EXISTENTIAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS: ROMANI IDENTITY THROUGH ROMANI PHILOSOPHY
Abstract
Starting from the Field of Communication & Health (C&S), we address in this article the epistemological arrangements of a doctoral research that focused on the intercultural processes and mediations present in the appropriation of public health policies for Romanies in Brazil and Portugal and that articulate four matrices: the gypsy philosophy, semiological studies, cultural studies and anti-colonial studies. Specifically, we analyze existential-cultural contexts, focusing on the production of gypsy identity from the perspective of Kalon philosophy. We begin by questioning the processes of invisibility and silencing, as well as inequality and social exclusion, which have historically been applied against Roma peoples and people. We present the way in which we build a dialogue with the gypsy philosophy of life. Then, to give concreteness to the philosophy, we deepened the look at the way in which the social production of gypsyness, that is, of the gypsy identities of the ethnic trunk, occurs in the friction between “kalons and gadjons”, through disputes between the associations themselves. gypsies for the right to self-nomination and identity definition. Finally, we reflect in particular on how people from Roma communities use Romani identities as a “wildcard tactic” to occupy better places of dialogue in the symbolic market of Roma health in both countries and, consequently, combat oppressive and exclusionary strategies.
