FORCED MIGRATION AND REFUGEE STUDIES
Short course Romani Studies; Ethnicity, Migration & Identity
January 25-31, 2005
Course Description:
The Gypsy peoples of the world- Romani, Domari, Lomavren, among others represent the most sensitive “litmus test” in the context of processes of nation-state construction, modernization and westernization. Romani Studies is moving into a new paradigm where the previous explanations for continuing discrimination, marginalization, enforced or commercial nomadism and linguistic development are being tested in the light of new Romani historiography. The new Paradigm encompasses scholarship relating to the study of ethnicity, identity, arts and cultural studies, racism, linguistics, anthropology, ethnology, literary criticism and history.
This short course is designed to answer the most basic question, “Who are the Gypsies?” By investigating their ancestry in eleventh-century India, their origins and formation in twelfth-century Byzantium, to their social and economic situation as Dom in modern Egypt, the course addresses the issues of language, culture, identity, religious beliefs, marriage practices and communal self-regulation. It offers students a knowledge and understanding of the main themes current in contemporary Romani studies, understanding the socio-historical processes of marginalization, evolution of social and political relationships between Gypsy groups, understand the nature of prejudice that has historically been an intrinsic element of the relationship between Gypsies and non-Gypsies.
Instructors:
**Mr. Adrian Marsh, who is of English Romanichal origin, is a Lecturer at Istanbul Bilgi Uinversity and Director of International Romani Studies Network. He has been working in the fields of community education, childcare and social work for many years. As an academic, he has been working on the history of the Gypsies in the late Ottoman Empire for his doctoral thesis, and has written extensively on the Romani Holocaust and the origins of the Gypsies in Cairo.
**Ms. Elin Strand Marsh, Research Coordinator at IRSN/Bilgi University. She has carried out research into the Romani Pentecostal Church in Europe, Gypsies in Cyprus, Bulgaria and Turkey and has published reviews of the most recent Swedish works concerning Roma and Resande.
The course will take place at the American University in Cairo, New Falaki Building, Room # 801. Between 9 am and 4 pm, every day.
Tuition: The fee for the course is US $100 for international participants and LE 170 for Egyptians and Residents of Egypt. A limited number of tuition waivers are available for refugees in Egypt.
Additional information on the course and accomodation in Cairo available on FMRS website:
www.aucegypt.edu/fmrs
If interested please fill in the attached application form and send it to
[email protected]
DEADLINE: November 30, 2004

FORCED MIGRATION AND REFUGEE STUDIES
Short course Refugee Camps and 'Warehousing' January 26-31, 2005
Course Description:
Refugee camps, an ostensibly temporary solution to situations of mass influx of refugees from wars, ethnic conflict, and famines, are often perceived as a mechanism to alleviate human suffering in immediate and focused ways. Refugee camps, however, often become a long-term condition with no solution in sight, leaving generations of refugees trapped within artificial physical, political and social borders.
This course will address the logic of keeping displaced populations in camps and of 'encampment' in general. Using both historical (labor camps, concentration camps and children camps) and contemporary case studies, the course will identify the main features of camps as spaces characterized by the dynamics of power and control as well as specific types of social organization and social relations. The course will address the rhetoric of camps as 'safe areas' and as 'warehousing', as seats of political activism and insurgency (e.g. Tanzania, Rwanda) as well as paradigmatic areas of human rights violations.
Instructor:
Dr. Eftihia Voutira, Associate Professor, Department of Balkan Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece. She studied Philosophy (Harvard University) and Social Anthropology (University of Cambridge), from 1993-1998 she was Research Officer at the Refugee Studies Program and the School of Geography, University of Oxford. She is the author of Conflict Resolution: A Cautionary Tale ( Uppsala, Sweden: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet 1995), Improving Social and Gender Planning in Humanitarian Emergencies (Refugee Studies Programme, University of Oxford/ World Food Programme, Rome 1995) and Anthropology in International Humanitarian Emergencies (with Jean Benoist; European Commission, Brussels, Network on Humanitarian Assistance (NOHA) July 1994, 2nd edition, 1998), The Right to Return and the Meaning of ‘Home’, Berghahn, Oxford, forthcoming).
The course will take place at the American University in Cairo, Rare Books Building, Room # 203. Between 9 am and 4 pm, every day.
Tuition: The fee for the course is US $100 for international participants and LE 170 for Egyptians and Residents of Egypt. A limited number of tuition waivers are available for refugees in Egypt.
Additional information on the course and accomodation in Cairo available on FMRS website:
www.aucegypt.edu/fmrs
If interested please fill in the attached application form and send it to
[email protected]

DEADLINE: November 30, 2004