ABSTRACT

This chapter seeks to engage with the new politics of racialisation which have developed in France over the last ten years by focusing on the ‘Roma’ as ethnographic snapshot of how the state constructs new social categories which racialise public discourse and policies. The ethnography of the Roma in France provides a window into the debate on the complex and changing nature of the nation state against the background of globalisation, deterritorialisation and the fear of mobility. The chapter argues that a complex and multilevel process of re-nationalisation and securitisation has taken place, which has led to a rise in racist discourse and hate crimes against groups which are defined as non-territorial. The Roma encapsulate this new politics of racialisation.