**Preface to "Racialized Citizenship in Superdiverse Europe"**

Today, European societies are often described as superdiverse, in order to define the ethnic, cultural and religious pluralism that results from decades of immigration. Simultaneously, Europe appears to be evermore polarized in its approach to migration and diversity. Xenophobic currents in political and public debates gain presence across the continent, while anti-racist actors and critical scholars increasingly focus on racialization as the producer of inequalities and injustice.

The awareness that experiences of racism and discrimination seriously harm the sense of belonging of those affected by it, and also reduce the opportunities to enjoy social mobility and quality of life for many immigrants and minoritized people, is increasing in both academia and the civil society. However, there is also a persistent unwillingness to talk about the racial dimensions of the disadvantage and social exclusion that disproportionally affect immigrants, their descendants and other racialized groups. Race as a concept has been viable in Anglo-Saxon scholarship for a long time, but much less so in the European context, where it was largely replaced by the broader and less specific term "ethnicity" in the aftermath of the Second World War and the painful unravelling of what barbarism Nazi racialization led to. However, as Alana Lentin has argued, the *European silence about race* has allowed European states to declare themselves officially non-racist, while, at the same time, continuing to imply an inherent European superiority in which Europeanness presupposes whiteness.

This volume enquires about how racialization shapes European societies and the lives of people affected by it in myriad ways. It provides a powerful collection of new publications by scholars who, through their empirical research, contribute to placing race and racialization studies at the forefront of European academia.

> **Zenia Hellgren, B´alint Abel Berem´ ´ enyi** *Editors*

#### *Editorial* **Introduction to the Special Issue: Far from Colorblind. Reflections on Racialization in Contemporary Europe**

**Zenia Hellgren 1,\* and Bálint Ábel Bereményi 2,\***


**\*** Correspondence: zenia.hellgren@upf.edu (Z.H.); beremenyia@ceu.edu (B.Á.B.)

**Abstract:** European history is to a significant extent also a history about racialization and racism. Since the colonizers of past centuries defined boundaries between "civilized" and "savages" by applying value standards in which the notions of race, ethnicity, culture, and religion were interwoven and imposed on human beings perceived as fundamentally different from themselves, racialization became deeply inherent in how (white) Europeans viewed the world, themselves, and others. In this Special Issue, we assume that colonialist racialization constitutes the base of a persistent and often unreflective and indirect racism. Implicit value systems according to which white people are automatically considered as more competent, more desirable, preferable in general terms, and more "European" translate into patterns of everyday racism affecting the self-image and life chances of white and non-white Europeans. In this introductory article, which defines the conceptual framework for the special issue, we contest the idea of a "post-racial" condition and discuss the consequences of ethno-racial differentiation and stigmatization for racialized groups such as Black Europeans, European Roma, and non-white migrants in general. Finally, we argue for the need to further problematize and critically examine whiteness.

**Keywords:** race; racialization; post-racial; whiteness; colorblind; European colonialism

#### **1. A European Dilemma**

To understand our present, we need to know, and be openminded enough to critically examine, our past. European history is to a grea<sup>t</sup> extent also a history about race, racialization, and racism. Since the colonizers of past centuries defined the boundaries between "civilized" and "savages" by applying value standards in which notions of race, ethnicity, culture, and religion were interwoven, racialization became deeply inherent in how (white) Europeans viewed the world, themselves, and others (Maneri 2020; Lentin 2008, 2020; Silverstein 2005). While in the US, a denial of race as a social fact is virtually unimaginable given the country's overtly racist history, from ethnic cleansing and slavery to racial segregation and police violence, in Europe, an illusion of colorblindness has thrived for a long time (Lentin 2008, 2011; Törngren et al. 2019). Race as concept has therefore been viable in Anglo-Saxon scholarship, but much less so in the European context, where it was largely replaced by the broader and less specific term "ethnicity". It has been argued that the painful and shameful legacy of the Nazi genocide of Jews, Roma, and other groups considered as inferior led to a persistent non-recognition of race as category in Europe, out of fear for any forms of racial registration that could potentially be used for the persecution of minorities (Lentin 2008). Today, however, this lack of recognition of the race category hampers a general recognition and examination of racial hierarchies in Europe. As Lentin (2008) has argued, the European silence about race has allowed European states to declare themselves officially non-racist, while at the same time continuing to imply an inherent European superiority in which Europeanness presupposes whiteness. Several

**Citation:** Hellgren, Zenia, and BálintÁbel Bereményi. 2022. Introduction to the Special Issue: Far from Colorblind. Reflections on Racialization in Contemporary Europe. *Social Sciences* 11: 21. https://doi.org/10.3390/ socsci11010021

Received: 27 December 2021 Accepted: 28 December 2021 Published: 12 January 2022

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**Copyright:** © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

anti-racist activist groups even advocate for ethnic/racial registration, in order to facilitate the detection and reporting of discrimination (Hellgren 2021).

