Abstract
The introduction to the special issue discusses epistemological and methodological questions with regard to
ethnographic approaches in archival research. Inspired by postcolonial anthropological debate on the ethnographic approach to and with colonial archives the authors tackle the question of Roma and Sinti’s presence in European archives. They display how a methodological and theoretical de-construction of the archive allows shedding light on marginalized and often silenced voices within Europe’s history. It is shown how the reduction of the history of the presence of the «Gypsies» in Europe to a succession of repressive acts and negative topos means, in fact, not taking into account the capacity for civilisation on the part of the Romanì people, their being part of contexts that are not only, and not always, marginal. It introduces into how the archival material that contains the category of «Gypsy» unfolds and develops when it is approached through an ethnographic lens. Opening up for the specific combination of European archival sources, and Romanì ethnographies with their inherently diverging understandings of time and history, the authors propose a twofold approach on how to engage with the archival sources: by ethnographically denaturalizing the archive and by basing its research on present ethnographic experiences with Romani people.