Between Movement and Permanence: Romani Territorialities in Juiz de Fora – MG

Abstract

Although immersed in a context of struggle for permanence in the territory and for the recognition of their rights, the Roma people in Juiz de Fora, MG, are still underrepresented in academic research. This study proposes an analysis of the territorial dynamics of the Calon Roma community, focusing on the process of settlement and resistance strategies. The objective is to understand how the settlement of this group in an urban context expresses new forms of territoriality, articulated with the maintenance of cultural, identity-related, and collective practices. The research adopts a qualitative approach, based on bibliographic review and fieldwork carried out with the community, with the data interpreted from analytical categories related to territory, mobility, and permanence. The results show that, Calon territoriality constitutes a space of material and symbolic dispute, where movement and permanence coexist with socio-environmental precariousness and are marked by collective resistance strategies. Permanence in the territory does not represent a rupture with the memory of displacement, but its re-signification in new urban conditions. It is concluded that the territoriality of the Calon community reflects a geography of resistance, in which the territory is appropriated as a space of belonging and affirmation of the right to exist as a traditional people.