Like suspended particles: The long way to social inclusion of a Roma community in Sicily

Abstract

The ethnographic research conducted since four years focuses on the case of a nomad camp in Palermo, town in Southern Italy, where three Roma groups live since twenty-five years, in condition of ghetto. This nomad camp constitutes a world out of the city, better an encompassed microcosm, even if it is located inside the downtown. This means that there are not interrelations between the camp and the rest of the external space. Specifically, the three different groups (Xoraxane, Cergara and Serbians) represent for the outside a generic nebulous whole, confined in a green area, surrounded by a high wall. Don’t see them signifies don’t care about them, about their living conditions, about their culture and about their identity. The only interaction between Roma and gage happens at traffic lights where they beg manghel. In the indigenous imagery, there is a lot of prejudice in term of exclusivity: first of all the idea that their occidental space is invaded by this unpleasant microcosm that must stay in its boundaries. Focusing on Roma negotiation of identity, the research showed that, except for Romani married women, the youth of the camp usually prefer to hide their ethnicity with local friends. Especially this demographic group allows us to analyse the continuous fluctuation of young Roma as suspended particles in their attempt of social inclusion, based on masking their original culture, but that expresses itself by a wrong process of assimilation of consumption rules.