Suspicion and prejudice: The role of ideology in the study of Christian revival among the Roma

Abstract

French

The state of affairs of some studies concerning Romani groups’ conversions throughout the world to the global evangelical movement, and the subtext that prevails in such studies, could reveal a persistence of ‘enlightened prejudice’ towards the nature of religions, namely, a kind of suspicion and authoritarianism that continues to tacitly fuel hostility against emerging religious phenomena, and the tendency of analysts to share, consciously or unconsciously, the language of the State, producing a negative vision of the Romani world. The creativity and autonomy exhibited by Romani Evangelism, which stays away from external financing and, generally speaking, policies of minority promotion, contribute to a vast trans-regional network of congregations, that aim towards an unprecedented global pan-Romanism with a strong social base. This is a response to a historic diaspora, and, in turn, a new form of the secular Romani diaspora.

Keywords

diaspora Pentecostalism prejudice Roma Romani

Introduction

Some years ago, in a lucid essay regarding the cognitive, affective and social aspects of suspicion, the semiologist Gonzalo Abril demonstrated how total conjectures reveal the extent to which disposition towards suspicion creates a new semantic of facts and experiences, making an enigma of the entire world and a passion out of decoding. A total conjecture is that which is auto-validated with any objection: ‘where the symptoms of a plot are missing, or where there are indications that contradict the plot, it follows that the collusion consists precisely in erasing them or substituting them for false leads’. Thus, exacerbated suspicion does not reveal but it fabricates what it pursues; it does not interrogate appearances but produces them (Abril, 1998: 48–49). While this tendency towards totalization could be the beginning of the functioning of institutionalized collective beliefs, as is the case with religious dogmatism or political totalitarianism, its micro-social correlative is ubiquitous and it is likely that it would reproduce similar covering mechanisms, even among the ranks of the most critical sectors.

The scientific study of religions is no stranger to these covering mechanisms: scientific praxis is part of the social world and, in the case of the analysis of religions, it is likely to be particularly exposed to them. Let us think, first, about the role played by media representations which anathematize non-conventional religious expressions: the effects of the production of hostile discourses (namely, the sufficiently consensual de-legitimization of the presence and social activity of new religious or spiritual forms) and the composition of group representations concerning non-hegemonic forms of religion have consequences over the conditions in which the ethnographic encounter itself is produced, because religious subjects recognize themselves to be in the spotlight and, logically, become defensive. Any anthropologist who has conducted fieldwork among religious minorities is aware of this difficulty, and must foresee a period of time until minimizing the effects of their presence in religious spaces. In connection with this let us imagine, second, the mistrust between researchers and cult agents – a reciprocal mistrust between devotees and those who interrogate them without implicating themselves, which each experiences in a different way. This comprehensible mistrust depends, in large measure, on the impulse of researchers to establish divisions between the ‘real’ (rational and scientific) and the ‘illusory’ (religious beliefs, entities, or present forces in places of worship). It marks relations with subjects in the field and impregnates all aspects of research.

Let us remember, third, the image of the scholar of religion held by colleagues in academia. The academic world often holds a certain suspicion (phenomenological, theological, theoretical, ethical, and scientific) towards those who occupy themselves with religious phenomena, especially a phenomenon as controversial as charismatic Pentecostalism. Let us not forget, fourth, the suspicion present in the interpretations we make and, thus, the keys in which we interpret and the texts we write. According to secularized common sense representations, religions – the established ones but, above all, emergent ones – embody a return to irrationality, constitute a threat to our ideal of secularism and democratic freedom, restrain free will and impede individuals from participating in the public sphere or in political life. From these positions it is argued that religious discourse is antagonistic to scientific reason and that it proceeds from individuals whose reason and free will is in question (Habermas, 2011: 24). Any field researcher who has worked with devotees knows that it is only on rare occasions, represented in anecdotes that are analytically irrelevant despite their media impact, that these religious ideologies can be considered imposed on coerced individuals and groups, producing subjects without free will, social empathy or civic sense. However, prejudices and translation problems persist. In some manner, all these distinctions operate tacitly in our perception of religious expressions, which is attributable in part to our problematic relationship with rapturous phenomena (Goldman, 2016: 32–33) and with the ‘Great Division’ (Latour, 2007).

