Identity
The Front Room: Diaspora Migrant Aesthetics in the Home – review
In The Front Room, Michael McMillan examines the significance of domestic spaces in creating a sense of belonging for Caribbean migrants in the UK. Delving into themes of resistance and creolisation, these sensitively curated essays and images reveal how ordinary objects shape diasporic identities, writes Antara Chakrabarty.
Migration, at its most basic level, means a physical relocation. However, this “mobility” entails a complex, polysemous reality whose consequences reverberate for those who leave one place for another. Michael McMillan’s The Front Room: Diaspora Migrant Aesthetics in the Home presents a poignant personal tale of materiality, memory and diasporic emotions. It connects with readers by presenting the past without falling prey to anachronism, narrating ordinary aspects of our day-to-day lives through pertinent sociological themes and recurring issues like racism, world politics, aspirations, diasporic memory and more. Michael McMillan, a playwright and artist, offers a text that unfolds as a choreopoem to the domestic spaces inhabited by migrants, infused with theatricality and a curatorial sensibility around the images and references shared. The book, originally published in 2009, has been re-released and is divided across several themes and including additional essays, including by eminent cultural anthropologist Stuart Hall.
Caribbean diaspora re-imagined the Victorian parlour, (the front room) through a sense of decolonial resistance, cultural survival and aspirational attempts to adapt to the new culture in which they found themselves.
The book takes us on a journey of discovery as to what spaces meant, looked, smelled and felt like for Caribbean diaspora settled in the UK from the mid-20th century. It describes how the tactile sensations and emotions held in a room amount to so much more than its aesthetics. The text begins with a section on how Caribbean diaspora re-imagined the Victorian parlour, (the front room) through a sense of decolonial resistance, cultural survival and aspirational attempts to adapt to the new culture in which they found themselves. The images used to showcase the different varieties of such front rooms were mostly taken from the response to the exhibition, A front room in 1976 , curated by McMillan at the Museum of the Home in London in 2005-06.
A primary thematic focus is the emergence of a significant cultural process of change often called as creolisation which gives rise to a third culture which is neither Caribbean, nor British, but a diasporic intermingling of the two. This creolisation also occurs as a result of intergenerational change in the wake of World War Two and apartheid. Moreover, it speaks to the changing imagination around what can be called a “home”, reflecting changes in identity in a foreign land. The lucidity of the essays and the various references to sociological and anthropological works on the perception of “self”, vis-à-vis place making like those by Erving Goffman, Emile Durkheim, Stuart Hall gears the book towards students beyond the disciplinary boundaries of Sociology, Anthropology, Arts and Aesthetics, History, Museology and more. Towards the latter part of the book, McMillan also brings in other diasporic communities beyond the Caribbean, such as Moroccan, Surinamese, Antillean and Indonesian migrant communities in the Netherlands.
Front rooms generally resisted change, carrying forward an aesthetic and sensibility as the badge or identifier of a community.
The book presents an important diasporic narrative underpinned by a critical struggle of the diasporic experience: underneath the subject of the ”front room” lies the process of subverted diasporic emotions and anti-assimilation cultural change. The emotional attachments are prioritised over fitting exactly within the typical British space. McMillan presents his readers with ten commodities that were normally seen in the Caribbean households which were also seen in the diasporic “front room” in the UK. These objects wordlessly communicated the Caribbean way of life without. A homogenisation of the objects found in the across the British Caribbean front room happened gradually as people visited one another, trying to emulate the aesthetics of a diasporic migrant culture. As someone from South Asia, I can vouch fora very similar pattern post-colonisation. Some chose to keep religious symbolic items at the forefront whereas the others chose to fit into the moral definition of aesthetics according to the British. A front room could become a Durkheimian quasi-sacred space which had to be seen beyond its mundane nature. McMillan emphasises the changes across generations and how front rooms generally resisted change, carrying forward an aesthetic and sensibility as the badge or identifier of a community. The book makes its readers aware of the significance contained in the spaces not just through imagery, but also literary compositions like songs, poems, and other varieties of literature.
The gendered division of aesthetics was apparent in the crochets made by the women in contrast to the glass cabinets and drinks trolleys that showcased men’s tastes.
