Locus cingari: Spaces of the Romanies in Romance literature from the 19th century to the present (France and Spain)

• Applicant: Dr. Sidonia Bauer
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 455177919

The locus cingari has been omnipresent in novels and poetry since the 19th century, in the form of the scenery of Gypsy caravans and camps, integrated into romantic landscapes, as a medium of discourses on aesthetics such as naturalism, literature of the avant-garde and contemporary poetry—in both its abstract and engaged manifestations. So far, however, very little research has been done on spaces of integration, Gypsy experiences of home and the creation of loci cingarorum in literature. The present project aims to explore the historic changes, the symbolic representations and the social interactions of loci cingarorum, from the perspective of self-representation as well as of representation by others. The emphasis is on the constitution of identity by Roma communities, and how this can be understood in the context of their presence in specific places and the dynamics of their movement between places. A systematic model for the description of spaces of Roma is to be developed, starting from the hypothesis that Roma define themselves essentially by their production of space, constructing identity basically within the fertile tension between global de-territorialisation and regional anchorage. Within literature, the locus cingari gains a status of a topological as well as real-cultural place, being the product of the interaction between aesthetic imagery and sociocultural contextualisation. In this way, the locus cingari becomes a stylised medium of historical discourses as well as of author-specific poetics. On the one hand, it is defined by static topographic characteristics, on the other hand, it is configured by its ecological relation to space. The focus is on the interaction between the ‘topology of the outside’ and the ‘topology of the inside’, which is represented by the oikos as a mode of living with its own 'mobile media-topoi'. The staged spaces of integration orchestrate a continuum of types of spaces, ranging from the natural landscape to semi-urban towns. The locus cingari emerges in the course of French romanticism as a configuration of natural elements, characters and machines, changing from an idyllic space embedded in landscapes to a delocalized and temporarily inhabited place at the peripheries of cities, in terrains vagues and the Parisian zone. The sociopoetic analysis, however, not only emphasises the embedded places and spaces as bio-politically fundamental for Romani cultures, but also the ‘unbound’ spaces such as experiences of the edge of society, for example the prisons of the Prisión General and the concentration camps of the Nazi era. Moreover, stereotypical representations of professional spaces such as fairs, and their typical range of characters, will be analysed outside of the context of the dominant society. On their own, these representational spaces form the image of a changing culture on the brink of extinction—in spite of its strong, continuing relevance in terms of aesthetic as well as ecological symbolism.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants