Manele Music as a Marker of Collective Shame in the Online Discourse of the Romanian Diaspora in the United Kingdom

This article charts the reception of manele music among the Romanian diaspora in the UK. Using a netnographic approach applied to an online diasporic community, it studies the replication of acerbic debates in Romania about the role of manele within Romanian musical tradition. It also shows how the racialization of the Roma and the rejection of manele as “inferior” music serve both psychological and political purposes for a community that has experienced a loss in status due to migration. Manele become thus the measuring tape of cultural taste but also markers of collective shame that separate the “good” Romanians from the “bad”. These power games need to be understood in the context of old dissensions among Romanian elites related to Romania’s uncomfortable belonging to the Balkans. They also represent a renewed contestation of Oriental influences in Romanian culture that threaten to disrupt Romania’s presupposed belonging to the West.