In a sometimes tacit manner, the old debate regarding the rationality of religions is still alive. Bearing in mind its premises, ethnographers of religion and spirituality address a ubiquitous and universal object, which can only be relieved of its intrinsic complexity by sacrificing the nutshell of the religious practice, justified internally by the belief in instances antagonistic to scientific epistemology (Cantón-Delgado, 2001: 171). Beyond the pertinent romantic-postmodern critique of Enlightenment (Schweder, 1992), it is often forgotten that belief is consubstantial to any other field of relations (artistic, political, cultural, economic, scientific, ideological) and certainly not exclusive to the field of religion and/or spirituality. It is a commonplace that the social scientist should not simultaneously be a believer, and said commonplace generates two illusions. The first is a consequence of ignoring the fact that what is scientifically relevant is not the belief in itself, of which no observer is free (a double hermeneutic), but the inversion in the game linked to interests that have to do with the participation in a specific field, in our case the religious field, and moreover, the political one (Bourdieu, 1988: 93); in fact, atheism is a particular form of our religious culture. The second illusion ignores the fact that belief (religious, spiritual) in what is not real orients actions that are real and have real effects. Thus we cannot discard belief as something that does not warrant research or, worse, warrants indifferent research.

This article addresses the Romani Pentecostalism, suggesting a different understanding regarding the possible ideological bias and scarcity production concerning Romani groups’ conversions to the global evangelical movement. We maintain, first, that the ideology and the hidden meanings which cross this argumentative framework are affecting part of the academic study of Romani conversions; and, second, that they simultaneously rest on prejudice against religion and its political originality in the case of Romani Pentecostalism, as well as on a tendency to politicize academic thought. Religion is, in addition to irrational, useless to the public sphere (Taylor, 2011: 40–54) and, in its more fundamentalist versions, it advocates political de-mobilization – or mobilization, but in directions generally undesirable. In the current conditions of the ubiquity and the interconnection/confrontation of knowledge mediated by information technologies, it is necessary to track the subliminal presence, in socio-anthropological discourse, of reductive clichés akin to those divulged by mass media and State’s rationale. This would reveal our complicity in the marking of religious minorities considered a threat to the order sustained by the social majority, the religious majority, the illustrated scientific imaginary and the political order itself.

All of the above, we assert, may be affecting the conception of religious innovation among Romanies. Research on Romani Pentecostalism is one of the fastest growing topics within Romani Studies itself, with more and more work (PhD theses, articles, monographs) produced every year. In almost all of these texts there is a consensus that the Pentecostal Romani movement is a new great unifying force which is forging an unprecedented ethnic-religious pan-Romani, capable of defying the imaginary and objectives of Roma’s identity politics. It is also capable of provoking deep changes to Romani social organization, condoned by the notion of brotherhood engrained in the Christian revival. On the one hand, Romani activism (non-confessional) embodies the idea of progress and political unity/integration of a persecuted, diverse, dispossessed and scattered people. On the other hand, evangelical Romanies escape from the idea of State by generating, from below, versatile and self-sufficient structures.

In the next section, we will show how Romani Studies have been shaped by Romani activism and/or NGOs discourses, often neglecting some Romani daily life aspects, notably the Romani Pentecostal world. Having said this, we will then proceed in the following section to present what has been done in regard to Romani Pentecostal, arguing that the scientific work on this phenomenon remains scarce mainly in Spain and France and Latin American countries, namely Brazil and Argentina – it is not the case of the studies in Eastern Europe –, despite the growing relevance of Pentecostalism amongst the Romani population in these countries, engaging in a discussion on ideological bias exerted in the academia and activists spheres. The conclusions at which this article arrives are then presented in the last section. According to our premises, we propose to address this fascinating phenomenon from the perspective of innovation (Wilkinson and Althouse, 2010: 2–3), because thus we subvert the conventional ways of translating the practices of the Christian and ethnic language revival to the language of State interests, and also we avoid the addition of these innovative practices to the language of standardization. In cultural translation by social scientists, we often see how a genuine form of self-government can be incorporated into the language of normalization and centralized governmental power, and it is necessary to halt and review the complicity of social sciences with the State’s rationale (Voiculescu, 2017).

Romani studies: Activism and religion

Romani Studies is an interdisciplinary field that focuses on the history, culture and political mobilization of the Romani people. When dealing with a very stigmatised and stereotyped people, whose very heterogeneity is unknown by outsiders, many studies reflect an anti-racist and civil inclusion perspective, often coinciding with the concerns of Romani activism and/or NGOs aims. Topics like social inclusion, origins, persecution, racism and discrimination, political oppression, Romani language and political mobilization are prominent in many such studies. This seems to be an acceptable interface between Romanies and non-Romanies, in which topics are elected in order to satisfy the demands of that ‘same world’ towards which Romani activism is oriented. In this sense, how Romanies are perceived by non-Romani scholars and what topics should be chosen often could reflect a desire to integrate Roma into the majority society, at least superficially.

