ABSTRACT
Introduction The alleged specificity of the Roma people has justified for a long time their control, stigmatization, and discrimination through means of spatial management that do not apply to other groups. First seen as vagrants, then as untrustworthy racial group, and finally as nomads: all of these representations have underpinned a set of exceptional policies for Roma only, like the adoption of halting sites in different European countries, ID cards for nomads in France, or EU policies for the integration of the Roma. This exceptionalism of the Roma people has also produced, and at the same time is reinforced by, a recent professionalization of pro-Roma NGOs and advocacy associations, as well as expert and academic knowledge production on the Roma as specific subject. This chapter interrogates the scholarly research on discourses and policies targeting the Roma, showing how it is possible to produce a knowledge that does not buttress their representation as exceptional category. I suggest turning to assemblage thinking to release the study of policies on the Roma from the risk of reproducing the Roma as separate subject.
