Abstract

This paper discusses Romani mentors’ mixed experiences, views and coping practices in an intra-ethnic ‘natural mentoring’ project targeting young Romani (more commonly known as ‘Gypsy’) students in Spain. The intervention transforms already existing intra-ethnic bonds into mentorships in local Spanish Romani communities. To meet the aims of this research, observations were conducted at mentors’ follow-up meetings and other project activities, and individual semi-structured interviews were held with three female and three male mentors. The mentors’ mixed views and experiences are analysed in four dimensions: competence, commitment, project operation and sociocultural change. From a critical stance, the results suggest that mentoring remains highly apolitical, having as its primary object ‘people to be developed’ and not the structure that is to do the developing. In this endeavour, mentoring is instrumentalized to create self-regulated ‘active’ citizens desiring to be acted upon through ‘technologies of the self’.

摘要

本文讨论了罗姆人导师在针对西班牙年轻罗姆人（通常称为“吉普赛人”）学生的族内“自然指导”项目中的混合经验、观点和应对做法。干预将现有的族内纽带转化为当地西班牙罗姆人社区的指导。为实现本研究的目标，在导师的后续会议和其他项目活动中进行了观察，并与三位女性导师和三位男性导师进行了个人半结构化访谈。从能力、承诺、项目运作和社会文化变革四个维度分析了导师的不同观点和经验。从批判的角度来看，结果表明指导仍然高度非政治性，以“要发展的人”为主要目标，而不是进行发展的结构。在这项努力中，指导被用来创造自我调节的“积极”公民，他们希望通过“自我技术”采取行动。