Approximately one thousand years ago the ancestors of the Roma left their native India. Today Roma can be found throughout the world, their distinct culture still intact in spite of the intense persecution they have endured. This authoritative collection brings together leading Romani and non-Romani scholars to examine the Romani legal system, an autonomous body of law based on an oral tradition and existing alongside dominant national legal networks.

For centuries the Roma have survived by using defensive strategies, especially the absolute exclusion of gadje (non-Roma) from their private lives, their values, and information about Romani language and social institutions. Sexuality, gender, and the body are fundamental to Gypsy law, with rules that govern being pure (vujo) or impure (marime). Women play an important role in maintaining legal customs, having the power to sanction and to contaminate, but they are not directly involved in legal proceedings.

These essays offer a comparative perspective on Romani legal procedures and identity, including topics such as the United States’ criminalization of many aspects of Gypsy law, parallels between Jewish and Gypsy law, and legal distinctions between Romani communities. The contributors raise broad theoretical questions that transcend the specific Gypsy context and offer important insights into understanding oral legal traditions. Together they suggest a theoretical framework for explaining the coexistence of formal and informal law within a single legal system. They also highlight the ethical dilemmas encountered in comparative law research and definitions of “human rights.”

The editor, Walter O. Weyrauch, is Distinguished Professor and Stephen C. O’Connell Chair of the Levin College of Law at the University of Florida, Gainesville.

This book includes the article “The Rom-Vlach Gypsies and the Kris Romani,” by Ronald Lee, as well as articles by Thomas Acton, Maureen Anne Bell, Susan Caffrey, Calum Carmichael, Angus Fraser, Martti Grönfors, Ian Hancock, Gary Mundy, Anne Sutherland and Walter O. Weyrauch, and a foreword by Angela P. Harris.

published by Palgrave Macmillan, 2008

This collection investigates portrayals of “Gypsies” across British, French, Italian, German, Finish, Polish, Romanian, Serbian, and Russian cultures in canonical and nationally aclaimed texts, Holocaust survivor literature, films, and other accounts. This book exposes tensions between imagined “Gypsies” and real Romanies and uncovers a kaleidoscope of Romjani images that speak of alterity, exoticization, and idalization, as well as enmity, presecution, and human rights violations.

The collection includes an introduction by Ronald Lee entitled “Roma in Europe: ‘Gypsy’ Myth and Romani Reality – New Evidence for Romani History”, and articles by Philip Landon, Agnieszka Nance, Marilyn Schwinn Smith, Abby Bardi, Valentina Glajar, Ferdâ Asya, Lucia Cherciu, Ian Hancock, Domnica Radulescu, Aimee Kilbane and Dina Iordanova.