Country of residence

Germany

Brief introduction

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Graduiertenkolleg 'Wert und Äquivalent'

Education

PhD in Social Anthropology, Goldsmiths, University of London

Academic profile

My current research aims at understanding economic activities of the Calon in Bahia, North-Eastern Brazil. After the neo-liberal reforms of the 1980s these peripatetic Gypsies have been increasingly specialising as money-lenders. I am interested in exploring the dynamics of the rise of this economic niche, how it relates to Calon sociality and post-dictatorship developments in Brazil. My previous research (for my M.Sc.) explored conflicting memories of the WW2 of the Roma and peasants in a small Slovak village. I showed how the official representations of the past served to delegitimise the place of the Roma in the village through side-lining their experiences. At the Milan Simecka Foundation I later devised a project collecting oral histories of the Roma and co-edited a reader about the Roma in Slovakia during the WW2.  I also coordinated a research into violation of the housing rights of the Roma in Slovakia.

Publications

• 2006 Rómovia a druhá svetová vojna (with a CD), (co-editor Vagáčová, I.), Bratislava: Nadácia Milana Šimečku.
• 2007 Bývanie: Chudoba a bývanie (with Šoltésová, K.) in: Gerbery, D./Lesay, I./ Škobla, D. (eds.) Kniha o chudobe: Spoločenské súvislosti a verejné politiky, Bratislava: Priatelia Zeme-CEPA, pp. 61-78.
• 2007 Rómsky holokaust a európsky anticigánizmus, in: Kumanová, Z./Mann, A. B. (eds.) Nepriznaný holocaust: Rómovia v rokoch 1939-1945, Bratislava: In Minorita, Slovenské národné múzeum a Ústav etnológie SAV, pp. 33 – 37.

Keywords

Economic anthropology, Money-lending, Memory, Human Rights, Violence

Contact

Fotta@em.uni-frankfurt.de browse members list