Living in urban interstices: the survival practices of excluded Gypsies in Italian borderlands.

Abstract

The paper focuses on the case-studies of nomad camps in Italy, where groups of “gypsies” live in condition of ghetto. The nomad camps generally constitute a world out of the city, as an encompassed microcosm. They represent a borderland or a grey zone. The only interaction between “them” and “us” happens when Romanì exit from the camp and cross the municipal streets. Roma people develop a capacity to survive in urban interstices. These practices consist in unusual welfare forms of material help for day by day survival, while living in a condition of human rights negation by majority society members.