The Politics Around Romani Migration: European and National Perspectives
2019.The Routledge Companion to Migration, Communication, and Politics (eds. Stephen M Croucher, Joao R. Caetano, Elsa A. Campbell), Routledge.
Approximately a decade ago, Frank Furedi (2005) stated that contemporary politics is often reduced to risk management by treating people as vulnerable subjects in need of protection; thus, one of the main approaches of different political authorities across the left–right spectrum is the politics of fear. Since the turn of the millennium, the approach of the politics of fear has been particularly visible in the way different states govern migration. This approach became securitized (Huysmans, 2006) in the cases of migrants belonging to unwanted populations such as Muslims, certain asylum seekers, or even economic migrants. All of these populations fall under the societal trope of what Bauman calls “strangers at our door”(Bauman, 2016). While migration is certainly one of the realities of this age, the politics around migration surpass the frame of this reality. It is also present in the cases where migration numbers are low, but the perceived risk connected to such migration is high (Carens, 2009). This chapter highlights one such instance of the politics around migration: politics connected to the management and governance of mobility of the most marginalized minority in Europe: Romani migrants from different European countries.