La formación del asociacionismo político pro-gitano en Madrid durante el segundo franquismo (1960-1975)

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to relate the associationism centred on the Roma with the rest of the historiography on the neighbourhood movement during the second Franco regime in Madrid. The Roma remain largely unknown and even more so the history from which to think about their political articulation. The first experiences in the capital were pro-Roma initiatives and their premises, functioning and interaction with the Roma will be examined based on two specific cases, the Secretariados Gitanos and the Asociación Desarrollo Gitano. This first mobilization was orchestrated by non-Roma, mainly priests, activists, academics and architects. The analysis will have as a backdrop the urban social history of Madrid, a city that during its expansion in the second half of the twentieth century faced a great urban crisis that generated huge pockets of poverty materialized, among other things, in an unprecedented shantytown. In this panorama of substandard housing and informal urbanism, the Roma played a leading role, and their negative social fit in the city, caused by the discriminatory treatment of the regime, largely conditioned that political and associative mobilization. To resolve the study, sources related to the creation of the groups, reports and documents produced within them, as well as oral testimonies are proposed. All this will allow us to conclude that the path of Roma political participation was not free of prejudices and that, in turn, associationism was also linked to ethnicity, thus showing the heterogeneity of the citizen struggle.