Coming and going in the sertões: gypsy life in perspective
Gypsies; hinterland; cultural hybridity; stereotype; resistance.
The historical processes in which the gypsy subjects were inserted were marked by conflicts between them and the dominant culture with which they established contacts. There were several spaces and populations that rejected the presence of gypsies and their nomadic practices, modernity imposed a way of life that goes beyond the interests and customs of gypsies, which triggered various practices of exclusion, expulsion, violence, among others, the which we can conceptualize them as anti-gypsy practices. The gypsies arrived in the lands that we know today as Brazil, from the banishment committed by the then Portuguese crown, in this territory, they found refuge in the sertões, this space of the unwanted was the stage for countless mobilities and cultural dynamisms, where the gypsies were also inserted. It is from this perspective that we intend to analyze the insertion and establishment of gypsies in the sertanejo space, as well as the relationship with the groups that lived in the sertões, identifying possible traces of cultural hybridity. Therefore, we will analyze from printed materials, especially newspapers, how this process of relationship between gypsies and sertões took place in Rio Grande do Norte in the 20th century, understanding the forms of violence suffered by these groups from the propagation of negative stereotypes about these subjects and the resistance they developed against the strong incidence of anti-gypsyism, taking into account the dissemination of ideas of modernization present in the twentieth century and which brought changes to various aspects of life in society.