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Paper short abstract

The paper is a ethnographic contribution focusing on the host societies´s perception of Ukrainian Romani families who left Ukraine as a result of Russian full-scale invasion. It explains how large Romani families were perceived as problematic, indivisibile and unaccomodatable and its consequences.

Paper long abstract

This contribution draws on ethnographic research conducted within the ROCIT project (2024–2026) with Ukrainian Roma, Romani helpers and state institution officers in the CR. From the outset, Czech media reported on the arrival of numerous Romani families from Ukraine who were unable to find accommodation and began gathering at central train stations. The reluctance of landlords to accommodate large families was used as an excuse for ethnic prejudice, creating a discriminatory system that excluded most Roma from the country. The alleged inability to accommodate them resulted in a special government measure which defined the target group as those with 'a socio-cultural background', recommending their specific treatment.

This paper critically examines how the concept of the extended family served as a genuine logistical challenge and as a substitute explanation, masking structural deficiencies and anti-Roma prejudice. While some families were indeed extended, the insistence on staying together must be understood in context. Group cohesion often functions as a protective mechanism, especially when women travelled without male family members.

The paper focuses on the mobility of Ukrainian Romani families, living in completely new formations created as a result of war, forced mobility, and gender imbalances caused by compulsory mobility, and their form of maintaining kinship networks, relationships, and cross-border communication.

The “large families” argument gradually shifted from a practical concern to a discursive tool that legitimised exclusion. Those who successfully passed through the system were predominantly small nuclear families or individuals, especially if they were not identified as Roma/ „non-white“.