"Belonging" in Croatia's Roma Population

As members of Europe’s largest minority, the Roma community within Croatia share in the ongoing struggles present in societies dealing with antigypsyism and discrimination towards Roma individuals. These include questions of representation, citizenship, rights, and identity with each simultaneously affecting and being affected by the others. Similar to Roma communities across Europe, the Roma of Croatia appear in the state in historic waves, with three distinct eras of Croatian Roma existence – those who trace their ancestry back to 14th century Croatia, those who moved across Southeast Europe after the abolition of slavery in Romania, and those more recent to the state fleeing ethnic conflicts in Central Southeast Europe. These communities share many similarities but are also each unique in their cultures and needs. As such, the identity of “Roma” in Croatia contains several disparate elements and the questions of citizenship, representation, and external perception are continued points of contention and confusion. When the defining features of political representation require local citizenship and autochthonous identity, what problems might arise for Roma in the region? Can someone “belong” to a community that is made up of separate identities, especially when the external perception might see all three identities as the same? If it is potentially dangerous to claim membership to a community, how can this affect an individual’s access to rights and representations that hinge upon a definition built from a narrower lens? This paper will explore these questions and further complexities inherent in belonging to the Roma community, set in the context of Croatia in order to analyze the unique nature of Croatian Roma existing with a multitude of backgrounds. Through analysis of Integration Strategy reports and conversations with local organizations, it will look at the nature of publicly and personal identifying as a member of the Roma community and question how that decision results in both direct and indirect consequences on citizenship, belonging, and identity for the Roma populations in Croatia.