Non-sedentarism, Violence and Politics of Assertive Egalitarianism among Calon Gypsies of Bahia, Brazil. Issue 5 (20th October 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Fotta, Martin
• Is Part Of: Ethnos. Volume 84:Issue 5(2019)
• Page Start: 806
• Page End: 827
• Publication Date: 2019-10-20
• Subjects: Romanies (Gypsies) -- Brazilian Calon -- violence -- non-sedentarism -- egalitarianism; Ethnology -- Periodicals; Archaeology -- Periodicals; 305.8
• DOI: 10.1080/00141844.2018.1510844
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0014-1844

Abstract

ABSTRACT: The community life of Calon Romanies (Gypsies) in Bahia, northeast Brazil, is politically instituted through and by violence. Violence and fear of violence underlie Calon sociability and serve as a way to mark Calon as distinct from Jurons (non-Gypsies). Within communities, it undermines the tendency for personal power and efficacy to coalesce into rank, as well as the tendency for settlements to petrify into entities with fixed identities. Ultimately, the article argues, what makes violence practicable as a mode of fabricating social relations in the first place is Calon non-sedentarism, which posits one's readiness to move as a mechanism through which belonging and relatedness are expressed, and which values flexibility in spatial arrangements rather than a fixed domicile.