Now, it appears that the global Black Lives Matter movement has contributed to contest the European negligence of race as a central producer of injustice and inequalities. Numerous Europe-based activists and politicians have made statements in the past year, using catchwords such as "BLM in Europe too" in order to draw parallels between the racism against black people in the US and similar, though less publicly acknowledged, situations across European societies1. In addition, a growing body of research engages with race and racialization in European societies, not seldom in comparison with the US, which traditionally has often been perceived as a fundamentally different context (Lentin 2011; O'Hanlon 2016; Törngren et al. 2019). In this context, parallels have been drawn between the treatment of black people in the US and the Roma population in Europe (Miskovic 2009), and the specific forms of racism affecting Roma people, officially defined as antigypsyism. Kóczé (2020) provides a definition of the racialization of Roma people that appears applicable to other groups as well: "Racialization and racial oppression of Roma are discursive and structural mechanisms that place them in an imaginary hierarchical classificatory system based on phenotypical, cultural, and social markers and render them as "other"/sub-human. These oppressive discourses became articulated and solidified in concrete social practices, mechanisms, policies, and structures in Roma people's everyday lives".

Barwick and Beaman's (2019) empirical examples from France furthermore reflect the practical relevance that the notion of "race" has for people affected by it, beyond academic debates or political declarations. In France, despite not officially recognizing race as a category and generally ignoring it, racialized people in stigmatized suburbs, *banlieues,* outside Paris repeatedly defined themselves as non-white, and those perceived as "French" were described as white. For them, skin color was the most relevant marker of social difference and disadvantage, often accompanied by being the resident of a marginalized housing area (ibid). Similarly, in Eastern Europe, the exonym "the white" for non-Roma is a common term used by both Roma and non-Roma people in local contexts (Kuchta 2005).

It is in this framework that we situate our Special Issue, which enquires into how racialization shapes the lives of people affected by it in myriad ways. It provides multiple and multilevel perspectives on different forms of exclusion of immigrants and Roma people in European societies, both in spheres such as policy making and governance and in everyday practices. We assume that colonialist racialization constitutes the historical base of a persistent and often unreflective and passive racism, which translates into automatically considering "white" people as more competent, more desirable, preferable in general, and more "European" and which influences the life conditions of white and non-white Europeans. Our contribution to contemporary European research on race, racialization, and discrimination consists of a collection of recent empirical studies, which bring the racial dimension to the forefront in approaching the exclusion that affects many non-white migrants and ethnic minorities, most noticeably the Roma population that is numerous in several European countries.

In this introductory article, we will first define the key concepts of race, racialization, racism, and discrimination. We then use contemporary scholarship on race and racialization in order to dismantle the widespread idea that race is no longer a relevant category in the context of the European societies' increasing super-diversity (Vertovec 2007; Crul 2016) and ethnic hybridization (Rodríguez-García et al. 2019). We argue that this is indeed a *segmented super-diversity*, in which ethno-racial features continue to define differences in opportunities depending on factors such as the tone of the skin or hair.

#### **2. Race, Racialization, Racism, and Discrimination—Some Conceptual Clarifications**

In the debates over whether or not to use the concept of "race" in European research, which we shall return to below, a powerful argumen<sup>t</sup> against its usage is the dangerous ways in which a scientifically sustained notion of different human races may be misused

(see, for instance, the Jena Declaration 2019). This line of argumentation appears highly meaningful in scientific domains such as biogenetics and medicine, but, we claim, less so in the social sciences. We coincide with Törngren et al. (2019) and Rodríguez-García in this volume, who sustain that though race is a social construct, it is also a social fact with real effects on people's everyday lives. In this context, we also consider that it may in general be more constructive for the analytical purposes of social scientists to apply the term racialization, rather than race. Racialization as concept does not coerce its user to engage with the question of whether race to some degree should exist as a biological fact or not; it focuses merely on the social construction of difference, or otherization, based on ethno-racial features.

