Decentring Race: The Politics of Welcoming Ukrainians in Romania

Using Romania as a case study, and drawing on fifty-one interviews with civil society stakeholders, community activists, and Romanian state officials, and twenty-five interviews with international students who were in Ukraine at the time of the invasion, Decentring Race complicates the story that singles out race. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 and people began to flee the country, the hospitality of neighbouring countries towards Ukrainians was set in stark contrast to their reluctance to accommodate refugees from Africa and the Middle East. Critics suggested that Europe was treating refugees from Ukraine better than those from the Global South, and attributed this difference to race. Using Romania as a case study, and drawing on fifty-one interviews with civil society stakeholders, community activists, and Romanian state officials, and twenty-five interviews with international students who were in Ukraine at the time of the invasion, Decentring Race complicates the story that singles out race as the primary factor in the categorization of refugees as either deserving or undeserving. Alongside nationality, ethnicity, religion, class, gender, and local racial politics, it brings to the fore geopolitical realities and the bipartite EU-Ukraine legislative framework as factors that shaped the granting of transnational mobility rights.