Undressing the gağé clad in state garb: Bosnian xoraxané romá face to face with the Italian authorities

The article examines the relations between a group of Bosnian xoraxané romá living in Rome (Italy) and the Italian authorities. Although exposed (as Roma and immigrants) to discriminating and marginalising policies, the romá are reluctant to engage in open political struggles. This reluctance results from an awareness of the disadvantaged position of Roma and immigrants in interactions with Italian authorities. It is grounded in a general distrust of the Italian political world which the romá see as dominated by opportunism, treachery and shallowness. Avoidance of the political arena is accompanied by forms of circumspect agency that the romá engage in in every-day interactions with the authorities. I will argue that the romá frame such interactions in a Romani game in which the apparently powerful state officers appear as gullible gağé (non-Roma) dressed in state garb. It is a kind of contamination that deprives state officers of their sovereign power over the romá and eventually permits Romani life to disengage from the biopolitical discourses of the Italian state.