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A bleak picture of the situation of Roma and Gypsy minorities is evoked by descriptions of their socio-economic marginalisation. Since the 1990s, the decision of the European Union (EU) to expand eastwards to include former socialist countries highlighted Roma minorities as the most discriminated and excluded minority group in Europe. The social integration of Roma formed a key part of the accession negotiations as the EU attempted to address the socio-economic disadvantage of Roma by putting pressure on national governments of accession states in Central and Eastern Europe to develop human rights and non-discriminatory institutions as well as specific strategies to improve the situation of Roma. Furthermore, structural funds were made available for projects aimed at the social inclusion of Roma minority groups. These interventions facilitated opportunities for European policy intervention discussions in order to address the acute and specific challenges facing Roma across Europe. Roma minorities largely remain in disempowered and marginal communities with poverty and discrimination still cited as major challenges to their health, social and economic well-being and stability. Indeed, the situation of Roma communities is as precarious today is it has ever been with the ongoing economic crisis and the rise of the far right contributing to this predicament.

A European strategy for Roma minorities is much needed, but has to take into account the heterogeneous and hybrid nature of Roma communities and the multifarious contexts within which they live, argues Annabel Tremlett.

An intriguing shift in the public interest of Roma, Gypsy and Traveller minorities has been the rise of the 'Gypsy' reality TV star in shows across Europe ('Gypsy' is the word most often used in popular media culture). The latest phenomenon to hit the UK has been the Channel 4 series Big Fat Gypsy Weddings (Firecracker Films, Channel 4, 2010–2013), a flamboyant production that has garnered both huge audience shares and fierce criticism, with commentators berating its narrow, sensationalist focus. Drawing on both specialized literature on Roma minorities and current sociological debates on reality TV formats, this article raises questions about how the politics of the 'demotic turn' of such formats (as noted by Turner in 2004) can lean towards the demonic through emphasizing such groups as spectacular, extraordinary and above all, negatively different. Furthermore, this article shows how the series not only reproduces old stereotypes of Gypsies and Travellers as different, ethnicized others but is also heavily embroiled in UK gender and class discourses. Whilst the series claims to be a unique insight into a marginalized community, this close analysis discusses the wider politics within which it is embedded and how such representations can both popularize and undermine marginalized or minority groups.

Most special issues on Roma minorities want to alert readers to the devastating consequences of racist public attitudes and misdirected public policy. Here we don't shy away from such issues, but we also want to challenge our own scholarship and ask some fundamental questions about how we, as academics, are approaching such research. In this introduction the context of the special issue is explored, both in terms of the historic backdrop of an expanding European Union and the academic theoretical framework of minority integration. Major critical questioning – such as broader questions around migration, race and ethnicity discourses – are still lacking when it comes to research on or with Roma minorities. Our main aim is to move debates on from continually describing who Roma people are and what they are doing, to questioning: who defines who is Roma, when and why? What happens in policy-making, research, everyday interactions? This approach sees an understanding of recognition, representations and power dynamics as fundamental to understanding the positionings of minorities who can also be marginalised or feel disenfranchised. This introduction to the special issue highlights the importance of deeply conceptualising issues around minority integration alongside empirical knowledge of how Roma identities become implicated in and through different modalities of mobilisation. Contributions to this special issue speak to debates in minority politics and identity studies along with migration and race/ethnicity discourses. This indicates that the experiences of, and discourses surrounding Roma minorities reflect the fundamental concerns of social science research about identity, ethnicity, cohesion and change.

"This book breaks the silence that surrounds learning a language for ethnographic research and in the process demystifies some of the multilingual aspects of contemporary ethnographic work. It offers a set of engaging and accessible accounts of language learning and use written by ethnographers who are at different stages of their academic career"--

Thirty years after the collapse of Communism, and at a time of increasing anti-migrant and anti-Roma sentiment, this book analyses how Roma identity is expressed in contemporary Europe. From backgrounds ranging from political theory, postcolonial, cultural and gender studies to art history, feminist critique and anthropology, the contributors reflect on the extent to which a politics of identity regarding historically disadvantaged, racialized minorities such as the Roma can still be legitimately articulated