In this Special Issue, we define racialization as an overt or subtle form of differential treatment based on ethno-racial differentiation. We apply a broad definition; like Silverstein (2005), we understand that racialization, more than being merely related to skin color or phenotype, may also encompass a rather vague sense of (devalued) "ethnicity", "culture", or religion, and in practice, it often intersects with categories such as class, and/or gender in the negative stereotyping of people with certain characteristics. When racialization is expressed as ascribing certain characteristics to groups of people based on such categorization (Gans 2017, p. 342) or, in general, when people are differentiated based on their deviance from the established norm of whiteness in accordance with the *pigmentocracy* (Telles 2014) of a specific society—indeed, where the subtle line is drawn between who is considered "white" or not varies across the Western world (Törngren et al. 2019): a Moroccan, for instance, may pass for "white" in Spain, but hardly in Sweden (Hellgren 2019)—the effects are often strongly negative for the racialized individuals. Racialized classifications of (people defined as) Muslims as "potential terrorists" and Black Africans or indigenous Latin Americans as "poor, exploitable workers" (see, e.g., Silverstein 2005) entail tangible consequences for the individuals' self-image, social status, and real opportunities in society (see Hellgren and Gabrielli 2021b in this volume for a more detailed discussion of such intersections between race and class). Yet, applying a critical whiteness approach, racialization may also be beneficial for the individual whose racial profile is positively valued. This is clear in the narratives of white Canadian and Norwegian immigrants in Spain, who share the experience of being cast as "reliable" and "respectful", even more so than natives, based on their physical appearance and origin (Hellgren 2019).

Ethnic discrimination, in turn, is here primarily considered as a consequence of racialization. Discrimination and racism are often used as practically synonymous and interchangeable concepts (e.g., Lentin 2011). In this Special Issue, ethnic discrimination is instead considered as fundamentally different from racism in one central regard: While racism refers to a doctrine or a set of *ideas* or *beliefs* according to which people are classified as superior or inferior depending on traits defined as "racial", most typically skin color, discrimination is understood as a *behaviour* by which the person who discriminates, consciously or unconsciously, differentiates between different categories of people. Applying this definition allows us to understand how, for instance, a person who does not share racist ideas may in practice discriminate, often without even noticing this, in a wide range of situations, for instance based on deeply rooted preferences for white people of certain nationalities (Pager and Shepherd 2008; Safi 2010). While overt forms of racism such as hate speech or racist violence draw immediate attention and call for intervention, subtler forms of discrimination such as simply not choosing people of certain origins for employment or rental contracts is far more difficult to detect, or prove, but nonetheless have serious consequences in terms of hampered opportunities and perpetuated inequalities between natives and racialized others (e.g., Crul et al. 2012; Barnes 2011; Burgett and Hendler 2014; Silverstein 2005).

There are multiple categories of people who risk being discriminated against, as established by the European Union's directives declaring that discrimination on the grounds of "sex, race, color, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or

sexual orientation shall be prohibited" (European Commission's Website 2021). In practice, virtually anyone risks being discriminated against at some time in life based on one or several of these categories. Moreover, two or more different grounds for discrimination often intersect, and it may indeed be difficult for, for instance, a female migrant domestic worker from the Dominican Republic to determine whether she is being discriminated against for being poor, for being a woman, or for being racialized. In addition, we argue that there is a class-related dimension of racialization that cannot be left out of any serious discussion on discrimination (Hellgren 2019). For stigmatized groups such as the Roma and immigrants of different origins, the perceived discrimination and disadvantage that the respondents express, being (or being expected to be) poor, "underclass", is closely intertwined with their ethno-racial features (see Hellgren and Gabrielli 2021a, 2021b). People of Sub-Saharan African and Latin American origin for instance report being denied entrance into expensive stores or stopped if they drive a certain type of car, as they are expected to be unable to afford this, based on generalized prejudices about the "precarious migrant" or the "gangster" (ibid). This is one of the reasons why an intersectional perspective appears fundamental in discrimination research (e.g., Seng 2012; Viruell-Fuentes et al. 2012; Young 2009).

For the analytical purposes of this Special Issue, however, we shall largely limit our approach on discrimination to the ethnic, or racial, dimension. In line with Silverstein's (2005) argumentation that the different forms of labelling affecting immigrants in European societies constitute different expressions of racialization, we define ethnic discrimination as an overt or subtle negative form of differential treatment based on ethno-racial categorization, including skin color or other physical traits that mark a visible difference from the white, Western, native norm (such as "ethnic" clothing); having a foreign-sounding name or speaking the majority language(s) with an accent; or, in general, being categorized based on a "different" ethnicity, culture, religion or belief, or national origin.

