Hungarian Roma attitudes on minority rights: The symbolic violence of ethnic identification

This article examines Roma ethnicity in post-transition Hungary, where market and political liberalisation create a context for examining ethnic group identification. While ethnic group identification is strongly encouraged by post-transition legal reforms, severe economic and social conditions make life extremely difficult for self-identified members of the Roma minority population. This struggle for self-identification is a focus of this article as it examines Roma responses to questions about minority rights in the context of severe economic and social constraints. Rather than facilitating Roma ethnic self-identification, minority rights and minority self-government create additional hazards for the Roma. This survey is part of a larger projec t called 'What Roma Want', which I initiated during the summer of 2000 for the purpose of examining the relationship between Roma and such legal systems as minority rights. The question that frames this study is whether minority rights, a form of affirmative action, help, harm, or have no impact on the Roma. I created this survey for the purpose of answering this question. Along the way, I have focused on ethnic self-identification as an important marker of the success or failure of minority rights. © 2005 University of Glasgow.