AJ Racism Essay Gypsies

In What Ways Have Travellers Been Racialized in Britain?

LY 3018 Racism, Gender and Class

Candidate No: 982679

Word Count: 2,999


Travellers take their roots from the original Romany Gypsies an ethnic group believed to have

entered Europe from the East through Russia in the middle ages from Northern India (Crowe,

1996). Their origins were first noticed by a 1760 Hungarian theology student who overheard some

Romani builders he employed using words from the ancient Indian language Sanskrit, says Ian

Hancock a Romani professor (Hancock, 2002). This is the main consensus with the theory that

Traveller roots originating from Egypt, their name a corruption of ‘Egyptian’, rejected (Bradley &

Fenton 2002, Fraser 1995, Acton & Kenrick 2000).

In Britain, the term ‘Gypsy’ covers; “Romany Gypsies, Irish Travellers, Welsh Travellers, Scottish

Travellers, New Travellers and Occupational Travellers (including Showpeople)” (Burnett, Cemlyn,

Greenfields, Matthews & Whitwell, 2009: iii). For ease of reference in this essay, I shall refer to these

groups hereafter as ‘Travellers’.

Monitoring the Traveller population in Britain is difficult due to their itinerant nature but one of the

most recent estimates stood at approximately 300,000 (Clements & Morris, 2002). This number is

likely to be made more accurate thanks to the inclusion of a Traveller category on the 2011 census

paper.

English Travellers, Irish Travellers and Scottish Travellers are all recognised as distinct ethnic groups

now entitling them to legal protection under the Race Relations Act of 1976. Whilst this relatively

new found status is useful legally, Travellers are still often stated to be the last ethnic minority to

still face regular bouts of racism (Coxhead, 2007).

2


My essay will be examining the social inequalities surrounding the racialization of British Travellers.

To avoid any ambiguity, I will be using the Oxford Dictionary of Sociology definition for racialization;

that is, the social processes by which a population group is categorized as a race (Marshall & Scott,

2009). I will therefore aim to examine the social processes surrounding the way in which Travellers

have become categorised as a race possessing certain characteristics.

"Travellers are people who think that it's perfectly OK for them to cause mayhem in an area, to go

burgling, thieving, breaking into vehicles, causing all kinds of other trouble including defecating in

the doorways of firms and so on".

These are the words of Jack Straw, the former Home Secretary who obviously, at the time, had

strong views towards Travellers (BBC News, 1999). Arguably, this view is believed by many to be

shared by the various British governmental institutions and is highlighted by the state legislation, or

lack of, that currently exists surrounding Travellers (Burnett, Cemlyn, Greenfields, Matthews &

Whitwell, 2009).

Travellers are currently recognised under the Race Relations Act 1976, an Act which is supposed “to

make fresh provision with respect to discrimination on racial grounds and relations between people

of different racial groups” (Parliament of the UK, 1976).

Until the Criminal Justice Act 1994, local councils were creating sites for travellers under a duty

imposed by the l968 Caravan Sites Act. Since this point, other than the sites that were previously in

the pipeline, councils have ceased providing sites and instead only accept private site planning

3


applications. The rate of success of these is low claims Bancroft (2005); stating structural factors as

opposed to direct legal discrimination as the main reason.

Meeting the ‘provision’ of housing needs laid out in that government report is scarce with local

authorities and the government failing to acknowledge traveller needs. A government report

published in 2004 says: “travellers are regularly forced to leave unauthorised encampments in

order to avoid a criminal prosecution”. Continuing, “the unique needs of Travellers are regularly

overlooked by public bodies, which fail to recognise their nomadic existence as a viable way of life,

as most legislation is designed to meet the needs of sedentary society” (Parliament of the United

Kingdom, 2004: EV94).

If further proof were needed that Travellers were being marginalised in society, last year The

Homes and Community Agency reported that it was told to cut £30 million of its Gypsy and

Traveller programme due to a lack of local authority requests for funding (Lloyd, 2010). Nineteen

days after the general election also, “£50m that had been allocated to building new sites across

London was scrapped from the budget” (Bindel, 2011).

