Roma in the News: an examination of media and political discourse and what needs to change

Richardson, Joanna

doi:10.3351/ppp.0008.0001.0005

Cited by 26 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…This was indeed a major (albeit euphemised) sub-text in the political discourse that culminated in the campaign for Britain to leave the EU, known as Brexit (see, e.g. Mintchev, 2014;Richardson, 2014). The channelling of hostility toward 'migration' (in general) against EU-citizen 'migrants', and those originating from (postsocialist) 'Eastern European' EU member states in particular, into a politically focused antagonism toward Britain's membership in the EU was the defining political signature of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), and became the hallmark of the pro-Brexit campaign.…”

Section: How Does It Feel To Be a (European) Problem?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Un/Free mobility: Roma migrants in the European Union

2017

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This special issue showcases work that theorises and critiques the political, economic, legal, and socio-historical ('ethnic' or 'cultural') subordination of the European Roma (so-called 'Gypsies'), from the specific critical vantage point of Roma migrants living and working within and across the space of the European Union (EU). Enabled primarily through ethnographic research with diverse Roma communities across the heterogeneous geography of 'Europe', the contributions to this collection are likewise concerned with the larger politics of mobility as a constitutive feature of the sociopolitical formation of the EU. Foregrounding the experiences and perspectives of Roma living and working outside of their nation-states of 'origin' or ostensible citizenship, we seek to elucidate wider inequalities and hierarchies at stake in the ongoing (re-)racialisation of Roma migrants, in particular, and imposed upon migrants, generally. Thus, this special issue situates Roma mobility as a critical vantage point for migration studies in Europe. Furthermore, this volume shifts the focus conventionally directed at the academic objectification of 'the Roma' as such, and instead seeks to foreground and underscore questions about 'Europe', 'European'-ness, and EU-ropean citizenship that come into sharper focus through the critical lens of Roma racialisation, marginalisation, securitisation, and criminalisation, and the dynamics of Roma mobility within and across the space of 'Europe'. In this way, this collection contributes new research and expands critical interdisciplinary dialogue at the intersections of Romani studies, ethnic and racial studies, migration studies, political and urban geography, social anthropology, development studies, postcolonial studies, and European studies. Central to our approach in this special issue is a desire to re-situate questions of Roma mobility, and the consequently fluid and contradictory sociopolitical dynamics of Roma racial subordination, at the heart of any critical enquiry regarding 'Europe'. Roma mobility is particularly central to questions concerning EU-ropean citizenship, the borders of EUrope, the so-called 'migrant crisis' in Europe, and the rise of far-right, anti-immigrant racist populism across the space of Europe. That is to say, rather than fetishise research about 'the Roma' as such, as an essentialised 'ethnic group' to be studied in isolation, we insist that there can be literally no adequate investigation into the very meanings of 'Europeanness' or the politics of 'European' identity in the presumably wider field of

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Section: How Does It Feel To Be a (European) Problem?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Un/Free mobility: Roma migrants in the European Union

2017

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“…Although debate over the level and speed of EU migration to the UK first came under public and media scrutiny in relation to unexpectedly high levels of East European migrants exercising their right to enter the UK for work 8 after the 2004 enlargement of the EU (Watt and Wintour, 2015), it was not until the wake of A2 enlargement (Romania and Bulgaria) that Roma EU citizens became more noticeably framed as low-skilled undesirable workers, likely to seek to settle in the UK in large numbers, given the perceived ease of access to welfare benefits (Richardson, 2014;.…”

Section: The Uk Political and Economic Context Of Welfare 'Bordering'mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Whilst rarely explicitly framed as anti-Roma reportage, xenophobic representations of EU migrants are coupled with persistent 'tabloid' media hostility towards EU Roma citizens who are portrayed as the undesirable migrant par excellence Kóczé, 2017;Clark, 2015): tabloid newsprint often associate anti-migrant stories with images of 'Roma villages' or visibly identifiable Roma individuals (on which see further: Tremlett et al, 2017;Richardson, 2014). At the same time, EU Roma welfare benefit claimants in the UK were found to be only occasionally consulting civil society organisations for help, even though compared to non-Roma peers they experienced disproportionate monitoring of their welfare claims and ever-increasing documentary hurdles when they sought to access benefit entitlements (Dagilyte and Greenfields, 2015;Martin et al, 2017).…”

