Grigoreva K. S. (2024) Racial Profiling of Roma: Operation «Tabor» as an Unintended Result of the Politicization of Child Neglect and Securitizing Practice. Monitoring of Public Opinion: Economic and Social Changes. No. 2. P. 96–115. https: ...

Òåêñò ñòàòüè íà ñàéòå æóðíàëà URL: https://monitoringjournal.ru/index.php/monitoring/article/view/2477/1872 (äàòà îáðàùåíèÿ 20.05.2024)

Abstract

This article attempts to move beyond traditional approaches to the study of racial profiling by placing it in the context of securitization studies. To over­come the contradictions existing within this scientific direction, the author uses approach proposed by Pierre Bourdieu, according to which the performative (a key concept in the theory of securitiza­tion) is considered as a manifestation of symbolic power. The author shows that ethnically selec­tive policing can be analyzed as a com­plex of securitizing practices that gener­ate derivative securitizing discourses. To confirm this, the author conducts a case study of racial profiling of Roma. The em­pirical basis of the study was more than 3,000 documents containing official or­ders and reports on anti-Roma raids, as well as calls to the population to be vig­ilant against Roma. The analysis made it possible to establish that all-Rus­sian anti-Gypsy raids were an unintend­ed consequence of steps to securitize child homelessness and neglect taken by major political players at the turn of 2001/2002. The proliferation and institutionalization of anti-Roma activities were possible  due to the favorable or neutral reaction of most audiences observing the unfold­ing securitizing practices. The routinization of anti-Roma raids has led to the fact that they are now per­ceived as something common and un­problematized, although this practice is clearly a type of ethnic discrimination and goes beyond the scope of «normal politics». At the same time, participants in anti-Ro­ma events, having internalized the per­ception of Roma as a source of threat and legitimate suspicion, unreflective­ly replicate securitizing discourses that mark the Roma population as a danger­ous and unreliable group, upon meet­ing which citizens of a different ethnic­ity should take precautions or contact the police.