In this lecture, Professor West Ohueri explores the contours of antiziganism, conceptualized as racism and prejudice against Romani people groups, in Albania and the Balkan region. Part one of the presentation considers the theoretical framings of antiziganism and asks how analyses of antiblackness can allow scholars to think through contemporary manifestations of antiziganism in the Balkan region. Part two of the presentation explores whiteness in relation to antiziganism and antiblackness. In doing so, Professor West Ohueri draws attention to the ways that Albanians have been racialized and othered as outcasts and outsiders both within Europe and the Balkans, and asks how this broadly shapes our understandings of whiteness and regional racialization.
Chelsi West Ohueri is Assistant Professor of Slavic and Eurasian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.
The lecture will be livestreamed at https://utexas.zoom.us/j/91254449072
This lecture series is a collaborative effort to showcase an area studies specialist from each center focusing on the Russian, East European, and Central Asian world region. The series is sponsored by the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University; the Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley; the Russian, East European & Eurasian Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; the Russian and East European Institute at Indiana University; the Center for Russian, East European, & Eurasian Studies at the University of Michigan; the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies at The University of Texas at Austin; the Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center at Indiana University; the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies at the University of Pittsburgh; the Center for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia at the University of Wisconsin - Madison; the Center for East European and Russian/Eurasian Studies at The University of Chicago; and the Center for Slavic and East European Studies at The Ohio State University.