On the contrary though, “industrialisation has restricted the economic adaption of gypsies, while

the accompanying urbanisation has made the setting up of camps increasingly problematic”, writes

Belton (2005: 29-30). And so, rather than this being solely an issue with government and local

authorities legislation, this could simply be the world moving at a faster pace than the Travellers.

Hard to refute when the Commission for Racial Equality estimates that there are between 270,000

4


and 360,000 travellers now living in brick built dwellings, approximately three times the number

living the nomadic lifestyle (Greenfields, 2009) which arguably prove Travellers are evolving.

Numbers aside though, there are still nomadic Travellers and by failing to provide sufficient areas to

inhabit it could be suggested that local authorities are creating a social inequality as access to

accommodation is a basic human right that allows for education, healthcare and various other

public services. A lack of local authority sanctioned areas leaves Travellers little choice but to

trespass and inhabit land illegally. In fact, as of 2009 one in four Travellers were living in a caravan

which did not have a legal place to park on – thus, effectively marking themselves as homeless in

the eyes of the law (Johnson, 2007). Whilst it may not be directly their fault, it is clear to see that

this legislation racializes Travellers by characterising them as law-breakers whether they live in a

fixed abode or in caravan.

A specific example of traveller housing strife which has received significant news coverage of late is

that of Dale Farm, a traveller community in a former scrap yard near Basildon. The local council

want to evict over 500 travellers from the site, the largest of its kind in Europe, in an attempt to

claim back ‘greenbelt’ land (an area where urbanisation is restricted). The eviction would cost

Basildon council £8 million in taxpayers’ money, almost a third of their yearly budget, and is

opposed by those who would rather see the budget spent elsewhere and do not want to see

vulnerable old people and small children made homeless (The Telegraph, 2011).

5


In the context of normal sedentary society, an eviction on this scale would be completely

unprecedented and received with uproar. However, as the eviction involves Travellers the public

uproar is minimal and is if anything in favour of eviction.

The council insists that the travellers have gone against principles that were agreed when the

travellers were first granted the land in the 1960s (Basildon Council, 2010). In addition, since

granting the land more and more Travellers have flocked to the site after evictions at other

locations. Now numbering one thousand, the site is the largest in the UK. The council also make it

clear that legal tenants are allowed to remain at Dale Farm if legal owners of their plots.

An eviction this size would effectively create over five hundred ‘homeless’ individuals which in itself

is a human rights disaster; a social cost larger than the financial one.

The Travellers are stubbornly refusing to move despite not actually having any legal claim to their

plot of land and Basildon council who could easily be accused of excessive tactics in an effort to

evict the largest number of Travellers in Europe. Nevertheless, this case is poised as no matter what

the result it is almost certainly going to set a precedent in terms of state legislation and

management of Travellers. Either way this ends I believe travellers will still stand to lose out in

terms of racialization as by staying they are effectively confirming their unlawful trespassers

reputation and by leaving the public’s opinion of them is simply unlikely to change.

Travellers have often been portrayed as specific characters by the media. Films such as Snatch, Drag

me to Hell, and Time of the Travellers, have often represented them pejoratively to be of a

6


questionable nature, sometimes magical, and rather antiquely inhabiting some form of caravan. A

further perhaps more abstract portrayal of Traveller treatment would be that of the ‘Prawn’

characters from District 9; a film with racial undertones in which the prawns suffer horrific

discrimination from a bourgeoisie class who have evicted them from the slum-like conditions they

were originally made to live in as a result of their subordination.

A current example of Traveller media portrayal is that of the popular Channel 4 television show My

Big Fat Gypsy Wedding (MBFGW) which claims to ‘offer a window into the secretive, extravagant

and surprising world of gypsies and travellers in Britain today’. Vast viewing figures, indeed Channel

4’s eighth most viewed programme ever, have led to a widespread Traveller anger as they feel

grossly misprepresented by, as they put it, the production company “largely filming Irish Travellers,

who make up perhaps just 10% of Britain’s Traveller community” (Times, 2011).

