Introduction or preface

- In Vila Real In Vila Real de Santo António live more or less 200 ciganos, the Portuguese gypsies. The local reality is quite heterogeneous: the greatest part of that families dwells in popular neighbourhoods, in apartaments assigned by local government; others are waiting for years the "realojamento" or "housing reinsertion" and, in the meantime, they camp next to the supermarket parking with plastic tarpaulins or in a shipyard in some existing shanties; some others are "transitory" families who, for some reasons, stop around the city, in rural and "marginal" areas. The article aims to trace a significant map about some families' forms of "staying" and, by their everyday life, characterizes institutional mechanisms and policies emerging in such kind of experiential context. Specifically, we?ll point out three research hypothesis on current local "circulation" by ciganas families in Algarve.