Relative Strangers

Examining how memory, intergenerational transmission, and kinship work together, my first book—Relative Strangers—sheds light on Romani life in Palestine. I present an ethnographic portrait of Dom Romani communities living between Palestine and Jordan, zooming in on everyday life in working-class neighborhoods, and under conditions of perpetual war and instability.

The book focuses on how Doms are able to sustain ethnic difference through kinship, even when public performances of difference are no longer emphasized; a kind of alterity that is neither visible by obvious markers like race or religious difference, nor detected by the antennas of the state. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Jerusalem, Ramallah, and Amman, I make a case for such “other” alterity for Romani people and other groups in the region.

Analyzing intimate ethnographic scenes through anthropological theories of kinship, psychoanalysis, social theory from the Global South, and more, the book reveals how alterity in the Middle East does not adhere to rigid identitarian categories. Ultimately, Relative Strangers demonstrates the inadequacy of transposing models of pluralism centered on European and American experiences of minoritization onto other contexts.

The book will be published by University of Toronto Press in December 2024.





Reviews

“Awesomely intelligent and original, based on meticulous fieldwork and proficiency in Arabic, Arpan Roy’s study of Romani illuminates everyday Palestine life in unexpectedly complex and invigorating ways—a tour de force.”

Michael Taussig, Class of 1933 Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University

“In Relative Strangers Arpan Roy has produced an outstanding investigation of the ‘secret selves’ of an urban nomadic community—the Dom Romanies of Jerusalem and Gaza. This anthropological portrait is as intriguing as it is illuminating. It focuses on the destiny of the Dom Romanies as a microcosm of the Palestinian condition—experiencing exile, refugeehood and urban dislocation.”

Salim Tamari, Institute for Palestine Studies

“Relative Strangers is a fascinating account of how informality, memory, and kinship shape one another among Romanies in Palestine. It shows in a thought-provoking way how the everyday politics of ethnicity works while remaining invisible to outsiders and uncontrollable by the state.”

Péter Berta, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London

“Relative Strangers is absolutely beautiful. Arpan Roy’s prose is elegant, sensitive, and compelling. Roy’s ability to mobilize classic anthropological studies – those of Lévi-Strauss, Dumont, Schneider, Lewis, and Fortes, among others – to illuminate contemporary issues is both refreshing and compelling.”

Jean-Michel Landry, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Carleton University