Romani women's identities real and imagined: media discourse analysis of "I'm a European Roma Woman" campaign

In my thesis, I study self-representations of Romani women on the internet in order to show by which forces the self-representations are shaped in a particular context. My main source is an online campaign "I'm a European Roma woman" launched by Romedia Foundation, a non-governmental organization based in Budapest, Hungary. I conduct a critical discourse and visual analysis of the website content (texts, video-interviews and photographs). I argue that the specific understanding of 'identity' as fixed and one-dimensional and that of 'Romani woman's identity' exceptionally based on 'being Romani' result in a problematic character of identity politics promoted by the organizers of the campaign.

Even though they challenge stereotypes to some extent and greatly contribute to the visibility of Romani women activists, the discourses of the organizers show a lack of a critical approach to the framing of the goals of the online campaign. I firstly argue that this results in the understanding of the women's politics as only seemingly gendered. Secondly, the specific understanding of "Roma identity" as implied from the website's agenda reproduces the us/them dichotomy. Finally, Romani women's bodies that appear in the campaign images represent an imagination of what "a European Romani woman" looks like. On the other hand, many of the interviewed women's narratives challenge the mainstream discourses promoted on the website homepage, namely those of the "Romani movement", and help the promotion of diversity among Romani women, thus urging the need for the reconstruction of the concept of Romani woman's identity.