61

This article looks into the discourse on “authentic” identity and its underlying issues through the analysis of “Roma” music set up as a heritage object. In a French city, two civil society members set up an orchestra gathering Bulgarian Roma migrants, and the media presented the orchestra members as Roma living in squats and playing a “most authentic traditional” music. The article analyses the speeches on this initiative in connection with the ethnic “Roma” identity, and questions the motivations of the various actors involved. It also highlights the importance of the migration and socio-political contexts, especially the strongly present injunction to integrate. The article examines the effects of this cultural construction, and the changes it entailed for the members of the music group. It shows that setting up the orchestra crystallises the ambiguity between identity assignation and what actors make of it.