‘Everyone is blaming us!’ Conceptualising current anti-Roma racism in Europe and its necessary implications for anti-racist social work

Abstract

Racism was and has remained a key determining element of the life experiences and life chances of Roma people all around Europe. The author provides some examples of current and past anti-Roma racism and analyses how and why the Roma ethnic minority face such racism. Despite many international declarations, European Union legislation, programmes and initiatives to protect the Roma against racism, racism still continues. Across Europe, the Roma are suffering increasing intolerance and hostility, scapegoating, and growing xenophobia. In the field of social work, many critical theoreticians argue that social work education and training have been slow to acknowledge racism in everyday life. This article presents the evidence of growing anti-Roma racism in order to encourage practitioners in the field of social work, students of social work, and social work scholars and researchers to include anti-Roma racism in our theories, practices and research agendas informed by anti-racist social work.