Colour-blind institutional racism: the reception of Roma refugees from Ukraine as a case study

In the months following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, more than one million Ukrainian refugees fled to Germany, including members of the Roma minority. Shortly after the first arrivals, reports of antiziganist discrimination emerged. In Munich, an important arrival destination, these concerned the segregation of Roma migrants in initial reception centres, the withholding of services and the open rejection of Roma groups by neighbouring municipalities. Arnold and Neuburger’s article uses ethnographic research to understand the attitudes and structural conditions that facilitated this kind of discrimination. It analyses whether this discrimination can be perceived as a form of institutionally enabled racism and—if so—how it was enabled. Through qualitative interviews with administrative staff, social workers, community organizations and volunteers at initial reception centres, the authors identify three different approaches regarding the arrival of Roma refugees: a ‘problematizing’ approach; a ‘colour-blind’ approach; and a ‘discrimination-sensitive’ approach. Drawing on the example of Ukrainian Roma refugees in Munich, Arnold and Neuberger illustrate the interlinking of two sets of practices: a racially biased application of rules at the level of everyday institutional practice; and a supposedly race-neutral strategy at the level of administrative decision-making. In effect, these practices institutionally perpetuate a structure of race-based inequality and enable a form of colour-blind racism.