Gypsies And Travellers

Now more than ever the issues of accommodation, education, health care, employment, and social exclusion for British Gypsy and Traveller communities need to be addressed. This book looks at Gypsies and Travellers in British society, touching on topics such as media and political representation, power, justice, and the impact of European initiatives for inclusion. In doing so, it offers important new insights for students, academics, policy makers, journalists, service providers, and others working with these groups.

This book presents the untold stories of Gypsy and Traveller girls living in Scotland. Drawing on accounts of the girls’ lives and offering space for their voices to be heard, the author addresses contemporary and traditional stereotypes and racialised misconceptions of Gypsies and Travellers. Marcus explores how the stubborn persistence of these negative views appears to contribute to policies and practices of neglect, inertia or intervention that often aim to ‘civilise’ and further assimilate these communities into the mainstream settled population. It is against this backdrop that the book exposes the girls’ racialised and gendered experiences, which impact on their struggles as young people to realise their potential and future prospects. Their narratives reveal the strengths of a distinct community, and the complexity of their silence and agency within the patriarchal structures that pervade the private spaces of home and the public spaces of education. This study also invites the reader to reflect on how the experiences of Gypsy and Traveller girls compares with young women from other social backgrounds, and questions if there is more that binds us than divides us as women in the modern world. Gypsy and Traveller Girls will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including sociology, education, gender studies and social policy.

Over the past decade, interest in Gypsies, Roma and Travellers (GRT) has risen up the political and media agendas, but they remain relatively unknown. This topical book is the first to chart the history and contemporary developments in GRT community activism, and the community and voluntary organisations and coalitions which support it. Underpinned by radical community development and equality theories, it describes the communities' struggle for rights against a backdrop of intense intersectional discrimination across Europe, and critiques the ambivalent role of community development in fostering these campaigns. Much of it co-written by community activists, it is a vehicle for otherwise marginalised voices, and an essential resource and inspiration for practitioners, lecturers, researchers and members of GRT communities.

Gypsies and Travellers have often been overlooked as victims of hate crime and discrimination. This book redresses that exclusion by shining a light on the harms of hate experienced by Gypsies and Travellers in the UK. In doing so James explores how hate permeates all aspects of their lives and identifies the hate crimes, incidents, and speech that they are subject to. It goes on to explore how hate against Gypsies and Travellers occurs as discrimination, social exclusion and criminalisation and how that hate is embedded within the language and practice of neoliberal capitalism. This book provides new insights to critical criminology and ways of understanding hate by using the critical hate studies perspective to gain a full appreciation of the harms of hate. As a consequence of this, the book is able to do justice to Gypsies' and Travellers' experiences of hate by extrapolating how harms manifest and the impact they have on Gypsies’ and Travellers’ social and personal identities. The book explains and acknowledges how hate harms imbue Gypsies' and Travellers' daily lives, including common events of serious abuse and assault, regular ill-treatment in provision of services, and everyday micro-aggressions. It argues hate experienced by Gypsies and Travellers can only be fully recognised through an analysis of the neoliberal capitalist context within which it occurs and the harmful subjective experience it engenders. The author’s expertise in this area, having carried out research with Gypsies and Travellers for 25 years, underpins the book with excellent empirical knowledge and research-informed discussion.

The shocking poignant story of eviction, expulsion, and the hard-scrabble fight for a home They are reviled. For centuries the Roma have wandered Europe; during the Holocaust half a million were killed. After World War II and during the Troubles, a wave of Irish Travellers moved to England to make a better, safer life. They found places to settle down – but then, as Occupy was taking over Wall Street and London, the vocal Dale Farm community in Essex was evicted from their land. Many did not leave quietly; they put up a legal and at times physical fight. Award-winning journalist Katharine Quarmby takes us into the heat of the battle, following the Sheridan, McCarthy, Burton and Townsley families before and after the eviction, from Dale Farm to Meriden and other trouble spots. Based on exclusive access over the course of seven years and rich historical research, No Place to Call Home is a stunning narrative of long-sought justice.

This original and timely text is the first published research from the UK to address the neglected topic of the increasing (and largely enforced) settlement of Gypsies and Travellers in conventional housing. It highlights the complex and emergent tensions and dynamics inherent when policy and popular discourse combine to frame ethnic populations within a narrative of movement. The authors have extensive knowledge of the communities and experience as policy practitioners and researchers and consider the changing culture and dynamics experienced by ethnic Gypsies and Travellers. They explore the gendered social, health and economic impacts of settlement and demonstrate the tenacity of cultural formations and their adaptability in the face of policy-driven constraints that are antithetical to traditional lifestyles. The groundbreaking book is essential reading for policy makers; professionals and practitioners working with housed Gypsies and Travellers. It will also be of interest to sociologists, anthropologists, social policy and housing specialists and anybody interested in the experiences and responses of marginalized communities in urban and rural settings. Royalties for this book are to be divided equally between the Gypsy Council and Travellers Aid Trust.

The first monograph to be published on Gypsies in Britain using the perspective of social anthropology.

A “vigorous and vivid and feisty” portrait of a traditional Scottish subculture from an insider (Dundee Courier & Advertiser). Scottish gypsies, known as travellers, have wandered Scotland’s roads and byways for centuries, and their turbulent history is captured in this passionate book by Jess Smith, the bestselling author of Jessie’s Journey. This is less a conventional history than a personal pilgrimage through the stories, songs, and culture of a people for whom freedom is more important than security and a campfire under the stars is preferable to a warm hearth within stone walls. Settled society has always discriminated against travellers, and Jess tells shocking stories of bullying, violence, the enforced break-up of families, and separate schooling. But drawing on her own and her family’s experiences, she also captures the magic and drama of days wandering the roads and working the land, and brings to life the travellers’ rich and vibrant traditions.