#### **3. The Myth of the Post-Racial Society and the Complexities of Whiteness**

There is broad awareness that experiences of racism and discrimination seriously harm the sense of belonging, as well as the opportunities to enjoy social mobility and quality of life for many immigrants and ethnic minority peoples in European societies (e.g., González-Sobrino and Goss 2018; Crul et al. 2012; Pager and Shepherd 2008; Safi 2010; Vincze 2014). Yet, there is simultaneously a persistent unwillingness among broad layers of European scholars to talk about the racial dimension of the kinds of disadvantage and social exclusion that affect immigrants, their descendants, and other racialized groups disproportionally. Some even claim that we live in a "post-racial" society (Sayyid 2017). This reluctance towards the race concept springs from liberal-conservative thinkers but also from a class-centred approach, in which race is viewed as subordinate to or less relevant than the class category in conceptualizing inequalities in contemporary Western societies. The tension between race vs. class-centred research is strongly felt in the polemics between scholars defending Critical Race Theory (CRT) on the one hand, and both liberalegalitarian and Marxist scholars opposing their analysis on the other hand (Warmington 2020; Leonardo 2009).

The "post-racial society" argumen<sup>t</sup> turned up as early as in the 1970s in the US press, celebrating the improvement of race relations. It then became generalized with the appearance of high-ranked politicians of Afro-American background in both Republican and Democratic administrations, culminating in Barack Obama's election as president (Hollinger 2008). Some scholars argued that this made it easier to contemplate a future "in which the ethno-racial categories central to identity politics would be more matters of choice than ascription [ ... ] and in which economic inequalities would be confronted head-on, instead of through the medium of ethno-race" (Hollinger 2008, p. 174). Sayyid (2017) claims that the post-racial discourse has been a neoconservative argument, which suggests that belonging to a racial group ceased to be determinant in explaining socioeconomic inequalities. On a more theoretical level, other post-racial epistemologies draw on the concept of hybridity, in relation with Stuart Hall's (1992) proposal of the emergence

of "new ethnicities" and the capacity to challenge essentialist political identities and social positions based exclusively on racial experiences.

From a critical perspective, Sayyid (2017) highlights the underlying "post-racial paradox" present in the tension between a generalized disapproval of racism on the one hand, and its continued perpetuation and practice in people's everyday lives (Essed 1991) and the functioning of institutions on the other hand. According to this author, current debates sugges<sup>t</sup> that advances of the post-racial condition, that is, the questioning and deconstructing of white privilege, has been far more limited in the EU than in the US due to a less emphasized influence of the Civil Rights Movement in anti-racism (Sayyid 2017).

Lentin (2015) argues that post-racial discourse in Europe is closely related to the liberal views that the individual freedom ensured by the European democracies will automatically push racism to the margins. In addition, she suggests, present racial plurality, taken as a sign of modernity, does not invite for a deep revision of racism as a fundamental element in the formation of Europe. It may thereby be used discursively in ways that impede coming to terms with the current forms of racist practices. Due to the denial of race as "unreasonable", it paradoxically persists as a structuring logic. A general recognition of how the colonialist legacy shapes racial hierarchies in contemporary Europe would be a basic condition for the hypothetical construction of a post-racial Europe, inasmuch as European racism is rooted in centuries of colonization (Lentin 2015). As Da Costa puts it: "belonging and inclusion become fraught as the avoidance of racial difference in discourse or policy sustains rather than eradicates coloniality" (Da Costa 2016, p. 477). As a result of this contradiction, race apparently disappears "without the disappearance of its histories, meanings, and cumulative effects" (2016, p. 477). In this sense, Da Costa claims, post-racial discourse strategically depoliticizes race, racism, and difference, and thereby demobilizes anti-racist politics, cultural recognition, and material redistribution.

