Neglected Voices: The Global Roma Diaspora (Day 2)

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 6, 2019

Venue: Harvard Kennedy School, TAUBMAN Building, 5^th floor – T-520 NYE

9:00 a.m. – Panel Discussion: Organizing and Mobilizing Roma: Tactics; Failures; Opportunities; Lessons Learned from the Afrodescendant Movement in Latin America; Steps Forward.

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

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

Contributor| Radu Marian, Member of Parliament, Republic of Moldova

Contributor| Anina Ciuciu, President, ASET93; Board Member La Voix des Rroms, France

Contributor| George Eli, Filmmaker, spiritualist, and founder of the Romani Media Initiative, USA

Contributor| Ana Dalila Gómez Baos, General coordinator of the Organizational Process of the Rrom Gitano people of Colombia, Colombia

10:45 a.m. – Coffee break

11:00 a.m. –  Panel discussion continues

Contributor| Ariadyne Acunha, the International Association Maylê Sara Kalí – AMSK/Brazil

Contributor| Tanja Jovanovic, Post-Doctoral Fellow, Central European University and Harvard; Policy Officer, Justice Initiative, Open Society Foundation, London

Contributor| Zoran Bikovski, Health Program Coordinator, NGO KHAM Delchevo, Macedonia

Contributor| Carol Silverman, Professor of Anthropology/Folklore and Public Culture, University of Oregon; Board Member, Voice of Roma, USA

12:30 p.m. –  Lunch

Background painting by Gabi Jimenez