Acton, Thomas and Marsh, Adrian (2008) “Glocalisation”: a new phenomenon or an age-old process? current adaptations in changes in Gypsy/Roma/Traveller identity in the Turkish Republic. In: “Sociology Looks at the Twenty-first Century: ‘From Local Universalism to Global Contextalism’“ 38th World Congress of the International Institute of Sociology, 26 - 30 June 2010, Central European University, Budapest. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

At first glance current developments in the presentation of Romani identity in Turkey revealed by the authors’ ESRC research project in Turkey might provide a text-book example of “glocalisation”. Turkey, a key NATO member and candidate for accession to the EU, has been subject to globalising pressures, not only cultural Macdonaldisation, but explicit political pressures from the USA and the European Union. This affects the situation of, and policy toward Gypsies/Roma/Travellers through external pressures to adopt a multicultural Human Rights model towards ethnic minorities. The universalisable model of ethnic identity developed in anti-racist and anti-colonial struggles in the US and the twilight of the European empires holds out a promise of individual and collective social mobility towards which Romanlar, Domlar and Lomlar and others in Turkey are cautiously reaching. This movement, however, does not entail the dropping of older strategies rooted in the ideals of Turkish Republican solidarity, and so, on the ground it is also possible to see clear Gypsy participation in local resistance to western ideological hegemony which may even exert a creative influence over European politics as a whole.

The authors will argue, however that this is not a new phenomenon, and ever since Grellmann’s racialisation of European Gypsy problematics in the late 18th century, Gypsy politics has been a dialectic between appeals to globalising universal values against local oppressions, and local innovations as a response to hegemonic globalised prejudices. The relationship of Gypsies/Roma/Travellers to the strategies of Turkish Republican solidarity is itself historically conditioned by such struggles in the later Ottoman Empire. “Glocalisation”, it will be argued, it is not a new phenomenon, but just the latest buzz-word for the age-old but ever-surprising process of adaptation to the shock of the new.

Item Type:	Conference or Conference Paper (Paper)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	glocalisation, Turkish Roma identity, EU accession
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races
Pre-2014 Departments:	School of Humanities & Social Sciences School of Humanities & Social Sciences > Department of Social, Political & Cultural Studies
Related URLs:	Publisher Organisation
Last Modified:	14 Oct 2016 09:14
URI:	http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/5473

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