Translated knowledge: the production of marginalization of the Roma during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Abstract This research evaluates news during the first year of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic in order to examine how European publics made sense of the Roma, the largest and most marginalized ethnic community on the continent. Based on the analysis of news in English, French, Italian, and Romanian, the study finds that much of the coverage across national and cultural boundaries translated marginalization, already exacerbated by the health crisis, through familiar lenses of blame and backwardness. Whereas anti-ethnic discrimination was primarily recognized in news reliant on official, governmental sources, news in French and Italian chiefly circulated representations of otherness. Romanian news revealed both systemic racism and community solutions, also filtered through a discriminatory lens. Translating justice- or equity-oriented content—directly or ideologically—appeared incomplete, infrequent, and often filtered through bias. The tool of local and regional translation emerged as central to the circulation of ideas across the continent.