Connected Communities Romanies/Gypsies, Roma & Irish and Scottish Travellers Histories, Perceptions and Representations

Jodie Matthews Background

Executive Summary Researchers and Project Partners

Why should we study the histories and Project leads representations of Romanies/Gypsies, Jodie Matthews Roma, and Irish and Scottish Travellers Academy for British and Irish Studies today? University of Huddersfield 1. There exists in contemporary British culture a lack of understanding about the diverse Key words histories of these groups.

2. The concept of an ‘authentic Gypsy’ of the Romanies past persists, meaning that experiences Roma failing to match this visible stereotype are Travellers neglected. History 3. These groups are usually considered in Representation collective isolation rather than as part of Authenticity mainstream British history. Ethnicity Identity 4. The definition of terms like ‘Gypsy’ is an on- going process and scholarship contributes to both the undermining and reinscription of the stereotypes they connote. 5. Romani and Roma history in Europe amounts to more than victimhood and there is still considerable work to do to retrieve it. 6. Nevertheless, the history of persecution of these groups informs contemporary identities; these persecutions have not yet been fully recognised as part of broader histories 7. Written and oral histories and autobiographies are co-opted into narratives about nation, modernity and ethnicity, and are used to perpetuate exoticism and prejudice. 8. Policy and legislation are based on knowledge about these groups that is open to critique and question.

1 Research review

Why should we study the histories and Approaching the field representations of Romanies/Gypsies, Roma, and Irish and Scottish Travellers today? This paper draws on a survey of academic 1. There exists in contemporary British culture work in the arts and humanities since 2002 on a lack of understanding about the diverse the history and representation of Romanies/ histories of these groups. Gypsies, Roma, and Irish and Scottish Travellers 2. The concept of an ‘authentic Gypsy’ of the in Britain in the nineteenth and twentieth past persists, meaning that experiences centuries. The most common approach in failing to match this visible stereotype are such work is to discuss otherness, rather neglected. than emphasising similarity and interaction. Reflecting another imbalance in scholarly 3. These groups are usually considered in interest, most of the works relate to Romanies/ collective isolation rather than as part of Gypsies; the attention paid to mainstream British history. outside has been very small in 4. The definition of terms like ‘Gypsy’ is an on- comparison (see Hayes, 2006; Bhreatnach, going process and scholarship contributes 2006), with even less focus on Scottish to both the undermining and reinscription of Travellers (see Braid, 2002; Burke 2004). There the stereotypes they connote. is a significant volume of work on Roma in Europe, but very little in the humanities relating 5. Romani and Roma history in Europe to the representation of their recent migrations amounts to more than victimhood and to Britain. there is still considerable work to do to A workshop attended by writers and retrieve it. journalists, lecturers, education specialists, 6. Nevertheless, the history of persecution artists and photographers, and people working of these groups informs contemporary for advocacy organisations, about half of identities; these persecutions have not yet whom described themselves as Gypsy, Romani been fully recognised as part of broader or Roma, related the research reviewed to histories contemporary community politics. 7. Written and oral histories and Institutionalised Romani/Gypsy Studies, often autobiographies are co-opted into located in the Social Sciences, is seen as having narratives about nation, modernity and been inaugurated with Heinrich Grellman’s ethnicity, and are used to perpetuate late-eighteenth-century Dissertation (see exoticism and prejudice. Willems, 1997; Mayall, 2004; and Lee, 2004 for Grellman’s plagiarism). Mayall (amongst 8. Policy and legislation are based on others) has charted the development of this knowledge about these groups that is open specialist field. Mainstream historical and to critique and question. literary studies since the turn of the new century have taken an increasing interest in textual and archival representations of Romanies/Gypsies and, to a lesser extent, Roma and Irish Travellers (for instance,

