This document discusses the historical security practices of majority and minority groups in Nordic societies, specifically examining the relationship between the Roma minority and majority populations in Finland and other Nordic countries. It explores two approaches: 1) how the majority population has undermined the security of Roma groups through exclusionary policies and informal discrimination, and 2) the strategies Roma people have used to achieve a sense of individual and communal security while maintaining their cultural traditions and distinction from the majority. The document aims to analyze the interplay between these groups by looking at folklore and narratives about Roma, state policies targeting Roma minorities, how Finnish Roma have constructed their historical culture, and the impact of religious conversions on Roma mobilization.

1. Roma and Nordic Societies
Historical security practices of the majority
and strategies of the minority
PhD Eija Stark
Centre for Nordic Studies (CENS), University of Helsinki
Nordic Societal Security Programme
27.11.2014 Stockholm

2. Nordic Roma as citizens?
• Roma groups have been identified as the
‘cultural other’
• The national Roma groups have strong cultural
identity as Roma combined with an emphatic
sense of themselves as, for example, Finns or
Norwegians
• Folkhemmet − meaning a society with social
equality and solidarity between all citizens

3. Majority vs. minority
• The national Roma groups have been not only
excluded from many social arenas, but also have
faced discrimination and rigid assimilation
strategies
• For the majority societal security: either social
exclusion or total naturalization of the Roma
minority
• For the Roma societal security: retaining their
traditions and maintaining a sense of distinction
from the majority through specific practices

4. Two approaches
• 1) How has the majority population, either
through formal and explicit state policies or
informal and subtle means, safeguarded its
own sense of security and undermined the
security of the national Roma groups since the
1930s?
• 2) What kinds of strategies have the Roma
people used to achieve both an ‘individual’ and
‘communal’ sense of societal security?

7. The interplay between the majority and the
Roma minority
• Folklore and narratives circulated among the
majority about the Roma
• Plans, actions and international co-operation of
the state authorities concerning the Roma groups
during the early years of the Nordic welfare states
• How Finnish Roma have constructed and
manifested their respective historical culture
• Impact of Roma conversions to Evangelical
movements on the mobilization of the Finnish
Roma