La confraternita halveti del villaggio rom del Poderaccio di Firenze. Il sufismo al tempo del superamento del campo

Abstract

Inside the Poderaccio Roma camp located in Florence, Italy, a Sufi lodge guided by the Macedonian Baba Dževat carried on its activities for thirty years, making the camp a place of renewal of an Ottoman-Balkan form of religious experience in diaspora. In the present article I present an analysis of the sociological features of former Yugoslavian orders aiming at contextualizing the Florentine brotherhood's ones; the hierarchical structure of the order is put in relation with the romá family structure and the characteristics it assumes in the specific context of an Italian Roma camp. Beside a brief reconstruction of the brotherhood's history and social functions, I discuss its value as a symbolic and experiential resource able to foster constructive relations with non-Roma Sufis in the actual phase of overcoming and definitive closure of the camp, characterized by substantial modifications in the housing context and by the loss of unity of the local group.