A Process of Socio-Spatial Segregation and Institutional Racism: The Case of the Picoto Neighborhood in Braga, Portugal

The main objective of this article is delve into reasons for the institutional and everyday discrimination and racism towards de Roma inhabitants of Picoto in Braga. This is a neighbourhood artificially created by City Council in the 1980 but with bad infrastructures and housingconditions and exclusively inhabited by Roma people in a (peri)urban space, which, despite being located close to the city, is still segregated, degraded and abandoned.

The core research question is to understand and explain both for the existence of institutional racism and failure of public housing policy and the lack collective action on the part of the Picoto Roma community, as an ethnic minority. Next, we briefly explain the main theoretical models, that aim to explain institutional and everyday racism, blatant and subtle racism from surrounding society.

Data were obtained through a variety of methods: documentary, particularly a oficial report of BragaHabit, a questionaire survey, semi-structured interviews and other informations collected during fieldwork through participant observation in 2018. We undertake a brief analysis of the objective living conditions of Roma ethnic minority (schooling, work, source of income) and social representations of Roma people towards the authorities and non Roma people. Lastly, we describe the constraints and strategies behind the poor responses provided and/or even the absence of collective action, and the individual or family-based strategies in a social-political context that may, on the one hand, include racial and ethnic segregation and exclusion or, on the other, patronising or crony complacency, with, at best, a hint of what Scott (1990) has called semi-hidden transcripts and/or latent, infra-political conflicts in the family and community spheres.