Police, migrant Roma, and an anthropologist in Rome

This presentation builds on Marco Solimene's past fieldwork among undocumented Bosnian Roma living in informal settlements on the periphery of Rome, Italy. It explores the dilemmas anthropologists face in contexts characterized by pervasive and intersecting forms of violence. The lecturer will describe how the structural violence of the bureaucratic nation-state, police violent masculinity, and heightened anti-Gypsy sentiments at the grassroots level shaped everyday life, as well as relations and interactions within the Roma domestic space. He will also reflect on the dilemmas and pitfalls that arise when anthropologists encounter violence. The presentation examines the problematic character of defining acts, interactions, and events as violent and discusses the risk of researchers unwillingly partaking, contributing to and perpetrating violence.

The lecture will be in english.