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Articles by Stephan Collishaw

1. Lithuania – a century of remembering & forgetting

   During 1918 all three Baltic countries managed to escape the Russian grip and enjoyed some two decades of independence before they came under Russian/Soviet rule again. Despite the fact that the loss of their independence lasted for the following 50 years, all three countries celebrate their centenary this year. So how are the past 100 years described? During my years as a journalist in Vilnius, one of my major interests was precisely the way in which the country portrayed its own history. Over the years I pinpointed facts and covered aspects of this history that were not often highlighted in official speeches or by mainstream media. In the following I will focus on two topics in the case of Lithuania — the Soviet period and the Jews.

2. Exploring the topography of the power play. By concentrating on the periphery

   Movers and Shakers of Soviet Ukrainian culture in the 1920s–1930s, “Beau Monde on Empire’s Edge. State and Stage in Soviet Ukraine”, Mayhill C. Fowler, University of Toronto Press, 2017.

3. As Brezhnev saw it. Diaries of a “stable decline” in three volumes

   Brezhnev, Leonid, Rabochie i dnevnikovye zapisi, V 3-kh tomakh, Moskva: Istoricheskaya literature, 2016, 3 500 pages.

4. Charter 97 and the shrinking space for free media in Belarus

   Independent media in Belarus is experiencing continued difficulties due to President Alexandr Lukashenko’s repressive policies. To avoid censorship, a number of independent media outlets, such as the most popular news site Charter 97, have chosen to work from abroad. Although this might give them maneuvering space to go on reporting, it also means that many Belarusian citizens do not have access to a sufficient amount of opposition news.

5. The Post-Gypsy Lore Moment: Defining Romani Studies

   This is a very interesting discussion that Kimmo Granqvist moderates here. It is unusual to have scholars reflecting on the potential of their discipline, so this is a great occasion for Romani studies. If one looks at the contributions closely, one can see the emergence of a struggle by scholars to wriggle their way out of a long-standing and narrow agenda created for the study of “gypsy” issues and to demarcate a wider territory called Romani Studies.

6. “Being a part of the community that is being investigated creates a number of complications”

   Corina Ceamă, Ion Duminică, Ian Hancock, Tomasz Koper, and Hristo Kyuchukov reflect on their views and aspirations for Romani Studies, as well as their own roles as Roma scholars.

7. Migration vs. Inclusion: Roma Mobilities from east to west

   The Roma migrations, which are becoming more topical today, have prompted policies giving attention to issues of Roma inclusion first in the East, but then also in the West. Inclusion policies have, by and large, failed to improve the situation of Roma communities. In order to achieve a better understanding of these issues, we argue that attention should be paid to Roma as distinct ethnic communities, but that are still integral parts of their respective civic nations

8. Romani writers and the legacies of Yugoslavia

   This article discusses Yugoslavia’s ethnic and Romani policies and the activities for maintaining common cultural practices among Romani writers and activists after the dissolution of the federation as a political entity, and it examines literary activities and narratives related to Yugoslav topics and the way in which they sustain and demonstrate Romani (post-)Yugoslav belonging. The article argues that a sense of Yugoslav belonging and cooperation has been maintained among Romani writers and activists with explicitly positive references to the legacies of Yugoslavia. These tendencies contrast with the official post-Yugoslav political discourse among the rest of the ethnic and national communities’ leaderships, which have been to a great extent built on criticizing Yugoslav policies and ideologies.

9. Romani immigrants from Romania in Poland in the 1990s. Ethnographic observations

   This paper presents a handful of ethnographic observations concerning the Romanian Romani people migrating to Poland in the 1990s. This migration wave, although not very well known in the world, became a very important factor influencing, among others, the perception of the Romanian Roms, the Romani people in general, and even citizens of Romania as such by Poles. For Romani immigrants, this was most often the first opportunity to stay abroad

10. The life trajectories of Roma women living in poverty. Tackling intersectional discrimination

    The focus of this work is on the position of Roma girls/women who have a different set of privileges as well as rights and often experience multiple forms of discrimination in relation to a number of categories of difference. Specifically, the life trajectories of three Roma women living in poverty and experiencing different levels of discrimination are presented and examined. Highlighting the multiple positioning that constitutes their everyday life, these life trajectories show that gender, ethnicity, socio-economic status and other categories of difference are not distinct and isolated realms of experience and that the impact of their intersections needs to be foregrounded. In sum, these brief excerpts undeniably show how discrimination has consistently denied these Roma women personal development, self-esteem, decent living conditions, livelihood opportunities and institutional services.

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