The volume edited by Sam Beck and Ana Ivasiuc was inspired by an international conference organized in Bucharest in 2014 with the aim to discuss the contribution of Nicolae Gheorghe, a well-known Roma activist and researcher, to the dialog between research and activism and modes of optimally converging knowledge from one domain to another. Editor Sam Beck's own work and anthropological approach was deeply influenced by the stance of Nicolae Gheorghe on how engaged anthropology/sociology can contribute to the improvement of people's lives, as stated in his Preface. The collected articles are grouped into three main parts, each highlighting from the perspective of different disciplines and theoretical positioning—and why not personal experiences—the current struggles that strain the nexus between research, academia, and policy making in Romani Studies and the way these can critically and effectively challenge power relations in society. Three articles grouped in the first part, “Renewing Methods, Renewing Sites” discuss—taking a mostly critical standpoint—the interventions in localities where ethnic conflicts between Roma and non-Roma developed. The second part, entitled “Renewing Epistemologies,” highlights some questions around the research (academia)/activism and Roma/non-Roma dichotomies and focuses on the legitimized scientific knowledge production about the Roma minority. The third thematic junction flashes us with the possibility of “Renewing Activisms” that complement and improve earlier politics of activism and policy discourses regarding Roma. Ivasiuc's Introduction works as a double-effect pastille that convince the potential reader to evolve into an actual reader of the volume because it raises an array of controversial questions bringing out the curiosity of those interested in Romani Studies, whether the authors actually resolve these issues or, on the contrary, aggravate the fault lines between actors of knowledge production and agents of social change. The first three articles, authored by Huub van Baar, Ana Chirițoiu, and László Fosztó, discuss Roma activism and policy making through the lens of the “local,” arguing that knowledge of local social contexts is crucial in designing national and transnational agendas. Van Baar's aim is to offer a periodicization of “nongovernmentalism” and to reflect on the nexus between activism and research, arguing that the position of Roma-related scholarship vis-a-vis civil society organizations can be described mostly in terms of being “for” or “against” it. The intention to offer a viable “anthroposociology” of Roma related activism, however, is only partially fulfilled as the author stops from theoretically criticizing the ethnographic work of few anthropologists. This lacuna is ingeniously filled by Chirițoiu's and Fosztó’s article by illustratively contrasting the multiple understandings of different political and social agendas by a variety of actors, including local understandings as well. Later (in the third part), Danielle Schoon's article on the Turkish Romanlar’s identity struggles fits well in this line of ideas exposed by the two anthropologists, as in all three articles the reasoning is that a nuanced understanding of social phenomena (whatever that may be) is needed, rather than sticking with polarized and dichotomized categories.

The second part of the volume begins with the article of Andrew Ryder, who criticizes Roma-related research using a “factional conversation” between members of the European Academic Network on Romani Studies (EANRS) to underline the need for the shifting of perspectives in research because the status of socially-engaged research activities is lower in the inner hierarchy of knowledge production and activism. The same ideas are argued more coherently by Angéla Kóczé and Anna Mirga-Kruszelnicka, both using the theoretical underpinnings of critical social sciences to maintain that Roma enter the field of research and activism with a disadvantage due to the hegemonic expectation of scientific objectivity and neutral expertise, as well as to the prejudices that Roma usually face. This second part is worth reading through the lens of Ivasiuc's article, a thoughtful analysis on the position of the activist-scholar deconstructing the victimhood discourse on Roma and on the ways of fruitfully combining approaches, methods, and disciplines. Finally, Margaret Greenfields illuminates the concrete ways of bringing policy-making and research highlighting methodological challenges closer together, as well as the need to be aware of unintended consequences.

While the volume does not solve the problems posed in the title and in the introductory chapters, it gives plentiful food for thought for those interested in the nexus between research-activism and policy. One recurrent idea is the need to transcend dichotomizing thinking, and this is effectively put in practice by the authors who more or less use personal experiences when also defining the term “Roma activism.” This is the main idea of the volume as expressed by Ivasiuc, that everyday practices in fact transgress categories easily. The volume reminds the reader of Schrödinger's cat that makes all categories irrelevant while being in an indeterminate state, but when it is exaggeratedly observed, it gets overwhelmed and runs away (Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, 1987).