Realizing Roma Rights investigates anti-Roma racism and documents a growing Roma-led political movement engaged in building a more inclusive and just Europe. The book brings to the forefront voices of leading and emerging Romani scholars, from established human rights experts to policy and advocacy leaders with deep experience.
Realizing Roma Rights offers detailed accounts of anti-Roma racism, political and diplomatic narratives chronicling the development of European and American policy, and critical examination of Roma-related discourse and policies in contemporary Europe. It also investigates the complex role of the European Union as a driver of progressive change and a flawed implementer of fundamental rights.
This book will provide a useful source for those interested in the dynamics of contemporary stigma and discrimination, the enduring challenges of mobilizing within severely disempowered communities, and the complexities of regional and transnational human rights mechanisms. Spanning as it does a broad disciplinary range that encompasses law, history, sociology, political theory, critical race theory, human rights, organization theory, and education, Realizing Roma Rights is a useful teaching tool for interdisciplinary courses on human rights, racism and xenophobia, political theory, European studies, and minority issues.
Contributors: Jacqueline Bhabha, James A. Goldston, Will Guy, Fernando Macias, David Mark, Teresa Sorde-Marti, Margareta Matache, David Meyer, Andrzej Mirga, Kalman Mizsei, Krista Oehlke, Alexandra Oprea, Elena Rozzi, Erika Schlager, Michael Uyehara, Peter Vermeersch.

Realizing Roma Rights investigates the ongoing stigma and anti-Roma racism and documents a growing, vibrant Roma led political movement engaged in building a more inclusive and just Europe.

About the Author
Jacqueline Bhabha is Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health, the Jeremiah Smith Jr. Lecturer in Law at Harvard Law School, and Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. She is Director of Research at the Harvard FXB Center for Health and Human Rights. Andrzej Mirga is Polish Roma, an ethnologist, analyst, and activist. He chairs the board of the Roma Education Fund (Budapest). Margareta Matache is a Romani scholar and activist from Romania. She is an instructor at the Harvard FXB Center for Health and Human Rights and Director of the Roma Program at Harvard.

Reviews
"Realizing Roma Rights is a most welcome contribution to the meager world of human rights-based studies of the Roma population . . . The book is well edited and presents a comprehensive picture and analysis of current issues surrounding the Roma, in particular in Eastern and Central Europe. The editors have a deep understanding not only of the human rights dimensions of the condition of the Roma situation, but also of the political, cultural, and historical questions that are important to include in order to fully comprehend the magnitude of the challenges faced and to provide a contribution for purposes of future scenarios for the Roma." * Human Rights Quarterly *
"Realizing Roma Rights is an absorbing study . . . [and] a thoughtful and stimulating read. What we learn is that centuries of state-sponsored vilification, criminalisation and marginalisation of the Roma has normalised racism . . . Deep-seated prejudice of this kind does not instantly evaporate when an international body, a government or a court decides that it is no longer acceptable. Change comes slowly . . . This edited book is an important contribution to this understanding." * The International Journal of Human Rights *
"Roma history includes accounts of terrible discrimination but must also pay attention to the development of an admirably courageous global community-beautifully combining resistance to imposed disadvantage with instinctive tolerance of different ways of life of others. This splendid collection of essays brings out the richness of the Roma story-what the world owes to this massively disadvantaged group, and, no less important, what the world has to learn from the global culture of this locally defiant community spread across the world." * Amartya Sen, Harvard University *
"By juxtaposing European and American Roma experiences, Realizing Roma Rights demonstrates that Roma cannot fight racism and discrimination without strategic allies in both their countries of origin and their adopted homelands and makes clear the need to develop Roma networks that can advocate for human and legal rights in their communities. Anyone working toward achieving rights for Roma, especially those working in European and international commissions, as well as non-governmental organizations, would benefit from reading this book." * Romani Rose, Chairman of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma *



Book Information
ISBN 9780812248999
Author Jacqueline Bhabha
Format Hardback
Page Count 320
Imprint University of Pennsylvania Press
Publisher University of Pennsylvania Press