Applying Anthropology to the Situation of the Roma: An Ethnography of NET, a Project Addressing the Situation of the Roma of Central and Eastern Europe

What are the practices and discourses involved in a project that aims to develop the knowledge and skills of networks of young Roma in seven countries in Central and Eastern Europe to enable them to influence public opinion and practice? How are differences and universals between social groups and persons perceived and addressed? And what does it mean for the anthropologist to participate in an area where culture, difference and universals are already discursive currencies? This book is based on ethnographic fieldwork and writing for a M.Phil. Thesis in Social Anthropological Analysis, which has been revised and complemented with earlier and later writings in autumn 2004. After looking at how "the Roma," and "the situation of the Roma in Central and Eastern Europe," are currently generated, the book focuses on one exemplary project initiated and carried out by a minority rights NGO. The description and analysis of this project afford a perspective on the permutations of universals that contemporary Europeans grasp in two categories: (1) universal human rights and (2) bureaucratic practices such as organisational management, generating standardised data and objective procedures. The ethnography leads to reflections on cooperation, culture, networks and systems, and applied anthropology.