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Familiar Outsiders Abroad: Relational Racialization in the Romani Atlantic World

Research Output:
Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding
Chapter
Research

Open access

Abstract

Romani people fundamentally shaped the development of early modern transatlantic racialized thought. They were considered, and considered themselves, in relation to the evolving web of beliefs that bound people from four continents together and that prompted new concepts and categories transformative to the lives of all Atlantic inhabitants. Their physical and ideological presence as familiar outsiders made them a referent and template for non-Romani Europeans and American colonists anxious to comprehend and control less-familiar outsiders encountered throughout the Atlantic world. Recent Romani arrivals to Western Europe had primed early modern Europeans to notice certain registers of difference when encountering new strangers abroad. The content of these tropes reproduced with each mention and retrenched with each experience creating a sense of timelessness that stabilized racialized thought. Examples from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries are drawn from Portuguese, Spanish, French and English Atlantic spaces to show how non-Romani Europeans viewed Romani people, Native Americans, Africans and themselves relationally.

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Bibliographic Information

Output type

Research Output:
Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding
Chapter
Research

Original language

American English

Pages from-to (Number of pages)

Pages 86-108

Publication milestones

  • Published - 2026

Publication status

Published - 2026

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

ISBN (Print)

9781009706056, 9781009706025

ISBN (Electronic)

9781009706032

Chapter Number

3

Host publication title

The Romani Atlantic

Host publication editors

  • Martin Fotta
  • Ann Ostendorf