“The Roma in Țăndărei”

A few thoughts on prejudices and groupism in media representations of the Romanian Roma during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to identify a few reasons for the intensifying of “anti-Gypsyism” and scapegoating of the Roma in Romania during the COVID pandemic.

Reasons are both economic and social. The need for free movement (essential for economic subsistence of many isolated Roma communities) as well as poor access to basic services are but two reasons, which lead to circulation of prejudices, which depict Roma as “lacking discipline and a sense of self control.” Focusing on the case of Țăndărei, this study intends to show that media representations are equally responsible for discourses of scapegoating and culture blame. Reports and articles which name Țăndărei as an “ecological bomb” fail to depict internal differences in the local Roma groups. Such representations (together with the process of scapegoating) may well illustrate Brubaker’s theory on groupism: in that media discourse on “the Roma” indiscriminately merges people with different social backgrounds into a homogeneous ethno-racial group.