The European Roma and Their Securitization: Contexts, Junctures, Challenges

Constructed and represented as a threat, whether in the context of their intra-EU migration or their over-representation as beneficiaries of welfare and development programmes in times of neoliberalization, the Roma are increasingly governed through security policies in Europe. After a brief incursion into the theorization of securitization in critical security studies, van Baar, Ivasiuc, and Kreide chart the theoretical and empirical intersections between securitization and mobility, marketization, development, and visuality, to depict the complex situation of Roma minorities in Europe and the challenges they face in the current sociopolitical landscape. As the chapters of this volume demonstrate, the Roma are increasingly excluded through particular border, citizenship, market, development, and visual regimes, yet they increasingly seek ways to exert their agency and challenge their securitization.