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Paper short abstract

Based on ethnography of Roma–police encounters in Lithuania, I theorize “genuine racism” as ordinary police talk enabled by normalized antigypsyism and racial common sense. I explore the ethical dilemma of “watching the police” when they expect validation.

Paper long abstract

For many Roma community members mistreatment by law enforcement and the routine use of physical and symbolic violence are part of everyday reality. Yet in Lithuania this remains only fragmentarily addressed by scholars and policy actors, often treated as marginal or even non-existent.

In this paper, I draw on ongoing ethnographic research on Roma–police encounters and racialization mechanisms in Lithuania, focusing specifically on the ethical and emotional dilemmas of doing research with police officers. In a social context where antigypsyism is deeply entrenched and widely normalized, racist attitudes and misconduct toward Roma rarely become objects of public scrutiny or moral reflection. This produces what I call “genuine racism”: encounters in which police officers speak openly and confidently in dehumanizing terms about Roma people, often taking for granted it as a common sense, treating such narratives as self-evident, reasonable and even professional. These “genuinely racist” revelations become a key site where police authority, “racial common sense” (Hall, 1981) and institutional legitimacy are reproduced through ordinary speech and interactions.

Finally, I ask what it means to “watch the police” when the police expect “the watcher” to validate their worldview. How such interactions complicate my position of both a researcher and a moral citizen?