Pride parades and prejudice: Visibility of Roma and LGBTI communities in post-socialist Europe

This article argues that public space is important for marginalised communities in order to ensure visibility and presence in public life. Often minority groups are excluded from democratic procedures which favour majority interests and preferences. This is not to say that minority interests are incompatible with those of the majority but some marginalised groups are not anchored in public space, can suffer discriminatory treatment and lack the ability to control dominant, usually negative, ascriptions of group identity. This article explores two cases of marginalised communities and access to public space in post-socialist Europe: Roma and the LGBTI communities. Both communities have attempted to ensure their presence in public space through ‘Pride’ parades across Central and Eastern European capitals. The purpose of pride parades is to demand rights as citizens, such as equality and respect, and to ensure visibility in public life. On the one hand, visibility is important for LGBTI communities who remain relatively hidden and fear ‘coming out’. On the other hand, for Roma, who are highly visible, pride offers an opportunity to harness this visibility to challenge prevailing negative stereotypes through an affirmation of group identity

Roma as a political identity: Exploring representations of Roma in Europe

This article explores some of the myriad representations of Roma in Europe and argues that this proliferation makes it more difficult for policymakers to formulate coherent interventions, for academics to agree on a common conceptual language and for the majority to understand the inter-connected problems facing Roma communities. ‘Representations’ refers to how the community is understood by itself as well as by others. Whilst no community retains an uncontested image of itself and its identity, Roma communities have little or no control over how they are represented in the public sphere. Usually, representations of Roma originate and are sustained by non-Romani actors including international organisations, national governments and the majority. Of course, Roma communities have attempted to influence how they represent themselves externally to challenge negative stereotypes and internally, to raise a political consciousness and foster solidarity. Relatedly, the political representation of Roma is particularly important due to their weak political positioning in local, national and transnational contexts but also because it highlights the disparity between contested questions of who Roma are and devising policy interventions to address socio-economic and political exclusion. This article discusses a select number of prevalent Roma representations and links the representation of Roma identity to the public presence and agency of Romani communities

The introvert's protest: Handwriting the constitution and the performance of politics

This interview explores the relationship between performance, art and protest, using the example of the project ‘Handwriting the Constitution’. The chapter is an interview with the founder of this global artistic and performative project. It examines how protest is expressed in diverse ways and the importance of carving out public and private spaces for protest. Whilst protest is invariably seen as a dramatic event with people taking to the streets to demonstrate, this chapter challenges our understanding of how silent protest can be a powerful tool to express a political voice. It locates the act of protest in handwriting key document in quiet collective spaces.<br

The Roma voice in the European Union: Between national belonging and transnational identity

This article examines the response of Roma activists to the Italian Roma crisis in 2007 and 2008. The Roma community has become targets of discriminatory policies in Italy, such as forced evictions and ethnic profiling by the authorities, which construct Roma as distinct from the Italian nation. Roma activists increasingly circumvent national political structures and instead regard the European Union (EU) as an ally in redressing discriminatory policies in member states. In the absence of a kin state to lobby and advocate on their behalf, Roma activists, working in the transnational political context, articulate their voice and demands to the institutions of the EU. In doing so, they construct a transnational identity which on the one hand reifies Roma to a homogeneous group, whilst on the other hand contributes to the idea that Roma are not a constitutive component of the dominant nation. This article uses the Italian Roma crisis as a particular episode in which transnational Roma activists responded to a nationally based crisis and explores the impact of this on issues of national belonging

Romaphobia in the UK Right-Wing Press: racist and populist discourse during the Brexit referendum

