This lecture will explore the different ways anti-Roma racism manifests across Europe and its effects on the lives, well-being, and health of Roma people. I argue that, although these manifestations may seem unrelated, sporadic, or even chaotic at first glance, they form a consistent machinery of structural racism.
About the speaker: Dr. Margareta (Magda) Matache is a Lecturer on Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and the co-founder and Director of the Roma Program at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard University. She is also a member of the O’Neill-Lancet Commission on Racism, Structural Discrimination and Global Health. Dr. Matache’s research focuses on the manifestations and impacts of racism and other systems of oppression in different geographical and political contexts. Her research examines discrimination, reparations, social determinants of health—including education and social and economic disparities—and their nexus with the historical past and contemporary public policies, with a particular focus on anti-Roma racism.