THE WAR AGAINST POOR (ROMA) IN POPULIST DISCOURSES AND PRACTICES IN ROMANIA
THE WAR AGAINST POOR (ROMA) IN POPULIST DISCOURSES AND PRACTICES IN ROMANIA

Summary/Abstract: This paper offers an insight into the war against poor (Roma) in populist discourses and practices in Romania, while demonstrating how populism, in this case, is intersected with racism. In a first step, the paper outlines the general poverty-related context of Romania through some statistical data, and afterwards it sketches three cases that illustrate extreme ways in which racist populism targets poor Roma and discursively racialize poverty. Next, in two chapters, the article elaborates on some interpretations about (a) how poor Roma are dispossessed of their homes, citizenship and humanity, and (b) how the poor are blamed and racialized. As a conclusion, the paper drafts on some of the theoretical directions that might be useful for the analysis of the war against the poor (Roma) under the conditions of post-socialist neoliberalism.

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