This article focuses on archival collections relating to so-called “tattare” and “zigenare” (roughly translated as “tinkers” and “gypsies”) created by Swedish folklore scholars during the twentieth century, and how these scholars influenced politics and interventions regarding these categories. It addresses questions regarding the production of knowledge about these categories and the contexts, structures and actors that have created the basis for these kinds of collections. Special focus has been placed on works by the folklore scholars Carl-Martin Bergstrand and Carl-Herman Tillhagen, and collections at the Institute for Language and Folklore, Department of Dialectology, Onomastics and Folklore Research and the Nordic Museum. By unfolding the networks of Bergstrand and Tillhagen and following the traces of their work to other archives, the article highlights some of the political and monitoring dimensions of archival practices in relation to minority groups in Sweden.

This article examines an audio recording with a Roma family made by the collector Arvid Andersson in Sweden, in the early 1950s. The aim of this article is to unfold this jointly constructed conversation between the collector and the Roma family members. The analysis of the conversation shows a delicate interplay between the Roma family and the interviewer, and we especially stress the agency of the family in the process of negotiating belonging, challenging a discourse about the Roma as a passive group merely subjected to discrimination and stereotyping. The foreignness of the Roma was continuously stressed, while the Roma opposed being positioned as foreigners and tried to clarify that they did belong in Sweden and contributed to society. 

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Roma people have been present in Sweden for at least 500 years. The first members of the group today known as Swedish Roma arrived in the late 1800s, and during a large part of the 1900s they were forced to a nomadic lifestyle. The purpose of this project is to highlight this part of history, in collaboration with Roma associations, focusing on camp sites and life stories during the 1900s and to incorporate this cultural heritage into Swedish public collections at the Swedish History Museum and the Institute for Language and Folklore. The project will combine ethnological interviews with archaeological excavations, and will involve questions about multiculturalism and interaction between Roma and the majority Swedes.