Abstract:
The purpose of this article is to investigate how six travelers from the 19th and early 20th centuries, through their travel reports, describe the commercial practice of gypsies in Brazil and, in an ethnocentric way, relate it to stereotypes such as theft. The methodological route of this research was quantitative and qualitative based on a documental and bibliographical analysis. As a result, the recurrence of themes such as: commerce, appearance, language, nomadism, theft, religion, cultural practices, education and origins, with commerce being directly linked to theft in an attempt to disqualify the subject when compared to culture of those who observed them. It appears that already in the 19th and 20th centuries, stereotypes that are recurrent today were widely used and disseminated by travelers, which leads us to identify the importance of this historical source for the dissemination and construction of ethnocentric and stereotyped views.
Keywords:
Gypsies; travelers; Representations; 19th and 20th centuries
