Abstract
Employing the concepts of social representation, themata (Moscovici, 1963, 2011) and symbolic violence (Bourdieu, 1989), this paper reveals the depth of the prejudice and discrimination experienced by Gypsies and Travellers on a daily basis. And, through an exampling of media reportage and state law, policy and practice in the UK and drawing parallels with Antigypsyism in Spain and the demonisation and labelling of the favela communities of Brazil, it identifies the drivers of, and the responses to, the persistent and prevailing global symbolic violence of negative language, imagery, social isolation and punitive legislation directed towards Gypsies and Travellers and indeed other minoritised and racialised groups.
Introduction
This paper offers a unique insider perspective on the impact that (negative and gendered) social representations have on the ability of Gypsy Travellers, particularly women of the community, to access and enjoy fundamental human rights such as the right to good quality health care, clean water and good food, culturally appropriate accommodation and, in community with other members of their group, to enjoy their own cultural practices, even though they are ‘at odds’ with, or differ from, the practices of the majority.
Of equal importance, this paper identifies the media as a key driver of negative social representations arguing that an understanding of the role of the media in both furthering and reinforcing negative myths and stereotypes is crucial to challenging, and indeed changing, the narrative. For, as Morris rightly states:
In creating largely negative images of Travellers, the press may argue that they are merely reflecting standard public opinion; and they may be right. But in reflecting it they condone, encourage and confirm racist assumptions whereas, some might argue, it is part of their role to counter such bigoted simplifications (Morris, 2000:213).
Critically linked to this, is cognisance of, and attention to, the power of media constructed ‘conceptual maps’ (Hall, 2013), – the signs and symbols (of rubbish strewn landscapes) and the language of denigration, those social representations that typify the Gypsy/Traveller as outsider or, more extremely, as monster (Foucault, 1975) – as an outsider condemned to eternal wandering amongst the hinterlands of mainstream society.
Employing the concepts of social representation and themata (Moscovici, 1963, 2011), symbolic violence (Bourdieu, 1989) and habitus (Bourdieu, 1990) this paper reveals the depth of the prejudice and discrimination experienced by Gypsy Travellers on a daily basis. And, through examples of media reportage and state law, policy and practice in the UK and drawing parallels with Antigypsyism in Spain and the demonisation and labelling of the Favela communities of Brazil, identifies the drivers of, and the responses to, the persistent and prevailing and frequently gendered global symbolic violence of negative language, imagery, social isolation and legislation directed towards Gypsy Travellers and indeed other minoritised and racialised groups.
Building the narrative: The eternal wanderers[1]
Since the first written records of 1505, the state, ably assisted by the (Christian) churches (and from the late 1800s children’s homes such as Barnardo’s and Quarrier’s Orphan Homes of Scotland) have tasked themselves with ‘dealing with the Gypsy/Traveller problem’. Historical experiments and interventions such as: The Scottish Parliament Act Against the Egyptians [2] (1609), which demanded that all Gypsies leave Scotland, never to return on pain of death, the shipping of Gypsy Travellers as slaves (including children) to the colonies, the Gypsy/Traveller ‘Home Children’ who were removed from their families, sent to children’s homes then onwards to Australia and Canada (a practice that continued into the 1970s), the Tinker Housing Experiments (assimilation camps) and their associated Tinker Schools (McPhee, 2005:10). Experiments and interventions which were designed to assimilate, or indeed cleanse, the culture and traditions of the Gypsy Traveller from these islands. Experiments and interventions which if to succeed would require a narrative – a social representation – which would, in the eyes of the majority at least, normalise the eradication of ‘a culture’. A social representation constructed of language and imagery depicting Gypsy Travellers, without exception, as dirty, violent, uneducated, dishonest and dangerous Svengali like individuals, with a liking for ‘all things that glister’- including the glister of others. A social representation which fosters fear, embeds ‘otherness’ and enables the powerful to maintain boundaries and ‘purify’ their spaces (Powell, 2008:94), thereby ensuring the social capital of the Gypsy Traveller remains low.
