Onde vivem os nômades? Ciganos no Brasil e a produção do estereótipo como obstáculo no direito à propriedade

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the historical processes of marginalization, territorial dispersion, and epistemological silencing imposed on Roma people in Brazil, focusing on the dynamics of segregation established since the colonial period and reproduced throughout the 20th century. Starting from the understanding that nomadism has been historically mobilized as a stigma and used as a pretext to deny Roma people the right to territorial permanence, the research problematizes the association between sedentarism, civility, and social belonging. Methodologically, it is an interdisciplinary historical investigation that articulates bibliographic, documentary, and audiovisual sources, noting, given the scarcity of written records produced by the Roma people themselves, the central role of audiovisual media as a historical source. Documentaries and cinematographic works, such as Latcho Drom (1993), by Tony Gatlif, and Ciganos do Nordeste (1976), by Olney São Paulo, allow access to narratives that escape official archives and highlight social representations, institutional discourses, and forms of cultural resistance. The theoretical framework is situated within the field of Social and Cultural History, engaging with authors such as Geraldo Pieroni, Priscila Paz Godoy, and Samir Amin, as well as with critical approaches to Eurocentrism, the coloniality of knowledge, and structural racialization. The research also incorporates contributions from the philosophy of language, especially speech act theory and the dialogic conception of discourse, to understand how statements, categories, and stereotypes about Roma people have produced practical effects of exclusion, control, and punishment. Thus, language, territory, and power are articulated, also mobilizing the concepts of territory and the production of space as symbolic, cultural, and relational dimensions. By challenging hegemonic historical narratives, the study seeks to contribute to broadening the debate on Roma people in Brazil, arguing that mobility does not imply an absence of territoriality, but rather constitutes a legitimate form of occupation, belonging, and claiming historical, cultural, and territorial rights.