The world is going: an ethnography of Calon and its relations with the Brazilians

Author(s)

Florencia Ferrari

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
• Defense date: 2010-06-11

Examining board members

Lilia Katri Moritz Schwarcz; Sergio Cardoso; Marcio Goldman; Ana Maria Rabelo Gomes; Ana Claudia Duarte Rocha Marques

• Advisor: Lilia Katri Moritz Schwarcz; Eduardo Batalha Viveiros de Castro

Abstract

This dissertation is an ethnographic account of a Calon Gypsy kinship network that spreads throughout the state of São Paulo, in Brazil. The aim of this work is to understand how these Calon live and create sociality out of a Brazilian world. A fundamental category differentiates Calon from gadje (non Gypsies): vergonha (shame) - a moral value that organizes ideas of purity and impurity, anchored in the female body. In order to make oneself Calon one must produce and show shame, in an ongoing process of differentiation from the gadje. The thesis explores native categories of travel, language, being active, being supported, as well as conceptualizations of time and space, that inform how Calon create sociality among us, the gadjes. (AU)