Critical Romani Studies as a New Frontier of Intersectionality: Roma and Sinti Mothers in Alternative Measures to Imprisonment

Abstract

The article intends to present some preliminary results of an ongoing research concerning mothers serving sentences in the Veneto Region (Italy). This contribution will focus in particular on alternative measures to prison, analyzing the criteria that guide the action of judges and social workers in granting certain measures and in proposing certain treatment paths rather than others towards Roma and Sinti women. These criteria will be analyzed using two theoretical approaches and making a dialogue between them: that of “legal culture”, developed within the sociology of law, and that of Critical Romani Studies, a very recent line of research that intends to “contaminate” Romani Studies with critical social theories like Critical Race Theory, feminist and intersectional theories, and postcolonial theories.

Keywords: Critical Romani Studies, legal culture, intersectionality, alternative measures to imprisonment, mothers.