COVID-19 has played out in Romania in a similar way to that in many other European countries. The government implemented decisive early measures which were able to keep the infection and mortality rates relatively low. This paper considers three distinctive aspects of the situation in Romania. First, the situation was complicated by the influence of transnational migrant workers, large numbers of whom returned to Romania when the pandemic started, accounting for distinct geographical variations in the rates of infection. At the same time, large numbers were able to leave the country at the height of the pandemic because they were “needed” for low-paid agricultural/social care work in western European countries. Second, the pandemic placed tension on Romania’s relationship with the EU, whilst highlighting a number of existing issues between Romania and its neighbors. Third, Romania’s strict lockdown measures exacerbated long-standing internal tensions, particularly with regard to the large and marginalized Roma community. The paper concludes by considering some of the possible longer-term implications for Romania of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Roma discrimination and stigmatization in Europe are well‐documented, with urban scholars emphasizing pervasive prejudices and stereotypes alongside negative policy outcomes. However, the focus on Roma marginality has tended to centre on punitive state and urban governance to the neglect of everyday urban relations. In this article we focus on the micro manifestations of stigmatization—racialized urban encounters—and their neglected longer‐term affects for Roma in Czechia and Romania. Ethnographic research and in‐depth qualitative interviews with Roma respondents expose a complex, dynamic and multi‐layered response to stigmatization that challenges the simplistic binary of resistance versus the internalization of stigma. The concept of fragmented habitus is deployed in capturing this dynamic process and providing a nuanced representation of the urban inhabitation of a long‐term stigmatized and racialized position, beyond generic ‘Otherness’. We argue for more attention to the specificities and complexities of everyday relations and their affects in capturing the interdependence between urban encounters, the longer‐term construction of Roma inferiority, and the heterogeneous, dynamic and ambivalent ways in which Roma inhabit their racialized urban position.

The protests against recent proposals for exploring and extracting shale gas in Romania are analysed. Examining the specific demands formulated by protesters, we investigate the articulation of a counter-discourse on the social control of natural resources and on the ecological risks involved in the shale gas industry. At the same time, the protests indicate a destabilisation of the post-communist neoliberal consensus by opposing the privatization and deregulation of natural resources. Using a critical political ecology framework, we identify the formation of a specific ‘technonatural’ environment of shale gas, which includes economic interests, political decisions and ideological representations specific to the neoliberalization of natural resources.