Scuola, campi e carcere. Educazione, formazione e rieducazione per rom e sinti: note per un'antropologia applicata.

Since the birth of the modern nation-states the story of the encounter between the romani population and the majority society is characterized by various educational strategies implemented by governments with the aim of bringing roma and sinti people to behave in a manner more appropriate to the dominant thought. The camps are places dedicated to the educational and training projects with the formula coined by the former Mayor Alemanno for the Nomads Plan: “legality and integration”. For all those who continue to subvert the rules imposed by the dominant society, despite the opportunity offered in the fields and in schools, the only alternative is jail. In this case the rehabilitative function is explicit: those who come into prison should exit persuaded not to repeat the mistakes made. For this reason work activities, educational courses and training courses are recommended to inmates. Usually the proposed activities are carried out with pleasure by inmates because they help to spend long days faster; however, the roma generally participate little. The situation described in the paper is useful to reveal the possible applications of anthropological studies.