Do jornal ao cordel dando a ler a ciganidade: representações sobre os ciganos no Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba e Pernambuco (1950-1988)

Abstract

The historical processes in which gypsy subjects were inserted were marked by conflicts between them and the dominant culture with which they established contacts. There were different spaces and populations that rejected the presence of gypsies and their monadic practices. Modernity has imposed a way of life that deviates from the interests and customs of the gypsies, triggering various attitudes of exclusion, expulsion, violence, among others, which we can conceptualize as anti-gypsy practices. The gypsies arrived in the lands that we now know as Brazil after the exile committed by the then Portuguese crown; in this territory, they found refuge in the sertões, this space that was the stage for the unwanted for countless mobilities and cultural dynamisms, where the gypsies were also inserted. It is from this perspective that various representations regarding gypsies, the signs of modernity and the backlands were consolidated, reverberating anti-gypsy images or constructing imaginaries that refer to local particularities. Therefore, we analyzed from printed materials, especially newspapers and cordel leaflets, how this process of relationship between gypsies, the sertões and modernity in Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba and Pernambuco between the years 1950 and 1988, generated diverse representations in materials already mentioned, including representations that refer to forms of violence, based on the dissemination of negative stereotypes about these subjects.