During the last decades, the emergence of NGOs dedicated to Romani issues have greatly influenced academic research, reinforcing what Marushiakova and Popov have identified as the main problems concerning research on Roma, that is ‘in approaching the Gypsies only as a marginal group or only as an exotic community’ (2011: 102). These conceptions of Roma stem from a correlation between ‘poverty’ and ‘ethnicity’ and an approach that considers them completely different from the non-Roma and unable to participate equally in the life of the countries they are living in. These two paradigms are often combined, suggesting ‘the need for a specific approach towards the Roma, different from the approach towards the members of the majority population and even from other minorities’ (Marushiakova and Popov, 2005: 447). As a result, Romanies are not perceived like any other ethnic group or nation.

The genesis of Romani activism can be traced back to the 1930s in the Balkans, where some Romani organizations dedicated to civil rights were established. However, these organizations disappeared with the outbreak of the Second World War and the following Communist regimes that emerged in Central and Eastern Europe. This trend of fighting for equality and emancipation re-emerged in West Germany, a country which at the time combined the claims of Romani Holocaust survivors for reparation and compensation with the demands of the Eastern European Roma for the right to stay in Germany.

Another strategy adopted by Romanies is marked by an aspiration to self-determination. Its roots lie in the unsuccessful attempts of a Roma family from Poland to establish a Romani state – Romanestan – in the 1920s and 1930s. However, after the Second World War, a number of Romani organizations emerged in Western Europe aiming to establish a global movement that was to be represented by members of different Romani groups. This new concept of self-determination, which replaced the search for territory for the unification of the global Romani community, attempted to unite Roma worldwide by gathering together Romanies from different countries in the form of World Congresses. The first such congress was held in England in 1971 and the delegates adopted some nationalist symbols, like a flag, a hymn, and the slogan ‘Opré Roma!’ (Stand up, Roma!). They also replaced the term ‘Gypsy’ with ‘Roma’ for all ethnic Romani. Following the Second Congress, held in Switzerland in 1978, an international organization called the International Romani Union (IRU) was established. According to Kovats:

The emergence of Roma politics is duly interpreted in accordance with the traditional, 19th-century concept of national ‘awakening’. After centuries in the sub-political recesses of society, ‘Roma’ have finally reached the stage of being able to claim recognition as an ethnic minority, even as a nation of equal standing with those already established. According to this philosophy, the politicization of Roma identity is a straightforward story of enlightened good intentions versus unreconstructed attitudes mired in a prejudiced past (Kovats, 2003, para. 6).¹

The Romani rights movement has created symbols for unification and used the language of human rights to protect Romanies worldwide. The movement has been sustained by the long-term mistreatment, discrimination and racism that characterize the Romani trajectory in Europe and the responsibilities of the states and dominant societies, since for many the negative past and present experiences are the only thing common to all Romanies. As Carol Silverman has put it, ‘discrimination is sometimes the only thing that seems to unify Roma, and this is precisely what Roma seek to eliminate’ (Silverman, 2012: 47).

Thus the Holocaust – the height of persecution – has become an important component of national identity of a historically persecuted people, and a symbol of oppression for the amplitude of the killings – close to half million Romanies perished at the hands of the Nazis – and for the very inadequate and unfair compensation policies and genocide recognition that followed. The centrality of persecution in Romani collective memory strengthens ethnic boundaries and the history of persecution plays a significant role in Romani identity. Regarding the search for identity, Stauber and Vago wrote:

The line running from the search for identity through a definition of origins and historical destiny to forms of modern political activism, whether at a pig farm in Bohemia or at the European Parliament, constitutes not a theoretical discussion about an ‘imagined community’ but a discourse about a living one, which has combined this journey of discovery with a quest for its past, in order to reach – through present day grievances over social and economic issues – their rightful place as equals among the community of fellow Europeans (2007: 131)

The problem here is that Romani daily life is lived with almost no knowledge of the work of activists and scholars in tracing Romani origins, spreading a sense of belonging by drawing historical parallels between groups, or creating a literary language, for example. If an in-depth analysis and discourse of a living community are to be attempted, they must also outline real structures and existing practices in Romani daily life, and Romani Pentecostalism is key to this.

