Description
Book Synopsis A ground-breaking volume that gathers the testimonies of NGO workers, street vendors, activists, scholars, health professionals, and creative writers to chronicle the devastating impact of COVID-19 on Romani communities globally.
The contributors reveal how the pandemic has exacerbated Romani disenfranchisement and document the resilience and creativity with which Romanies have responded to the crisis. Deploying innovative textual formats, and including poignant personal reflections, memoirs, scholarly analyses, and diary excerpts, the volume provides a roadmap for collaboration and dialogue at a time of global emergency.
This is the most significant chronicle of Romani stories about the COVID crisis ever assembled.
From the Introduction:
The contributions include memoirs, opinion essays, transcriptions of conversations or interviews, ethnographic analyses, and a compelling short story by Romani writer Iveta Kokyová, as well as pieces that stride the boundaries between one or more of these genres, or that fit into none.
Trade Review “Romani Chronicles of COVID-19 is indispensable reading for anyone interested in pandemic inequalities and Romani lifeworlds. The dialogue between Romani and non-Romani chronicles in five countries at different points in the pandemic also generates a vision of better futures for - to translate the term Roma into English - humans.” • Sophie Day, Goldsmiths, University of London
“This is a masterly and brave multivocal text about the impact of COVID-19 upon Romani worlds. It reveals another, even worse, global pandemic of ancient structural racism, one which affects those who are deemed not to matter, who stand alone, the Romanies. This other pandemic precedes COVID-19 and will tragically survive coronavirus´ last infections.” • Manuela Cantón Delgado, University of Seville
“This is an excellent and path-breaking volume unique in its contribution to the field of Romani studies, anthropology, or social epidemiology. It will be an informative and enjoyable read for academics, practitioners, and students alike.” • László Fosztó, Romanian Institute for Resarch on National Minorities
Table of Contents Foreword: Words and Waves
Iliana Sarafian
Introduction: Chronicles of a Tragedy Foretold
Paloma Gay y Blasco and Martin Fotta
Part I: Spanish Chronicles
Chapter 1. Introduction to the Spanish Chronicles: From Ordinary Crisis to Pandemic Emergency
Paloma Gay y Blasco
Chapter 2. Gitana Intercultural Mediators in the Space between Despair and Hope
Dulce Flores Torres, Pilar García Bizárraga, Estrella Iglesias Pérez, Francisca Mayoral Silva, Manuela Mayoral Silva, Fernanda Montaño García and Paloma Gay
Chapter 3. “Who Cares…? Hunger Will Kill Us If the Virus Does Not”: The COVID-19 Pandemic in an Informal Settlement in Madrid
Beatriz Aragón Martín
Chapter 4. Researching and Mitigating the Impact of Lockdown on Gitano Families in Spain: an NGO Worker Speaks
María Félix Rodriguez Camacho
Chapter 5. Illness and Death Are So Much Worse When You Are Alone
Liria Hernández
Chapter 6. “COVID-19 Is a Trial from God”: Gitanos, Pentecostal Imaginaries, and Compliance
Antonio Montañés Jiménez with Gory Carmona
Part II: Brazilian Chronicles
Chapter 7. Introduction to the Brazilian Chronicles: How Systemic Racism and Government Neglect Led to Increased Harm Suffered by Vulnerable Groups
Juliana Miranda Soares Campos, Martin Fotta, Gabriela Marques Gonçalves and Aline Miklos
Chapter 8. “Get out of Here!”: Discrimination and Prejudice against Ciganos in the Context of the Pandemic
Igor Shimura
Chapter 9. “Everything Is on Hold”: The Pandemic and the Ciganos in Minas Gerais
Valdinalva Barbosa dos Santos Caldas and Juliana Miranda Soares Campos
Chapter 10. The Creation of the #Orgulhoromani Collective Amid the Pandemic
Gabriela Marques Gonçalves, Aluízio de Azevedo Silva Júnior, and Aline Miklos
Chapter 11. Interlacing Black and Romani Experiences during the Coronavirus Pandemic in Paraíba, Northeast Brazil: A Personal Reflection
Edilma do Nascimento Souza
Chapter 12. Romanies in Brazil and the Escalation of Necropolitics during the Pandemic
Aluízio de Azevedo Silva Júnior
Part III: Slovak Chronicles
Chapter 13. Introduction to the Slovak Chronicles: Indifference, Securitization, and Antigypsyism
Andrej Belák and Tomáš Hrustič
Chapter 14. Quarantine, Segregation, and Resistance: The Case of Žehra
Alžbeta ‘Haľka’ Mižigárová
Chapter 15. Coffee and Cigarettes in State Quarantine: Stuck on the Way Home
Albín Peter and Tomáš Hrustič
Chapter 16. “In Difficult Times We Should Stick Together”: Roma Self-Help Initiatives and Awareness Raising Activities as an Immediate Reaction to Corona Virus Spread Early in March 2020
Tomáš Hrustič
Chapter 17. The Hoaxes and Incorrect Information Related to COVID-19 Showed a Lack of Trust and Knowledge between the Majority and the Roma
Jurina Rusnáková and Zuzana Kumanová
Chapter 18. Oh, My Antiracist Friends, Where Are You? A Health Expert’s Diary of Hopes and Disappointments Regarding Pandemic Prevention and Control across Segregated Roma Enclaves
Andrej Belák
Part IV: Polish Chronicles
Chapter 19. Introduction to the Polish Chronicles: Digital Kinning and Care
Kamila Fiałkowska, Michał P. Garapich, Ignacy Jóźwiak, Elżbieta Mirga-Wójtowicz, Sonia Styrkacz, and Monika Szewczyk
Chapter 20. Pandemic (Im)mobilities of Polish Roma
Sonia Styrkacz, Michał P. Garapich, and Kamila Fiałkowska
Chapter 21. The Internet and Transnational Polish Roma Families in the Time of Pandemic
Monika Szewczyk, Elżbieta Mirga-Wójtowicz, and Ignacy Jóźwiak
Part V: Czech Chronicles
Chapter 22. Introduction to the Czech Chronicles: Of Loss and Silence
Yasar Abu Ghosh
Chapter 23. The Impact of the Pandemic on Activism and the Activist: Conversations with Jozef Miker
Yasar Abu Ghosh
Chapter 24. Denial of Danger: COVID-19, Disinformation, and When to Burst Our Bubbles
Gwendolyn Albert
Chapter 25. Locked Down in Our Own Personal Quarantine: How Nothing Can Be Taken for Granted
Iveta Kokyová
Concluding Reflections
Paloma Gay y Blasco and Martin Fotta
Index