Thornton’s (2014) assertions vis a vis power differentials, particularly a lack of engagement in political and economic structures and processes, are salient here as a means to understanding the historical and contemporary social representations of Gypsy Travellers, for, arguably, the control and exercise of power, and indeed the fear of its loss, is a key driver of the enduring narrative. And, whilst (historically) the state has played a key role in building that enduring narrative, of most significance to understanding the power dynamic is the role of the media: “[The press] may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about” (Cohen, 1963:13). Morris (2000:213) concurs:
[…] the print media commonly suggest to their readers, in their representations of Travellers, that this category of people routinely display certain negative characteristics not only typical of but essential to the group: that is, they represent Travellers in a stereotypical and prejudicial fashion. […] In creating largely negative images of Travellers, the press may argue that they are merely reflecting standard public opinion; and they may be right. But in reflecting it they condone, encourage and confirm racist assumptions whereas, some might argue, it is part of their role to counter such bigoted simplifications.
Despite the outcomes of the Leveson Inquiry (2012) into the culture, practice and ethics of the press which, inter alia, recommend a new ‘standards code’ which must take into account: (a) conduct, especially in relation to the treatment of other people in the process of obtaining material, (b) appropriate respect for privacy where there is no sufficient public interest justification for breach and (c) accuracy, and the need to avoid misrepresentation, Cadger’s (2017) longitudinal study on discrimination in online publications and social media sites demonstrates that these recommendations would appear to have fallen on deaf ears when it comes to reporting on the Gypsy Traveller community.
With the primary focus of relevant articles continuing to centre on sites, the community and crime with many articles containing negative stereotyping and the use of leading words – illegal, invasion, rubbish, eviction and so on – and just 0.5 percent reporting from the perspective of a Gypsy/Traveller or on the success of a member of the community, little has changed.
Consider the following image and reportage.
Figure 1: Aberdeenshire residents campaigning against the establishment of the Aikey Brae halt site, (King, 2017), Courtesy of the Press and Journal, DC Thomson Publishing.
Reporting on a local authority planning application for a Gypsy/Traveller halt site in Aberdeenshire, the Press and Journal used the image on nine separate occasions. With headlines ranging from “Calls for Aikey Brae to be protected like Culloden in traveller camp row” to “Community launches legal challenge to controversial traveller camp deal” (King, 2017) and no inclusion of a Gypsy/Traveller perspective or challenge to the assertions of the protestors, the publication encourages a moral outrage vis a vis covert references to the potential destruction of important historical sites and by “transmit[ing] the claims of the claims-makers” (Cohen, 2002:xxix) feeds the prevailing (negative) social representations of the Gypsy/Traveller community.
The above is but one of many examples of the negative narrative driven by the print and online media: Entering key words such as ‘Gypsy’ and ‘Traveller’ into the search facility of many on-line publications will reveal myriad negative articles and racist commentaries; ranging from ridiculing and ‘poking fun’, to inciting racial hatred and talk of evoking the ‘final solution’: ‘Send them to Hazelhead [a crematorium located in Aberdeen] where the final solution is obvious’ (Cadger, 2017:2).
More than half a century on then, Cohen and Morris’ observations, in terms of Gypsy Travellers at least, remain true today. And thus, a Svengaliesque [3] narrative flourishes, and the social capital of Gypsy Travellers remains low.
Habitus and symbolic violence
Whilst Okely (2014), in her examination of outsider representations of Gypsy Travellers within the media, gives similar accounts to that outlined in Cadger’s work (media constructed labels of child stealing, lazy, dirty and dangerous people, immoral marauders intent on invading an other’s territory, leaving chaos and destruction in their wake) she also makes mention of the paucity of understanding around the habitus (Bourdieu, 1999) of Gypsy Travellers: their own practices, their social capital, their order of things. For, as she rightly notes: “contrasts [exist] between non-Gypsy hegemonic misrepresentations, indeed inventions, and the Gypsies’ own practices, their alternative values and positionality” (Okely, 2014:65).
Further, Powell (2016) argues that an understanding of the position of Gypsy Travellers within contemporary society requires cognisance of the long lived negative social representations attributed to the community. Social representations which position Gypsy Travellers as an inferior group, and which undoubtedly shape their habitus. Accordingly, an examination of the habitus of Gypsy Travellers would seem pertinent at this juncture.
