The Representation of the Self-Concepts Within the Adventist Romani Community from Etéd

In this paper I will present the process of representing concepts of the self within the Adventist Romani community from Etéd (Atid, Romania). I especially draw attention to the religious and ethnic aspects of these self representations. My questions are closely related to the attitude of the Romani community towards their own tradition and culture, more specifically, to what motivated them to convert and how this fact affects their self-image and lifestyle. The starting point of this paper is the assumption that if a community that is stigmatized by society joins a religious group, then not only their religious identity changes but also their lifestyle. Through this process we can observe the changes to the old, stigmatized lifestyle that occurred through the process of conversion.

I consider the self-representations as collective representations because the members of the community (Adventists and non-Adventists alike) show the same positive shift of the Romani self-image. They regard themselves as religious Romanies. In my paper I analyze the main points of the collective representation which are close to a positive self-image. These are: 1. the changed moral figure 2. the altered image of the institiution of marriage 3. the Romani who can write and read 4. the rich Romani 5. the Romani who distances himself from other Romani communities 6. the Romani who shows a uniform image of his community.