“They had their tents half a block from my house”. Work scope of Ludar and Jorajai families in the Santiago-Antofagasta circuit

Abstract

This research traces the socioeconomic motivations of the Ludar and Jorajai family groups (commonly known as ‘Gypsies’), living on the northern outskirts of the city of Santiago, Chile. In order to explain their work-related scope both within and outside this urban area, the evidence provided by the identifications of these individuals is analyzed in a series of court records. It is argued that this northern periphery, particularly from the La Palmilla neighborhood (municipality of Conchalí), was occupied since the 1960s as a hinge site to continue labor circuits (patronage and commercial) toward the northern coast, and especially in the direction of the city of Antofagasta, intensifying the demo-urban rate of this Gypsy population in both areas during the last third of the twentieth century.