Insidious Whiteness in Eastern Europe: Environmental Injustice and Dehumanisation in a Roma Community

Abstract

Even in Eastern Europe, whiteness organises space, race, class and environmental justice research. Inspired by whiteness theory,we draw on a case of environmental injustice affecting the Roma community of Dăroaia—a segregated neighbourhood in RoșiaMontană—in the context of the mining conflict over the eponymous gold mine. We analyse how whiteness as ‘gadjoness’ dehu-manises Roma communities through institutionalised mundane practices of spatial and discursive exclusion. Whiteness operatesas an insidious power relation, which we set about to expose. Following a historical approach to racial exploitation in EasternEurope and analysing 31 interviews with local actors, we apply a reflexive methodology to question the constitution of race andwhiteness in Romania. Our results show how socio-environmental injustice is reproduced through racism and whiteness, isinscribed in space and normalised through racist institutional practices, but is also exposed and challenged by Roma agency.