Today, the nomadic element of the culture takes many forms: some families are constantly on the road, some only travel for part of the year and others live in ‘bricks and mortar’ houses. However, despite the decline in nomadism, a strong sense of cultural identity endures. For example, many ‘settled’ families still travel to traditional fairs where goods and livestock are traded, gifts are exchanged, births and marriages are celebrated, families come together and young people have the opportunity to meet with their peers (and, for some, their future partners) in a safe environment. A practice not unlike that of other indigenous minorities across the world, for example the North American First Nations’ Pacific North West Coastal People, who likewise travelled with the seasons and though also now mainly ‘settled’, still come together at Potlatch.[4] Indeed, although outwith the scope of this paper, further parallels can be drawn between these two communities not least the impact that dispossession and displacement has had on the health and well-being of community members and the well documented narrative or social representation that essentially normalised the eradication of First Nations’ culture, particularly nomadism and large gatherings.
But it is not only nomadism and large gatherings (whether for family meetings or religious missions) that are considered ‘at odds’ with majority norms and practices. In a society that places such a strong emphasis on ‘bricks and mortar’ based learning and education (schools, colleges, universities and so on), people within the settled community can find it difficult to accept, or indeed view as disruption to the universally accepted order of things,[5] that a community or group would seek to claim their right to engage in learning in a setting reflective of their cultural norms and one which affords protection from prejudicial bullying, that is often experienced in mainstream learning settings,[6] as means to ‘achieving’ in adult life nor the (seeming) ease with which young female Gypsy Travellers embrace their assigned gender specific roles – the women must surely be oppressed.
Yet, whilst a number of young women are unwilling participants in, or constrained by, their assigned roles, according to Casey (2014) not all are:
This constrained domestic existence was presumed to be a source of boredom and depression among women and at odds with modern society. However, Gypsy/Traveller women have an altogether more nuanced view of their domestic role. Rather than viewing it as merely the daily grind of domesticity (that punctuates many non-Gypsy women’s lives also) participants typically conveyed a real sense that looking after the family, cooking and cleaning is a highly conscious and ritual act on their part and an integral part of their cultural identity (Casey, 2014: 12).
And, although an adherence to gendered roles may reflect, or indeed reinforce, power imbalances between men and women within the Gypsy and Traveller communities, it also, from a Gypsy and Traveller point of view at least, protects and reinforces their cultural traditions and norms – their habitus. A habitus maintained by self-imposed (spatial) distancing and, where considered necessary by the settled community and the state (to protect majority values and norms), enforced distancing, displacement or settling (for example, see Chapter 4: Part 4 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act (2022)[7] which effectively criminalises nomadism in England and Wales).
Attitudes may have changed towards a number of minority groups (or at least public displays of prejudice towards them are no longer acceptable) but we should not lose sight of the fact that when the call to arms comes the ‘moral majority’ will respond with actions not guided by their conscience or individual values but by obedience to the symbolic and moral values of the majority and the state (as witnessed pre, during and after World War Two vis a vis the persecution of Jews, Roma, LGBTQIA+, disabled people and religious minorities): A type of symbolic violence or abjection which preserves and protects, but also serves as an instrument of domination and control (Bourdieu, 1979).
In terms of symbolic violence, we can draw useful parallels with Hall’s writing on Black culture. “Writing on ‘the burden of representations’ Hall posits: “there exists a real world outside representation but we can only make it signify and ‘mean’ through representation. Rather than reflexive, representations are constitutive and therefore have a real, material impact” (Procter, 2004:125). Here then is the semiotics of denigration, the messages coded and sent by the media and decoded or measured against the acceptable ‘order of things’ by the viewer (or consumer), the DNA of the Svengali narrative. For, as Hall (2013) tells us, it is the act of viewing (or consuming) that releases a message’s signifying potential. It is at the moment of decoding that the message acquires it use or impact and, as Hall and Bourdieu further point out, that use or impact is driven not by pluralism or ‘freedom of choice’ but rather by historical discourses and market (with all its constituent factors: cultural, social, political) or field (Bourdieu, 1989). And so, whilst Powell (2008) and Thornton (2014), rightly, point to ‘power differentials’ as a major influence in the construction of the prevailing narrative of Gypsy Travellers, it would seem then that, in terms of the media at least, there exists a duality: that both social representations and field are at play here.
