Roma in former Czechoslovakia have historically experienced economic and political marginalisation and been treated and portrayed as inferior to ethnic Czechs and Slovaks. Roma thereby became perceived as different from non-Roma citizens, as not belonging to the Czech or Slovak nation, as an 'exception'. The post-socialist transition produced economic precarity, new inequalities, and a climate of rising nationalist sentiments in Central and Eastern Europe. The perception of Roma as not having the same rights as ethnic Czechs or Slovaks to access state care became even more salient than during the socialist period. Following the enlargement of the European Union in 2004, Roma are now able to move freely across EU borders and to find employment and settle in the United Kingdom. Migration to the UK, including Leeds, offered Roma new economic opportunities as well as the promise of escaping ethnic stigmatisation. It seemed to offer the possibility to lead what I refer to as a 'normal life' as equal citizens. This thesis is based on ethnographic research among Czech and Slovak Roma in Leeds. It reveals the processes that contribute to Roma becoming defined as an exception after migrating to Leeds, and looks at the ways in which Roma resist this. It recounts the interactions that Roma have with different aspects of state care, namely welfare provision, services and projects aimed at improving the well-being of Roma, and with non-Roma Czech and Slovak interpreters. Some Roma in Leeds have converted to a Roma Pentecostal Church, the Life and Light. In this thesis I argue that by providing material support to Roma, both converts and non-converts, and through a narrative that Roma are a lost tribe of Israel, the Church constructs Roma as a moral collectivity and subverts their position of inferiority and 'exceptionality'. The Church provides a way for Roma to be respectable, to live with dignity and to have what they understand to be a 'normal' life, whilst retaining their Roma identity.

Avec ce mémoire, j’ai souhaité cerner ce qui serait le propre d’une conversion, soit ce que j’ai appelé un processus de trans-formation. Avec ce concept original, j’ai voulu orienter le regard de l’observateur vers les points de basculement de l’intimité à la publicité qui caractérisent les conversions. Pour ce faire, il m’est apparu fertile de mobiliser et de réhabiliter l’étude des valeurs, un thème classique en sociologie. Des valeurs portées par des individus aux valeurs publiques, la notion de « valeur » recèle le potentiel heuristique nécessaire pour étudier les conversions à différentes échelles d’analyse et par-delà des qualifications a priori religieuses, politiques, sexuelles, etc. Avec cette perspective théorique pragmatique inspirée par Dewey et articulée à la sensibilité aux positions sociales des cultural studies, je me suis donné les moyens d’analyser la façon dont change au cours d’une vie ce à quoi les gens tiennent. Cette représentation dynamique de la conversion vient ajouter des éléments de compréhension à un phénomène trop souvent appréhendé à la lumière de « lectures préférées » modernes et coloniales qui demandaient à être subverties pour redonner place à l’exercice de l’imagination sociologique. Les apports du concept de trans-formation sont illustrés à partir de la comparaison de quatre études de cas individuels : Paul Claudel, un écrivain converti au catholicisme ; Michelle Blanc, une transsexuelle québécoise ; Joe Loya, un Mexican American qui modifie ses conceptions du bien et du mal en isolement carcéral ; et Mlle Pigut qui est devenue « vegan ». / In this master thesis, I had the objective to pinpoint what is peculiar to conversions, that being what I have called a process of trans-formation. With this original concept, I wanted to guide the observer’s eyes toward the shifting points from intimacy to publicity, which are central in conversions process. To do so, I considered fruitful to acknowledge and reinstate the study of values, a classical theme in sociology. From values held by individuals to public values, the notion of “value” comprises the necessary heuristic potential to study conversions at different analytical scales and across assumed qualifications such as religious, political, sexual, etc. My pragmatic theoretical approach informed by Dewey and the cultural studies’ sensibility to social positions allowed me to analyse how what people value changes in the course of their life. This dynamic representation of conversions adds some insights to grasp a phenomenon often tackle from the perspective of modern and colonial “preferred readings”; readings that need to be challenged and revisited as to allow the exercise of sociological imagination. The contributions of the trans-formation’s concept are illustrated by the comparison of four individual case studies: Paul Claudel, a writer converted to Catholicism; Michelle Blanc, a québécoise transsexual; Joe Loya, a Mexican American who modifies his conceptions of good and bad in solitary confinement; and Mlle Pigut who becomes vegan.