Neglected Voices: The Global Roma Diaspora (Day 1)

On April 5 (9AM-6:30PM) and April 6 (9AM-1PM), 2019, the Harvard FXB Center for Health and Human Rights and the Romani Studies Program of the Central European University will host Neglected Voices: The Global Roma Diaspora, the seventh Annual Roma Conference at Harvard to mark International Roma Day.

The conference will convene scholars and activists to explore the global span of the Romani diaspora and the disparate manifestations of inclusion or exclusion of Roma across the world. We also hope to help mobilize solidarity and cooperation between Roma activists across continents.

The event is co-sponsored by the Harvard David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, and the Open Society Foundations Human Rights Initiative. The event takes place under the honorary patronage of the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture.

The Harvard FXB Center has organized an event on International Roma Day for the past six years. Previous events have centered on questions of discrimination, exposure to violence, stigma, and marginalization, Roma representations in arts, culture, and literature, and solidarity between Roma and African American communities. This year we add a new perspective to ongoing debates by initiating a conversation on the complexity and variety of the global Romani diaspora.

Please see agenda below. For more information, read the conference booklet here.

For inquiries, contact Margareta Matache, instructor, Harvard FXB Center, and director of the Roma Program at Harvard. Email: mmatache@hsph.harvard.edu.

We will be live streaming the conference on our Facebook page, so check in there if you cannot attend in person.

Agenda – April 5, 2019­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­

Venue: Thompson Room, Barker Center, Harvard University

9:00 am – Welcome Address

Mary Bassett, Director, Harvard FXB Center for Health and Human Rights

Michèle Lamont, Director, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University

Liviu Matei, Provost, Central European University (video)

 

9:15 am – Introductory Panel | The Human Rights Situation of Roma Worldwide

Chair | Jacqueline Bhabha, Director of Research, Harvard FXB Center for Health and Human Rights

Presenter | Margareta Matache, Director of the Roma Program and Instructor, Harvard FXB Center for Health and Human Rights

Keynote Speaker | Rita Izsák-Ndiaye, Member of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination; Former UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues

Discussant | Fredrik von Bothmer, United Nations Office of the Special Advisers on the Prevention of Genocide and the Responsibility to Protect

 

10:30 am – Panel 1 | Social and Economic Status of Roma across the World:  Access to Fundamental Rights

Chair | Mary Bassett, Director, Harvard FXB Center for Health and Human Rights

Presenter | Alexandra Oprea, Romani attorney, author, and activist, USA

Presenter | Kristin Raeesi, Board Member, Voice of Roma, USA

Presenter | Luciano Mariz Maia, Deputy Prosecutor-General and Professor, Brazil

Presenter | Dafina Savic, Executive Director of Romanipe Montreal, Canada

Presenter | Timea Junghaus, Executive Director of the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture, Germany

Discussant | Belen Rodriguez de Alba, Human Rights Officer, Indigenous Peoples, and Minorities Section, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

 

12:30 pm – Lunch Break

 

1:30 pm – Panel 2 | The Disparate Manifestations of Stigma against Roma in the Americas and Europe

Chair | Sunil Amrith, Mehra Family Professor of South Asian Studies and Professor of History, Harvard University

Presenter | Iulius Rostas, Chair of the Romani Studies Program and Assistant Professor, Central European University, Hungary

Presenter | Angéla Kóczé, Assistant Professor of Romani Studies and Academic Director of the Roma Graduate Preparation Program, Central European University, Hungary

Presenter | Victoria Rios, Singer/songwriter, music teacher, and Romani activist, USA

Presenter | Aline Miklos, Doctoral Art History Student, University of São Paulo, Brazil

Presenter | Lela Savic, Journalist, Canada

Discussant | Michèle Lamont, Director, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University

 

3:30 pm – Break

 

4:00 pm – Panel 3 | What makes a Diaspora?  The case of the Global Romani Diaspora

Chair | Kay Kaufman Shelemay, G. Gordon Watts Professor of Music and Professor of African and African American Studies, Harvard University

Presenter | Khachig Tölölyan, Professor, Wesleyan University, USA

Presenter | Ethel Brooks, Associate Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies and Sociology, Rutgers University, USA

Presenter | Marcos Toyansk Silva Guimarais, Researcher and group leader, University of São Paulo, Brazil

Presenter | Ismael Cortes, Lecturer at the UNESCO Chair of Philosophy, Universitat Jaume I de Castelló;

Presenter | Petra Gelbart, Curator of the Music Section at RomArchive; Lecturer, Ramapo College New Jersey, USA

Discussant | Aurora Vergara Figueroa, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Director of the Afrodiasporic Studies Center at Universidad Icesi in Cali, Colombia

 

6:00pm – Concluding Remarks

Jacqueline Bhabha, Director of Research, Harvard FXB Center for Health and Human Rights

 

 

Background painting by Gabi Jimenez