“The Facebook is a state of Roma”: Negotiating identities, building communities, and belongingness online among Roma in the Czech Republic

Abstract

This article examines social media as a site for identity negotiation and community building among Roma in the Czech Republic. As Roma are continually denied authority over the construction of their identities, their Czech-ness, claim to physical spaces, and generally made to feel that they do not belong—both in the material and symbolic sense—this article examines how individual activists and community organizers utilize media as a resource to combat spatial alienation. This ethnographic study pays close attention to the cultivation of community through Facebook groups, the utilization of groups and event pages to organize, and the affordances and challenges of moving online efforts offline. At the same time, this article explores tensions and contradictions of these digital spaces that may involve issues like the lack of resources and the fragmentation of community—and of communal space—by such variables as age, language, and technological access and literacy. Ultimately, this article suggests that social media may embody both emotional and material places manifesting as additional/alternative places to negotiate identities and belonging for Roma in the Czech Republic. The findings of this research carry important implications for those with complicated relationships to home(lands), including geographically displaced people.

Digital transformation social spaces of Romanians and Moldovans in Berlin

“…Furthermore, Sreenivasan et al (2017: 106) suggest that mobile phones allow Sri Lankan refugees to keep dialogue open while they 'create a virtual community for the refugees, to some extent replacing the physical community they left behind'. And, for Czech Roma, 'the online place becomes a site for collaboration, activism, and ultimately, a place of resistance', and 'spaces for organizing and identity', in the context of marginalisation (Hatef 2022).…”

"I Do Love an Evil, Bisexual Monster”: Young, Queer New Zealanders’ Engagement with Contemporary Lesbian Horror Media

“…TV was seen as a powerful tool, but the nature of that power was regarded as volatile. On one side, TV can be a site for identity navigation and the production of a sense of belonging (Hatef 2021). Bringing up queerness and television with my participants prompted discussions of self-discovery forged through a relationship to queer horror media, with several recounting how media helped them discover their sexuality.…”