The book describes the affective power of objects through ten examples including the paraffin heater, which gave a sense of reassurance and reminded migrants of their homes through the scent of paraffin oil. The radiogram (a piece of furniture that combined a radio and record player) played the role of “home” in another new land, a sonic gateway into the past. Several other items also acted in service of what Goffman would call ‘impression management’ to a larger audience. The gendered division of aesthetics was apparent in the crochets made by the women in contrast to the glass cabinets and drinks trolleys that showcased men’s tastes. Notably, the carpets and wallpapers, though quintessentially British in theory, could be reclaimed and subverted through the choice of colourful options rather than plain base colours. The book also captures the effects of technological evolution through the inclusion of televisions, telephones and pictures of revered role models such as politicians and singers on display.
McMillan’s work takes account of the constant search for refuge in the perfectly arranged room as a way of way of asserting one’s identity and materialising an authentic diasporic identity in one’s home.
One may make the mistake of perceiving this text as an over-romanticisation of material objects that convey diasporic identity. However, McMillan avoids this, convincing his readers of the deeply felt significance of the ordinary in connecting diaspora to the places they left behind. He bolsters this through setting ordinary items, spaces and lives in the context of unique epistemological nuances such as apartheid, cultural hybridisation, symbolic capital, taste and more. His work takes account of the constant search for refuge in the perfectly arranged room as a way of way of asserting one’s identity and materialising an authentic diasporic identity in one’s home.
The book is successful in its theatrical and thoughtful presentation and the depth it achieves over only a limited number of essays. Its effect is to fill readers’ minds with questions and to pave the way for similar studies in other postcolonial diasporic communities.
Note: This review gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Image credit: 12matamoros on Pixabay
The Coalitions Presidents Make: Presidential Power and its Limits in Democratic Indonesia – review
Marcus Mietzner‘s The Coalitions Presidents Make examines Indonesia’s political transition, focusing on power-sharing arrangements and their impact on democratic reforms post-2004. Drawing on extensive qualitative data, Mietzner both sheds light on Indonesia’s particular case and reflects more broadly on coalition politics in emerging democracies, writes Yen Nie Yong. This post was originally published on the LSE Southeast Asia Blog.
The Coalitions Presidents Make is a welcome contribution to the analysis of the processes of political change in the emerging economies of East Asia and Southeast Asia, especially in light of Indonesia’s recent parliamentary and presidential elections.
Post-Suharto Indonesia is often portrayed as an era that ushered in the birth of a new presidential democracy in the country. However, the transition from a decades-old strongman regime – specifically one that bookmarks the turbulent period of postcolonial social and economic development and Suharto’s fall – was messy and remains incomplete. It is from this incompleteness that Mietzner began his comprehensive study on the coalition presidentialism of Indonesia from the year 2004 to its current state.
Mietzner utilis[es] data from over 100 qualitative interviews with not only the former and current presidents of Indonesia, but also various actors who are directly and indirectly involved in the process of coalition-building.
This monograph is aimed at readers familiar with the literature of coalition presidentialism within the field of Political Science and Indonesian Studies. However, as a researcher who primarily focuses on Malaysian companies in the postcolonial era, I found this book to be a page-turner, largely due to Mietzner’s adept narrative-building skills throughout the book. This is hardly surprising, as Mietzner offers details gleaned from more than two decades of observing the country’s democratic transition from a close-up view. Mietzner’s approach is also ethnographic, by utilising data from over 100 qualitative interviews with not only the former and current presidents of Indonesia, but also various actors who are directly and indirectly involved in the process of coalition-building. The amount of qualitative data accumulated is commendable, as access to the presidents’ inner circle generally requires years of effort in relationship-building, as well as the researcher’s discernment in knowing the difference between the true internal workings and smokescreens of Indonesia’s politics.
How have Indonesia’s presidents post-2004 managed to survive the perils of presidentialism, and what is the price for it?