2 ROMANIES/GYPSIES, ROMA & IRISH AND SCOTTISH TRAVELLERS Matthews, 2010). This can be attributed, in individuals for murder and persecution. part, to the influence of postcolonial studies; They continue to be variously used as racial the knowledge collected under the heading or ethnic slurs, reasons to deny people jobs of ‘Romani/Gypsy Studies’ has been opened and homes, a banner for political unity, and to a similar critique, deconstructing power an identity through which one might claim relations and examining the discourses that rights and services. Perhaps most importantly, inform knowledge and images of ‘the Gypsy’, they are also, to some individuals, just both in academia and mainstream culture. ‘who they are’. Choosing to articulate any Just as examinations of Orientalism (after definition as a completed action rather than Edward Said’s landmark text) ask different as continually in process, particularly from questions than does scholarship undertaken as outside a community, risks reinscribing part of Oriental Studies, so a portion of recent essentialism (see Mayall and Nord’s work for publications on this subject interrogate the the implications of definitions). ways in which scholarship has constructed, While it does not please everyone, the distributed and recycled knowledge about reappropriation of the term ‘Gypsy’ in Britain these groups; they stand outside traditional by the community carries with it a specifically Romani/Gypsy Studies looking in, a British history which some are keen to claim supplementary field. in contradistinction to histories of Roma in David Mayall (whose 2004 work provides Europe. Here I refer to Romanies/Gypsies necessary historical context to the study of (unless directly quoting from a source using representation) surveyed the field as it stood a different practice); do not mark ‘gypsies’ as in 1998, seeing the increasing disciplinary fictional in comparison to an authentic Romani diversity of Gypsy Studies as preparing it to within or beyond the text; and refer to ‘non- ‘confront issues of historical and contemporary Gypsies’ and ‘non-Irish/Scottish Travellers’ relevance’ (Mayall, 1998). Few studies, rather than gorjas/gadže (variously spelled). however, have followed Becky Taylor’s 2008 The commonly-used term, ‘traveller’ (to mean lead to understand the experiences of Gypsies/ Romanies/Gypsies, Irish and Scottish Travellers, Romanies and Irish and Scottish Travellers in Roma and new travellers) has been described the context of mainstream society. as a euphemism, absolving the speaker/writer of ascertaining details about any particular Definitions culture. There are some reasons for using it: historical evidence is rarely clear on who was, Nomenclature is tied to: the politics of ethnically speaking, a Romani/Gypsy or any representation; the centrality of origin other kind of traveller. ‘Gypsy’ is also used narratives to diasporic identities; the pejoratively (Taylor, 2008). However, there is relationship between ‘experts’ and the objects a great deal of misunderstanding in popular of their study; and the rights and prejudices contemporary representations about the attached to particular labels. Debates about differences (or even that there is a difference) terminology take place in the shadow of between these groups. Multiple historical two European genocides against the Romani narratives have yet to reach a wide audience, people; these terms have been used to mark and using as broad a term as ‘traveller’ does not improve this situation.

3 Having said this, ‘Romani/Gypsy’ can be as and were able to reproduce them or recognise problematic a term as ‘traveller’, as it acts as a decent copy (see Fraser, 2003). While self- shorthand for a number of diverse groups (e.g. produced representations are hard to find, , , Roma). An analogy is ‘an such details as these mark aspects of the attempt to define contemporary or written within the myth of absolute illiteracy. Irishness’ (Belton, 2005, 10), and source texts This myth means that researchers stop looking similarly ‘address a fictional unified population’ for new sources. The countless transactions (Sonneman 1999; 121). (financial, legal, and social) between and within communities left traces that are Re-evaluations yet to be interpreted as part of Romani/ Gypsy, Roma and Scottish and Irish Traveller Literacy/orality A clutch of stereotypes can histories. Those histories amount to more be organised under this heading, relating than victimhood and there is considerable to archival absences, historylessness, and work to do to retrieve it (see Carter, 2002, 13). uncertain origins. Many works include a The focus need not necessarily be on finding description of the Romanies’/Gypsies’ oral the ‘truth’ about ethnic origins, nor on co- culture, leaving few archival traces behind opting histories into reinvented national(ist) other than those written about rather than narratives (Hayes, 2006). by them (for assertions about orality see Constructivist controversy Since the Carter, 2002; Grobbel, 2003). Intentionally or 1980s, various non-Romani/Gypsy scholars otherwise, repeating the notion of a completely have produced work which, in the course oral culture implies savagery when romantic of its conclusions, questions some of the imagery of the Gypsy is already caught in the orthodoxies of Romani/Gypsy diasporic origins discourse of the noble savage (see Ong, 1982). and continuities (see Willems and Okely). It also lends credibility to expectations of low Suggestions are made about the constructed academic achievement and closes down the and hybrid nature of ‘Gypsy’ identity. Those space for analytical, insider perspectives on suggestions have not been universally history and representation. welcomed. There are analogous debates Even if ‘writing was traditionally only (though usually less emotive) about the origins employed by a small [Roma] elite in of Irish Travellers, part of a dialogue about interactions with non-Roma’, the histories Ireland’s pre-colonial past. of many other communities were also The perceived problem with some of these written by a literate minority (Toninato theories has been that, while they note the 2006, 235). New methods of interpreting value of self-ascription and the inalienable right ‘other’ experiences – those of the working to practice a group culture, they potentially class, of women, of children – are continually undermine narratives about a recognisable researched in various areas of historical and shared past for peoples still negotiating study and could be applied here. Some of our fundamental human rights in Europe. To earliest documentary evidence of Romanies/ suggest that those who subscribe to an Indian Gypsies in Europe are letters guaranteeing diasporic connection necessarily understand safe conduct; their holders understood them all Romani/Gypsy people as having the same

