Invincible racism? The misuse of genetically informed arguments against Roma in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

In this article, we challenge the idea that the development and the dissemination of scientific knowledge about Roma can be understood as “Eastern” or “Western.” Instead, we argue that the classical division between “science” and “pseudoscience” has the potential to fuel scientific racism and political and social exclusion across the globe. We narrate, for the first time, the role of sociobiology in the development of Roma “race science,” highlighting the ways in which its networks are developed and maintained. These specific mechanisms underlying the production of knowledge and its social and ideological effects may have further applications, such as the spread of mis- and dis-information. Our intent is to examine the attempts to deconstruct sociobiology and its application to Roma, by focusing on the effect of selective awareness among critics of sociobiology, which inevitably leads to the use of epistemic filters and heightens the risk of producing epistemic injustice. This article was published open access under a CC BY licence: https://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0 .