Mietzner’s key research questions are fascinating – how have Indonesia’s presidents post-2004 managed to survive the perils of presidentialism, and what is the price for it? Indonesia, he argues, achieved more success in transitioning from an unstable presidential regime in the early post-Suharto period into a democracy that is among the world’s most resilient. This is mainly because of the informal coalitions with non-party actors who enjoy or covet political privileges such as the military, the police, oligarchs and religious groups. These actors require as much courting and co-opting as political parties and legislators, a key finding which current studies have ignored or downplayed. In each chapter, Mietzner explains the collective power of a political actor, and utilises a case study to link the phenomenon with his analysis, which I found to be compelling and clear. The locked-in stability created by the broad coalitions under Yudhoyono’s and Widodo’s presidency, nevertheless, had dire consequences in terms of stagnating reforms and democratic decline. Mietzner argues that Indonesia is a prime example of this phenomenon and ought to be a valuable lesson to be studied by those interested in presidential democracies globally.
Through reading this book, my impression is that the power-sharing arrangements between the president and his diverse coalition partners are akin to a prisoner’s dilemma. Mietzner argues that the incumbent president and his predecessor opted for this particular kind of accommodation because of perceived and imagined fears of what might happen to them if they were to choose the path of taking down these coalition partners. The coalition partners also appear to have taken a similarly defensive stance, thus perpetuating existing political arrangements among the actors at the expense of democratic reforms. This, Mietzner explains, is grounded in history, as both sides remain committed to upholding the image of the Indonesian presidency as the key provider of political stability. Many of the politicians and coalition partners lived through the Suharto years and learned how to “do politics” during that era, thus internalizing the appeal of working with presidents in power rather than working to overthrow them.
One element which Mietzner could have expanded upon in the book is how […] historical pathways have impacted on the current accommodation style between the president and non-party actors.
One element which Mietzner could have expanded upon in the book is how these historical pathways have impacted on the current accommodation style between the president and non-party actors. The relationship between the president and the oligarchs is particularly instructive in this regard, as Mietzner shows that in post-2004 coalitions, the oligarchs’ participation in coalition politics became “more direct, formal and institutionalized” (194). What happened during the transition years post-1998 that had enabled the oligarchs such access which was not available to them before? This context can help clarify if the pre-1998 accommodation between the president and capitalists were thoroughly dismantled, and if so, led to expansion of coalitions to other non-party actors after 2004. As history has shown, past strongman leaders in Asia (especially those who fought against colonialism) do not fade easily. The nostalgia for Suharto’s rule was also highlighted by the media during the 2014 presidential elections, elucidating how historical baggage constrains presidents from embarking on meaningful political reforms in this country.
The Indonesian case is an ideal one to expand conceptual boundaries in comparative studies of coalition presidentialism.
Does the specific context of Indonesia’s coalition presidentialism make this case an outlier and thus inapplicable to other democracies? Mietzner emphasises that the Indonesian case is an ideal one to expand conceptual boundaries in comparative studies of coalition presidentialism. As the bulwark of democracy in Southeast Asia, perhaps Indonesia may offer valuable insights beyond coalition presidentialism. As a novice reader on the conceptual theories of coalition presidentialism, I am also curious about whether this can also be relevant to other democracies in Southeast Asia, especially in the context of their shared postcoloniality. After all, the multiplicity of non-party actors in Indonesia’s context should also be situated in the diverse cultural identities of these actors and the postcolonial unsettledness of the nation’s identity. In his proclamation of Independence in 1945, Sukarno had famously used the acronym “d.l.l., or etc. in the Bahasa, which author and former journalist Elizabeth Pisani highlighted in her book Indonesia Etc: Exploring the Improbable Nation.
In Mietzner’s concluding chapter, he writes, “the more pressing challenge is to explore how coalitional presidentialism can work without sucking the oxygen out of democratic societies (245).” This is a conspicuous issue confronting not only Indonesia, but also its neighbouring democracies in the region. The revolving door of party and non-party actors in Indonesia highlights the precarious nature of the development of civil society in Southeast Asia. One can also see the parallels drawn in Malaysia’s coalition party politics, its longstanding stability, and the inclusion and exclusion of civic groups that have undermined the nation’s political progress for decades.
In this sense, Mietzner’s analysis of Indonesia’s coalition presidentialism is highly relevant for future research, as it presses upon researchers the important message to continue to investigate the undercurrents of other young, evolving and often fragile democracies in recent years.
