The collective singularity of anti-racist actors: a case study of the Roma minority in the Czech Republic

Abstract

This paper focuses on building a theory of collective singularity using the case of anti-racist collectives targeting the marginalized Roma minority in the Czech Republic. The collective singularity concept is one in which the values, norms, and practices that constitute a collective render it impossible for the group to transcend its own axioms in any manner other than by rejecting precisely these constitutive elements. The concept of anti-racism contains the trope of 'the other', perceived not only as an object of protection, integration, assistance, and interest, but also as an object under pressure to find its own (anti-)concept. Anti-racism oscillates around four dispositives (hysteria, paternalism, individualism, bionumerics) and finds itself unable to follow a radical pluralism with the potential to undermine the roots of the hegemonic discourse. As a result, the dispositives of anti-racism essentially become a 'hidden' form of disciplination, reproducing oppression and the impossibility of self-deconstruction.

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“…1 Skutočnosť, že niekto pomáha, alebo sa minimálne snaží pomáhať, neznamená, že zároveň nemôže byť jeho činnosť rasistická. Rasizmus teda nie je prítomný len v prostredí pravicového extrémizmu alebo v otvorene xenofóbnych častiach širšieho stredu politického spektra, ale "je úplne kompatibilný aj s liberálnym chápaním politiky" (Ziai 2013: 15; pre podobnú pozíciu v českom prostredí pozri Hušek -Tvrdá 2016). Mojim východiskom je práve toto nuansované vnímanie rasizmu, ktoré umožňuje skúmať aj jemné odtienky zdanlivo nevinných diskurzívnych hierarchií.…”