Abjection is rooted in the much cited (and much critiqued) work: Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (Kristeva [1980] 1982). Therein, Kristeva positions abjection within the discourses of purity and impurity, of ego and self, asserting that abjection is not only a reaction to dirt or waste (defilement and disgust) but is also defined by how that which is perceived as abject impacts on the (long held and deeply rooted) systems and order of the individual: ‘judgement and affect, condemnation and yearning’ (Kristeva [1980] 1982: 01:4). The theory is further developed (or reworked) by Tyler (2013) wherein she speaks of groups who are subjects of (and subject to) defilement and disgust or social abjection: groups who are, or are predestined to become, effectively “[N]ational abjects within the British nation-state […] a population symbolically excluded […] compelled to subsist in often degraded abject border zones” (Tyler 2013:135). Central within these groupings, and indeed her reworking, are the Gypsy and Traveller communities.
Tyler defines her reworking as “historical, social and political in orientation […] a social force (a cultural political economy of disgust) which operates on multiple scales […] which in effect binds together societies and states through “including forms of exclusion” [the Other: Gypsy Travellers, Asylum Seekers, Refugees, the poor]” (Tyler, 2014) – a force which protects and preserves the ‘order of things’.
A force of abjection that, as alluded to earlier, can be particularly acute in times of conflict – and as can be witnessed in the internal and external (mis)treatment of Ukrainian Roma refugees as they seek refuge from the current Russia/Ukraine war; members of the community fleeing the conflict have been stopped from boarding cross border trains and buses and a number of countries having segregated Roma from other refugees, limited their access to food, accommodation and other resources and in some cases refusing free passage and sanctuary, pays testimony to this.
Moldovan authorities are deliberately housing most Romani refugees separately from others fleeing the war in Ukraine, in a manner that constitutes unequal and discriminatory treatment […] Amid pervasive discriminatory attitudes toward Roma, government authorities have permitted and, in some cases, directed staff and volunteers to deny Romani refugees housing at government-run facilities (Human Rights Watch, 2022).
Symbolic violence: The media and the state
In considering symbolic violence, a return to the roles of media and local or central governments in collective ‘othering’ or as Seidman (2012) has it, cultural denigration and exclusion, is warranted.
Virtuosos of meaning making, of classifying and indeed assigning an individual or groups’ attributes and assets, or their symbolical capital as Bourdieu (1989) would define it, the media’s construction of ‘conceptual maps’ a language of words and visual images, a system, if you like, to code (or de-code) the signs and symbols presented to us (Hall, 2013) and their role as creators and drivers of moral panics and who with “a lexicon of verbal abuse [keep up] a constant level of bigotry” (Cohen, 2002:xxiii), assist in the creation of ‘folk devils’ and define who or what we should be panicking about. A level of bigotry and ‘moral panic’ that has, and continues to, facilitate (state and media) collusion during political crises or electoral campaigns such as the Sun newspaper’s campaign against Gypsy Travellers in the run up to the 2005 general election.
Figure 2: Stamp on the Camps (the Sun, 2005) courtesy of News Group Newspapers Limited.
The rule of law is flouted daily by people who don’t pay taxes, give nothing to society and yet expect to be treated as untouchables. These people are far removed from the traditional Romany people with their admirable moral code. The villain of the piece is the Human Rights Act, which our judges have limply interpreted to mean that these wandering tribes have a right to family life and respect for their homes which outweighs any harm they might do to the environment or rural communities (Stamp on the Camps, Newsgroup Newspapers, 2005 cited in Richardson and Ryder, 2012:172).
