2017/06/01 by Tara Zahra · 2 citations
Health Professions · Social Sciences · #Romani and Gypsy Studies #Central European national history
paper · doi:10.1093/ahr/122.3.702
This article traces state practices for governing Roma in the late Habsburg Empire. In the years leading up to the First World War, Roma became troubling symbols of the limits of the Habsburg state's sovereignty over its borders and people. In their alleged resistance to authority, they seemed to embody both the failures of the Empire's "civilizing" mission and its efforts to control mobility. A growing number of Austrian authorities began to call for the forcible internment of individuals labeled "Gypsies." This represented a shift from earlier strategies for governing Roma, which typically entailed policies of forcible sedentarization or deportation. This turn toward internment took place in the context of a broad panic over uncontrolled mobility, escalating border control, and the rise of a racialized understanding of the category "Gypsy." Persecution of Roma in this period prefigured the treatment of refugees later in the twentieth century, and may shed light on the origins and dynamics of contemporary "migration panics."