Many Travellers are asking us to accept solely their word as their defence. Judith Okely highlights

though that “Travellers have scarcely written their own history”, and that “their’s is a non-literate

tradition” (Okely, 1983: 1) making it hard to prove such statements, especially as the programme is

delivered via a much more powerful format to a wide audience. By heckling at the production team

and creating a fuss with newspapers, Travellers are leaving themselves open to further criticism by

the same discursive elements such as television and newspapers that have played such a major part

in racializing them previously.

In the Travellers defence, MBFGW was heralded as ‘it would throw an overdue light on a secretive,

marginalised and little-understood segment of our society’. However, the show has been criticised

7


as it “largely avoided the myriad of problems, such as discrimination, poor health and poverty faced

by Travellers and instead focussed on over-the-top weddings and other excesses” says Julie Bindel

(2011). Seemingly, altering public perceptions of race is difficult as so much opinion these days

revolves around gossip, discourse, and idle word-of-mouth spawned by shows such as this.

A common phrase aimed at Travellers is that they are ‘dirty’. This attached stigma, according to

Bhopal and Myers, “demonstrates a blindness to Traveller taboos about cleanliness and hygiene”

(2008: 79). Ironically, Travellers have some of the most puritanical values relating to gender roles,

the institution of marriage, and childbirth. It is debatable that the society that belittles them is in

fact more guilty of being dirty than Travellers with more relaxed views on chastity.

Where did this stigma of Travellers being unclean come from? The depiction of Travellers by media

and films is that of a dirty individual. Additionally, this misconception could be linked to how

Travellers live an itinerant lifestyle; the way in which they are inclined to follow a nomadic life in a

rural and therefore less hygienic setting.

There is this idea put forward by Mary Douglas of “dirt as matter out-of-place” (2002: 44) which,

creates a sensible link between this notion of Travellers being dirty and their non-conforming

itinerant lifestyle. Douglas, an eminent anthropologist, states that this ‘dirt’ is always relative to a

particular system of classifcation. This notion she creates is that rather than viewing the Traveller

systems in terms of taboos and purity, modern concerns with hygiene, such as the Travellers being

dirty, are simply another instance of symbolic ordering. And so much like Marx argued the

bourgeoisie reigned the proletariat, using Douglas’ theory in practice, as general society believe

8


themselves to be of a higher hygiene level they therefore place themselves systematically above

Travellers who are considered to be ‘dirty and out-of-place’ in comparison.

Thomas Acton defines Travellers differently. Not, this time as dirty but as being sterotyped as

unrestrained, rootless – indeed ‘free’, saying: “to the majority of the population this assumed

freedom is the antithesis of their own life circumstances and is at one level an object of desire”

(1997: 97). So, instead of these derogatory remarks made about Travellers simply being belittling,

Acton continues to suggest that this could in fact be an envious undertone, an envy that travellers

experience a life without the trappings of a ‘normal’ existence such as a mortgage, job, rent and so

on. Acton calls this envy, ”a hypocritical element of resentful dependence and projection of guilt”

(1997: 97). Justifying it with an example of the Jewish population; where Jewish traders and

financiers face predjudice from the population they serve but who simultaneously hold them in

contempt for doing so (Acton, 1997: 97). Whilst it cannot be said that Travellers provide financial

expertise like Jewish people, they have been known to provide services such as cheap motor

repairs, alcohol provision and unregistered labour. And so, the basis on which Travellers are

racialized and subjected to stigma by society for being dirty could just as easily be a mirroring of

envy as it is of genuine offence.

Referring back to Douglas, if Travellers are defined as out of place it poses the question where then

would be their rightful ‘in-place’?

