It appears to be quite easy for those of us who have the privilege of academia to get all muddled up with questions of culture, identity, integration, assimilation, performativity, etc.
It seems then prosaic, almost vulgar, to concern oneself with numbers and statistics, to enquire into the nature of the oppression of the Roma on a material level
The European Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) conducted a study in 2014 on the situation of Roma people in 11 EU Member States as concerns their economic and employment status. Its key findings can be summarised as follows:
- On average, about 90 % of the Roma surveyed live in households with an equivalised income below national poverty lines.
- On average, around 40 % of Roma live in households where somebody had to go to bed hungry at least once in the last month since they could not afford to buy food.
- On average, fewer than one out of three Roma are reported to be in paid employment.
- One out of three Roma respondents said that they are unemployed.
What I have found as an Eastern European woman in Britain is that there are people, especially in academia, who devote their life to exploring the fabric of those societies and pointing out their problems in a way that verges on voyeuristic. Engaging with Roma culture on an academic level is a way for certain people to involve themselves with social issues and problems without having to face their immense privilege and question their upbringing and worldview.
It is probably these same people who would denounce looking at numbers and statistics as “economic determinism” – but how many roundtable discussions will it take to lift those 90% surveyed out of poverty?
European London 