Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe

Introduction to Special Issue “Marginality on the Margins of Europe – The Impact of COVID-19 on Roma Communities in Non-EU Countries in Eastern Europe”

Andreea Cârstocea — 2022-12-14

Roma and the First Wave of the Covid-19 Pandemic: Income Loss and Its Effects Across Roma Communities in Seven Non-EU Countries

Craig Willis — 2022-12-14

This article focuses on income loss and its knock-on effects experienced by Roma communities in seven non-EU states during the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent lockdown measures in the first half of 2020. Roma communities in Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Ukraine were all facing socio-economic exclusion and marginalisation before the COVID-19 pandemic, thus international organisations were warning very early on that Roma communities were at serious risk during lockdowns, including in the fields of employment or loss of income. This article uses primary data collected across the seven states from a survey of 440 Roma individuals and 53 in-depth interviews with Roma stakeholders, in order to add empirical evidence to an under-researched area. The main findings include that almost 73% of those surveyed experienced a reduced income, and the major reason for this was due to access to or demand for informal work which was hindered by the lockdowns. The knock-on effects of this included 32% of those surveyed declaring an inability to afford food and everyday essentials or to pay bills. Most Roma who needed to borrow money did so through private means (family and friends) rather than through official or state institutions. Finally, there was some geographic variance between the seven countries, with Roma communities in Albania and Ukraine faring worst.

Understanding the Impact of the First Wave of the Covid-19 Pandemic on the Access to Education of Roma Communities in Ukraine Using Ogbu’s Cultural-Ecological Theory

Marta Anzillotti Zamorano — 2022-12-14

The global COVID-19 pandemic highlighted and in some cases exacerbated the already precarious education of Roma children in Ukraine. This study aims to understand how the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the education of Roma children by taking a wider look at structural issues affecting the Roma community. Using mixed methods in the form of interviews with stakeholders and a survey, this paper will engage in the larger structure-agency debate through the lens of Ogbu’s cultural-ecological theory, Foster’s enhancements of it, and Crenshaw’s idea of intersectionality. The results show that between March 2020 and June 2020 the most vulnerable people in society were the ones most negatively impacted by the lockdowns and secondary effects of the pandemic. Underlying structural issues, underfunded and segregated schools with non-inclusive curriculums, intergenerational inequality, the digital divide, language barriers, intersectionality, and the pandemic’s negative impacts on Roma parents are some of the causes that Roma families reported as barriers which keep Roma children from being able to access education. However, with the agency Roma individuals have, they chose how to respond to structural oppression. This paper also demonstrates the harmful impacts of stereotypes that deem a culture to be innately resistant to education. Throughout this paper, there is a nuanced discussion which engages with previous research and theories and applies them to the new data, in order to provide a general understanding of topics that have not been heavily researched.

Going Viral: The Moral Panic Constructing the Roma as a Threat to Public Health During the First Wave of the Covid-19 Pandemic

Andreea Cârstocea — 2022-12-14

Following the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns, heightened anti-Roma rhetoric became noticeable across much of Europe. This article focuses on the narrative according to which Roma communities represented a threat to public health and which will be analysed through the lens of the theoretical work on moral panics. The empirical data used in this paper was obtained in the framework of a project investigating the impact of the pandemic on Roma communities in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Ukraine, between March–June 2020.

Using the literature on moral panics as a framework of interpretation, this article aims to shed light on the processes leading to high levels of social consensus as to the threat to public health posed by Roma communities in these countries. To do so, it outlines the narratives disseminated in mass media, as well as the subsequent narratives and policy responses employed by public authorities, showing how the latter legitimised the alarming reports publicised by the former, engendering a strong societal response which conformed with the framework of a moral panic.

War against the Poor: Social Violence Against Roma in Eastern Europe During COVID-19 at the Intersection of Class and Race

Raul Cârstocea — 2022-12-14

This article positions the social violence against Roma in Eastern Europe during the COVID-19 pandemic in historical perspective. It is based on primary data derived from the project Marginality on the Margins of Europe – The Impact of COVID-19 on Roma Communities in Non-EU Countries in Eastern Europe, collected in 2020 by researchers in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Ukraine. This data is contextualised with the help of secondary literature on historical epidemics and pandemics, as well as societal responses to them, with a particular focus on the ensuing scapegoating of minorities in certain cases. The article first makes the case for the importance of historicising such responses to pandemics in different contexts as a safeguard against ‘exceptionalising’ either the ongoing pandemic or the Roma minority. Further, it argues against a reductionist perspective that treats the Roma primarily – or even exclusively – along the lines of their representing a ‘national minority’, a concept that is heavily tilted toward a cultural-linguistic definition of the group. In contrast, it posits that hate speech and racist incidents against the Roma in the context of the pandemic (and more generally) are better understood by factoring in the intersection of race and class, where the long-standing racialization of the Roma in Eastern Europe is inflected by the latter as much as the former. Finally, zooming out from the case study under consideration to consider other instances of ‘Othering’ encountered during the COVID-19 pandemic, it draws attention to the different scales at which exclusion operates, and to the advantages provided by an awareness of the multiple spatial and temporal layers constitutive of such a scalar approach.