Permanence of Anti-Roma Racism

Margareta Matache is a Lecturer at the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and the co-founder and Director of the Roma Program at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard University. She is also a member of the O’Neill-Lancet Commission on Racism, Structural Discrimination, and Global Health, and co-editor of Time for Reparations: A Global Perspective (2021) and Realizing Roma Rights (2017). With over 25 years of experience in organizational leadership, policy advocacy, social change interventions, and academic work, Dr. Matache has dedicated her career to framing and addressing anti-Roma racism and other systems of oppression.

• Foreword by Angela Kocze; 1. Introduction; 2. A Positional Exploration of My Family History; 3. The Roma People: Who Can We Become?; 4. A Structural Examination of Roma People’s Oppression (Ofitsialo Telćhudipen); 5. Geneses of anti-Romani Racism; 6. Placing the Origins of Anti-Roma Racism in the Global Scholarship on Racisms and Castes; 7. Telaveriaripen (Racialization) and Gadjoness; 8. Telaveriaripen: Patters in the Racialization of the Roma People; 9. Absolute Racialization: Kin Racializing and Dehumanizing Processes; 10. Organized Killings as Law; 11. Bodily Violence; 12. Organized Erasure of the Roma History and Culture; 13. Dur-rigate-dinipe - Apartness; 14. Gadjikano Politics and Policymaking; 15. Epilogue: Letter To My Nephew on The Menace of Gadjoness; Postscript by Suraj Milind Yengde

“Margareta Matache’s magisterial book on the complex dynamics of vicious anti-Roma racism and the rich history of Roma resistance is powerful and profound! In fact, she has written an instant classic that creatively and persuasively brings together theory, history, politics and personal lived experience in a unique and unprecedented way! And as a Black freedom fighter, she is my genuine comrade and colleague!”Cornel West, Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy, Harvard University and Dietrich Bonhoeffer Professor of Philosophy & Christian Practice, Union Theological Seminary“This new book is comprehensive and covers vitally important ground for researchers, instructors, and students. It is a very timely publication, especially considering the political environment we are now in with laws being proposed in several states to ban discussion of race.”Jacqueline Bhabha, Director of Research, François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard University“This book will remain with the readers, and it will also encourage them. Neatly arranged in 15 headlines, it acts as a faithful guide to accountability.”Suraj Milind Yengde, W.E.B. Du Bois Senior Fellow, the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Harvard University“This book will no doubt become foundational for scholars in multiple disciplines, from sociology and history to law, public policy, and human rights. But it also holds significance beyond the academy. It is a text that speaks to Roma communities and their allies, to policymakers, educators, and activists—anyone concerned with equity, justice, and the honest reckoning with the past.”Angela Kocze, Assistant Professor of Romani Studies, Chair of Romani Studies Program, and Academic Director of the Roma Graduate Preparation Program at Central European University