Etnicidade, subclasse e exclusão social: uma comunidade cigana em Oleiros-Vilaverde, noroeste de Portugal

Abstract

In this article the authors, from results of studies, surveys and of small ethnographic study conducted in Oleiros, in the municipality of Vila Verde - a community northwest of Portugal – verify the persistence of prejudices and discriminations by non-gypsies Portuguese toward portuguese gypsies. These facts indicate that Portugal, despite being multicultural and have been realised some political-juridical advances in relation to the Gypsies minority, persecuted, stigmatized, still has difficulty to deal with the difference, turning this into subordination and discrimination towards this minority.
After a definition and analisis of the concepts of ethnicity, underclass and social exclusion, the authors consider them relevant and applicable to most social relations between nonGypsies Portuguese Gypsies minority, despite the relative ambiguity of such concepts as underclass and social exclusion. In face of forms of social exclusion and their institutional and social forms, and eventually the paternalist attitudes in context of a benign multiculturalism, it should be noted the need to counter a critical multiculuralism combined with a fight to the various forms of discrimination and racism not blatant racism but also subtle.