Country of residence

United Kingdom

Brief introduction

PhD Candidate, The London Consortium – Birkbeck, University of London

Education

MA Studies in Fiction, University of East Anglia, 2007

Academic profile

I am currently completing a PhD on Gypsy Punk music and subculture.  This is a multidisciplinary research topic which requires me to work with, amongst others, balkanism, migration studies and popular music. However, Romani Studies is integral to the project: although Gypsy Punk is typically not produced by Romani musicians, the genre’s treatment of ‘gypsiness’ is significant.  Therefore, my expertise with regard to the Roma is twofold.  Firstly, my research has given me a thorough understanding of ‘gypsy’ music: this can refer both to music produced by the Roma, and to non-Romani music that is marketed as ‘gypsy’ music.  My other main area of expertise is the relationship between Roma and non-Roma.  My research has required me to understand the creation of the stereotypical ‘gypsy’ figure by non-Roma, and the way that Romani people are perceived and persecuted by non-Roma.

Publications

• ‘Multi Kontra Culti: The Gypsy Punk Counterculture’ [Forthcoming: appearing in an edited volume on American multicultural studies to be published by Sage in 2012]
• ‘The Great Return: Exile and Homeland in the Work of Milan Kundera and Krzysztof Kieslowksi’ [Forthcoming: appearing in an edited volume on the exiled/expatriate artist to be published in Autumn 2011]
• ‘Colonized Culture: The Emergence of a Romani Postcolonialism’, Journal of Postcolonial Cultures and Societies, Vol. 1, No. 2 [April 2010]

Keywords

Popular music, Balkanism, Romani Studies, Migration

Contact

alanashtonsmith@googlemail.com browse members list