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<p>This text brings into analytical focus the workings of whiteness within the politics regarding Ukrainian refugees in two neighboring countries, Austria and Czechia. This comparison aims to contextualize various racial hierarchies in which Ukrainian refugees are embedded, and to connect public discourses translated by mass media and critically accepted by scholars and experts with the personal experience of refugees and those recruited to help them in reception centers. We follow the layering and conversion of racial hierarchies through examining three interrelated realms of public policy: (1) the conflation of illiberal and liberal populisms concerning the Russian invasion and the subsequent refugee movements in the discursive practices of leading politicians and those responsible for refugee politics; (2) the intersectionality of gender, class, and race as a locus of control over Ukrainian women, who comprise the majority of those fleeing the country; and (3) elaborating an extreme case of forging whiteness, within the overt and covert racist practices concerning Ukrainian Romani refugees. To conclude, we discuss possible directions for future research that apply critical whiteness studies for understanding how racial hierarchies design public politics concerning refugees, and what can be done to minimize the injustices determined by whiteness.</p>
</abstract>

This text brings into analytical focus the workings of whiteness within the politics regarding Ukrainian refugees in two neighboring countries, Austria and Czechia. This comparison aims to contextualize various racial hierarchies in which Ukrainian refugees are embedded, and to connect public discourses translated by mass media and critically accepted by scholars and experts with the personal experience of refugees and those recruited to help them in reception centers. We follow the layering and conversion of racial hierarchies through examining three interrelated realms of public policy: (1) the conflation of illiberal and liberal populisms concerning the Russian invasion and the subsequent refugee movements in the discursive practices of leading politicians and those responsible for refugee politics; (2) the intersectionality of gender, class, and race as a locus of control over Ukrainian women, who comprise the majority of those fleeing the country; and (3) elaborating an extreme case of forging whiteness, within the overt and covert racist practices concerning Ukrainian Romani refugees. To conclude, we discuss possible directions for future research that apply critical whiteness studies for understanding how racial hierarchies design public politics concerning refugees, and what can be done to minimize the injustices determined by whiteness.

The Ukrainian Refugee “Crisis” and the (Re)production of Whiteness in Austrian and Czech Public Politics

Journal of Nationalism, Memory & Language Politics

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

This text brings into analytical focus the workings of whiteness within the politics regarding Ukrainian refugees in two neighboring countries, Austria and...

The Ukrainian Refugee “Crisis” and the (Re)production of Whiteness in Austrian and Czech Public Politics

Published Online: Dec 05, 2022

Page range: 104 - 130

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jnmlp-2022-0011

Keywords
Whiteness, Anti-Roma discrimination, racial hierarchy, liberal nationalism

© 2022 Victoria Shmidt et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The Ukrainian Refugee “Crisis” and the (Re)production of Whiteness in Austrian and Czech Public Politics

Published Online: Dec 05, 2022

Page range: 104 - 130

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jnmlp-2022-0011

KeywordsWhiteness, Anti-Roma discrimination, racial hierarchy, liberal nationalism

© 2022 Victoria Shmidt et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Keywords
Whiteness, Anti-Roma discrimination, racial hierarchy, liberal nationalism