Trajectories of Identities for Catalan Gypsies on Both Sides of the Border between France and Space

Varia
By Hasnia-Sonia Missaoui
English

This paper suggests the use of genealogical investigation to provide a better understanding of alliances and filiations of Gypsy families that sheds light on many cross-border success which are otherwise unintelligible. This method allows a different reading from the one often suggested by institutions dealing with Gypsy populations which tends to focuse on short periods of time in Gypsy worlds, thus obscuring the significance of the intergenerational time of their endogenous actions. The study of genealogical lines indicates us how Barcelona and Perpignan Gypsy families reinforce each other by aggregating themselves into clans with new transnational outlines, whereas by contrast a reading limited by Franco-Spanish political borders suggests the disintegration of one and sometimes of both simultaneously. Those genealogical lines help bring to light material and symbolic spaces, that have led me to locate and analyse a new form of social autonomy.

Keywords

  • gypsies
  • cross-border mobility
  • intergenerational time
  • self-training
  • social autonomy
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