Public talk: Gypsy rebellion?

kildare | racism & migration related issues | event notice Tuesday March 03, 2015 20:46 by Laurence Cox - MA Community Education, Equality and Social Activism

Leadership, NGOs and activism among Spanish gitanos

Public talk by Antonio Montañés

Organised by the MA in Community Education, Equality and Social Activism, Maynooth

Why does a historically stigmatized and family-oriented ethnic minority that is pushed to the margins of social life decide to engage in politics and civil society? How do they manage to carry out such an a priori countercultural task? What kinds of cultural repertories and narratives bridge this historical gap? What challenges and paradoxes do they face and what trends do we find?

In this talk, the author will explore the impact that sociological context (such as extensive urbanization and the end of the Franco era) and external agents (such as the Catholic Church and other State-oriented institutions) had on the birth of gitano associationism and its struggle for institutional recognition. In addition, the author will focus on the powerful and monopolistic position of NGOs on gitano civil society, the drastic reconfiguration of social leadership following decades of extreme social changes, and the recent evolution of gitano collective action, informed by the emergence of new and critical ethnic autonomous agents (feminism, LGTB).

About the author:

Antonio Montañés is FPI Junior Researcher at the Department of Sociology V of Complutense University of Madrid and Marie Curie RA at Maynooth University. He has been appointed a Visiting Scholar at the University of Saint Andrews (UK), University of Aberdeen (UK) and Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona (Spain). He has won several honourable mentions based on excellence in scholarship from the Autonomous Community of Madrid Higher Education Council and Spanish Government.

Admission free, all welcome

details: Public talk by Antonio Montañés
"Gypsy rebellion? A sociocultural analysis of leadership, NGOs and activism among Spanish gitanos"
date: Wednesday, March 11th, 5 - 6.30 pm
venue: Room ACE 2, ground floor, Rowan House, north campus, Maynooth
(SE corner of north campus, between Education House and Auxilia building)