Between Cultural Appropriation and Ethnic Shifting

The Entangled Histories of Romani Imitation

The conference is supported by the Czech Academy of Sciences’ Lumina Quaeruntur Fellowship project Romani Atlantic: Transcontinental Logic of Ethno-Racial Identities, StrategyAV21 – Identities in the World of Wars and Crises and the ERC project Inclusive History of East-Central Europe: Mid-19th Century to Present and CEFRES.

Dates: May 27–29, 2026
Locations: Institute of Czech Literature – AV ČR, Vila Lanna, CEFRES, Prague
Language: English

Download the full event program here.

This conference builds on discussions of Romani racialization, belonging, and agency by focusing on identity performance, imitation, and claims to authenticity. It examines how struggles over
representation unfold across historical and contemporary contexts, where Romani identity has been both stigmatized and appropriated. While some Romani individuals have been compelled to “pass” or conceal their identity, others have sought to reclaim it; meanwhile, non-Romani actors have adopted or performed Romani cultural markers through entertainment, aesthetics, spirituality, or lifestyle choices. From early modern anxieties about “counterfeit” identities to contemporary digital self-fashioning, these practices raise questions about legitimacy, recognition, and power. Bringing together interdisciplinary perspectives, the conference explores how such claims are produced and contested within broader systems of racialization, resource distribution, and citizenship. It highlights tensions between creativity and exploitation, affiliation and exclusion, and lived experience and symbolic appropriation, advancing a critical view of identity as fluid, situational, and politically charged.

May 27, 17.00 – 18.45, Institute of Czech Literature, AV ČR
Keynote Lecture by Dalen WAKELEY-SMITH
American Imitation and Romani Strategic
Essentialism in the 20th century

May 28, 9.00 – 17:40, Vila Lanna
Workshop
Between Cultural Appropriation and Ethnic Shifting

May 29, 17.00 – 19.00, CEFRES
Discussion with Chelsi WEST OHUERI
Rethinking Race in Eastern Europe