L'occasione di diventare mondo. Relazioni d'autorità tra gruppi rom ed istituzioni: proposte pedagogiche in un'analisi comparativa

"THE CHANCE TO BECOME WORLD. Relationships of authority between Roma groups and institutions: pedagogical proposals in a comparative analysis" A democratic society, where different human groups live, deals every day with the challenge of coexistence. This possibility becomes actual on the one hand through the ability to maximize as much as possible the potential symbolic meeting space, on the other hand dealing consciously with the questions raised by a pluralistic society. What can pedagogy say on this subject? How can it help make this spaces a stream of chances for development and change? This theses is the result of the research which objective was to examine how the way minority groups and majority institutions interact affects the development of the persons. This has been done through the frame of authority. It has been chosen to consider three different groups that belong to the widest European minority: Roma people. Different processes of recognition of the internal authority are developed by the members of the minority groups as well as by the local institutions – especially schools, the police and local administration. How do these processes influence the way institutions act and the coexistence between Roma and gadjé? The research project was carry on in Italy with a qualitative ethnographic approach, inside a campo nomadi inhabited by Sinti families; in Romania, in a mahalla of a rural village, and in Brazil, in a neighborhood of a town in the State of Goais. Roma, Sinti and Calo have a full citizen status in their countries of residence, despite the different socioeconomic and juridical conditions concerning minority groups. The theoretical reference follows an interdisciplinary approach. In political and philosophical terms, some questions will be raisen concerning the necessity and limits that are incidental to the recognition of alterity in a democratic context. The historical reconstruction of the paths of the Roma groups and of the ways of coexistence between them and the gadjé allows to understand more deeply the present social conditions and living context analyzed in the three countries. The sociological and anthropological research also allows to reconstruct the epistemologies in the field of education, schooling and recognition of the leadership in the three groups. At the same time they are a necessary condition for a reflection which aim is to lead to co-constructed processes of education for citizenship. Within the scientific world, this research project is intended to add a missing piece to the existing work concerning authority and Roma groups, which is lacking at present with regard to the pedagogical perspective. Pedagogical reflection accompany the whole work. The intent is that of analyzing the implicit dimension of education as well as the effects of anthropogeny produced by the action of the institutions towards Roma and gadjé. The topic of authority has been contextualized mainly through the texts of the Brazilian pedagogist Paulo Freire, suggesting an imaginary dialog between him and the American sociologist Richard Sennet. Thanks to an important field study it has been possible to trace the different types of leadership existing in the considered groups and observe the way each group recognizes and refers to the Roma leaders. It has also been possible to examine how the institutions recognize and interact with those leaders and to make clear the consequences of these interactions on the subjects and on the collectivity. What emerges is an extremely varied and interesting picture. Institutions and their representatives rarely show awareness and consciousness of the effects of their choices on the collectivity. At the same time some stimulating experiences have emerged, where the mutual recognition of the social agents and of their requests has led to new strategies of meeting each other and of fulfillment of the requests. Furthermore, the analyzed cases underline the urgency of developing praxis. The thesis concludes with a double reflection: considered the variety of solutions available for the improvement of the situation, it is meaningful and alarming to observe the gap between the state of the art of the research and the everyday reality.