Bandwagoning the newspaper’s discriminatory stance, Michael Howard, the then leader of the Conservative Party, declared that his party would tackle the camps through the introduction of a ‘Gypsy Trespass Law’ (Richardson and Ryder, 2009). This is not the first example whereby politics and the media have collaborated to further a common agenda and as time has proven it was not to be the last. Indeed, as Cortés Gómez (2020), Gay Y Blasco (2016) and Fernandes (2014) note, it is a recurring theme vis a vis the social representations of Gypsy Travellers and other minoritised or racialised groups in the UK, across Europe and elsewhere in the world.
In Spain’s case, Cortes Gomez’s study of how “Spanish journalism represents “Gypsy identity” within the markers of dangerousness and criminality” describes Spanish media and state collusion as a form of “symbolic and epistemic violence [which] legitimizes systemic racial discrimination and exclusion against Roma in Spain” (Cortes Gomez, 2020:5). As with the UK, Spain has a code of ethics for the Journalistic Profession of the Federation of Associations of Journalists of Spain which, amongst other things, states:
The journalist will take extreme professional zeal to respect the rights of the weakest and most discriminated against. For this reason, it must maintain a special sensitivity in cases of information or opinions that may have discriminatory content or are likely to incite violence or inhuman or degrading practices (FAPE, 1993; 2017: Article 7).
However, much like Cadger (2017) and Okely (2014), Cortez Gomes found scant evidence of adherence to the code with “with 1,200 news samples from the most prominent national newspapers revealing an explicit semantic association between acts of violence and Romani people” an association, according to Cortez Gomes which “contribute[s] to maintaining inherited prejudices that engender moral divisions and social inequalities” (Cortez Gomes, 2020: 10-19).
Similarly, in writing on Roma segregation in Madrid, Gay Y Blasco ably illustrates the playing out of state and media collusion and how it facilitates the further exclusion of the city’s Roma community.
[…] the [Roma settlement] was regularly described, in the media and official documents, as a magnet that drew drug-dealers, addicts and other criminals to the district, a war zone, a frontier where savagery and civilisation clashed: as a major national newspaper put it in a phrase that encapsulated multiple racist tropes and that became much repeated, this was ‘Comanche territory’ […] a layering of complementary actions and discourses of exclusion, across diverse contexts and media, that lead to the sedimentation of Roma abjection and non-belonging ( Gay Y Blasco, 2016: 449 – 452).
Though continents apart, similar themes can be found in Fernandes’ work on the demonisation and labelling of the favela communities of Brazil. Focusing on young people, Fernandes’ observations of Veja (one of Brazil’s most popular weekly magazines) demonstrate how images and ideas linking favelas to urban violence are frequently disseminated by “the mass media, soap operas, movies and literature [resulting in Favela youth becoming the key target] of strategies of social control and spacial enclosure” (Fernandes, 2014:53).
Figure 3: Veja Magazine’s cover (in Fernandes, 2014).
[F]avelas are the synthesis of urban problems, and such social representation reinforces surpassed ideas linking favelas to urban diseases which contaminate (or at least threaten) a healthy city, as illustrated on a cover of the most important weekly magazine in Brazil, Veja (24/01/2001). On this cover, a colourful and vibrant city is surrounded by a grey and threatening favela. It calls attention to a yellow/red highlight saying “CANCER – the famous example” – no information is linked with the cover theme, but subtly connected with the cover message (Fernandes, 2014: 57).
As Fernandes appositely demonstrates, we see here another example of governments and media collaborating to further a common agenda. An agenda aimed at controlling public spaces so as to exclude ‘unwelcome’ individuals and groups, labelling ‘the other’ as lesser citizens undeserving of the ‘access all areas’ rights that those who are afforded full citizen status may take as given – effectively legitimising the enforced distancing, displacement and segregation of minorities or ‘out’ groups. Evidence, then, that state and media collusion stretch well beyond the confines of the British state.
