending identities that bring together people of color, people with disabilities, individuals of diverse ethnic backgrounds, and various gender identities
Jan Selling and Samanta Selimovic
Jan Selling is a professor of critical Roma studies at Södertörn University. Since 2010, he has researched and taught about Roma history, Roma liberation and antigypsyism. Main publications: Svensk antizigansim [Swedish Antigypsyism] (2013), Romani Liberation (2022; also in Swedish version as Frigörelsen, 2020), reports on Sweden for the projects CHACHIPEN (2022) and JEKHIPE (2025) and participation in RomArchive 2015-2019 and ERIAC’s project Re-Thinking Roma resistance (2020). At Södertörn University, he has been conducting an international online colloquium for doctoral students with a focus on antigypsyism and critical Roma studies since 2020.
Samanta Selimovic is an activist, advisor and representative in Roma issues, active both nationally and internationally. She has been involved in several cultural and social projects, including ‘Roma cultural heritage in Västernorrland’, the identity project ‘Young Roma voices’ and initiatives that support Roma towards studies and work. Selimovic is also a driving force in a Roma cultural association in Sundsvall, with a special focus on women’s rights, the fight against antigypsyism, and the strengthening of Roma identity and culture. She has described her path to becoming a Roma activist in the essay “Existensen” [The Existence.] (2024, in: B., L. Lundqvist & J. Olsson (eds) Feminiqua. Historier om motstånd. [Feminiqua. Stories of Resistance], pp. 282–291.
Jan Selling and Samanta Selimovic: Antigypsyism in Sweden and Romani Interventions
(in English / på svenska)
The paper examines Roma history and current challenges in Sweden, as well as how antigypsyism is challenged by contemporary Roma interventions in media, politics and cultural life.
The first part provides a historical background from the arrival of the first Roma in Sweden, via the civil rights struggle of the 1960s to today’s situation. A quantitative content analysis of the Swedish press 2000-2025 states that during the mid-2010s, there was a momentum for issues of Roma rights. This was partly due to gradual openings for different Roma groups to have their say in the public discourse, thanks to the rights that followed the recognition of Roma as a national minority. However, the positive turn was mainly triggered by the 2013 revelation in the mass media that the Swedish police were still conducting ethnic registration of Roma on a large scale. This blatant violation of the law made it clear that structural antigypsyism was still firmly rooted in the country and a state Commission against Antigypsyism was established: the discourse swung from portraying Roma as the problem, as before, to seeing antigypsyism as the real problem. A number of government initiatives were started, but Roma demands for a truth commission were not met. Instead, in 2012, a strategy for Roma inclusion was introduced with the goal that equality for Roma would be fully achieved by 2032. The inclusion strategy was partly a failure, partly because it was conducted in a short-term and project-oriented manner without a thorough antigypsyism analysis. At the same time, populist discourses have strengthened antigypsyism, for example in connection with debates about the “begging ban”.
The second part of the report addresses questions about how, where and in what direction Roma interventions are expressed in a structurally anti-Gypsy social context such as the one we have in Sweden today. Based on their respective horizons of experience and knowledge, the authors have jointly searched for clear examples of “critical Roma interventions”.
The themes that appear most recurringly in these “Roma interventions” are criticism of antigypsyism, pride in being Roma, representations of cultural identity, memory and historical justice, feminist perspectives and queer-Roma identity. In this there is a great diversity of perspectives that are partly related to the different subgroups’ varying historical experiences. One observation is that many of the actors have roots in the former Yugoslavia. The report also notes that women are overrepresented among the actors.
In summary, the report states that there is a dynamic development within the Roma civil society in Sweden that is rooted in a history of civic activism and that is increasingly taking in intellectual Roma impulses outside Sweden. Roma journalism has gained in importance in recent years, partly thanks to investments in public service. Social media appears to be a great potential.
A challenge for many actors is to find a balance in dependence on the state: while state aid can influence the direction of Roma interventions, public funds for Roma culture and knowledge production are necessary to even out structural inequalities.