From an intersectional perspective, Bhopal (2018) suggests that whiteness still operates as a form of privilege, in subtle, nuanced ways. Rather than an explicit white supremacy, it is a particular kind of whiteness that is privileged and protected (Bhopal 2018). The *nonacceptable forms of whiteness* are not associated with the privileges that whiteness generally entails. For Bhopal, Roma people represent par excellence this undesirable category of non-privileged whiteness. Using a different analytical typology, we may even, as Silverstein (2005), conceive of such "non-acceptable" physically white people as being *racialized* in ways similar to non-whites, based on their migrant status and (devalued) country of origin.This would, other than the Roma, be the case for, for instance, many poor Eastern European immigrants in Western Europe. Such accounts on whiteness, implying that "not all whites are equally white", indeed adds nuances and complexity to the often taken-for-granted notion that whiteness is equal to privilege in Western societies (Lundström 2014). Within the emerging field of critical whiteness studies (Applebaum 2016), there appears to be a need to further problematize whiteness (Nayak 2007), not only in opposition to the implications of being categorized as non-white but also in terms of different forms of whiteness and their intersections with class.

A complementary approach to the study of race and racism is through the lens of international anti-racism struggles that Bhattacharyya et al. (2019) suggest. The authors make the contentious statement that "far from entering the post-racial era, we are living through times when all manner of disputes and divisions can become racialized" (Bhattacharyya et al. 2019, p. 2) and provide a historical overview of anti-racist movements. This form of political mobilisation, which initially emerged in the 18th century as uprisings against slavery, inspired by Enlightenment thought and the French Revolution, were neglected by or subordinated to the (white) workers' rights struggles in the 19th and 20th centuries (ibid). Their analysis puts the finger on how much it matters *who tell the stories*. It also makes clear that an "either or" view on the class–race binary is counterproductive, both at the analytical level and in the transformation from social analysis to social movements. In this scenario, intersectionality appears as a necessary "third way": Rather than arguing about whether race supersedes class as producer of inequality, or vice versa (Cortina Orts

2017), it enhances how race and class (and gender) are intimately interwoven and often inseparable in assessing the specific kinds of disadvantage that affect, for instance, racialized immigrants in European societies (Hellgren 2019; Crenshaw 1991). This approach to the study of racialization in Europe also highlights the importance of context: Though there are important similarities between the types of racism and discrimination affecting Black people in the US, from where CRT originated (Warmington 2020), and the experiences of immigrants in European countries, there are also differences that may be significant for our understanding of the relationship between race and class. It is our amibition that the empirical studies on racialization that are compiled in this volume will contribute to such an enhanced understanding.

#### **4. The Contributions of the Special Issue**

The articles included in this volume represent complementary perspectives that serve to deepen our understanding of how racialization reproduces otherization and hampers the social cohesion of multiethnic societies in myriad ways. All contributions provide empirically grounded accounts on how ethno-racial differentiation operates in different contexts. Covering both the macro and micro levels, they span from racialization in policy making, governance, and integration processes to self-perceived discrimination and identity construction among racialized migrants and Roma people in different European societies. Micro-level data appear particularly important in order to assess what racialization is in terms of how it is perceived by, and what it does to, the people who suffer from Appendix A.

In the following part of this introduction, we will present the contributions to our Special Issue, starting with Sebastian Carlotti. In his article "Behind the Curtain of the Border Spectacle: Introducing "Illegal" Movement through Racialized Profiling in the West African Area", he approaches the "border spectacle" that is played out at the frontiers between Europe and Africa and justified in public and political discourses by the production and reproduction of racialized and criminalized portraits of migrants.

Focus is then shifted toward**s** the (multi-level) governance of diversity in Europe at a general level, through the lens of racialization. Tina Magazzini explores how Critical Race Studies and a structural intersectionality perspective can contribute to the field of integration studies in a European context in her article "Antidiscrimination Meets Integration Policies: Exploring New Diversity-related Challenges in Europe". She raises the question of whether the US has employed these perspectives to a grea<sup>t</sup> extent while Europe has not because the contexts are in fact fundamentally different, and she argues for the need to bring race into the European context from an integration-focused perspective.

Carolin Müller draws on Kimberly Crenshaw's classical writings on intersectionality in order to examine the EU action plan against racism from a critical perspective, including, for instance, to what extent it addresses the historical baggage of European imperialism. Her article "Anti-Racism in Europe: An Intersectional Approach to the Discourse on Empowerment through the EU Anti-Racism Action Plan 2020–2025" also encompasses the role of transnational anti-racism organizations such as ENAR in advocating for such discursive forms of anti-racism.

The intersectional perspective is represented also by Colleen Boland's article, which also approaches the issue of islamophobia: "European Muslim youth and gender (in)equality discourse: Towards a more critical academic inquiry". This author applies a complex lens that incorporates the intersections between gender, class, and race in her analysis of how Muslim youth are affected by European discourses that pose contradictions between Muslim identity and gender equality, being deeply interwoven in the construction of Muslims as racialized "others".