Returning to the UK, Jensen (2014:4) ably demonstrates the ease with which such collaborations “function to embed new forms of ‘common sense [or doxa]’” – a taken as given narrative, or new perspective, which serve to reinforce the otherness of already marginalised individuals and groups and build majority consensus for punitive law, policy and practice. Drawing on examples of what has been described as Poverty Porn, and focusing on welfare and worklessness, Jensen reveals how easily profound social injustice can be transformed to an opportunity to scrutinise the practices of the other and consequently find them unworthy of a share of ever decreasing resources experienced in times of real or constructed crises: Via broadcasts such as, Gypsies on Benefits and Proud (Channel 5, 2014) and The Truth about Traveller Crime (Channel 4, 2020) the media (doxosophers par excellence) assist in the laying of the foundations of policy and practice that would effectively divide society – those who ‘contribute’ and those who do not: those who ‘flout the rule of law daily, who don’t pay taxes and give nothing to society’ and those who ‘seek to protect (their perception of what are) the norms and exemplary characteristics of society’s ‘moral’ majority’.
Consider the following Mail Online (2011) reportage on England’s Dale Farm Travellers’ Site[8] eviction High Court hearing.
Figure 4: “’A lovely turnout’: Ladies representing the Dale Farm travellers arrive at the High Court, dressed in black skirts, colourful tops… and carrying Red Bull”, Mail Online (2011), courtesy of Associated Newspapers Limited.
Meanwhile, the Dale Farm divas were enjoying their 15 minutes of fame as they strode into the High Court for the latest episode in the legal fight to stop travellers being evicted from the site. The power-dressing girls were in London, showing their support in the fight to allow travellers to stay at the camp in Basildon, Essex. Indeed, they were so dressed to impress that there was speculation they could be hoping to star in an offshoot of the reality show My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. […] The first challenge today was brought by Irish traveller Mary Sheridan. Her counsel, Marc Willers, said the case had an ‘extensive history’ but Ms Sheridan was not claiming she should be allowed to stay at Dale Farm ‘forever – or indeed for many years, or even a year’. Mr. Willers said: ‘This claim is brought on this basis: there is no alternative, suitable accommodation at this point in time, and it would be disproportionate to be forced to leave in the absence of such accommodation’ (Martin, 2011).
Figure 5: “Legal fight: Leader of Basildon Council Tony Ball (centre) arrives with other council officials for the hearing”, Mail Online (2011), courtesy of Associated Newspapers Limited.
According to Basildon Council leader Tony Ball, the wheels of justice were ‘grinding slowly’ but ‘going forward’. He said: ‘We will be back in court tomorrow afternoon and again on Monday and the judge has indicated there will be a judgment by Tuesday at the earliest. As I have said before, it has taken 10 years so far, and we now know the vast majority of British people support us, and we can wait a few more days for justice to be done.’ According to a YouGov poll, two-thirds of the British public support the council’s attempt to clear the 51 illegal plots at six-acre Dale Farm – home to about 400 travellers (Martin, 2011).
Via the juxtaposition of conflicting images and narrative, Martin (2011) invites the reader to catergorise and label each subject group, to measure them against the established (and acceptable) norms and exemplary characteristics of ‘Britishness’, to find them lacking and consequently a threat to this ‘green and pleasant land’. And, in terms of meaning making, rather than the often binary forms (good/bad, black/white) of representation (Hall, 2013) the meaning making here has a multiplicity to it. In similar pose and locality, the male officials are portrayed as sombre (in both attire and expression), as meaning business – as would ‘fit’ such an important occasion whereas the women are ridiculed, their habitus denigrated, by references to the gender, ability and cultural labels erroneously assigned to them via programmes such as My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding (Channel 4, 2011-2015) and similar media articles and productions. Their ability to behave appropriately is challenged through a negative narrative portraying them as “divas seeking 15 minutes of fame” and with a member of the judiciary commenting on their “lovely turnout” and stating that they “brightened up the court” their presence is reduced to mere entertainment: as if they were the court minstrels of the day rather than women fighting for their homes and their families’ right to live according to their culture and traditions – intersectional denigration, par excellence.
In 2013, a mere two years after the eviction at Dale Farm, members of Scotland’s Gypsy Traveller community embarked on what was to become an eight year long struggle against a similarly large scale eviction from their own land at North Esk Park in the North East of the country. Which due to objections by Scottish Government Executive Non-Departmental Public Bodies (NDPBs) such as Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) the Scottish Environmental Agency (SEPA) triggered legislation which requires contentious planning proposals to be ‘called in’ by the Scottish Government, essentially removing the decision making from local government hands and situating the Government as a key player in a large scale eviction.
