Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
The vast number of Roma networks between bosnia and italy has allowed
individual families to keep a foot in both places. The same mechanism seems to
continue today more or less unchanged. The Roma relocate for shorter or longer
periods, almost always knowing where they are going, since there will be some-
one there to mediate between them and their new territory and someone else
to “keep warm” the post they have left. in short, the Roma network guarantees
continuity and mobility in equal measure. This emphasizes how stability and
mobility complement, rather than oppose, each other. some forms of this stabil-
ity, for example the “post office” at trastevere station, could not exist without
other forms of corresponding rootlessness. in other words, this stability is the
exact consequence of types of mobility. in fact, impermanence seems to be one
of the best ways of persuading non-Roma society to accept the very existence of
the Roma, an existence that is therefore rendered fluid and changing; thus, it is
precisely this definitive character of transitoriness that makes the presence of the
Vlasenicakuri and the bijeljincuri continuous.
tony belongs to a family of
čergarja,
as they call themselves and as other
Roma (who do not consider themselves to be in that category) call them: They are
“those who keep moving on and live in tents” (
čerga
in
Romanès
means “tent”).
he arrived in italy with his family in the 1960s. first, they traveled around north-
ern italy, then they moved south as far as Rome. for a long time, they oscillated
between bosnia and italy and also gave paris a try in the 1970s, along with others
from the same village, but they soon retraced their steps. as the years passed and
ever more family members arrived in italy, the family's center of gravity began
to shift. tony has nephews who have not returned to bosnia for 40 years; his own
center of gravity shifted definitively to Rome in 1984. This choice had the type
of finality that the Roma assign to such a concept: a very firm intention, but no
planning. he went with some of his sisters at the beginning of the 1990s to milan,
where two of his children (from his two wives) were born, but he soon came back,
because he did not like milan and by then “we had got used to Rome.” in Rome,
or more precisely in magliana, his children grew up and went to school; in 2000,
tony left for Germany with his family, living in berlin and Cologne, but after two
years he came back to the muratella settlement in magliana. after the camp was
demolished, he moved all over Rome, and his family dispersed throughout the
city only to join up, disperse again, and join up again.
in short, tony moved about through Rome, through italy, and through eu-
rope; in the past five years, he has changed his place of abode more than ten
times; he has lived in a house, in official camps, in unauthorized ones, in car
parks, in a prefabricated hut, in a shack, in a camper van, and in a tent. Therefore,
he is emblematic of how mobility and stability are not irreconcilable terms, since
throughout this period, magliana has remained a reference point for him and
his family; piazza s. maria in trastevere remains the place where his wife and
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