ECMI Infochannel

In diverse, post-conflict societies, the significance of language can reach far beyond heritage, identity, and culture. In Northern Ireland, a three-year political deadlock which paralysed the devolved Executive until an agreement, New Decade New Approach, was reached in January 2020, provides a clear example of what can happen when language becomes highly politicised. This blog piece looks at how language rights became a core point of contention in Northern Irish politics, what elements converged to make cross-party consensus possible, and how policy can support a much-needed new approach towards minority language rights.

This blog post addresses the scapegoating of the Roma community in Romania during the Covid-19 pandemic, whereby this national minority is being directly blamed for the reckless spreading of the corona virus among the general population. After outlining some of the underlying psychological and psychosocial mechanisms of scapegoating, this piece argues that this instance of scapegoating is part of a wider phenomenon whereby this national minority has been consistently blamed for countless of the Romanian society’s ills. The conclusion of the blog post is that this constant scapegoating of the Roma community is constitutive of power strategies meant to uphold existing hierarchies, which underpin and reproduce the marginalisation of the Roma community.