Category 3: Public Showcasing Interventions

1. Why do we need social psychology to fight antigypsyism?
2. Psychological interventions to reduce prejudice
3. The unique characteristics of antigypsyism
4. Best practice examples
5. Recommendations

This category contains one-off public events that involve the general population and aim to reach a wide audience. There may be intergroup contact, and it can be implicit, indirect, as well as explicit. The contact may be superficial without any real engagement between the groups. In spite of this, it is often implicitly assumed that contact at these events automatically reduces anti-Roma prejudice. These events typically include festivals, concerts and other cultural events.

Traveller Pride Week/Events (Ireland)

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https://itmtrav.ie/strategic-priorities/anti-racism-interculturalism/traveller-pride/

Description of the intervention This intervention is a festival, organised at a national level by the Irish Traveller Movement and run every year, with events spanning two weeks. The festival includes a range of events taking place around the country which are run by several different organisations.

It is funded and supported by The Traveller Roma Inclusion Unit of the Department of Justice.

This intervention is aimed at both the Travelling Community and the settled communities. It aims to instil pride in Traveller culture and highlight achievements within the Travelling community, strengthening their identity and self-esteem. The festival concludes with an awards ceremony.

The events of the festival are open to the settled community and are used to showcase the Traveller culture and achievements of the community. Additionally, outputs from intergroup projects between both communities are showcased at these events, displaying the power of contact and cooperation in forming relationships between groups.

Why it should be considered as best practice This intervention was chosen as best practice mainly due to its effects on the Traveller community itself, while also promoting the value and uniqueness of Traveller culture. This intervention operates on the societal level. First, it promotes Traveller culture to all society and showcases the achievements of the Travelling community. It also raises awareness about structural inequalities, that can have effects on both the majority and minority groups. Raising awareness on hierarchies and structural inequalities is shown to encourage majority group members to engage in collective action to aid minority group members. The literature also shows that this kind of intervention can motivate to discuss intergroup differences and intergroup conflict, and this approach can empower minorities to stand up for their rights and get engaged in activism. It can also encourage them to accept majority group allies and provide opportunities to create political solidarity.

How this intervention works The purpose of the event is foremost to showcase Traveller Pride, expressing intrinsic pride in one’s group, increase self-esteem and strengthen ingroup identity which in turn offers psychological protection for members of the minority.

It also allows membership of the Travelling community to display their agency, creating a platform to demonstrate the political, cultural and healthcare activities taking place within the community. Previous studies show the importance of majority group acknowledgment of and respect for the agency of the minority group. This respect for agency is important in generating allyship collective action (solidarity) rather than helping-based collective action (donations, etc.).

It raises awareness and provides the settled community (members of majority) with information surrounding some of the inequalities faced by Travellers.

Showcasing the unique qualities of Traveller culture and the things that can be achieved in communities through cooperation can lead to changes in social psychological processes such as stereotyping, stigma and discrimination. Decreases in these negative processes may increase one’s openness to engage the Irish Travellers.

Scope and Limitations The event offers a unique opportunity for awareness raising and empowerment of Traveller communities, however, prejudice towards Irish Travellers may deter people from attending these events. Lack of attendance from the settled community may diminish the opportunities for using information to dismantle stereotypes, prejudice reduction and engage in intergroup contact.

Intergroup contact at these events is not certain and members of both communities may not engage with each other of their own accord. Merely observing the results of the previous intergroup projects may not be sufficient in decreasing prejudice and encouraging people to engage in future interventions.

Rencont’Roms nous Week/Events (France)

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https://rencontromsnous.com/category/partager-se-rencontrer-souvrir/

Description of the intervention The interventions of this association are composed of several events throughout the year and several times a month. They aim to bring together members of the Roma community and other groups through art tanks to a network of institutional, associative, cultural and educational partners (Region leader, General Department for Equality of Territories, Family Allowances, Regional Council, SNCF [National Transports], Banque populaire, Place of Diversity and Laïcité, etc.). They are cultural, artistic and educational events to fight discrimination and racism against the Roma. These cultural events allow meetings, exchanges and debates.

The aim is to “do together”, “create together” in order to “share together” and “be together”. These interventions are carried out to give a new voice to the Roma inhabitants, to promote their inclusion and participation in society. They are divided into four categories of interventions:

1. Disseminating of Gypsy and Balkan cultures;
2. Meetings and sharing around the topics of inclusion, citizenship and access to education;
3. Promoting education of Roma children through interventions in schools (with the ‘School for All’ movement);
4. Promoting the professional integration of young Roma by offering personalised and individual support (through the civic service in France, which is a type of contract that enables young people in difficulty to be hired to participate in social projects).

Examples of events:

• Gypsy culture day
• Balkanica Festival
• Languages Forum
• Gypsy dance classes
• Afterworks
• Exhibition of Roma photographer
• Theatre show
• Summer workshops
• Meetings

Why it should be considered as best practice This intervention offers empowerment and cultural recognition of Roma communities in France, but it also builds on intergroup contact theory to bring members of the majority and the minority closer together. The intervention can raise awareness about the diversity within the Roma communities and offer direct help for disadvantaged communities.

How this intervention works The association Rencont’Rom Nous underlines the fact that the events are organized to help develop group identity and collective pride. The idea is to strengthen identification with the Roma group through events presenting the Gypsy culture and by offering language, dance or history classes to the Roma. These classes are also offered to non-Roma people to introduce the Gypsy culture in order to reduce prejudices against Roma. Through the workshops, the association promotes intergroup contacts to reduce negative attitudes towards Roma people.

It is visible from the professional integration and educational aspects of the program that it promotes the integration of Roma people in society.

Finally, by creating collective pride and helping the integration of Roma, the association can also reduce the feeling of exclusion, rejection and thus help to increase self-esteem as well as promote a more inclusive common identity for Roma and non-Roma members of the community.

Scope and Limitations These events can offer positive experiences for the Roma and non-Roma members of the communities. The strength of these events is that they bring members of the community together. As these interventions build on the experience of positive contact, they do not necessarily address the issues of structural inequalities and can therefore lead to demobilization among members of the Roma community. Events that emphasize the traditional culture of Roma communities always run the risk of folklorising the group and placing them in the “past”, which can become an obstacle for inclusion. Finally, the events are closely linked to local institutions and therefore highly dependent on the commitment of local politicians.

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