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Papers by Simina Dragoş

Sociology Compass, 2024

This paper addresses two calls emerging out of Sociological theory—against methodological nationa... more This paper addresses two calls emerging out of Sociological theory—against methodological nationalism and methodological whiteness—in relation to the study of nations, nation-states and nationalisms. Building on Meghji's synergy of decolonial and race critical theory, I propose a historicized and globalized analysis of nationalisms and the nation-state which can respond to these calls whilst also being attentive to the nation-state and nationalism as sites of violence. I insist upon the importance of understanding ‘race’ and coloniality as foundational aspects to the emergence and functioning of nationalisms and nation-states. I do so based on the empirical case of the nation-state Romania and Romanian nationalism, what I call a ‘colonial gray zone’. I argue: (1) that modern colonialism and imperialism shaped the emergence of nation-states and that, as a result, coloniality shapes the functioning of nation-states and nationalisms; (2) that modern/colonial ‘race’ is central to the emergence and operation of nation-states and nationalisms. Ultimately, I urge those concerned with the study of nations, nation-states and nationalisms to shift their analytical tools towards coloniality and racism, and the scholarship and struggles against them.

Current Sociology, 2024

This article traces the mainstreaming of the idea that there is a ‘free speech crisis’ in the Uni... more This article traces the mainstreaming of the idea that there is a ‘free speech crisis’ in the United Kingdom, from its emergence in the 2010s to the Free Speech Act of 2023. We argue that ‘free speech’ is initially constructed during this period in opposition to an imagined ‘uncivilised’, ‘external’ Muslim other. However, by the end of the 2010s, the threat to ‘free speech’ is imagined as much more widespread, and as coming from ‘inside the West’, where a new enemy is identified alongside the ‘uncivilised Muslim’: the ‘woke’, censorious ‘snowflake’. This new enemy of free speech is cast in populist terms: as part of an illegitimate elite or proto-elite. This discursive shift occurs, on our account, because the rhetoric of a ‘free speech crisis’ paradoxically becomes an increasingly powerful way for right-wing political actors to deny political legitimacy to those opposed to their political positions. By locating those opposed to them as against the incontrovertible Western Enlightenment good of ‘free speech’ itself, these right-wing actors racialise the speech of others as ‘uncivilised’ and therefore outside of politics in a way that silences critique.

British Journal of Sociology, 2024

In this article we analyse the constructed ‘free speech crisis’ associated with higher education ... more In this article we analyse the constructed ‘free speech crisis’ associated with higher education (HE) in the United Kingdom (UK). We examine the media discourses from 2012 to 2022 which led to the establishment of a sense of crisis around speech in universities and, ultimately, to the Freedom of Speech Act in May 2023. We undertake a critical discourse analysis focused on the constructions of universities and university students in two major right-wing broadsheet newspapers, The Times and The Telegraph, and in the right-wing magazine The Spectator. We conceptualise the ‘free speech crisis’ as a discursive formation which is part of broader political efforts of conservative elites to maintain hegemony in Britain. Drawing on populism theory and race critical analyses, we argue that the ‘free speech crisis’ is an expression of racial liberalism and a placeholder for a deeper white anxiety over the social reproduction of elites in university spaces, and thus over (cultural) hegemony in the public sphere. We understand the desire to regulate ‘free’ speech in HE as an effort to prevent the emergence of an elite and (counter)hegemony different to the status quo. We make contributions to two emergent and interrelating bodies of literature: firstly, the study of populism in (post)Brexit Britain, and secondly, the study of culture wars, including iterations of the ‘free speech crisis’ and ‘the war on woke’.

Critical Romani Studies, 2022

In this article I explore the responses of Romani students in a segregated school in Romania to m... more In this article I explore the responses of Romani students in a segregated school in Romania to majoritarian deficit narratives constructed about them, investigating the specific nature of such deficit discourses and the specific strategies of resistance deployed by the students. To do so, I designed a theoretical framework which fused elements of Foucauldian and Critical Race Theory (CRT). The case study was underpinned by principles of in-depth critical qualitative research, explicitly addressing the racial, political and systemic nature of educational inequalities in Romania. I spent two weeks in a segregated secondary school, in which Romani students were tracked into Romani-only class groups. I observed 12 lessons and interviewed three white Romanian teachers and 11 Romani students. The findings suggested that teachers mobilized deficit discourses about Romani families, culture, cognitive abilities, and potential, reflected in their pedagogical strategies and justifications of Romani students’ ‘school failure’. Students resisted such assumptions through counterstorytelling, naming oppression, class disruption, and refusal of the ‘rules of schooling’, such as homework. I argue that this resistance highlights Romani students’ critical thinking and agency. Among others, the findings indicate the need for urgent change in Romanian teacher training and educational policy.

Book Reviews by Simina Dragoş

Ethnic Studies Review, 2021

British Journal of Educational Studies , 2023