Dan Rodríguez-García instead focuses on the case of Spain, claiming that this country represents an "exceptional laboratory for studying ethnic and race relations" given its colonial past, its rapid increase in international immigration in recent years, and the remaining marginalization of the national Roma population and other racialized groups such as black African-origin immigrants. The growing interest in Spain as context for

contemporary studies on racialization processes is also reflected by this Special Issue: No less than six of our articles approach ethnic/racial issues in Spain from different perspectives and with different empirical examples. Rodríguez-García's article "The Persistence of Racial Constructs in Spain: Bringing Race and Colorblindness into the Intercultural Debate" covers macro-level discourses on race and racialization in the country and refers to several recent studies in order to scrutinize racism in contemporary Spain. The result is a critique of the interculturalist public policies' colorblind approach, based on the argumen<sup>t</sup> that race-neutral (or "post-racial") approaches fail to address a structural racism with roots in colonialism that there indeed is reluctance to recognize at a general level.

In the rest of the articles, micro-level data from recent case studies among Roma and African migrants in southern Europe are used to provide empirical accounts on the perceptions and implications of racialization. In their article, "Racialization or 'Aporophobia'? Intersecting Discriminations in the Experiences of Non-Western Migrants and Spanish Roma", Zenia Hellgren and Lorenzo Gabrielli add the concept of "aporophobia" to the race/class debate by comparing the stigmatization based on racialization and class-related prejudices, respectively, in the otherization of Roma and non-white migrants in Spain.

Bringing back the gender perspective to the analysis, Laia Narciso then offers an intersectional analysis of the racialized experiences of the daughters of West African immigrants: the process of belonging of young women grown up in Spain, strongly conditioned by gender and class position. The author highlights that contrary to the popular beliefs, it is in key spaces of social inclusion—school and work—in which young West African women's aspirations for an independent adult life become frustrated, rather than by the control of their ethnic communities. Narciso applies the conceptual tool of "translocational positionality" (Anthias 2002) to grasp the complexity of the positionality of subjects "in the interaction of locations and dislocations of gender, ethnicity, nationality, belonging, class and racialization".

Saiba Bayo in turn plays with the Spanish/Catalan term "charnego", used as derogatory description of working-class migrants from Southern Spain to Catalonia, and applies it to African migrants as "charnegroes". In "The Charnegroes: Black Africans and the Ontological Conflict in Catalonia", he uses his ethnographic work among African-origin migrant communities in Catalonia in order to theorize on the commonalities and particularities of "Black identity".

Then, the pressing issue of how the COVID-19 pandemic affects the most vulnerable groups in societies is taken on by Olga Magano and Maria Manuela Mendes. In "Perceptions and Experiences of Racism and Discrimination in Portugal: a Case Study among Roma Secondary School Students", they sugges<sup>t</sup> to broaden the notion of racism and discrimination against Roma people in order to encompass also the authorities' neglect, or "look the other way-approach", in relation to extreme poverty and vulnerability among Roma children and youth. Discrimination, thus, is expressed also in indirect forms as through society's acceptance of highly precarious living conditions among the Roma, which would be considered unacceptable for members of the ethnic majority population.

Finally, Ismael Cortés concludes the Special Issue through his timely analysis of antigypsyist hate speech in the wake of the pandemic. He argues for the need to keep the historical construction of antigypsyism present and shows how antigypsyist discourse is also used, reproduced, and normalized by established actors such as politicians and the media, indicating that it is probably the most generally "tolerated" form of racism.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, Z.H. and B. Á.B.; methodology, Z.H. and B. Á.B.; software, not applicable, validation, Z.H. and B. Á.B.; formal analysis Z.H. and B. Á.B.; investigation, Z.H. and B. Á.B.; resources, Z.H. and B. Á.B.; data curation, not applicable.; writing—original draft preparation, Z.H. and B. Á.B.; writing—review and editing, Z.H., visualization, Z.H. and B. Á.B.; supervision, Z.H. and B. Á.B.; project administration, not applicable.; funding acquisition, not applicable. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding. **Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.