Note: This book review is published by the LSE Southeast Asia blog and LSE Review of Books blog as part of a collaborative series focusing on timely and important social science books from and about Southeast Asia.
The review gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Image: Joko Widodo, the President of Indonesia
Image credit: Ardikta on Shutterstock.
It is identity, stupid! Nationalism, trade, and the populist rage
by Vinícius Rodrigues Vieira* The literature on populism in the 21st century often assumes that far-right leaders draw their support from voters who have lost out to globalization. This is the case among low-skilled, white workers in Global North democracies, including the United States. But, there are also meaningful occurrences of backlash against the political establishment and […]
Feminism is for Nonbinary People, Too
The reason why I waited so long to come out as nonbinary was because I thought it would ostracize me even further from other feminists. As a person disabled by chronic pain and fatigue from fibromyalgia, I’d already been made to feel out of place within feminism for the entirety of both my professional and academic careers. I’d also developed my writing voice during the so-called heyday of…
‘Rishi Sunak is “Living Proof” a Prime Minister of Colour is No Evidence of a Britain Beyond Racism’
When Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister in 2022, Asian WhatsApp groups posted memes and messages marking the occasion.
One sent to me depicted Rishi Sunak, London Mayor Sadiq Khan, and King Charles mocked up in the original film poster for Amar, Akbar and Anthony – a 1977 Bollywood ‘masala’ movie.
It centres on the story of three brothers separated as children and then adopted and raised by Hindu, Muslim and Christian families. Masala films explored landmark issues of tolerance in Bollywood. And the pride of those sharing the meme was clear: look how far on race and diversity Britain has come.
Nearly a year-and-a-half on, the fallacy of this 'watershed’ represented by people of colour in positions of power has been exposed by Sunak himself.
In the wake of comments by former Conservative Deputy Chair Lee Anderson – baselessly and conspiratorially claiming that Sadiq Khan, who is Muslim, has handed the city to “Islamists” – Sunak removed the whip from the MP and said his remarks were “wrong”. But he refused to call them Islamophobic, something Khan (who, as the victim of the claims, is the best judge of how they were received) has been unequivocal about.
This refusal to condemn Anderson’s remarks as racist remarks matters.
Sunak’s response to the Anderson affair was that “any form of prejudice or racism” is unacceptable as that is not who “we are as a country”.
“We’re a proud multi-ethnic democracy, one of the most successful anywhere in the world,” the Prime Minister added.
But if Britain is the “proud multi-ethnic democracy” he describes, and one of the most successful at this "anywhere in the world", how can we explain that it has a Prime Minister who refuses to call racism what it is?
Following the furore, Sunak also said how proud he was to be the UK’s first Asian Prime Minister and that this had happened without note (reading between the lines, he meant objections from the Conservative Party). He is "living proof", he claimed, of Britain's success when it comes to race.
But if he is “living proof” of Britain’s success on race, how can we explain his refusal to call racism what it is?
The Conservative Party led by Sunak has been all too willing to normalise a political culture in which Lee Anderson felt it was acceptable to make such comments. While this may not have started with Sunak, he has been happy to either turn a blind-eye or indulge in the 'culture war’ now eating the party up.
As Peter Oborne has observed, Sunak appears to have a clear strategy faced with the prospect of a heavy defeat in the next general election: ‘other’ minorities and sow fear and division in order to tempt a hard-right base eyeing up the Reform Party. “It’s horrible politics which shames Britain,” writes Oborne. “Enoch Powell will be smiling in his grave.”
For the former political commentator of the Mail, the Telegraph and the Spectator, “there has been an understandable tendency for mainstream commentators to give Sunak an easy ride on the problem of Conservative racism on the basis that he himself comes from an immigrant family. I was initially minded to do so myself. But this argument no longer holds”.
It is an argument I believe never had any substance.
From the beginning of his tenure, Sunak has legitimised the use of racism as a political tool by the likes of Anderson, Suella Braverman and others.
In this way, the 'most diverse Cabinet in history’ does show how far Britain has come: having an Asian Prime Minister who refuses to call out racism but instead uses the example of his own personal success as an ethnic minority to suggest that we should be focused on these ‘bigger wins’ and not the ‘smaller losses’ exemplified by Anderson’s “unacceptable” comments.
