From the Other Side

Chapter 6, the third and final empirical chapter, explores Roma engagement in survival strategies, focusing on three factors that might affect it: deprivation, personal experience of discrimination, and perceptions of stereotype intractability. The chapter links Roma game behaviors to their answers to an extensive survey and finds that neither deprivation nor perceptions of stereotype intractability are linked to engagement in survival strategies. However, Roma who report personally experiencing discrimination are more likely to resort to survival strategies. By asking Roma about their experiences of discrimination, this chapter provides independent corroboration of the experimental findings presented in Chapters 4 and 5, which directly captured non-Roma discriminatory behaviors.

Theory

Chapter 2 uses the examples of Batwa in Uganda, black and Latino boys in Oakland, Muslim immigrants in France, and Jews in Vienna to present and develop the theory of the exclusion cycle. The exclusion cycle results when behaviors of the majority and the marginalized minority interact and feed into one another. The cycle starts with anti-minority culture, which gives rise to discrimination against the minority. As members of the majority discriminate, members of the marginalized minority develop survival strategies. Members of the majority often dislike survival strategies used by the minority, ethnicize them, and incorrectly attribute them to the minority as such, and not the discrimination. Such attribution errors feed the already existing anti-minority culture and the cycle continues. After presenting the theory, the Chapter offers a brief overview of the literature on prejudice, discrimination, and intergroup contact, and discusses how positive intergroup contact might help break they cyclical dynamic.

Introduction

Chapter 1 introduces the book. It discusses the importance of social exclusion and justifies the book’s focus on the role that individual behaviors play in perpetuating it. The Chapter presents the theory of the exclusion cycle and introduces the case of Roma (derogatively “Gypsies”) and non-Roma in Slovenia, which the book uses to illustrate the cyclical theory. The Chapter then briefly discusses why NGO promotion of intergroup contact might help break the cycle, and presents the key empirical contributions of the book. The Chapter also discusses the scope of the argument, comments on how common exclusion cycles might be and when they might develop, and concludes with a short description of the remaining chapters.

Full Circle

Chapter 7, the concluding chapter, underscores the book’s central finding on Roma/non- Roma cooperation using evidence from experiments in two Slovene towns. Roma and non-Roma behaviors from Novo mesto illustrate an exclusion cycle. Non-Roma there discriminate against the Roma and Roma engage in survival strategies; as a result, members of the two groups cannot sustain equal levels of cooperation. By contrast, Roma and non-Roma from Murska Sobota cooperate at equal levels in a tower-building videogame. This finding is linked to the presence of a contact-promoting NGO there, suggesting that intergroup contact may reduce discrimination against the Roma and help break the exclusion cycle. The chapter also cautions against generalizations, discusses open questions, and concludes.

The Rift

Chapter 4, the book’s first empirical chapter, introduces two lab-in-field experiments that form the core of the book’s data-gathering strategy. The first experiment uses the trust game and demonstrates that non-Roma from Novo mesto discriminate against the Roma in the context of single interactions. The second experiment uses an iterated public goods game, delivered in the form of an original tower-building videogame, developed to allow participants who cannot read to take part in the study and to capture repeated interactions in a context where face-to-face interactions might be contentious. It shows that non-Roma from Novo mesto discriminate against the Roma in the context of repeated interactions, even when Roma behaviors in the game are identical to non-Roma behaviors. This experiment also demonstrates that Roma from Novo mesto use survival strategies, but to a much lesser degree than stereotyping would lead one to expect.

Contact

Chapter 5, the second empirical chapter, explores the non-Roma parts of the exclusion cycle. It introduces the second Slovenian research site, Murska Sobota, which closely matches the first site, Novo mesto, in all relevant characteristics but one: the Roma-led NGO in Murska Sobota focuses on promoting intergroup contact, while its counterpart in Novo mesto provides goods and services to local Roma. In contrast to non-Roma from Novo mesto, non-Roma from Murska Sobota do not discriminate against the Roma. This is particularly true of non-Roma who are familiar with the contact-promoting Roma NGO or attend its events. Further, although non-Roma from both towns express anti- Roma sentiment and commit attribution errors, non-Roma from Novo mesto do so to a greater extent. In that town, non-Roma who express anti-Roma sentiment are more likely to discriminate against the Roma in the videogame. Overall, these results suggest that NGO-promoted intergroup contact can help reduce discrimination.

Roma

Chapter 3 introduces the case of the Roma. Roma are Europe’s largest ethnic minority (10–12 million) and are derogatively called “Gypsies.” Chapter 3 discusses Roma diversity, touching on language and dialect, customs, and traditional occupations. It also offers a few examples of how varying social, economic, and political circumstances might have differently affected Roma communities throughout Central and Eastern Europe. The Chapter then introduces Roma in Slovenia, and concludes with an illustration of a Roma exclusion cycle through the lens of a murder-suicide that happened in 2011, in Novo mesto, the first of the two field sites where the data for the empirical portion of the book were collected.