4 ROMANIES/GYPSIES, ROMA & IRISH AND SCOTTISH TRAVELLERS origin is too simplistic, but so is the view that they left, eliding almost entirely the lives of the constructivists see all Romanies/Gypsies the Romanies/Gypsies they studied and the as descended from a dispossessed peasantry. It effects of their writing (see, for instance, Yates is easy to misrepresent all perspectives in this and Roud, 2006). Ken Lee makes a gesture debate when summarising, for the temptation towards overturning the hegemony of certain is to describe the most polarised of positions. Gypsy Lore schools of thought in Romani/ My purpose here is to point to the fact that Gypsy Studies by proposing a history of some scholars in the humanities writing in this scholarly repression; he suggests that when the field seem unaware of these debates, which Lorists’ theories became conventional wisdom tend to take place on the pages of journals ‘epistemic violence’ occurred (2004, 36). and books published under the headings of Authenticity The ‘romance’ of Romani/Gypsy Sociology or Anthropology, yet they have a identities is sometimes connected by writers bearing on the way we read archival and artistic to an ‘authenticity of being’, dissociated from sources. the inauthenticity of modern existence (Nord, Privileged Archives The people who wrote 2006, 71). Politically, the ‘authentic’ voice of and made the documents and artefacts the community is perceived as inauthentic the catalogued in archives were in a position to moment it is heard outside (Acton, 2004, 99). study Romanies/Gypsies and Irish Travellers, Historically, the ‘authentic’ Romani/Gypsy to support each other’s work, to publish it was presumed to belong to a specific racial and to make provisions for the survival of category. As ‘race’ gave way to ‘ethnicity’ as a that work. Though not all the writers who way of figuring a group or individual’s heritage, fall under this heading were members, for authenticity remained part of that figuration. shorthand I refer to the Gypsy Lore Society Notions of ‘passing’ or assimilating complicate (founded 1888). Its members did not take the concept of authenticity in ways that merit representational privilege for granted: they further investigation (Voskuil, 2004, 10). fought to be taken seriously and to find a place The authenticity of Romanies/Gypsies has within academia. However, the fact that their preoccupied legislators since their arrival work was professionally published means that in Britain, has interested scholars since the the scholar in this field often turns to it first, inception of Romani Studies, is frequently and their links with universities means that we discussed within Romani/Gypsy and Irish know where to find it. Mayall has noted that and Scottish communities, and continues the thoroughness of their research discourages to trouble commentators today. One hears scholars from conducting their own searches reference to ‘the real Gypsies’, the image of for new material (2004, 41). Attitudes towards which resides firmly in the past (Burke, 2004, the work of the Gypsy Lore Society vary, from 23). Contemporary popular sources do not appreciation through grudging respect to articulate the significant cultural differences charges of racism, orientalism and exoticism between groups, thus non-Romanies/Gypsies (variously Savage, 2002, 383; Burke, 2004a; or people following modes of life that have Nord, 127, Hancock, 2006, Matthews, traditionally been less visible are figured as forthcoming). troublesome counterfeits. People were and are There is a body of scholarly work focusing asked to prove themselves ‘genuine’ Gypsies on the society, its activities and the records to receive dispensation from eviction or