Romani Pentecostalism did not integrate the agenda of the Romani activism in its beginnings nor has become a major issue in the political mobilization process. In spite of activists’ efforts to create a narrative and symbols to unify Romanies worldwide in order to claim the recognition of Romanies as a nation, they have not been very successful in bringing Romanies together and achieving grassroots support. In the face of the failure of the Romani rights movement to unite Romanies worldwide, one should seriously investigate a movement capable of connecting Romanies worldwide, as Romani Pentecostalism seems to be. In the process of unification, many in the Romani activism are putting their efforts into creating a Romani literary language, but the power of religion in this unifying process is on the pastor’s realm – even though some activists are pastors too. As language, religion is also very diverse among Romanies, and diversity can be perceived as a drawback to political unification and mobilization (Gheorghe and Acton, 2001: 56).

According to this view, expressed by Slavkova (2007: 222), for an example, Pentecostalism could be a kind of a sub-community that divides the Romani nation by creating a separate Romani evangelical group. Instead of a unifying factor, Pentecostalism could offer more diversity in an already diversified nation. In her words: ‘In many respects, the division between the world of the blessed and the world of the worldly, the secular, is similar to the traditional division made by the Gypsy groups between the Gypsy and the Gadže, “us” and “them”.’ (Slavkova, 2007: 224). As an autonomous movement that is not financially dependent on the public administration, Pentecostalism was perceived to be a powerful force dedicated to reinforcing the separation between Romanies and non-Romanies and dividing Romanies themselves. For instance, some Pentecostals narratives, perspectives and notions can put some obstacles in the incorporation of a religious approach within the activism structures that aims to represent all Romanies worldwide. While the diasporic notion spread by the non-confessional international movement allocates the origins of the Romani people in India and aims to establish close political contact with the Indian government, evangelists claim that all Roma are Israelites that were separated from other Jews during the forty years of exile in the Sinai desert. The Pentecostal view is sustained by cultural similarities found mainly in the Bible and a common past of persecution.

Many evangelical pastors – at least in the cases of the churches contacted in Spain (Andalusia, Madrid and Catalonia especially), in southeastern parts of Brazil and in Buenos Aires, Argentina – are thus able to play a significant role in shaping Romanies’ perceptions of themselves, facilitating a common identification among diasporic communities. By creating transnational spaces, they are in a unique position to bring Romanies together and to mobilize cross-border contacts, offering institutional support (Toyansk, 2017: 195). The aforementioned narrative on the origin of Romanies is transmitted in the churches: during our fieldwork we have contacted pastors from Romani Philadelphia Church in Spain that is delivering a booklet entitled the ‘El verdadero origen de los Gitanos’ (The true origin of the Romanies) written by Revello,² in which the author contested the Indian origin and argued in favour of an Israelite one.

Evangelists are also suspected by others of seeking to change the Romanies’ traditional way of life and culture by condemning some traditional Romani practises, and it can cause some friction with other groups. Unlikely the conversion will alienate the Roma from their culture and tradition and thus drive forward assimilation, since most pastors refuse to enforce such strict rules against traditional practices and some even forge a cultural revival as well.

In the face of the apparently unstoppable Pentecostal growth in the heterogeneous Romani world and the importance of the connectivity among Romani communities, one should ask why scientific study of this issue is in the selected geographical scope (Spain, France, and Latin America) so scarce. As we have seen, there are plenty of scientific studies of different aspects of the Romani cultures. Nevertheless, Romani religiousness is not sufficiently investigated in the chosen states with a large Romani population converted to Evangelism. In fact, the Iglesia Evangélica Filadelfia (IEF) is the largest Pentecostal denomination in Spain and the largest Romani Church in the world (Anderson, 2007: 120). In the following section we will review what has been done in regards to Pentecostal Roma and then we will propose an answer as to why research on this topic is so scarce in some countries with a huge Romani population.

Global Pentecostalism and Evangelical Romanies: Scientific production and prejudice

Nowadays Pentecostalism is one of the fastest-growing religious movements in the world. Though some assert that its rapid expansion means it cannot be measured (Bastian, 1994: 248), others estimate that there are now some 500 million Pentecostal believers throughout the world, predicting that this number will surpass 800 million by 2025 (Barrett and Johnson, 2003: 25). Anderson et al. estimate that the number of Pentecostals in the world has risen by 700% since the last quarter of the 20th century (Anderson et al., 2010: 2). Nonetheless, Pentecostalism’s global character is clear from such studies. Renowned authors on the study of Pentecostalism, Protestantism or religion in general have gravitated towards the adoption of Pentecostal Evangelism on the part of Roma (Berger, 2005: 6; Anderson, 2007: 119; Martin, 2013: 52–53; Martin, 2014: 93) in different parts of Europe and America. The importance of the appropriation of Pentecostalism amongst Roma in Western Europe, Central Europe and America is such that some assert that we are, beyond a shadow of a doubt, witnessing a Romani Revival (Thurfjell, 2013: 5–6).

