Roma Women and Meanings of Painting Walls Practice. Controlling Materiality and Perceptions

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between Roma women from a closed community in Southern Romania with their space and with materiality. It particularly analyses the domestic practice of painting interior houses’ walls and the meanings it has, especially for the women, namely: the activity of painting walls as a way of reaffirming womanhood by successfully performing it, as a controlling space practice, and as a ritual practice with space purification effects and controlling perceptions intention. Furthermore, taking the painting walls activity as my outset, I tried to draw upon two transversal dimensions of the fieldwork I carried out. The first one concerns the way in which space, through the domestic practices the women engage with, expresses social dynamics in the community and social aspirations of its members. The second dimension I took into account is related to the project developed by a non-governmental organization that aimed to build and renovate houses for some of the local families. I particularly looked at the effects that were generated by these intervention activities at a small-scale practices level (such as cleaning the house).