Do French ‘Nomads’ Have a War History? A Review of Seventy-five Years of Historiography

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DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29098/crs.v4i2.54

Keywords:

Genocide, Resistance, France, Historiography, Internment, Nomad, Roma

Abstract

Through a study of the historiography of the persecution of “Nomads” in France from 1939 to 1946, this article offers a critical analysis of methodological and thematic biases present in much historical research on the topic. Historical studies on “Nomads” have significant practical implications today: this article examines how the history of French Roma and Travellers during the Second World War was written. It shows how French institutions have relied on historical work to deny the racial character of the persecution of the so-called
“Nomads”. The paper emphasizes that internment and enforced residence were not so much an absolute break but rather part of a particularly virulent moment in the long history of persecution of “Nomads” in the twentieth century in France.

Author Biography

  • Lise Foisneau, Researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the Institute of Mediterranean, European and Comparative Ethnology (IDEMEC – UMR 7307)

    Lise Foisneau is a researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). She defended, in 2018, a doctorate in anthropology on the political expressions of a Romani collective in Provence; she conducted postdoctoral research on the memory of the Second World War at the Central European University (Budapest), the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (Washington), and EHESS (Paris). Les Nomades face à la guerre (1939–1946), published in 2022, is her first book.

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Published

10/25/2022

Issue

Vol. 4 No. 2 (2021): Roma Holocaust, Memory, and Representation

Section

Articles

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How to Cite

Do French ‘Nomads’ Have a War History? A Review of Seventy-five Years of Historiography. (2022). Critical Romani Studies, 4(2), 34-54. https://doi.org/10.29098/crs.v4i2.54