However, the growing importance of the Pentecostal movement among the Romanies in Europe and America does not always correspond with the attention the phenomenon has received from academia, at least in Western Europe and America. A greater level of interest has arisen from conversions among Eastern European Roma. Adding to this relative scarcity is another obstacle; on numerous occasions academic productions concentrate ideological biases. In the following section, beyond enumerating the works that have been produced concerning Roma Pentecostalism, we will attempt to identify some references that implicate proximity to the semiotic of social inclusion (Voiculescu, 2017: 190) as an instrument for the State (comprehended as an instrument of capture), as well as other tools which attempt to escape these forms of subjection, thus revealing the political potential of the Roma Pentecostal movement.

A frequent bias surrounding the phenomenon is that which points to the Roma evangelical movement as a vehicle of integration or social inclusion of Romanies in society, which tacitly implies that we are before a movement in the service of the State’s social control; Thurfjell observes such quality in Swedish and Finnish Roma congregations (2013: 132–133). Some academics who have worked amongst Eastern European Roma, likewise, translate the language of Roma evangelical practices to the language of inclusion/social integration, such as: Marushiakova and Popov (1999: 87), and Slavkova in Bulgaria (2015: 116), Ries in the case of the Tigani and the Cortucari in Romania (2007; 2014), Podolinská (2017), Polodinská and Hrustič in Slovakia (2014), and Marushiakova and Popov in former Soviet republics (albeit employing the language of development) (2014: 53).

The alleged integrating function of Roma Pentecostalism is occasionally extended to the reflection concerning religious leadership. Podolinská and Hrustič place the ‘pastoral discourse’ as a variable which depends, in part, on the degree of integration or exclusion of the Roma (2014: 246–247). Benovska-Sabkova and Altanov explain that, despite the universalist character of Pentecostalism, the nationalist tendencies of congregations depend on the leaders’ interest of accumulating power (2009: 151–152). In both frameworks there is an excess of power of Roma pastors, and, in the same way, both proposals frame religious leaders as apparent or potential State agents in favor of social integration.

There are some academic contributions which attempt to transcend the paternalistic or victimizing minority visions. Ruy Llera Blanes has reflected upon the consequences of these types of translations (focusing on the concept of ‘social exclusion’), which, amongst many pitfalls, risks ignoring the complexity of the agency. The author points to a paradox surrounding the concept: ‘the very notion of “social exclusion” is fallacious, since the very act of social exclusion is socially inclusive-agency is participatory, even when it produces relations considered to be unequal’ (Llera Blanes, 2008: 51). In addition, Blanes echoes the philosopher Charles Taylor’s notion of politics of acknowledgement, through which evangelical Roma are acknowledged an active role in the search for recognition of their identities (2008: 234).

On the basis of her work amongst Spanish Romanies affiliated with the IEF, Manuela Cantón-Delgado has confirmed the existence of attempts to redefine the movement by creating political structures, encountering various responses from both leaders and worshippers, as well as the immediate political and religious environment (Cantón-Delgado et al. 2004; Cantón-Delgado 2013; 2014). Cantón-Delgado has also reflected upon the religious leadership from a theoretical framework founded in the innovative character of the Pentecostal Romani movement (2017; 2018).

Paloma Gay y Blasco, on the other hand, has observed the links and differences around the diasporic condition of Evangelical Romanies with regards to the associative movement in Madrid, Spain, emphasizing the manner in which the construction of a Romani evangelical diaspora transitions through the idea of moral superiority of the Romani in reference to non-Romani (Gay y Blasco, 2002). She has also observed the differences between the basis on which traditional civil Romani authority is sustained and the ‘new’ religious authority of the leaders of the IEF (Gay y Blasco, 2000). Furthermore, Ripka shines a light on a process of ethnic-religious leadership consolidation (Ripka, 2015) evidenced by ‘re-subjectivization’ processes (Voiculescu, 2017: 204) around a Roma evangelical congregation. All of the contributions mentioned hitherto refute the generalized notion which assumes that Romani Pentecostal evangelism possesses a scarce capacity of political mobilization.

