Roma migration in Southeastern Brazil in the 19th and 20th centuries

Anna Clara Viana de Oliveira presented a paper “Roma migration in Southeastern Brazil in the 19th and 20th centuries: tropes and ideas” at the 2023 Annual Meeting of the Gypsy Lore Society and Conference on Romani Studies, which took place in São Paulo, Brazil, on 3-6 October 2023. The panel was entitled “Transatlantic Romani mobilities, social interaction and religiosity” and the panel discussant was Prof. Dr. Brigitte Grossman Cairus.

Presentation summary: In this preliminary study, I try to demonstrate how tropes and ideas about the migration of Roma people were documented in periodicals, mainly in the state of São Paulo, between the last decades of the 19th century and the early 20th century. I intend to survey this subgroup’s presence in different regions of Southeastern Brazil to map the places of concentration and/or the routes of their transit through the region. Special attention will be given to the production of social meanings from historical records, which are linguistic constructions whose nominations generalise attributes of real or imagined Roma subjects in time and space, and these forms act or cause different narratives for their simple and schematic designations that resist change.

Photo by Walkyria (Romani artist and activist, Instagram: registros_romni).