13th Congress of the International Society for Folk Narrative Research

Presentation Abstracts

MARKKANEN, Airi

The Lives of Finnish Romany Women and the Conflicts Between Generations

Airi Markkanen is unable to attend the congress and present this paper.

I am writing my dissertation on Finnish Romany women and their lifestyle and have been doing fieldwork with Romany women since 1992. The situation of the Romany people is problematic at the moment in many parts of Europe, particularly in Eastern Europe following the political changes of the last 10 years and the subsequent break-down of the social system. My materials incorporate discussion of these issues as well as interviews that I have conducted with Romany refugees from the Czech Republic and Slovakia. My research methodology has involved dialogue between interviewer and interviewee, including many visits, travelling with them ‘on the road’, attending many song festivals and parties and participating in the general activities of everyday life (the sauna and so on). I have about fifty informants of different ages (from eight to eighty-nine), including some men and boys. As it is important to maintain objectivity when doing such research, I had not intended to develop close ties amongst my informants. This is a very special field, however, and some of them have now become my friends.

The Romany people came to Finland about 500 years ago. They are an ethnic minority in Finland, numbering about 10 000, some 3 000 of whom live in Sweden. In my interviews I have tried to identify the special features of their lives from childhood through youth and adulthood to old age. How there are socialized, permitted different things, what is expected. There are special customs and behaviours relating to purity, clothing, relationships between generations and genders and the showing of respect to older people. The rules are strict but changing with the times of course.

Among the most critical concerns are the drugs that are destroying the lives of so many young Romanies, the number of suicides and the level of criminality. There are many projects underway aimed at finding solutions to these problems and Romany activists maintain the answer is to be found in education.

I have selected the years from 1900-2001 as my research period. There are committee reports from 1900, 1955, 1999, and by comparing these and other writings and research I have information on the lives of Finnish Romanies from the beginning of the twentieth century to the beginning of the new Millennium. I am also researching Romany organizations and the role of women in these organizations. The largest and most important part of my work is based on the interviews with Romany women, how they have lived their lives and how they are living their everyday lives in contemporary Finnish society. I have written about Romany life in the everyday context, not in a ritualised way, and I have tried not to ‘exoticise‘ the people.