In March, RomMig held our first project meeting at the University of Liverpool. The aim for this inaugural workshop was to explore our next steps and to discuss ideas and approaches with our research partners. The Liverpool University team, PI Professor Eve Rosenhaft and Co-I Dr Tamara West, were joined by our Bielefeld University PI Dr Felix Brahm. Together the team presented an overview of the key areas of research enquiry, plans for our academic events, and our community map co-creation workshops. From our research partners, the German Historical Institute in London, Professor Christina von Hodenberg was able to join in person. Our German partners, the Lower Saxony Association of German Sinti, were able to join us via Zoom, and represented by Mario Franz.
In addition to our partners, we were pleased to be joined by John Henry Phillips, an archaeologist, author and filmmaker, who presented an overview of the Romani Community Archaeology project. After lunch, Katy Hooper from the University of Liverpool Special Collections arranged a visit to the view items from the collections archives of the Gipsy Lore Society. After a talk highlighting the complexity of this historical archive, we were able to view some relevant items. These included photographs, postcards and reports centring around one of our case studies – the 1906 Romani migration to the UK, the so-called “German Gipsy Invasion”.