Nonetheless, the phenomenon is also simplified if explained through a lens where religious practice is viewed as a source of compensation, of any kind. Some view the Holocaust and the Second World War as a starting point of situations of persecution and marginality and point to it as part of the explanation behind the expansion of Pentecostalism among Roma, comprehended as a mechanism which symbolically inverts their stigma (Laurent, 2014: 31), or as a means of ‘spiritual rehabilitation’ (Strand, 2014: 2019). Patrick Williams, however, points to the fact that in areas where Nazi action was the most violent towards Romanies (such as Ukraine, Poland or Germany), the extent of the Pentecostal movement among the Roma contrasts with the Spanish case (Williams, 1993: 434). Santos (2001) and Rodrigues (2006) explicitly align marginality and/or poverty with the Pentecostal evangelical practice of the Roma in the Portuguese context, such that identity erosion derived from vulnerability would be undermined by religious membership.

On her part, Tatiana Podolinská (2014) questions Relative Deprivation Theory as an explanation capable of shedding light on conversions but sustains that spiritual compensations are fundamental, without ruling out that conversions serve, likewise, as a counteraction to social and ethnic marginalization. In addition, the author identifies the production of social networks around Romani Pentecostalism that imply ‘new forms of positive visibility and cultural security’ (Podolinská, 2017: 137). Marushiakova and Popov view evangelical missions as offering Romanies an alternative to anomie, which, compounded with a simple ministerial formation, the attractiveness of cults to Roma, the satisfaction of a necessity for miracles and some economic factors in times of crisis, constitute a response to the expansion of the Pentecostal movement in this ethnic minority (Marushiakova and Popov, 1999: 87).

Some academics have explored the identity dynamics surrounding Romani Pentecostalism, often insinuating that religious adhesion implies benefits regarding society. Based on his work in Romania, Fosztó assumes that the adoption of evangelical currents on the part of ethnic minorities allows them to relegate their ethno-national identity to a secondary level, prioritizing their religious identity (2006: 279). In another text, Fosztó reflects upon the success of Pentecostalism in post-socialist Romania. To him, religious faiths sustain a culturally sensitive or culturally neutral approach, whereby the former is sensitive to cultural differences, and the latter is associated with religions which promote a neutral perspective through which there is a lack of interest in reproducing cultural values (2010: 134–135). It is sufficient to expose the previous dichotomy to ascertain that we will not arrive at conclusions which avoid certain ideological bias, or which grasp the complexity of the phenomenon. We believe these categories ignore over a century of reflections about a concept central to anthropology. Thus, we ask: what is the content of cultural neutrality?

These overly simplified notions of culture and cultural dynamics surface likewise in other texts, including certain assessments which (in some cases) seem to be referring us to a standardized language. To refer to some Romani groups in relation to their religious adherence, Slavkova speaks of ‘groups that have lost their characteristics’ (2007: 235–236) and of ‘better-preserved endogamous groups’ (238). Meanwhile, Marushiakova and Popov write: ‘in the well-preserved, vital and functional Gypsy groups there is no need to substitute or modify the religion’ (1999: 87), and Benovska-Sabkova and Altanov write, regarding the adoption of Pentecostalism on the part of the Roma: ‘[t]his has entailed quite a few changes in the culture of the Roma and the acquiring of a new positive identity, without the latter replacing ‘the old’ identifications among Roma’ (2009: 151). We are not exactly aware what the interpretation of that new positive identity entails. However, by placing these new positive identities discursively opposite to old identifications among Roma, the authors could be viewing out of the corner of their eye the majority society (and not Roma) as a referent of positive value.

As we noted previously, how Romani are perceived by non-Romani scholars and what topics are often chosen reflects, consciously or unconsciously, a tendency to address Romani political issues in terms of integration or assimilation to the mainstream society. This tendency of analysts to share the language of the State produces a vision of the Romani world that oscillates between victimism and welfare dependency, integrationism and exotization, placing marginalizing administrative and political visions before the acknowledgement of the expressions of religious, cultural and political innovation amongst Romanies, its role in regard to the relations with majority society, the State’s rationale, and policies of minority promotion. In this sense, it is worth noting the role of State’s rationale, that privileges structure over agency and ideas. The state, by incorporating scientific reasoning into its apparatuses, is itself conceptualized as a process of thought extension or rational authority, which universalizes its workings and constitutes its conceptual, as a way of establishing the truth (Voiculescu, 2017: 191) and the allegedly irrationality of religions poses a threat to the key assumptions of this rationalist thought.

