Desnacionalización, Regímenes Visuales y Resistencia: Gitanos Americanos en Ciudad de México

Abstract

The idea that the character of the Roma is external to the flow of the dynamics of historical processes is an alienating organicism in Mexico and Latin America. Visual regimes have reproduced exclusionary cultural and racial stereotypes of the Roma. This text analyzes how the Gitanos of Mexico City resist the racializing impositions of the state and of dominant society, contradicting hegemonic stereotypes and prejudices through the strategic self-management of identity by presenting themselves to the outside. Empirical data are provided on two key areas of this self-management connected to the visibility/invisibility dialectic: commercial activities and flamenco performance.