Genetic Studies of Romani Populations in Hungary: an Intersectional Analysis

This study focuses on the conceptualization of Roma ethnicity in the works of human geneticists. In this analysis I apply the methods of intersectionality and use expert interviews to collect data. The collected material is analyzed from a non-Romani feminist constructivist perspective. In the research of human geneticists the categories of diseases are at the centre and they link the Roma category systematically to genetic disorders. I argue however that this connection non-intentionally stabilizes the Roma category on a molecular biological level because this aspect fails to take into consideration the performative character of social categories. Geneticists by attaching the Roma category to a biological marker homogenize the culturally fragmented and diverse gypsy ethnicities and they reconstruct the Romani people's social structures along the lines of traditional gender hierarchies.