English

The COVID-19 pandemic has, like many other (health) crises, given a stage for scapegoating, stigmatization and discriminatory acts across continents, with different groups as targets as the virus spreads across space and time. In the beginning of the Corona crisis, the blame was put on China and Chinese people. People of Asian appearance in Europe were reported to be discriminated against and stigmatized. A few months later we are witnessing in the Netherlands people of other non-Western background being blamed for the spread of the virus.

As part of the project Countering the virus: Discrimination and protestation in multicultural Europe (funded by Utrecht University’s ‘Migration and Societal Change’ Focus Area; Principle Investigator: Maggi Leung) we have talked to a student who has had such a negative experience. We will share this with you in a short video.