This article investigates contemporary expressions of racism toward Roma in the context of growing populism in the UK. We focus on how and why Romaphobia becomes widespread in times of socio-political crises, especially during the 2016 referendum when the UK voted to leave the European Union. Drawing on content analysis and Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis, we provide an in-depth account of how Roma migrants have been represented in two British newspapers during the 2016 so-called “Brexit” Referendum campaign and subsequent vote. The textual and visual analysis demonstrates how racist tropes about Roma identity and culture are embedded into populist rhetoric, often taking subtle forms of expression, yet simultaneously manage to avoid accusations of racism. We argue that the scapegoating and demonisation of Roma migrants in the media contributed to shaping negative attitudes towards Eastern European immigrants and by proxy, to the EU. This plays out in a context of rising nativism and populism where Roma communities come to embody the perceived ills of the European integration project and are regarded as a threat to the fabric of the British nation. We draw attention to the danger of these representations which condemn an already vulnerable community to further socio-economic exclusion

The politicization of Roma as an ethnic "other": Security discourse in France and the politics of belonging

The politicization of Roma as an ethnic "other": Security discourse in France and the politics of belongin

Digital traces of ‘Twitter revolutions’: Resistance, polarization and surveillance via contested images and texts of Occupy Gezi

Protest movements have been galvanized recently by social media and are commonly, and somewhat hyperbolically, referred to by mainstream media as “Twitter revolutions.” This article identifies social media as a battleground for disseminating contending versions of reality, not only during Twitter revolutions, but also in their aftermath. Articulating the enduring impact of popular social movements and examining how protestors and governmental supporters contest their meaning over time, the article studies the digital traces of the Gezi Park protests in Turkey (2013) after the mobilization dissipated. The digital traces of protests act as critical digital artifacts of contestation with actors on both sides (pro- and anti-AKP [Justice and Development Party] government in Turkey). These digital traces are reanimated by both actors to build support, assert truth claims, foster identity/community, and/or demand recognition. The article deploys content and multimodal analyses of texts and images on Twitter, shared through hashtags on the protests when the protests’ alleged leaders faced trials (2018‒2019)

Digital traces of ‘Twitter revolutions’: Resistance, polarization and surveillance via contested images and texts of Occupy Gezi

Protest movements have been galvanized recently by social media and are commonly, and somewhat hyperbolically, referred to by mainstream media as “Twitter revolutions.” This article identifies social media as a battleground for disseminating contending versions of reality, not only during Twitter revolutions, but also in their aftermath. Articulating the enduring impact of popular social movements and examining how protestors and governmental supporters contest their meaning over time, the article studies the digital traces of the Gezi Park protests in Turkey (2013) after the mobilization dissipated. The digital traces of protests act as critical digital artifacts of contestation with actors on both sides (pro- and anti-AKP [Justice and Development Party] government in Turkey). These digital traces are reanimated by both actors to build support, assert truth claims, foster identity/community, and/or demand recognition. The article deploys content and multimodal analyses of texts and images on Twitter, shared through hashtags on the protests when the protests’ alleged leaders faced trials (2018‒2019)

Beyond the iconic protest images: the performance of ‘everyday life’ on social media during Gezi Park

Using the Gezi Park protests as a case study this article considers the performative component of protest movements including how and why protestors actively produce protest activity ‘on the ground’ and how this is expressed through visual images. It looks beyond iconic images which appear as emblematic of the protest and instead shifts our focus to consider the more ‘everyday’ or mundane activities which occur during a protest occupation, and explores how social media allows these images to have expressive and communicative dimensions. In this respect, protests can be performed through humdrum activities and this signifies a political voice which is communicated visually. The research is based on visual analysis of Twitter data and reveals methodological innovation in understanding how protestors communicate

Looking for truth in absurdity: humour as community-building and dissidence against authoritarianism

What makes humour an honest and a direct communication tool for people? How do social networking and digital media transmit user-generated political and humorous content? Our research argues that the way in which humour is deployed through digital media during protest action allows protestors to assert humanity and sincerity against dehumanising political manipulation frameworks. Humorous content, to this extent, enables and is indicative of independent thinking and creativity. It causes contemplation, confronts the hegemonic power of the oppressor, and challenges fear and apathy. In order to conduct this research, we collected and analysed tweets shared during the Gezi Park protests. Gezi Parkı was chosen as the keyword since it was an unstructured and neutral term. Among millions of visual images shared during the protests, we concentrate on those that depict humour both in photography and video formats