COVID-19 has played out in Romania in a similar way to that in many other European countries. The government implemented decisive early measures which were able to keep the infection and mortality rates relatively low. This paper considers three distinctive aspects of the situation in Romania. First, the situation was complicated by the influence of transnational migrant workers, large numbers of whom returned to Romania when the pandemic started, accounting for distinct geographical variations in the rates of infection. At the same time, large numbers were able to leave the country at the height of the pandemic because they were "needed" for lowpaid agricultural/social care work in western European countries. Second, the pandemic placed tension on Romania's relationship with the EU, whilst highlighting a number of existing issues between Romania and its neighbors. Third, Romania's strict lockdown measures exacerbated long-standing internal tensions, particularly with regard to the large and marginalized Roma community. The paper concludes by considering some of the possible longer-term implications for Romania of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Post‐communist Central and Eastern Europe has seen far right movements and parties gain considerable ground by drawing on nativist and ethnic claims to call for a return to an imagined past. In Romania, far right groups have been able to capitalize on a sense of injustice while also playing on historically negative feelings towards the Roma community. These patterns have been observed in Timişoara, where the group Noua Dreaptă (New Right) has established a foothold over the past decade by emphasizing claims that blame the Roma for loss of built heritage and corruption in the administration of property restitution. The aims of this article are to examine the emergence of Noua Dreaptă and its use of Roma stigmatization, and to consider the ways in which extreme views are normalized by appealing to beliefs and perceptions. The findings of the article show that pre‐existing prejudices can be a powerful force that not only targets marginalized communities, but also challenges administrative practices and builds organizational support. At the level of the city, it is possible to identify the way in which these claims can be more precisely calibrated to draw on concerns that circulate within the community.

This paper examines the role of education within post-communist transitional justice. It focuses on the ways in which young Romanians negotiate the communist past during an educational visit to a memorial museum. The museum enabled these visitors to better understand the repression of the communist era, had limited impact in changing their attitudes towards communism, but it did provoke reflection upon and comparison between the present and the communist past. Visitors recognized the role of the museum as a site of memory within post-communist transitional justice, but were also critically aware of the limitations to what the museum could achieve. The implications of these findings for post-communist transitional justice are examined.

Recent research in segregated areas has shown that Romani people are marginalised in Central Eastern Europe and that desegregation has become an important part of the agenda in local development policy-making. This paper aims to push forward this issue and to better understand how Roma living in segregated urban areas relate to the places and communities in which they live. The research therefore links the particular field of Romani Studies to wider developments in the social sciences, and especially to global debates on insecure/informal housing and (neo-)ghettoisation, by ascertaining how Roma people's personal attachment to place functions as a basis for their everyday activities in the ghetto and surrounding area(s). The analysis is based on a participatory action research (PAR) process carried out in Szeged, Hungary, with local scholar-activists, Roma representatives and Roma families living in local segregated spaces. The findings suggest that the world of Roma in segregated neighbourhoods is characterised by a strong feeling of place attachment fundamentally shaped by social relations and the features of those neighbourhoods, but certain centripetal forces alienate inhabitants from these spaces. This is important because existing place attachment to segregated Roma communities as a living environment is a contradictory situation for the affected Roma, which is characterised by "dual bonds": traditional relationships based on strong bonding capital and reciprocity still exist and represent significant material and emotional support for families and the places they inhabit, while at the same time communities are becoming more fragmented, with the most marginalised often being excluded from this "net of space protection." K E Y W O R D SParticipatory Action Research (PAR), place attachment, segregation, Szeged, urban Roma