Section: The Uk Political and Economic Context Of Welfare 'Bordering'mentioning

confidence: 99%

‘I Would Never Have Come If We’d Know It Might Be Like This’

Greenfields

Dagilyte²

2018

Intersections

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This paper presents the findings from a small-scale pilot study which explores the experiences of accessing welfare benefits by the migrant Roma European Union (EU) citizens in the UK. It compares administrative barriers and individuals’ knowledge of welfare entitlement both prior and after the implementation of changes to the welfare regime in 2014, when a tranche of ‘policy hardening’ legal enactments came into force. For the migrants who participated in this study, precarious, low paid post-migration work has brought several hazards, including a non-eligibility for certain social protections and an inability to demonstrate documentation which enable access to ‘passported’ welfare benefits. The combination of problems in accessing welfare benefits and the resulting state interventions, including expulsion from the UK in some cases, suggest that EU Roma citizens experience disproportionate negative impacts of welfare hardening, adding to the much vaunted ‘hostile environment’ to EU migrants in the wake of the Brexit vote. As such, we find the practice of ‘bordering’ migrant EU Roma citizens to the UK is taking place through covert state enforcement action against families and households, discouraging effective and genuine use of their free movement rights guaranteed under European Union law.

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“…Public and media discourse plays a key contributory role in the dissemination and maintenance of collective fantasies and stereotypes focused on Roma. This can 'feed fear and paranoia and exacerbate community conflict' (Richardson, 2014). The enduring persistence of stereotypes informing perceptions is vividly illustrated by the recent media attention given to the totally groundless reports of Roma stealing babies in Greece and Ireland, which led to DNA tests being carried out on the legitimate parents of a blonde Roma child in Ireland (Borev, 2013;Richardson, 2014).…”

Section: The Theory Of Established-outsider Relationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This can 'feed fear and paranoia and exacerbate community conflict' (Richardson, 2014). The enduring persistence of stereotypes informing perceptions is vividly illustrated by the recent media attention given to the totally groundless reports of Roma stealing babies in Greece and Ireland, which led to DNA tests being carried out on the legitimate parents of a blonde Roma child in Ireland (Borev, 2013;Richardson, 2014). It is illuminating that mythical thinking of this nature can have such traction in today's media and popular opinion across Europe.…”

Section: The Theory Of Established-outsider Relationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Europe’s perennial ‘outsiders’: A processual approach to Roma stigmatization and ghettoization

Powell

Lever

2015

Current Sociology

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This paper draws on the theoretical work of Norbert Elias and Loïc Wacquant in seeking to understand the stigmatized and marginalized position of the Roma population within Europe. The paper argues that the persistent persecution of Roma, reflected in social policy, cannot be understood without reference to long-term social processes, which shape the nature of the asymmetric power relations between Roma and non-Roma. Elias's theory of established-outsider relations is applied at the intra-state European level in arguing that Roma constitute a cross-border "outsider" group; with their intense stigmatization explained and perpetuated by a common set of collective fantasies which are maintained through complex group processes of disidentification, and which result in Roma being seen as of lesser human worth. Wacquant's theoretical concept of the "ghetto" is then drawn upon to show how the manifestations of stigmatization for the stigmatized are at once psychological, social and spatial. The paper suggests that the synthesis of the two theorists' relational, theoretical concepts allows for an approach that can expose the way in which power is exercised within and through group relations. Such an approach emphasizes the centrality of the interdependence between Roma and non-Roma, and the fluctuating power balance that characterises that relationship across time and space. The paper concludes that, while existing research focused on policy and outcomes is useful in understanding the negative contemporary experiences of Roma populations, they need to be understood in the context of wider social processes and historical continuities in seeking to elucidate how these processes shape policies and contribute to social and spatial marginalization.

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Roma in the News: an examination of media and political discourse and what needs to change

Cited by 26 publications

References 7 publications

Un/Free mobility: Roma migrants in the European Union

Un/Free mobility: Roma migrants in the European Union

‘I Would Never Have Come If We’d Know It Might Be Like This’

Europe’s perennial ‘outsiders’: A processual approach to Roma stigmatization and ghettoization

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