On 11–12 May 2026, the ROCIT team gathered in Prague for its fifth whole-team meeting, bringing together researchers, collaborators, and invited guests for two days of intensive discussion, reflection, and collective work. Hosted at the Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, the meeting provided a valuable opportunity to strengthen collaboration across the project while advancing work on the forthcoming ROCIT book manuscript.
The meeting opened with a public lecture by Professor Čarna Brković (University of Mainz), who presented her thought-provoking talk “Realigning Humanitarianism in the Balkans: From Cold War Politics to Neoliberal Ethics.” Drawing on her research into humanitarianism, socialism, and alternative forms of worldmaking, Brković offered important insights that resonated strongly with many of the themes explored within ROCIT.
A central focus of the meeting was the Work-in-Progress workshop dedicated to the project’s collective book. Across four thematic sessions, team members presented draft chapters addressing the experiences of Ukrainian Roma displaced by the war, questions of citizenship and belonging, institutional racism, educational trajectories, feminist resistance, youth mobility, and racialised exclusion in refugee reception systems. The workshop format fostered constructive engagement through the contributions of rapporteurs and discussants, whose critical reflections helped strengthen the chapters and deepen collective thinking about the project’s core themes.
We are also deeply grateful to our external guests and discussants whose expertise enriched the conversations throughout the workshop. Particular thanks go to Čarna Brković, Jan Grill, Helena Sadílková, Yasar Abu Ghosh, Petra Ezzeddine, Sarah Edgcumbe, and Diána Vonnák for their thoughtful comments, critical engagement, and generous feedback on the book chapters under discussion.
Beyond the formal sessions, the meeting offered valuable space for informal exchanges, future planning, and reflection on the next stages of the project. The closing discussion focused on upcoming publications, project developments, and shared priorities for the months ahead, reaffirming the team’s commitment to producing innovative research on unequal citizenship, mobility, and the experiences of Roma communities in the context of the war in Ukraine.
