Introduction: Roma Marriage-Making, Between the Constraints of “Tradition” and the “Choices” of Liberalization

Abstract

The article presents the MARTOR issue, that brings together in-depth accounts and analyses—ethnographic, legal, dialogic, and visual—of marriage-making processes among various Roma populations in Central and Eastern Europe, and accounts for how marriage can be at once a means of change, and a vehicle of continuity. Furthermore, it shows how marriage mediates between affects and social hierarchies, and between individual aspirations and collective moralities, and how it legitimizes such heterogenous, and even contradictory claims to “identity” as those espoused by so-called traditional groups, and by “assimilated” Roma.