Romani Pentecostalism has been downplayed in the selected countries, all of them also characterised by a strong Catholic and conservative tradition, as a result of a double rejection – a combination of a despised minority with a religion that carries a bad reputation in these societies. In this way, Pentecostal Romanies are considered simultaneously to be part of a stigmatized ethnic minority and members of a religious and dangerous ‘sect’ (Cantón-Delgado, 2014: 75). The scarcity of works produced in these countries become more evident when compared to the growing and varied Eastern Europe production in this field.

The academic construction of prestige often requires that scholars avoid exhibiting sympathy/empathy towards this phenomenon, and the lack of sympathy/empathy is liable to be measured by a demonstration of manifest antipathy. The same logic rules the financial support to research. Here it is worth noting the reproduction of the topics of interests and the role of the same personnel in selecting and determining what should be researched and what should not. The already mentioned double rejection plays a decisive role here. The number of works on these topics in the selected countries is related to the lack of prestigious of such research projects.

Moreover, a hidden leadership competition among pastors and activists for representing Romanies and dealing with Romani issues cannot be neglected in this matter too. These disputes can be even more complex when dealing with a people that follow a strict egalitarian ethos and prevent internal hierarchical structures (Ries, 2007: 135), designated as ‘acephalous minorities’ by Gay y Blasco (2002: 177). In terms of public acceptance, some activists might avoid been associated with Pentecostalism, since this movement is often viewed with suspicion in some countries, like Spain and Brazil, and could further damage the image of the Romanies in these societies. For those who share such fears, Pentecostalism highlights the most problematic part of the Romani community, since – as some argue – Romanies are attracted to Pentecostalism because they are struggling with marginalization and poverty.³ Also, Romani activists are just starting to becoming recognized by the state authorities in some countries, like Brazil and Argentina, and the transition to another allegedly leadership could take some time.

Facing the urgency of finding solutions to a problem that occupies a preeminent place on the agenda of different Western governments, and which requires a narrow vision of who Romanies are, we find some resistance to acknowledging and studying other unexpected Romanies: the devotees of evangelical churches in countries like France and mainly Spain. We argue that this comprises a taboo under which academia and Romani activism of the Roma identity could be converging, particularly under the old and distorting premise that religion is politically de-mobilizing. Meanwhile, the originality, creativity and autonomy exhibited by Romani Evangelism, which stays away from external financing and, generally speaking, policies of minority promotion, contribute to a vast trans-regional network of congregations that aim towards an unprecedented global Romani community with a strong social base (Cantón-Delgado 2017: 3–4; 2018). This is a response to a historic diaspora, and, in turn, a new form of the secular Romani diaspora.

The persistence of enlightened prejudice in the analytical approach to religions, the exacerbation of this tendency in addressing non-conventional spirituality and the integrationist bureaucratization of academic thinking regarding ethnicity in general and Roma in particular (Díaz de Rada, 2019: 47–52; Voivolescu, 2017: 3–4) often portrayed subjects that do not appear to be conceivable beyond the imaginary of marginalization and stigma. This would explain the scarcity, in some key countries, of academic work on this unstoppable religious movement amongst Roma throughout the world.

Conclusion

The case addressed here is an example of contemporary religious processes of innovation and the correlation between the innovation and some ethnic minorities, in this case the Roma. We insist on addressing this fascinating phenomenon from the perspective of innovation (Wilkinson and Althouse, 2010: 2), because thus we subvert the conventional ways of translating the practices of the Christian and ethnic language revival to the language of State interests, and also we avoid the addition of these innovative practices to the language of standardization. In cultural translation by social scientists, we often see how a genuine form of self-government can be incorporated into the language of normalization and centralized governmental power, and it is necessary to halt and review some complicity of social sciences with the State’s rationale. As Voiculescu pointed out: ‘the program of social integration grounded in expertise is able to translate Romani Pentecostalism as a form of self-government into the state and neoliberal language of governance (. . .) by a mechanism used by the state for capturing the existent forms of governance (e.g. Romani Pentecostalism) through the use of translation and the discursive language of governmental power (e.g. social inclusion)’ (2017: 190–191).