5 harassment, despite this label also being the in European attitudes towards the Romanies/ cause (see Taylor, 2008). Gypsies but to deploy an unhistoricised Discoveries of invented traditions and metaphor is to flatten out those differences the undermining of notions of cultural and allows stereotypes to stand. authenticity have led scholars to question their own ‘cultures of enquiry’ (Bendix, 1997, Recommendations 4). ‘Authenticity’, then, is at the heart of this field’s reassessments of culture, knowledge Potential areas for further research in the and identity. In spite of this, studies of humanities are: Romani/Gypsy culture seem susceptible to ■ reinscribing the myth of the authentic. An ■ Analysis of terms used in Britain for and example is the use of ‘Romani’ to refer to an by the different groups making up these authentic historical reality, and ‘gypsy’ to refer communities; to an inauthentic fictional counterpart. The ■■ Comparative work on formation of implicit suggestion that the two figures are so stereotypes in Britain, Europe and America. easily distinguished fails to do justice to the ■■ Cracking the monolith of the image of discursive similarities between the fictionally- the ‘Gypsy’ by examining similarities and and supposedly factually-represented differences in the ways that groups were Romani/Gypsy. figured. For example: Nomadism The authentic Romani/Gypsy »» the Irish and Irish Travellers; is characterised as having a preference for »» European ‘Gypsies’ coming to Britain and nomadism. Nomadism is portrayed as British Romanies/Gypsies; romantic, free, purposeless, and transgressive »» Scottish Travellers and Romanies/Gypsies; (see Toninato, 2006; Kabachnik, 2010) and informs the discourses of law- and policy »» Welsh Kale and English Romanichals; -making bodies (Simhandl, 2006). The »» Romanies/Gypsies and others engaged in complexity of the conditions of nomadism is the same trades; rarely explored, particularly as it represents »» ‘Strangers’ and regular visitors; a seductive metaphor for concepts of hybrid »» Jews and Romanies/Gypsies. identity, transnationalism and movement (Savage, 2002, 384; Malvinni, 2004). Such ■■ Assimilations and displacements. accounts must be historicised: few Romanies/ ■■ Migrations to America and forced Gypsies were constantly nomadic, and not migrations to slave and penal colonies. all travelling groups were Romanies/Gypsies. ■■ The inclusion of these groups in mainstream Some groups were forcibly moved and/or histories (such as medical or military). resettled through enslavement, persecution ■■ The role of these communities in the history and discriminatory legislation. Others engaged of British . in commercial nomadism. This is not to say that fears about nomadism were unimportant ■■ Analyses of oral histories and autobiography.

6 ROMANIES/GYPSIES, ROMA & IRISH AND SCOTTISH TRAVELLERS This work should:

■■ Be aware of debates in the Social Sciences to understand the discursive frames in which its secondary material is caught. ■■ Be of the highest scholarly standards to do justice to the people whose histories and representations are studied. ■■ Move beyond looking at the ways in which the figure of the Romani/Gypsy has been used to play out non-Romani /Gypsy fantasies and anxieties.