But Sunak's experience as an ethnic minority is not representative of any experience but his own. The richest person to ever be Prime Minister, how many people in the country in general can relate to him? And how many other ethnic minorities – who are not a homogenous group – see their experience mirrored in his success?
Using its high-ranking politicians of colour as a shield against legitimate scrutiny of its record on racism, and how seriously it takes the issue, has become a strategy of choice for the Conservatives in recent years.
The logic seems to be that if Sunak, Braverman, James Cleverly, Priti Patel and others can pull themselves up their bootstraps and reach high office, all other ethnic minorities should be able to too, regardless of what we know or don’t know of their life circumstances. And if they don’t, that’s a personal failing – not evidence of any structural challenges they face.
Boris Johnson – who has written of “piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles” and Muslim women looking like “bank robbers” and “letterboxes” – knew exactly how to deploy the diversity of his Cabinet to deflect from questions about Conservative racism as Prime Minister.
When asked about new allegations of Islamophobia in his party by Tory MP Nusrat Ghani in 2021, he turned and pointed to his frontbench, where Priti Patel and others sat. “She talks about racism and Islamophobia,” Johnson said. “But look at this Government… look at the modern Conservative Party. We are the party of hope and opportunity for people across this country, irrespective of race or religion.”
Patel also referred to her own personal experience and success as an ethnic minority to answer questions about racism and the issues faced by other ethnic minorities.
“The fact you are sitting here speaking to me, a woman from an Asian minority background, shows we have such great opportunities,” she told the Daily Mail in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. “If this was a racist country, I would not be sitting where I am.”
Many have found the hard-right views of politicians such as Patel perplexing, given their ethnic minority backgrounds. Exploring the complexities of this in these pages previously, I have argued that they are right to not want to be ‘boxed in’ by their identities: that just because they are ethnic minorities doesn’t mean they should be 'more liberal’ on issues such as immigration.
But their motives for advancing such a hardline worldview also matter. The evidence base for the controversial Rwanda scheme, for instance, pioneered by Patel and ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court, is not readily available and it is not clear why the Conservatives are making this policy a priority – beyond any culture war votes it hopes to win with it. When Patel’s successor at the Home Office, Suella Braverman, said it was her “dream” to see a deportation flight take off to Rwanda, it is legitimate to ask what is motivating these politicians.
And to question why they use their own individual experiences to dismiss the issues faced by groups of people of colour, who have very different lives and do not enjoy the same privileges.
By offering himself up as “living proof” of this country’s record on race, the Prime Minister exposed how he is happy to weaponise race when it suits, just like Lee Anderson.
In his refusal to call out Islamophobia, or acknowledge that his success is no answer to racism, Sunak laid bare the very reason why we need to keep talking about racism, the complexity of how it is used politically, and the reality that minority groups have very different experiences.
Fundamentally, it clarifies that representation and diversity is about a lot more than having people of colour in positions of power. At its best, it should be about rising above narrow political and personal interests and attempting to at least understand the lives of those with different experiences, regardless of whether they voted for you. Rishi Sunak’s Government is not interested in this.
His time as Prime Minister will have been shameful for its normalisation of a political culture in which the use of race as a tool of division was felt acceptable to allow.
Identity Politics has turned the Conservatives on themselves
Rather remarkably. we are now told that while the Prime Minister thinks Lee Anderson’s recent comments were “wrong” he “does not believe he is racist”. So why cannot Sunak say he has suspended the whip on the basis of religious hatred then? He is a complete prisoner of Conservative factionalism and so meanwhile has done... Read more
Contesting Moralities: Roma Identities, State and Kinship – review
In Contesting Moralities: Roma Identities, State and Kinship, Iliana Sarafian challenges established scholarly practices that attempt to define Romani identity, instead exploring how individuals navigate societal constraints with agency and resilience. Deftly combining ethnographic research, anthropological theory and personal reflection, this is an essential read for understanding the complexities of lived Roma experience, writes Martin Fotta.
