Os ciganos e os processos de exclusão

Abstract

Contacting Romani and their world of symbols and practices - which may be called Romani culture or 'gypsism', even at the risk of generalization - is being in touch with a theme which insists on slipping through our fingers. We are faced with a people which, throughout history, ended up getting adapted after every new encounter and region, in order to be able to survive in a world that seeks their opposites, and, nevertheless, kept intact many of their traditions through centuries of nomadism. For the nomadic Romani people, the tent is their home. Along centuries, derogatory terming towards gypsy appears in laws, decrees, newspaper articles, criminal case reports as well as in the arts. These exclusion processes were and are part of the States' dynamics which regards Roma groups as dangerous and unnecessary.