(In)Securitisation and Brotherly Love

This paper analyses the results of a linguistic ethnographic research that started in the autumn of 2019. The research aims to contribute to the emancipation of the Romani language (and Romani speakers) and to the development of possibilities for peaceful social coexistence. To achieve this goal, it examines the social relations in a small town of about 12 000 inhabitants in north-eastern Hungary. The paper uses the concept of (in)securitisation. This allows us to examine the situations and aspects in which the speakers feel safe or—on the contrary—insecure, and to determine the categories and social phenomena along which they group the persons (actors) who threaten them (or are perceived as threatening). It can help to reveal the volatile and multifaceted interdependencies that pervade different levels of social organisation. However, as the paper points out, the effects of individual motivations and psychological factors that also shape social relations may remain hidden.