7 References and external links

Acton, Thomas. ‘Modernity, Culture and Grobbel, Michaela. ‘Contemporary Romany “Gypsies”: Is there a Meta-Scientific Method Autobiography as Performance’. The German for Understanding the Representation of Quarterly 76:2 (2003). 140-154. “Gypsies”? And do the Dutch really Exist’. Hancock, Ian. We Are the . In The Role of the Romanies: Images and Hertfordshire: University of Hertfordshire Counter-images of “Gypsies”/Romanies in Press, 2002. European Cultures. Ed. by N. Saul and S. Tebbut. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2004 Hancock, Ian. ‘Romani Origins and Romani (98-116). Identity: A Reassessment of the Arguments’. In Counter-Hegemony and the Postcolonial Belton, Brian A. Gypsy and Traveller Ethnicity: “Other”. Ed. by Michael Hayes and Thomas The Social Generation of an Ethnic Phenomenon. Acton. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, : Routledge, 2005. 2006. Bendix, Regina. In Search of Authenticity: Hayes, M. Irish Travellers: Representations and The Formation of Folklore Studies. Madison, Realities. : Liffey Press, 2006. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997. Kabachnik, P. ‘ or Uruguay? The Braid, D. Scottish Traveller Tales: Lives Shaped Persistence of Place and the Myth of the Placeless through Stories. Jackson, MS: University Press Gypsy’. Area 42:2 (2010). 198–207. of Mississippi, 2002. Lee, Ken. ‘Belated Travelling Theory, Burke, M. ‘Dwellers in Archaic Cultural Time: Contemporary Wild Praxis: A Romani “Gypsies”, “” and “” in Early Perspective on the Practical Politics of the Nineteenth-century Scottish Writing. In To the Open End’. In The Role of the Romanies (31-49). Other Shore: Cross-currents in Irish and Scottish Studies. Ed. by N. Alexander, S. Murphy and A. Malvinni, David. The Gypsy Caravan: From Real Oakman. Belfast: Queen’s University Belfast, Roma to Imaginary Gypsies in Western Music and 2004 (16-27). Film. New York: Routledge, 2004. Burke, M. ‘Eighteenth-century European Matthews, Jodie. ‘Back where they Belong: Scholarship and Nineteenth-century Irish Gypsies, Kidnapping and Assimilation in Literature: Synge’s ’s Wedding and the Victorian Children’s Literature’. Romani Studies Orientalising of “Irish Gypsies”’. In The Irish 5, 20: 2 (2010). 137-159. Revival Reappraised. Ed. by B. T. FitzSimon Matthews, Jodie. ‘“Tsiganes on the Brain”: and J. H. Murphy. Dublin: Four Courts, 2004a The “Last Gypsy” as a Case of Archive Fever’. (205-216). Immigrants and Minorities, forthcoming 2013. Carter, Helen. ‘Responses to Gypsies in Britain, Mayall, David. Gypsy Identities, 1500–2000: 1900-1939’. PhD Diss. (Northumbria, 2002). From Egipcyans and Moon-Men to the Ethnic Grellman, Heinrich Moritz Gottlieb. Romany. London and New York: Routledge, Dissertation on the Gipsies: Being an Historical 2004. Enquiry, Concerning the Manner of Life, Mayall, David. ‘Gypsy Studies: A New Era?’ Œconomy, Customs and Conditions of These Immigrants & Minorities 17: 2 (1998). 57-67. People in Europe, and Their Origin. Trans. by Matthew Raper. London: Elmsley, 1787.

8 ROMANIES/GYPSIES, ROMA & IRISH AND SCOTTISH TRAVELLERS Okely, Judith. The Traveller-Gypsies. A fuller report of this research review, a list Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. of works consulted, a workshop summary, Ong, Walter J. Orality and Literacy. London and and a podcast describing the relevance of this New York: Routledge, 1982. research can be found at: Savage, Roger. ‘Vaughan Williams, the www.hud.ac.uk/abis/projects/gypsies-roma- Romany Ryes, and the Cambridge Ritualists’. irish-travellers/ Music and Letters 83:3 (2002). 383-418. Simhandl, Katrin. ‘“Western Gypsies and Travellers”–“Eastern Roma”: The Creation of Political Objects by the Institutions of the European Union’. Nations and Nationalism 12:1 (2006). 97-115. Sonneman, Toby. ‘Dark Mysterious Wanderers: The Migrating Metaphor of the Gypsy’. Journal of Popular Culture 32:4 (1999). 119-139. Taylor, Becky. A Minority and the State: Travellers in Britain in the Twentieth Century. : Manchester University Press, 2008. Toninato, Paola. ‘Translating Gypsies: Nomadic Writing and the Negotiation of Romani Identity’. The Translator 12:2 (2006). 233-251. Voskuil, Lynn M. Acting Naturally: Victorian Theatricality and Authenticity. Charlottesville, VA and London: University of Virginia Press, 2004. Willems, Wim. In Search of the True Gypsy: From Enlightenment to Final Solution. Trans. by Don Bloch. London: Frank Cass, 1997. Yates, M. and S. Roud. ‘Alice E. Gillington: Dweller on the Roughs’. Folk Music Journal 9:1 (2006). 72-94.

9 The Connected Communities

Connected Communities is a cross-Council Programme being led by the AHRC in partnership with the EPSRC, ESRC, MRC and NERC and a range of external partners. The current vision for the Programme is: “to mobilise the potential for increasingly inter- connected, culturally diverse, communities to enhance participation, prosperity, sustainability, health & well-being by better connecting research, stakeholders and communities.” Further details about the Programme can be found on the AHRC’s Connected Communities web pages at: www.ahrc.ac.uk/FundingOpportunities/Pages/ connectedcommunities.aspx www.connectedcommunities.ac.uk