As a minority, it is fair to say they suffer from a lack of government and local authority policy

making. An audit in 1997 by ACERT showed that less than one third of local authorities in England

9


had a policy on Traveller site provision in their development plans (Wilson, 1998). Despite the

introduction of ‘Circular 1/94’ in 1994, “a circular designed to create a level playing field so that

private site applications could be easily handled” (Crawley, 2004: 20), there are still pitfalls in the

way that make it exceedingly difficult for Travellers to access land to live ‘legally’, as Crawley

explains, “...there is no evidence of a level playing field for dealing for sites on land that has been

purchased by Travelling communities” (Crawley, 2004: 23).

In addition, particularly at school Travellers’ children experience a much lower level of achievement

and are often taught separately from other children (Burnett, Cemlyn, Greenfields, Matthews &

Whitwell, 2009). By setting children apart, or marginalising them even if for their own educational

good, it will obviously incite bullying. They have indeed been sighted as “the group most at risk in

the education system today” (Ofsted, 1999: para 8) referring to their low educational attainment.

Many authors have argued the issue as to the existence of a true ‘authentic’ Traveller in the 21 st

century. Whilst the romanticized Traveller image that emerged as a literary by-product in the 19th

century is often mentioned (Bhopal & Myers, 2008), the current debate focuses more on the

practical nature of a Traveller rather than the historical image. Steve Garner outlines that, “the

inauthentic are poor horsemen, only con-men, and do not dress or look noticeably different to the

urban poor” (Garner, 2007: 114-115). The authentic Traveller is described by several as preservers

of their culture (Rovid & Stewart, 2010), speakers of the Romany language (Okely, 1983), and their

preference for rural life (Garner, 2007). Authenticity is an important issue to Travellers, not only

because they have a reputation for having a strong belief in tradition, roots and their Romany

10


history but because inauthentic Travellers ruin this reputation. Jack Straw, in his remarks made on

radio, claimed he made them regarding inauthentic Travellers.

Whilst this may be true, areas where residents have low levels of skills training, education and

academic qualifications tend to have the highest levels of poverty (Goulden, 2010). Traveller

children are often bullied and marginalised at school causing them to a leave and thus have a

stunted education. Whilst their itinerant life does not lend itself wholly to stable education and

employment, it could be argued that Travellers lack the aforementioned set of skills linked so

closely to poverty. These are characteristics that racialize Travellers as a group.

On the contrary though, “Travellers have found and retained a special niche within the wider

economy, exploiting a multiplicity of occupations” says Judith Okely (1983: 50). She adds that

Travellers have an extraordinary number of occupations. Therefore disproving the notion that

Travellers cannot work. If anything they are more advantagious and entrepeneurial than most

others quashing any preconceived racial associations to employment.

According to Angus Fraser, internal debates amongst Travellers as to ‘authenticity’ often lead to a

“‘them and us’ dichtomy” (1995: 8), which would suggest on the one hand that if Travellers find

their own people ambiguous, how can an outsider judge?

There are several clear cut characteristics that reveal ‘authentic’ Travellers and different factions

within the British Traveller population. To this is added the public belief that if a Traveller does not

11


fit the romanticized stereotype (have a horse-drawn wagon, sit around an open fire, or strain at the

fiddle (Bhopal & Myers, 2008) then an individual is not an authentic Traveller.

In conclusion, it is clear from my analysis that Travellers are racialized as a group in thanks to the

media, government, education, and word-of-mouth creating a much debatable stereotype. This

racialization has moved on significantly from when Hancock’s Hungarian student noted them for

their language. Currently the racialization is usually of a pejorative nature. This does not have to be

the case though; as identified, it is possible to racialize the Traveller community further between

different sub groups so as to shed some broad stigma attached to all Travellers. Referring back to

the introduction, there are many different groups of Travellers in Britain who may all share similar

heritage but are not all the same and should not be tarred with the same brush. Particularly with

crime, failure to differentiate between Traveller groups comes when information is conveyed

generally. As an example, a story in the Daily Mail states that police are struggling to deal with an

800% rise in crimes committed by Romanian immigrants in February 2008. This, however, has been

reformatted by various news portals to now read ‘Romanian Gypsies’. Whilst this group of

individuals share little in common with their UK counterparts, they are banded together and people

therefore deduce that Travellers and crime are connected.

