ABSTRACT
This essay describes and analyzes an event involving interaction between gitanos of Granada and approximately three hundred representatives of the city’s majority population, for example, writers, artists, government officials, educators, flamenco aficionados. The historic union took place in June 1982 to celebrate the “presentation” of a book by Ángel Carmona, Romi: Sacro-Monte 1880–1980, published under the auspices of the Provincial Ministry of Culture. Guests of honor included the heads of gitano flamenco dynasties whose reactions to the occasion, and to nascent proposals made by program speakers for restoring the Sacro-Monte, and improving interpersonal relationships, I recorded both during and after the event. While a single event is used for ethnographic focus, data reported are reflective of the historical and contextual relationship of Granada’s Sacro-Monte Gypsy population to segments of the city’s majority population as well as to one another. Conceptually, then, the approach used is neither fully “holistic,” nor is it as narrowly limited as the title might imply. Rather, the attempt is made to study gitano role segmentation and the effects of contacts with outsiders in terms outlined in Irwin Press’s paradigm of urban organization (1979:9–12), and in Hsu’s concept of psychosocial homeostasis (1971). The author’s twenty-four years of continuous association with Sacro-Monte gitanos facilitated the collection of new and sensitive data and provided a long-term basis for demonstrating the role subjective standards continue to play in guiding gitano behavior and reactions to proposed change.