Figure 6: North Esk Park, St Cyrus (2018), Courtesy of DC Thomson Publications.
As with Dale Farm, the media played a key role as creators and drivers of moral panic via ongoing negative reportage on the community and the land in question keeping appetites sated and social representations fed with regular updates on ‘the battle’ with unsubstantiated claims of damage to protected ground and adding to the damage caused by major storms.
Figure 7: Reporting on North Esk Park, St. Cyrus, Courtesy of DC Thomson Publications.
It is difficult not to draw parallels or note the common themata emerging with the media’s portrayal of the community at Dale Farm in the years leading up to their eviction in 2011. Here again we see the use of ‘trigger words’- battle lines, illegal, dispute, angry – inviting the reader to imagine Gypsy Travellers as ‘immoral marauders intent on invading an other’s territory’ that pay no taxes and without exception leave chaos in their wake. Here we see Foucault’s concept of monstering [9] in action. The problem of abnormality is posed, Gypsy/Traveller habitus is measured against the settled community’s most nomic characteristics (Elias and Scotson, 1994), judged (by the media and the state) as beyond the limits of ‘acceptable’ and consequently the signifiers of monster may be assigned and accepted with little, if any, dissent from the settled community.
Conclusion
Central to challenging social representations of the Gypsy Traveller as non-citizen, as homo sacer,[10] as one who should be exiled and condemned to eternal wandering, is an understanding of Gypsy/Traveller habitus. For, if Gypsy Travellers, particularly the women of the community,[11] are to remove themselves from the sightlines of ‘solution’ policy and groups then it is imperative that governments and indeed their representatives responsible for the development and delivery of human rights and equalities law, policy and practice relating to racialised and minoritised groups have a better understanding of the habitus of Gypsy Travellers. For, to ‘know’ the ‘logic of practice’ of the Gypsy/Traveller – to understand why, despite centuries of persecution, the community has “held tight to values and attitudes [despite them being] in conflict with those of the mass society” (Rehfisch and Rehfisch, 1975, cited in Clark, 2006:8) and, of equal importance, to know how that practice is portrayed as a representation or indeed misrepresentation of the community, is key to developing law, policy and practice that reflects and includes Gypsy/Traveller culture and tradition and ensure that they can access and enjoy their fundamental human rights, even though they may be ‘at odds’ of indeed different to that of the majority.
This will require a major shift in state governmentality which has been, and in some cases continues to be, underpinned by an ideology of selfishness and scapegoats (Hall, 1988) which, as evidenced in this paper, shamelessly makes optimum use of the media’s doxosophy and doxosophers (Jensen, 2014) who, through the construction and reinforcement of messages and representations, have assisted in furthering state agendas (See the 2005 ‘Stamp on the Camps’ campaign and the more recent 2022 Police, Crime, Courts and Sentencing Act) and played a key role to the situating of Gypsy Travellers on the peripheries of society.
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End Notes
[1] The term is a metaphor for The Eternal Jew (1940), a Nazi propaganda film. Produced under the supervision of Joseph Goebbels, it portrays Jews as a corrupt, filthy, lazy, ugly and perverse people who live like animals. Hitler wanted this film to give credence to his 1939 speech to the Reichstag which called for the eradication of Jews. It is utilised here as a reminder of Europe’s darkest times and the power and impact of the symbolic violence (negative social representations via language and imagery, isolation, exclusion and the criminalisation of cultural practices such as nomadism) directed towards Gypsies, Roma and Travellers in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK.
[2] In this case the term Egyptian has its origins in an assumption that, due to their ‘swarthy appearance’, the community were of Egyptian descent; hence ‘gyptian’ or ‘gyp[sy]’. As enacted, the Act empowered the King’s subjects to ‘take, apprehend, imprison and execute to death the said Egyptians, either men or women, as common, notorious and condemned thieves’.
