Research project The Roma in the European History of Magic
"The Roma in the European History of Magic: Transnational Entanglements of Race, Class, Gender, and the Occult, c. 1417 to 1900" is the first critical and systematic historical study of how Europe’s Romani minorities have been associated with “magic”.
Project description
Accusations of magic have been a central feature in antigypsy stereotypes since the 1400s. At the same time, “magical” practice has provided an important economic niche, especially for Romani women. By bringing the history of religions into dialogue with critical Romani studies, the project addresses both these aspects. The genealogy of the “magical Gypsy” stereotype is traced backwards from 19th-century scholarship through romantic and occultist literature back to early-modern theological, juridical, and folk-magical discourses, analysing how aspects of race, class, and gender were mobilized in representations of “Gypsy magic”. Second, it seeks to replace the stereotypes with a new critical understanding of the Romani practices that were labelled magic by recovering the voices of Romani women practitioners. This is achieved by a microhistorical study of archival evidence from Swedish trial records from the early 1700s onwards where Romani women speak openly about their practices. The results will shed new light on known indirect evidence of Romani entanglements with magic from c. 1417-1900. The research promises to deliver new knowledge about Romani religious and social history, and novel insights about the occult economic sphere’s importance for interactions between marginalized groups and majority populations in Europe. It will also contribute to the emerging critical perspectives on “gypsylorist” scholarship.
The project is funded by the Swedish Research Council and will run for three years starting autumn 2022.
Project members
Project managers
Egil Asprem
Professor
