City without Caravans: Regimes of Mobility and Exclusion of the Rrom people in Quito

Abstract

This article explores the historical trajectories and contemporary experiences of mobility and settlement among the Rrom people in Quito, Ecuador. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of the "mobility turn" and "mobility regimes," it examines how dynamics of inclusion and exclusion have been shaped by state policies, social stigmas, and community strategies. The study is based on a qualitative case study involving five Rrom families in Quito, whose experiences reveal a transition from an itinerant lifestyle—characterized by caravans and street vending—to a semi-sedentary existence in peripheral neighborhoods as a result of state restrictions, urbanization, and social pressures. The article concludes that the Rrom experience challenges binary understandings of mobility and sedentarization and highlights the need to recognize their presence and contributions to the construction of a multiethnic society in Ecuador.