**Data Availability Statement:** Not applicable.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

#### **Appendix A. Presenting the Authors**

**Saiba Bayo** is a PhD candidate in political philosophy and philosophy of film at the Pompeu Fabra University. He holds a BA in Political Science and Public Management from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and a Master's degree in Political Philosophy at Pompeu Fabra University. His research is focused on gender and emancipation within the oeuvre of the Senegalese novelist and filmmaker Ousmane Sembène's work. He coordinates and teaches the postgraduate course "Introduction to postcolonial theories and black African Cultural Studies" at the Pompeu Fabra University.

**Bálint Ábel Bereményi**, PhD in Social Anthropology, is currently a Marie S. Curie Research Fellow (MSCA-IF) at Central European University's Democracy Institute (CEU/DI). His main research interests focus on ethnic minorities (Roma/Gypsy), children/youth, and social inequalities mostly in the domains of education and the labour market. He teaches Anthropology in BA and MA programs, supervises Master's theses and doctoral dissertations, and has been a visiting teacher in several European universities. His articles have been published in *Ethnic and Racial Studies*, the *British Journal of Sociology of Education*, *Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education*, and *Intercultural Education*, among others.

**Colleen Boland** holds an MA in Near and Middle Eastern Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and a PhD in Sociology and Anthropology from the Complutense University of Madrid, specializing in migration studies. She has served as Managing Editor of the international quarterly *International Journal of Health Services* and as Research Manager at the Common Action Forum. Currently, she is a postdoctoral researcher at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, working on the European Commission Horizon 2020 ITFLOWS (IT Tools and Methods for Managing Migration Flows) project, where one of her roles includes co-leading the Gender Committee. Her research interests include diversity management, hybrid identity, and migrant agency, with specific reference to populations residing in Europe.

**Sebastian Carlotti** is a PhD Student at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the University of Pisa and at the AISSR of the University of Amsterdam. In 2017, Sebastian graduated at SOAS, University of London, with a Master of Science degree in Migration, Mobility and Development by writing his dissertation on the consequences of European border externalization policies on sub-Saharan migrants in West Africa. Previously, he obtained his bachelor's degree in International Relations and Political Science at the University of Pisa with a thesis on the development of policies to contrast gender-based violence in refugee camps. Among his research interests is the study of the selective and differentiating characteristics of migration policies. In particular, his focus lies on the evolution of restrictive visa policies and their securitized impact on migration patterns and habits. Currently, Sebastian is a member of the UBIQUAL research centre of the University of Pisa.

**Ismael Cortés** is currently a member of the Spanish parliament. He has been a lecturer at the UNESCO Chair of Philosophy for Peace, Jaume I University (Spain), where he gained his PhD on international conflicts and social development studies with an international award. In 2018, he was a postdoctoral fellow of the Romani Studies Program at the Central European University. Together with Markus End, he edited the book *Dimensions of Antigypsyism in Europe* (ENAR and Central Council of German Sinti and Roma 2019).

**Lorenzo Gabrielli** is Senior Researcher at GRITIM (Interdisciplinary Research Group on Immigration) at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona (Spain). Actually, he participates in the AGREP project on Antigypsyism and Discrimination. His research covers migration dynamics and policies in the Euro-African space, borders and bordering processes both at the internal and international levels, as well as othering and racialization processes, among other topics. He has participated in several international research projects (Vakeripen, Disaporalink, Medimurs, Interact, Mipmue, Garnet). He has also been a visiting researcher at the IEMed (European Institute of the Mediterranean) and the United Nations University— Institute on Globalization, Culture and Mobility, and he has collaborated with the ITC-ILO, CIDOB, MPC-EUI, Oxfam-Intermón, CCAR-CEAR, Jaume Bofill Foundation, EUNOMAD network, and MhiC, among others. He regularly collaborates with Irenia-Jocs de Pau developing and conducting workshops on identities in schools.

**Zenia Hellgren** is a political sociologist and senior migration/diversity scholar at GRITIM-UPF (The Interdisciplinary Research Group on Immigration), Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), Barcelona (Spain), where she also teaches political and social theory at the Master and undergraduate levels, for instance, the course "Diversity, Discrimination and Citizenship". Currently, she is the Principal Investigator of the EU-funded research-action project AGREP (Action program for effective reporting of anti-gypsyism and discrimination). Her main research areas involve inclusion/exclusion, intersectionality, and agency of immigrants and racialized groups in European societies, with a particular focus on discrimination. Her recently concluded research project REPCAT, funded by a Marie S. Curie individual fellowship, examined diversity managemen<sup>t</sup> in Catalan public institutions, suggesting that the representation of ethnic diversity is necessary for democratic legitimacy. She has published her research in the *Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies*, *Ethnic and Racial Studies*, *International Migration Review*, the *Journal of Intercultural Studies*, *Social Politics*, and the *Journal of European Social Policy*, among others.