The past decade has seen the publication of several high-quality monographs in various languages focusing on the lives, histories, and experiences of Romani people. While several have provided new insights into social processes, deconstructed existing preconceptions, or both, rarely has a book so subtly yet vehemently demanded that readers rethink their habits of thought about classical topics in Romani-related scholarship. This relatively short book by Iliana Sarafian, a talented anthropologist of Romani descent, does precisely this; it asks scholars to stop ruminating on who the Roma are and the character of ethnic boundaries, instead urging them to focus on how Romani individuals thrive within constraints and how they attempt to create spaces of survival for themselves and their families. It calls for exploring “experiences from the margins of Roma-ness” (98), but without presupposing to know what the core of Romani culture is.
Experimental in style and voice, Contesting Moralities is located within the ongoing effort to decolonise academic knowledge. The book is unique, however, in how the push to redefine the terms of representation in academic discourse is combined with solid ethnographic grounding and a commitment to anthropological theorisation. Weaving in self-reflection and personal narratives, it sheds light on broader social processes – on how racism, historical legacies, cultural traditions and social dynamics intersect in the lives of Romani individuals. It foregrounds individuals’ agency and the multifaceted nature of Romani experiences.
Weaving in self-reflection and personal narratives, [the book] sheds light on broader social processes – on how racism, historical legacies, cultural traditions and social dynamics intersect in the lives of Romani individuals.
The book is based on research in two pseudonymous Bulgarian Romani neighbourhoods – Radost and Sastipe – as well as in various state and non-state institutions. Sarafian is open about how practical circumstances and her position as a Romani woman influenced her research. For instance, she was assigned the role of a daughter when she first settled among non-kin and shut out from conversations of sexuality and intimacy among married women, as ignorance on such matters is expected from unmarried young Romani women. She does not treat these moments as constraints, however, but uses them as an opportunity to ponder social processes and patterning.
Sarafian is open about how practical circumstances and her position as a Romani woman influenced her research.
The main theme running throughout the book examines how Romani subjectivities are moulded by the state and its policies as they interact with values, practices, and relationships of kinship. The book focuses on a set of selected sites where the state has tried to interfere with Romani kinship, some of which are highly politicised and visible in everyday discourse: assimilation policies, control over fertility, disciplining of motherhood, and education of children. The book documents the scope of the state’s intervention and its violence past and present. “[T]here was no child in her Roma neighbourhood not going to some form of pansion [orphanage or a boarding school],” one of her research participants observes about life under the state socialism (85). The book charts the clash of state and kinship moralities and the contradictions this generates “inside” kinship relationships. It also documents various ways through which kinship resists the state or assimilates its initiatives.
Kinship, however, is not treated as a cultural artefact or tradition. Rather, the point that Sarafian tries to convey is that Romani kinship is oriented toward the future: weddings serve as communal projections of the potential for a better future, and childbearing reproduces this projection in the form of children. The concomitant aspect of this focus on becoming is Sarafian’s careful tracing of personal agency and capacity to aspire, even in moments where these could be the least expected, such as early marriages. At times, this struggle for self-determination is shown to be self-defeating. Such is the case of children, who take it upon themselves to protect their siblings and families from discrimination and racism, but in the process become further alienated from the educational system.
Romani kinship is oriented toward the future: weddings serve as communal projections of the potential for a better future, and childbearing reproduces this projection in the form of children.
The book is also a meditation on how, for people like Sarafian – who, in a move reproductive of antigypsyism, are sometimes dismissed as “Roma elite” – involvement in scholarship or activism becomes a mode to pursue authenticity and reflects their concern with the survival of Romani people. This dynamic generates its own contradictions, however. It threatens to co-opt Romani activists and scholars into co-constructing a figure of vulnerable and impoverished “hyper-real” Roma that would be legible to the state or development agencies. For many, in the context of racism and exclusion, these might be the only viable alternatives to achieve self-realisation while simultaneously connecting to their communities and responding to expectations from their families; for Sarafian, the book also becomes a way to connect with her family and community and to comprehend their position in contemporary Bulgaria. In a surprising twist, after she had been denied a job as a nurse at a local hospital, moved to work for an NGO, and then shifted to academia, Sarafian came to see a structural continuity between Romani activists, herself, and a woman who managed to become a doctor, but ruptured all relationships with her kin in the process: “I wanted to visit Ekaterina in Sofia to share that she was not alone, that there were other Roma who had managed to navigate the world within and outside of the Radost neighbourhood” (79).