[3] The term’s origins are in George Du Maurier’s 1894 novel Trilby as an individual with powers to control others by persuasion, manipulation or charm, with evil intent. Shortly after the term entered common lexicon as a way of describing those who would manipulate others for their own gain.
[4] Potlatches were traditionally held to mark births, naming, puberty, weddings, and deaths and to display the wealth of the host. The potlatch itself often lasted for days with special songs for greeting the arriving guests and the serving of large quantities of food. The potlatch was declared illegal in 1884. For more on the North West Coastal People see: http://firstpeoplesofcanada.com/fp_groups/fp_nwc5.html
[5] I borrow the ‘order of things’ from Foucault (2002 [1966]). Whether used to measure one’s own positionality or justify the distancing and displacement of the ‘other’, order is omnipresent and indeed vital to all cultures. According to Foucault, order is: […] [O]f grouping and isolating, of analysing, of matching and pigeon-holing concrete contents; there is nothing more tentative, nothing more empirical (superficially at least) than the process of establishing an order among things (Foucault, 2002: xxi).
[6] Anti-Bullying Alliance and friends, families and Travellers (2020). Bullied, Not Believed and Blamed The Experiences of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Pupils: Recommendations for Schools and Other Settings Online at: GRT report FINAL rebranded.pdf (anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk)
[7] Through the introduction of fines of up to £2,500, seizure of property – vehicles and trailers and so on – and imprisonment of up to three months, Paper 4: part 4 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act (2022) essentially criminalises nomadism. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/en/ukpga/2022/32/part/4/enacted
[8] Forced evictions are a common experience for the Gypsy/Traveller community. However, what sets Dale Farm apart is the sheer scale of the site, its population of over eighty families, many with young children and elderly and infirm adults, the ten-year-long process and the high-profile media campaign which Basildon Council, the local Burgh Council, and Tony Ball, its leader of the time, ably assisted by funding of circa six million pounds by the then Westminster administration, embarked on, pre the eviction. A campaign which attracted interest from international media and, much to the chagrin of Basildon Council and Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government of the time, brought the proposed eviction to the attention of high-profile human rights activists and advocates such as Lord Avebury and United Nations Representatives.
[9] As part of a series of lectures at the College de France (1974-1975) Michael Foucault introduced his students to the concept of ‘Abnormal’. According to Foucault there are three elements, or circles, wherein “the problem of abnormality is posed”; one being that of the human monster. Foucault frames the human monster within the systems of societal laws and accepted norms: The mere presence of the monster is a threat to and a violation of both the prescribed legislation and the social norms of the majority. As such, the monster is beyond the limits of what can be accepted – made familiar – a contradiction of, and a major threat to, the ‘order of things’. Thus, the monster must either be assimilated (rooted and confined) or exiled (to the hinterlands).
[10] In State of Exception (2005, [2003]) Agamben asserts that “in order to apply a norm it is ultimately necessary to suspend its application; to produce an exception. Whilst such theory would fit with war, civil war or unrest (see martial law in a state of emergency and so on) exceptions can equally apply to individuals and groups – homo sacer, the individual no longer protected by legal or civil rights. As such, homo sacer may be attacked with impunity and those with ill-will, or even murderous intentions as Hitler did, towards minorities such as Gypsy/Travellers can act safe in the knowledge that state protections do not apply to those whom their prejudice and discrimination is directed towards. Thus, the Gypsy Traveller (as homo sacer) becomes the accursed outcast condemned to eternal wandering, forever to exist in a “zone of indistinction” – a liminal state.
[11] Gypsy Traveller women would appear to be viewed as ‘fair game’ by some sections of the media with them frequently being reduced to ‘mere entertainment’ and their habitus denigrated as out dated and out of sync with other women in society. Casey (2014) speaks of the ‘triple burden’ (race, class and gender) of being a Gypsy Traveller and how this impacts on their health and wellbeing. Further, Casey asserts that the ‘gender-blindness’ of much contemporary Gypsy Traveller literature’s failure to recognise this ‘triple burden’ may be feeding/reinforcing current (failing) strategies directed towards the community as a whole.
