%0 Journal Article
%T CULTURAL IDENTITY AND CITIZENSHIP. THE CASE OF THE ROMA MINORITY IN ROMANIA
%A VALENTIN QUINTUS NICOLESCU
%J Challenges of the Knowledge Society
%D 2011
%I Nicolae Titulescu University of Bucharest
%X My paper focuses on the intersection between the Roma cultural-identitary construction and the political concept of citizenship, trying to reveal if such an approach can prove itself helpful in providing a better understanding of the unilaterality of the majority-Roma relationship. By unilaterality I understand the particular model in which the Roma-Romanian relationship has structured itself overtime. It mainly consists of a segregationist view that stresses the majority¡¯s responsibility with the minority¡¯s integration process and the failures to promote a partnership with the minority. This approach tends, in my opinion, to treat the minority in absentia, producing therefore the well-known effects of the so-called ¡°Roma problem¡±. On the other hand, the idea of empowering the Roma minority is also seen as being fundamentally within the majority¡¯s attributions, therefore contradicting the very essence of the concept. My approach seeks to apply a theoretical framework developed first by Gramsci and later by Boudieu to this particular situation. Thus I hope to be able to provide a better understanding of both the history and the present of majority-minority relations and to highlight possible directions or outcomes relating to the dichotomy of integration/communitarian privacy in the case of the Roma minority.
%K Roma minority
%K cultural identity
%K citizenship
%K Gramsci
%K Bourdieu
%U http://cks.univnt.ro/uploads/cks_2011_articles/index.php?dir=03_administration%2F&download=cks_2011_administration_art_014.pdf