Romani Migration between Germany and Britain (1880s-1914): Spaces of Informal Business, Media Spectacle, and Racial Policing (RomMig) is a three year AHRC-DFG funded project. It is a collaboration between the University of Bielefeld, Germany and the University of Liverpool, UK, and with research partners the German Historical Institute in London and the Niedersächsischer Verband Deutscher Sinti e.V. (Lower Saxony Association of German Sinti).
The project explores the extensive body of text and images that the migratory movements generated to illuminate the agency of the Romani travellers themselves, their reasons for moving from Germany and their strategies for survival in Britain. The parallel aim of the project is to situate Romani migration between Germany and Britain in wider developments in regional, national and transnational policing. This project uses the lens of specific Romani migrations to explore the ways in which the practices and experiences of local police in both countries informed the national policing of ‘Gypsies’.
A key element in terms both of methods and outputs will be the co-development through community workshops of static and prototype interactive digital maps exploring both the wider context and the more individual stories of the migrations.