EVENT Romani Akademie - Lecture BY DR. Dezso Mate

✨ RomaniPhen invites: 

GYPSYLOREISM AND ROMANI AGENCY
A lecture by Dr. Dezso Mate
In English with German translation

📅 Friday, 12th December 2025
🕔 Time: 18:00
📍Place: RomaniPhen Archiv, Karl - Kunger - Str. 17, 12435 Berlin

Unfortunately, our room is not wheelchair accessible. If necessary, we can provide a Zoom link so that you can follow the lecture online.

The construction of “Gypsy” denotes a form of social, economic, political, and historical differentiation experienced by the Romani people, regardless of the time and place. “Gypsy” had become a normalised connotation in social sciences and human rights activism. The term’s usage is an ongoing debate, which has often undermined ethical standards in the name of academia or the claimed “White” positionality. I argue that this debate extends beyond methodologies and context in the research, it is rooted in structural racism that academia, politics, and activism have adopted through centuries and applied to their position without reflection.

The presentation aims to offer an understanding as how “Gypsy” has been racialized and been influenced by academic and social discussions over the centuries, from the first official registers and scholarly works until today’s censuses and knowledge productions. The argument points out how discussions on “Gypsy” representation have been shaped by external perspectives that determined and limited early Romani voices in history and public memories. To fill this gap of lost voices and representations, with a quite late establishment (but here we are), Romani and pro- Romani scholars in the early 2000s started to challenge and break down existing power structures, social perceptions, and stereotypes with the school of Antigypsyism, Anti-Romani Racism, and Critical Romani Studies.

Dezso Mate obtained his Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Sociology at the Eotvos Lorand University. Currently, he is a Research Fellow at the Interdisciplinary Centre for European Studies, Europa-Universität Flensburg, and Visiting Research Fellow at the Research Centre on Antigypsyism, Heidelberg University. Dr. Mate is also the Deputy Chair of the Barvalipe Academy at the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture—ERIAC. He is a visiting lecturer at Södertörn University’s Critical Romani Studies Department in Stockholm, and an Alumnus of the Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut (KWI) in Essen. Dr. Mate’s research interests encompass dimensions of intersectional and academic antigypsyism, structural racism, social movements, and resilience. His dissertation focused on academic antigypsyism with a social-psychological analysis of resilience.

✉️ Registration: info@romnja-power.de 
👉🏽 Places are limited – register now!

An event organised by the Romani Academy