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Paper short abstract:

This paper, on the life story of a Roma man, focuses on issues the narrator wishes to mediate to the Swedish readers. It is read as an act of “talking back”, of creating Roma history, in relation to stereotypical portrayals, and locates positioning in relation to normative scripts and racist discourses.

Paper long abstract:

Knowledge production about Roma groups at Swedish folklore archives has largely been performed by non-Roma and was produced in a society then largely permeated by antigypsyism. Roma voices and experiences were, as in much historiography concerning Roma groups over time, filtered through the collector’s point of view and purpose. Many of these sources are one-sided, prejudiced and filled with misconceptions. Very few “in-group” historical sources and materials exist in the Swedish archives. In early 1960’s Sweden, a Romani man handed in his written life story to the folklorist Carl-Herman Tillhagen at the Nordic Museum Archive. From 1943 until his retirement, Tillhagen was deeply involved in issues related to Roma, partly folklore research and popular adult education, partly in state investigations as a “Roma expert” and in Roma’s right to permanent housing. This life-story is produced in the aftermath of a public debate on “tinkers” containing suggestions such as sterilization and politics of territorial exclusion. The narrative, and its inclusion in national archival collections, is read as an act of “talking back”, of creating Roma history, in relation to the often stereotypical and antigypsyist portrayals of Roma in the public and archival sphere, and concentrates on positioning in relation to normative scripts and racist discourses. The paper will focus on which issues the narrator, positioned as a “tinker”, wishes to mediate to the majority Swedish readers, and discuss factors that made it possible to enter the nationally coded archival space at this time.