The double rejection noted in the geographical scope of this article plays a significant role in inhibiting the research in this field and can reinforce the approach that deals with Pentecostalism conversions as a way to minority integration, enabling them to overcome the identity crisis that results from the situation of extreme poverty, drugs and violence, and gives rise to a new belonging feeling reinforced by church attendance (Rodrigues, 2006: 86). However, addressing this phenomenon in terms of marginalization or social benefits through the integration of marginalized sectors dilutes its richness and complexity. The attempts made by some experts on Roma to ‘translate the Pentecostal discipline into a form of “normalization” or “education”– a successful program of “social taming”, a substitute for state programs of integration, which helps to produce submissive Roma’ (Voiculescu, 2017: 202), in which Romani Pentecostalism is simply translated into the logic of social integration of the ‘poor’ and ‘marginal’. Romani Pentecostalism seems to be able to launch forms of agency independently from the state and other frameworks of governmental power and acting on different scales – from local ‘grassroots’ to global, rather than just on the transnational level.

The revival among the Roma is not necessarily a sign of a traditional practice or strategy of survival. On the contrary, it may represent (and in fact is representing) the expression of a non-secular process that can bring (and in fact is bringing) alternative forms of political/cultural affirmation and, sometimes extreme (the case of Spain), independence (Cantón-Delgado, 2017; 2018; Voiculescu, 2017: 194). However, this would not be only a way to recognize the processes of empowerment and cultural resistance of excluded ethnic groups – a recognition that in its own way is also reductionist –, nor to accept the demands of truth (can we really believe that converts change in accordance to their testimonies?) or to adopt the rules of the political game in order to label, control and standardize. Religious movements among the Roma, such as Pentecostalism, seem to be an almost unexplored area in terms of political mobilization, struggles for self-determination, empowerment and contestation of externally imposed forms of authority.

We have evidenced the persistence of a certain rationalist prejudice in the analytical treatment and translation of religions to academic political language, in part because scientific praxis is part of the social and political world, and, in the case of the analysis of religions, it is likely to be particularly exposed to them. We have also shown the scarcity of works on the political originality of Pentecostalism, especially in countries of Catholic hegemony in southern Europe. Most of works do not ignore the political consequences of Pentecostalism among Romanies, but when they analyze them, they do it in terms of what Voivolescu refers to as ‘State apparatus capture’ (seconding Deleuze). This implies a distorted, biased, and reductionist approach, to some extent.

Several articles about Romani groups enable us to a different understanding regarding the possible ideological bias and scarcity production concerning Romani groups’ conversions to the global evangelical movement, and the subtext that prevails in such studies, could reveal the persistence of ‘enlightened prejudice’ towards the nature of religions, namely, a kind of suspicion and authoritarianism that continues to tacitly fuel hostility against emerging religious phenomena. In the case of the Pentecostalism spread among the Romani populations throughout the world, one should consider the tendency of analysts to share, consciously or unconsciously, the language of the State, producing a vision of the political dimension of the Romani evangelism that oscillates between victimisation and welfare dependency, integrationism and exotization, placing marginalizing administrative and political visions before the acknowledgement of the expressions of religious, cultural and political innovation amongst Romanies.

Footnotes

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes

Author biographies

Manuela CANTON-DELGADO is professor and researcher at the University of Seville, Spain. She has carried out ethnographic fieldwork on religious minorities and ethnic and political movements in Guatemala, Mexico (Chiapas) and among the Gypsy population in Spain. She has published articles most recently in Social Compass and Revista Internacional de Sociología.

Address: C/ Maria de Padilla s/n, 41001 Seville, Spain.

Email: mcanton@us.es

Marcos TOYANSK is a researcher and group leader at University of São Paulo (LEER-USP). He has a PhD in Human Geography from the University of São Paulo (2012) and undertook post-doctoral research at the University of Seville (2015–2016), funded by CAPES - Brazilian Federal Agency. His major fields of interest are in Romani minorities, diasporas and transnationalism.

Address: Av. Lineu Prestes, no. 338. Cidade Universitária. São Paulo, Brazil.

Email: marcostoyansk@usp.br

Javier JIMENEZ-ROYO is doctor in Social Anthropology from the University of Seville, funded by the Research Plan of the University of Seville. He is co-author of the research article ‘Leadership, power and ethnicity in the Philadelphia Church of Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz)’ published in Dialectología y Tradiciones Populares (2014). He is a collaborating researcher in the Symmetrical and Collaborative Ethnography project, funded by the Ministry of Economy and Business (2018–2021).

Address: C/ Maria de Padilla s/n, 41001 Seville, Spain.

Email: javierjroyo@us.es

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