ABSTRACT
Chapter 7 explores the interrogation between two main approaches to racializing Roma as an ineducable ethnic group at high risk for social security: either mixing with “lower” racial groups or, conversely, the lack of biological drift. Presented primarily by German racial anthropology (but not exclusively), the first approach deepened the argument concerning the non-purity of Roma, who lost their superiority as a “pure” race after arriving in Europe and becoming less isolated. The second approach, mainly elaborated in the surveys conducted by Czechoslovak and Yugoslav anthropologists, aimed to demonstrate the intractable cultural, social and biological isolation of Roma. Even though views on the main pathway toward degradation diverged, both approaches developed as a result of embedding “Gypsies” into already established interracial hierarchies targeted with uniting nations. They achieved maximum influence by constructing the intraracial hierarchies that justified various forms of segregation of Roma, or even more, their extermination. By bridging both approaches, Central Europe became a center for generating various practices of surveillance over Roma and meta-knowledge concerning the “Gypsy issue” or the knowledge about producing knowledge. After 1945, this pattern opened up new options within an international agenda concerning human adaptability and national concern regarding demographic policy.
