Proud to share our team’s participation in this year’s RUTA Conference, in Uzhorod (hosted by Uzhorod National University), 26–29 June 2025. The theme of this year’s gathering was: Imagination: New Visions and Connections – a truly inspiring gathering of critical voices, collaborative knowledge, and visions for more just futures.
One of the highlights was the plenary panel “Romani visions for the future”, moderated by Tereza Hendl, with contributions from Tetiana Storozko, Volodymyr Yakovenko, and online participation of Zola Kondur and Stephan Müller.
Tetiana’s intervention was especially powerful: she reminded us that collecting testimonies of displaced Ukrainian Roma today is not only urgent but essential for the future of communities. She drew a poignant historical parallel – testimonies of Romani survivors of WWII were recorded far too late, leaving war trauma unacknowledged and passed down across generations. A lesson we must not repeat.
📺 You can rewatch this important discussion here: link
We were also proud to contribute with the panel proposed by Kamila Fiałkowska and Oleksandra Tarkhanova (University of St Gallen): “Limits to Citizenship and Unequal Citizenship Constellations in the Context of Forced Migration and Displacement.” This session explored the profound inequalities within citizenship that have become particularly visible in the context of the war in Ukraine.
🔹Oleksandra Tarkhanova examined how internal displacement in Ukraine since 2014 has disrupted people’s sense of full citizenship and belonging. While IDPs remain legally citizens, they often face regimes that marginalize them socially and bureaucratically. Oleksandra showed how displaced persons respond to these disruptions: some normalize displacement, others instrumentalize it in dealings with the state, but all struggle to reaffirm belonging in the face of hierarchies that privilege some citizens while sidelining others. Her recent fieldwork reveals that post-2022, citizenship constellations have become even more complex, shaped by new axes of privilege and discrimination.
🔹 Kamila Fiałkowska shed light on how antigypsyism shapes the experiences of Ukrainian Roma refugees in Poland. Roma face the layered exclusions of being both refugees and members of a historically marginalized minority. Despite these obstacles, Polish Roma actively contest marginalization by enacting citizenship through claiming rights, resisting structural exclusion, and engaging in transnational advocacy to suppprt Ukrainian Roma in Poland. Their interventions remind us that while systems may constrain, Roma communities continue to carve out spaces of agency and push for equitable access to support.
🔹 Ignacy Jóźwiak, Rada Kalandiia & Yulian Kondur addressed the issue of documentation and uneven citizenship among Ukrainian Roma. Many Roma lack birth certificates, IDs, or passports – documents that are crucial for registering as displaced, accessing support, or moving across borders. This absence is not incidental but tied to structural antigypsyism and long-standing neglect. In wartime, the consequences are devastating: without documents, many cannot secure rights or mobility. Yet, as the panelists highlighted, community-led efforts to obtain documentation are themselves acts of citizenship – practices of claiming recognition, rights, and dignity in the face of systemic exclusion.
Together, these contributions reveal that citizenship is not a flat or equal terrain. It is fragmented, racialized, and deeply contested – but also continuously reimagined by those excluded from its promises. By bringing together insights from Ukraine, Poland, and beyond, the panel illuminated how inequalities are reproduced, but also how communities respond with resilience, resistance, and vision.
We leave the RUTA Conference proud of these contributions, inspired by the exchange, and committed to continuing the conversation on justice, belonging, and Roma futures.