12


Bibliography

Acton, T.A. & Kenrick, D. (2000). Scholarship and the gypsy struggle : commitment in Romani studies. Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press.

Acton, T.A. (1997). Gypsy Politics and Traveller Identity. Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press.

Bancroft, A. (2005). Roma and Gypsy-Travellers in Europe: Modernity, Race, Space, and Exclusion. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Basildon Council. (2010). Council continues fight against unauthorised sites. Available: http://www2.basildon.gov.uk/Website2/newsroom.nsf/0/27521431B6C693C0802577ED0044FB9C?OpenDocument. Last accessed 28th March 2011.

BBC News. (1999). UK Politics Straw Repeats Travellers Comments.Available: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/428915.stm. Last accessed 21st March 2011.

Belton, B. (2005). Questioning Gypsy Identity. Walnut Creek: Rowman Altamira.

Bhopal, K. & Myers, M. (2008). Insiders, Outsiders and Others. Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press.

Bindel, J. (2011). The Big Fat Truth About Gypsy Life. Available: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/feb/25/truth-about-gypsy-traveller-life-women. Last accessed 25th March 2011.

Bradley, H. & Fenton, S. (2002). Ethnicity and Economy: 'Race and Class' Revisited.

Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Cemlyn, S., Greenfields. M., Burnett, S., Matthews, Z. & Whitwell, C. (2009). Inequalities experienced by Gypsy and Traveller communities: A review. Available: http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/uploaded_files/research/12inequalities_experienced_by_gypsy_and_traveller_communities_a_review.pdf. Last accessed 4th April 2011.

Clements, L.J. & Morris, R.C. (2002). At What Cost?: The Economics of Gypsy and Traveller Encampments. Bristol: The Policy Press.

Coxhead, J. (2007). The Last Bastion of Racism?: Gypsies, Travellers and Policing. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books.

Crowe, D.M. (1996). A History of the Gypsies of Eastern Europe and Russia. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Douglas, M. (2002). Purity and Danger. Abingdon: Routledge.

13


Fraser, A. (1995). The Gypsies. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell.

Garner, S. (2007). Whiteness: An Introduction. Abgindon: Routledge.

Goulden, C. (2010). Cycles of Poverty, Unemployment and Low Pay.Available: http://www.jrf.org.uk/system/files/poverty-employment-lowpay-summary.pdf. Last accessed 27th March 2011.

Greenfields, M. (2009). Gypsies, Travellers and accommodation .Available: http://www.better-housing.org.uk/files/housing/housing-brief10.pdf. Last accessed 28th March 2011.

Hancock, I.F. (2002). We are the Romani People. Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press.

Johnson, C. (2007). Gypsy and Traveller Law. London: Legal Action Group.

Lloyd, T. (2010). HCA Cuts £230m and Freezes New Spending.Available: http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/development/hca-cuts-%C2%A3230m-and-freezes-new-spending/6509956.article. Last accessed 28th March 2011.

Marshall, G. & Scott, J. (2009). Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Ofsted (1999). Annual Report of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools: standards and quality in education 1997/98. TSO.

Okely, J. (1983). The Traveller-Gypsies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Parliament of the United Kingdom (2004). The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Norwich: The Stationery Office.

Parliament of the United Kingdom. (1976). Race Relations Act 1976.Available: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1976/74. Last accessed 27th March 2011.

Rovid, M. & Stewart, M. (2010). Multi-Disciplinary Approaches to Romany Studies. Budapest: Central European University Press.

The Telegraph. (2011). Council could spend £18m evicting travellers.Available: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/8382218/Council-could-spend-18m-evicting-travellers.html. Last accessed 27th March 2011.

Wilson, M (1998) A Directory of Planning Policies for Gypsy Site Provision in England. Bristol: Policy Press.

14

Date post:	27-Nov-2014
Category:	Documents
Upload:	apple-juice
View:	101 times
Download:	1 times

AJ Racism Essay Gypsies

Documents