folders of newspaper clippings (long before such files were digitized and searchable). These documented clashes with householders and the police over trespassing and efforts by the Itinerant Settlement Movement to settle Travellers. In the archives of the Folklore Department at University College Dublin, we discovered a set of questionnaires about Travellers that had been completed by schoolteachers across Ireland in the early 1950s. These painted a picture of Travellers’ work and nomadism before their city-ward migration and revealed many of the superstitions and folk beliefs that settled people held about them. When either of us felt depressed, anxious, or simply at loose ends, we could go to one of these places and escape into solitary and productive work. When a complete break from fieldwork was needed, Dublin provided cinemas, theater, museums, art galleries, plays, shops, restaurants, and the zoo—a range of diversions unavailable to anthropologists working in rural villages.
FINAL THOUGHTS
On August 15, 1972, thirteen months after our first conversation with the taxi driver on the drive into Dublin from the airport, we left Holylands and Ireland. We had become very close to some families, making our departure emotional on both sides. We promised to return, which we did several times through the 1970s and 1980s and again in 2001 and 2011. Now, looking back nearly fifty years later, we sometimes wonder why they willingly took us in. How many middle-class Irish or American families would put up with two foreigners moving into their neighborhood, watching how they behave, and asking endless questions about their lives? On the other hand, Travellers didn’t lose anything by accepting us, and most Holylanders seemed to enjoy the novelty of our presence and, we think, appreciated our friendship and the genuine interest and respect we had for their lives. When we returned in 2011, we were honored to learn that three children—one George and two Sharons—had been named after us. We were also pleased to discover people’s fond memories of the Wagon Wheels soccer team and the extent to which it and we had become a part of Holylands families’ folklore.
3
Politics and Fieldwork
Nomads in English Cities
For the first half century of anthropology’s existence in North America, most research was “pure,” that is, conducted for its own sake with little attention given to its practical applications.1 Today, half of American anthropologists are employed full-time by government agencies, NGOs, and the like to help solve specific social problems or provide the cultural context needed to develop new programs or policies. Typical goals include alleviating poverty, improving health, and evaluating the effectiveness of government and nonprofit initiatives. A friend of ours studies behavioral issues associated with isolation and confinement in order to help NASA design better training programs and space stations. Other applied work involves museum curation and historic preservation. Still other anthropologists are hired to help corporations understand how to increase efficiency, improve worker satisfaction, or deliver better services and consumer products.
Others, like us, are employed in academia but occasionally do applied research. We have conducted several research projects for federal and state agencies. Our first—the subject of this chapter—was for Britain’s Department of the Environment (DOE) and the Welsh Home Office.2 It involved studying the mobility patterns of Gypsy and Irish Traveller families living in England and Wales and the problems that the lack of legal places to camp created for them, for nearby residents, and for local government officials. The focus was on the estimated five hundred highly mobile regional and “long distance” families for whom providing legal campsites was most difficult. This chapter explores these issues and the problems of some applied work—in this case, the way politics can intrude upon fieldwork.
NAMES AND TERMINOLOGY
Before proceeding, some clarification of group names is necessary. Although the term “Gypsy” is a pejorative ethnonym (a name applied to group members by outsiders) in some European countries, this is not the case in the United Kingdom. There, it is the term used by many “Gypsy” organizations (for example, the National Gypsy Council) as well as most group members. The term “Traveller” is sometimes used interchangeably with “Gypsy” because of the similarities in the economic adaptation and lifestyle of the two groups.
To further confuse matters, other terms may also be used, such as “Romanichal” and “Romany” (or “Romani”), by those who consider the terms “Gypsy” and “Traveller” to be too broad.In the words of British anthropologist Anthony Howarth, “With the advent of political correctness and Gypsy/Traveller NGOs and Facebook sites, use of all of the terms—Travellers, Gypsies, Pavee, Mincier, Romanichal—has become complicated. However, most Gypsies in the U.K. still refer to themselves as ‘Gypsies’ and they do this with a great deal of pride.”3
Like Gypsies in other countries, those in England and Wales descend from populations who left northern and northwestern India as early as 500 CE.4 The earliest references to them in Britain date to the early sixteenth century, when some arrived presenting themselves as “Egyptians” or Christian pilgrims from “Little Egypt”—understood to have meant the Middle East—from which the English term “Gypsy” evolved. During their many migrations, Gypsies have absorbed language, customs, and marriage partners from surrounding populations. In Britain, generations of contact with householders and indigenous nomadic groups—English, Welsh, Scottish, and Irish Travellers—has Anglicized their speech and surnames, although they maintain a distinct identity and customs.
NOMADS IN CITIES
Prior to World War II, Gypsies in the United Kingdom lived in the countryside much of the year. They harvested fruit and vegetables and performed many of the services for the settled community described for Irish Travellers in chapter 2. In winter, when rural work was scarce and travel difficult, many moved into towns and cities. After the war, they began frequenting urban areas on a more permanent basis. By then, many rural trades were becoming obsolete, and campsites were being eliminated as suburbs and highways spread. In 1959, the Highways Act made camping on the roadside or “lay-bys” illegal. At the same time, postwar reconstruction and urban-renewal projects provided new opportunities, particularly in construction and scrap-metal collecting. It was at this time that Irish Travellers began arriving in the United Kingdom in numbers, although there had been some cross-channel (Irish Sea) movement for decades.5 By 1980, when our research began, virtually every British and Welsh city, especially those in the industrialized heart of the country, had Gypsies and Irish Travellers living there.
Although nomadic Gypsies and Travellers formed less than 1 percent of the United Kingdom’s population at the time of our study, they had a high profile.6 Their “illegal” campsites spawned many complaints from local householders and businesses. The evictions that resulted created personal and financial hardships for families and cost local authorities money. In 1968, the government enacted The Caravan Sites Act, requiring all local governments to provide serviced campsites for the Gypsy and Traveller families “residing in or resorting to” their area. By 1980, 166 such “sites” had been built, and another 30 temporary camping places, often just a dirt field, had been made available. Together, these provided space for less than half the population and catered primarily to localized and less nomadic families.
Figure 3-1. An illegal Gypsy encampment next to St. Pancras railway station, London, 1981.
While most householders acknowledged the need for Gypsy sites, few wanted one built near their neighborhood. “If the average householder can even glimpse a Gypsy by standing on top of his wardrobe and looking out the corner of his bedroom window,” a government official in Manchester told us, “he’ll complain.” Residents objected most strongly to the idea of paying to build sites for the “long distance” or highly mobile families we had