**Olga Magano** is a sociologist and Assistant Professor at the Open University, Department of Social Sciences and Management, Lisbon. She holds a PhD in Sociology and a Master in Intercultural Relations from Open University and graduated in Sociology from the Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto. She is currently also a researcher at the ISCTE-University Institute of Lisbon, Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology (CIES-IUL). Since the late 1990s, she has been involved in research on the integration and exclusion of Roma/Ciganos in Portugal and has participated in several research projects and publications alone or with others authors, such as: "Tracing normal lives: between stigma and the will to be Cigano in Social Identities", Olga Magano (2016); "National Study of Roma/ Ciganos communities (2014)", with Maria Manuela Mendes and Pedro Candeias; "School pathways and economic practices of Portuguese Ciganos: some continuities and changes" in *Social Identities* (2016), with Maria Manuela Mendes, among several other texts published in Portuguese and English. She is also a full member of the Romani Studies network, a Member of the Portuguese Association of Sociology, and a Member of the Gypsy Lore Society.

**Tina Magazzini** is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute (Florence, Italy). Her research interests involve the tension between redistribution, recognition, and representation; identity politics; intersectionality; Critical Race Theory; comparative analysis; visual narratives and methodologies; and the relationship between majorities, minorities, and states. She holds a PhD in Human Rights (University of Deusto, Marie Curie fellowship), an MA in International Relations (CCNY), and a BA in Political Science and International Studies (University of Florence). Her work was awarded the Weston Scholarship for Public Service by the City College of New York (2011), the Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship by the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research (2016), the Social Impact Award by the Marie Curie Alumni Association, and the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Seal of Excellence (2018). Outside academia, over the past years she has worked with a number of research institutes, NGOs, UN agencies, the European Commission, and the Council of Europe in the United States, Guatemala, Belgium, Hungary, the Basque Country, and Zimbabwe.

**Maria Manuela Mendes** is a sociologist and Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Lisbon (FAUL). She completed her PhD in Social Sciences at the Institute of Social Sciences University of Lisbon in 2007 and is currently a fellow researcher at the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology Institute University of Lisbon (CIES-IUL). She is also a member at the Centre for Research Architecture, Urban Planning and Design (CIAUD, FAUL) and at the Institute of Sociology Faculty of Arts of Porto (ISFLUP). Her main lines of research focus on issues related to ethnicity, immigration, Roma/Ciganos, city and diversity, racism, social and spatial exclusion, and relocation and disqualified territories.

**Carolin Müller** is a faculty member at the Media Center at the Technical University Dresden, coordinating the international PhD program "Education & Technology". She was selected as a fellow to the Martin Buber Society of Fellows in 2021. She holds a PhD and an M.A. in German Studies from The Ohio State University and an M.Ed. in English and Art Studies from the Technical University Dresden. Her research is informed by critical theory in citizenship and migration studies, critical race theory, and performance studies. She looks at creative acts of citizenship through music, film, and the arts. She also works on recent activist movements, the politics of migrancy, as well as representations of oppression and flight in Germany. Her work has been published by *on\_culture*, *textpraxis*, *Crossings: Journal of Migration & Culture*, *Activist History Review*, and *Border Criminologies*.

**Dan Rodríguez-García** is Serra H únter Associate Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology and Director of the Research Group on Immigration, Mixedness, and Social Cohesion (INMIX) at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain. His areas of research are international migration, ethnoracial relations, and the social integration processes of immigrants, minorities, and their descendants, with a particular focus on mixedness (couples, families, and individuals across national, ethnocultural, racial, religious, or class boundaries), a phenomenon that exposes social boundaries and that is key to the study of social categories, identity processes, discrimination, and social transformation. His most recent work has appeared in *The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science* (also acting as Guest Editor), the *Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies* (also acting as Guest Editor), *Ethnicities*, the *Journal of Intercultural Studies*, and the *Journal of International Migration and Integration*. He is currently the PI of the funded R&D project "Social Relations and Identity Processes of Children of Mixed Unions: Mixedness, Between Inclusion and Social Constraints (MIXED\_YOUTH). Dan is a regular participant in training and knowledge transfer activities regarding immigration and diversity issues for different governmen<sup>t</sup> institutions, associations, and the media.
