Surplus lives under racial capitalism: Roma in post-socialist Czechia

Author:   Barbora Cernušáková
Publisher:   Manchester University Press
ISBN:  

9781526181879


Pages:   200
Publication Date:   28 April 2026
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   Not yet available, will be POD   Availability explained
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Surplus lives under racial capitalism: Roma in post-socialist Czechia


Overview

Surplus lives under racial capitalism theorises the link between political economy, anti-Roma racism and modern forms of white supremacy in East Central Europe. The book shows how the introduction of capitalism in the 1990s overlapped with the rise of racialised disposability of Roma workers. Since then, their surplusing recurrently comes into sharp relief during the time of crisis. Surplus lives under racial capitalism is built on an investigation of how race and class structure the Czech labour regime and how they form a single site of struggle. One which binds workers across racialised divisions as surplusing continuously expands.

Full Product Details

Author:   Barbora Cernušáková
Publisher:   Manchester University Press
Imprint:   Manchester University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 1.30cm , Length: 23.40cm
Weight:   0.460kg
ISBN:  

9781526181879


ISBN 10:   1526181878
Pages:   200
Publication Date:   28 April 2026
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available, will be POD   Availability explained
This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon it's release. This is a print on demand item which is still yet to be released.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1 A Roma neighbourhood and the political economy of spatial segregation 2 Stuck in low-paid precarious work 3 Disciplined through unpayable debt 4 The post-socialist state and the racialised surplus population 5 Issues with ethnographic research Epilogue -- .

Reviews

‘Quite simply, this book is extraordinary. The text is coherent, theoretically and analytically rich, and above all, readable. The theoretical grounding for the book is complex, but the author unpacks her main arguments about racial capitalism and surplus populations lucidly and in an understandable manner.’ – Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky, Masaryk University, Czech Republic ‘This book forcefully re-centres race and class in East-Central European and post-socialist scholarship. By bridging Marxian accounts of reserve armies of labour with theories of racial capitalism, Cernušáková provides a crucial lens on contemporary capitalist racialisation and the Roma question.’ – Sara Farris, Goldsmiths University of London -- .


‘Quite simply, this book is extraordinary. The text is coherent, theoretically and analytically rich, and above all, readable. The theoretical grounding for the book is complex, but the author unpacks her main arguments about racial capitalism and surplus populations lucidly and in an understandable manner.’ – Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky, Masaryk University, Czech Republic; co-author of Historicizing Roma in Central Europe : Between Critical Whiteness and Epistemic Injustice ‘This book forcefully re-centres race and class in East-Central European and post-socialist scholarship. By bridging Marxian accounts of reserve armies of labour with theories of racial capitalism, Cernušáková provides a crucial lens on contemporary capitalist racialisation and the Roma question.’ – Sara R. Farris, Goldsmiths University of London; author of In the Name of Women’s Rights 'Cernušáková boldly shows what a theoretically astute urban ethnography can do. Surplus lives offers us a deep understanding of how class and race operate on and within the lives of Roma people in the Czech Republic and how central this is for postsocialist industrial policy.' – Don Kalb, University of Bergen; author of Value and Worthlessness ‘Surplus Lives under Racial Capitalism is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand how racialisation and capitalism intertwine in contemporary Europe. Through powerful ethnographic insight, Barbora Cernušáková reveals how precarious work, segregation, and debt are not peripheral issues but central mechanisms producing a racialised “surplus population”. Urgent, rigorous, and deeply illuminating, this book is essential reading for scholars, students, and all those concerned with inequality and social justice.’ – Angéla Kóczé, Associate Professor of Romani Studies at Central European University; author of Romani women at the edge of neoliberal Europe: Discursive emancipation and structural violence -- .


‘Quite simply, this book is extraordinary. The text is coherent, theoretically and analytically rich, and above all, readable. The theoretical grounding for the book is complex, but the author unpacks her main arguments about racial capitalism and surplus populations lucidly and in an understandable manner.’ – Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky, Masaryk University, Czech Republic ‘This book forcefully re-centres race and class in East-Central European and post-socialist scholarship. By bridging Marxian accounts of reserve armies of labour with theories of racial capitalism, Cernušáková provides a crucial lens on contemporary capitalist racialisation and the Roma question.’ – Sara R. Farris, Goldsmiths University of London -- .


‘Quite simply, this book is extraordinary. The text is coherent, theoretically and analytically rich, and above all, readable. The theoretical grounding for the book is complex, but the author unpacks her main arguments about racial capitalism and surplus populations lucidly and in an understandable manner.’ – Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky, Masaryk University, Czech Republic; co-author of Historicizing Roma in Central Europe : Between Critical Whiteness and Epistemic Injustice ‘This book forcefully re-centres race and class in East-Central European and post-socialist scholarship. By bridging Marxian accounts of reserve armies of labour with theories of racial capitalism, Cernušáková provides a crucial lens on contemporary capitalist racialisation and the Roma question.’ – Sara R. Farris, Goldsmiths University of London; author of In the Name of Women’s Rights 'Cernušáková boldly shows what a theoretically astute urban ethnography can do. Surplus lives offers us a deep understanding of how class and race operate on and within the lives of Roma people in the Czech Republic and how central this is for postsocialist industrial policy.' – Don Kalb, University of Bergen; author of Value and Worthlessness -- .


Author Information

Barbora Cernuskov is Hallsworth Fellow at the University of Manchester and a researcher at the University of Ostrava

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