Sampanis v. Greece: Discrimination, Disrespect, and Romani Identity on the EU Frontier

This article examines Greek Romani identity from an exogenous viewpoint focused not on who Romani people think and feel they are, but on what others make of them, through official discourse, political action, and educational policy. This article combines a normative argument about social justice as recognition (Axel Honneth) with an empirical case study of the confrontation of a diasporic group (Pontic Greeks from the former Soviet Union) with Romani parents and children at the doorstep of a Greek school. This was the occasion for a European Court of Human Rights decision involving various nongovernmental organizations and Greek government ministries. This article argues that the dynamic interplay between official and unofficial actors in securing access of Greek–Roma children to schooling has the effect, however unintended, of framing rather narrow possibilities for the development of a positive Roma identity.