The book’s style replicates its focus on the unfinished and ambiguous nature of social forms and processes, as well as the open-endedness of people’s aspirations. Rather than following one case study throughout the book or even through a chapter, each chapter is organised around a series of ethnographic stories and viewpoints. Some readers might find such a narrative approach difficult and desire some kind of synthesis or resolution. However, this is a deliberate writing strategy: “[W]hat there is still to say goes beyond the limits of this book” (101). The juxtaposition of fragments propels Sarafian’s description, sharpens her analysis, and invites future interpretations. Through ethnography, by highlighting particularities of various identifications or adding caveats to descriptions of kinship and state moralities, she constantly tries to re-articulate those social aspects that make a difference, often in ways she had not anticipated: “I found spaces, stories and examples of the everyday that challenged my preconceptions about Roma identifications” (11).
The chapter on education […] makes visible how any state effect is produced: in day-to-day interactions, in the intermeshing between institutional actions and everyday racialisation
My main objection to the book is that the state often comes across as a monolith. The only exception is the chapter on education, which makes visible how any state effect is produced: in day-to-day interactions, in the intermeshing between institutional actions and everyday racialisation, and in how teachers, directors, and schools translate policies, respond to economic constraints, and in turn shape the educational outcomes, and thus the futures, of Romani children – for better or worse. The book would have been much richer if such an approach had been reproduced in other chapters.
Sarafian is unapologetic and does not try to hide her motivations: “I wrote as I did because of the idiosyncrasies that have shaped me” (98). The result is a timely, readable book and an essential example of Romani autoethnography. Unlike Black autoethnographic writing, this genre remains underdeveloped in Romani-related scholarship, even in its critical iteration aimed at amplifying marginalised voices and empowering communities through challenging established forms of knowledge production. Contesting Moralities will therefore be of interest to those keen on understanding the complexities of being Romani in different contexts and to anyone interested in critical commentary on pressing social issues.
This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Image Credit: Brum on Shutterstock.
How a Feminist Blog is Born
I didn’t deign to call myself a feminist until I was nineteen years old, in my second year of college. Before then, I just wanted to be a writer. Reading Judy Blume and the Baby-Sitters Club books obsessively as a kid, I decided I wanted to be an “author” when I grew up, and started writing my own poems and young adult novels in fourth grade (a baby poet at heart, I could never get past chapter…
Brianna Ghey: ‘When the World Finally Saw the Person Her Family Always Loved’
Before she was murdered, Brianna Ghey, like all trans people in the UK, had to listen to politicians mock, degrade and dehumanise her.
This didn’t happen just at Prime Minister's Questions and it wasn’t only Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives who did it.
Prominent journalists, columnists, think tank talking heads, self-appointed anti-trans campaigners and Labour MPs could be found doing it from first thing in the morning on the Today programme, via Woman’s Hour to Newsnight just before bed. It was terrifically popular at any hour on GB News, LBC and Talk Radio.
Brianna’s parents, and all the people who loved her, heard these words too. And we know now that they worried for her future.
Newspapers carried these dehumanising and disingenuous words and ideas. They flooded The Times, The Sunday Times, the Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday, the Telegraph and the Sunday Telegraph, the Express, The Sun, the Mirror, The Scotsman and the Herald and even the Guardian and the Observer.
Wherever you looked, there it was. Brianna’s parents rightly feared for her safety in a country where this irrational, obsessional hatred had gained such a hold.
Before Brianna Ghey was stabbed to death, the people who wrote and said these things in such abundance wanted us all to be clear that, even if experts and the science disagreed, then they themselves were at least very firm in their common sense views: anyone like Brianna had to be a fantasist, a groomer, a victim of grooming, a paedophile, a victim of paedophiles, a crank, an ideologist, a victim of ideology, a weak-minded sap, a sociopathic monster, a danger to themselves, a danger to others, and above all a threat to other women. And to lesbianism. And hospital wards. Oh and a threat to men who wouldn’t fancy them if they knew and would probably be forced to beat them up if they found out.
Before Brianne Ghey’s organs shut down, she was, according to the media, a threat to other children who might see her and put on a dress and demand hormones and surgery for themselves, and a threat to parents who didn’t like to talk about that sort of thing. She was a threat to education in the classroom, to changing rooms, to toilets, to teachers in a tizz about God and pronouns, and to academics who couldn’t say anything anymore without some bloody students telling them they were a fascist.
Before there were 28 stab wounds in her precious, beautiful, funny, loving and kind body, Brianna Ghey, like all trans people in the UK, struggled to find the real words and ideas and experiences of people like her represented anywhere. But nonetheless her parents and the people who loved her listened to her, loved her and made it possible for her to be herself.
All of this happened before Brianna Ghey was murdered.
After her murder, after the trial, after the verdict and the sentencing during which the judge made clear that transphobia was a motivation in the attack, after the words of her parents – only then could Brianna become something different to the hatred and misrepresentation in the words of the politicians and media.
She became to the public the person that her family always saw. A child, a teen, a gentle person who deserved a happy and safe life.
That is why Rishi Sunak’s transphobic gag crashed so badly across the House of Commons floor this week and the country beyond. What is a woman? Brianna’s mum and her lost daughter.
Before she was murdered, Brianna Ghey, like all trans people in the UK, had to listen to politicians mock, degrade and dehumanise her.
This didn’t happen just at Prime Minister's Questions and it wasn’t only Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives who did it.
Prominent journalists, columnists, think tank talking heads, self-appointed anti-trans campaigners and Labour MPs could be found doing it from first thing in the morning on the Today programme, via Woman’s Hour to Newsnight just before bed. It was terrifically popular at any hour on GB News, LBC and Talk Radio.
Brianna’s parents, and all the people who loved her, heard these words too. And we know now that they worried for her future.
Newspapers carried these dehumanising and disingenuous words and ideas. They flooded The Times, The Sunday Times, the Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday, the Telegraph and the Sunday Telegraph, the Express, The Sun, the Mirror, The Scotsman and the Herald and even the Guardian and the Observer.
Wherever you looked, there it was. Brianna’s parents rightly feared for her safety in a country where this irrational, obsessional hatred had gained such a hold.
Before Brianna Ghey was stabbed to death, the people who wrote and said these things in such abundance wanted us all to be clear that, even if experts and the science disagreed, then they themselves were at least very firm in their common sense views: anyone like Brianna had to be a fantasist, a groomer, a victim of grooming, a paedophile, a victim of paedophiles, a crank, an ideologist, a victim of ideology, a weak-minded sap, a sociopathic monster, a danger to themselves, a danger to others, and above all a threat to other women. And to lesbianism. And hospital wards. Oh and a threat to men who wouldn’t fancy them if they knew and would probably be forced to beat them up if they found out.
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Before Brianne Ghey’s organs shut down, she was, according to the media, a threat to other children who might see her and put on a dress and demand hormones and surgery for themselves, and a threat to parents who didn’t like to talk about that sort of thing. She was a threat to education in the classroom, to changing rooms, to toilets, to teachers in a tizz about God and pronouns, and to academics who couldn’t say anything anymore without some bloody students telling them they were a fascist.
Before there were 28 stab wounds in her precious, beautiful, funny, loving and kind body, Brianna Ghey, like all trans people in the UK, struggled to find the real words and ideas and experiences of people like her represented anywhere. But nonetheless her parents and the people who loved her listened to her, loved her and made it possible for her to be herself.
All of this happened before Brianna Ghey was murdered.
After her murder, after the trial, after the verdict and the sentencing during which the judge made clear that transphobia was a motivation in the attack, after the words of her parents – only then could Brianna become something different to the hatred and misrepresentation in the words of the politicians and media.
She became to the public the person that her family always saw. A child, a teen, a gentle person who deserved a happy and safe life.
That is why Rishi Sunak’s transphobic gag crashed so badly across the House of Commons floor this week and the country beyond. What is a woman? Brianna’s mum and her lost daughter.
Katherine O'Donnell is a LGBTI rights campaigner, a board member of the Equality Network, and former Night Editor of The Times, Scotland
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