This project has entailed use of a variety of qualitative methodologies as a result of the mixed data sources mined for information on the subject of housed Gypsies and Travellers.

Literature review

A combination of desk-top and manual library searches was undertaken to gather information on the presence of Gypsies and Travellers in areas relevant to the study. Whilst the authors possess a considerable number of the relevant texts cited, further research was undertaken in the University of Liverpool library (Gypsy Lore Society collection); the University of Cambridge library and the British Library, London. Internet searches utilising search terms such as ‘housed’, ‘Traveller’ and ‘Gypsy’ were made. The Merton Historical Society was a useful source of information on the Gypsy connection to south London. In addition, sweeps of specialist collections such as the Old Bailey on-line search engine, archives of local history held in public libraries and generalised searches for references to Gypsies and Travellers in specific areas of London, the South East and South West were undertaken.

Secondary analysis of Gypsy Traveller Accommodation Assessment (GTAA) data

As the authors have, in partnership and individually, undertaken a considerable number of GTAAs across the study areas we were privileged to have access to full data sets for the wider areas within which our focused studies took place (other than London).

The process by which we undertook calculations of the numbers of Gypsies and Travellers and the general methodology entailed in undertaking GTAAs is explained in depth in Chapter Four. Having access to primary data sources meant that we were able to carry out detailed analysis of core themes of interest in this text – drawing on occasion on qualitative quotations gathered for the purposes of relevant GTAAs.

Focus group data

Within the GTAAs which we have been responsible for, or worked on, we have evolved a practice of embedding focus groups into our research design to enable us to explore key themes (both with professionals and community members) in greater depth. The transcripts of focus groups carried out with Gypsy and Traveller participants resident in housing were data-washed and sorted to enable selection of housed participants, then subjected to in-depth secondary analysis utilising ‘Framework’ processes (Ritchie and Spencer, 1994).

In this and the following chapter, the empirical sections of the book will be situated in their broader theoretical, historical and contemporary contexts and an attempt will be made to tease out the interconnections between these dimensions. For example, historical and comparative studies show that racism and persecution have been constant features of the relationship between Gypsies, Travellers and the wider society, albeit the degree and virulence has varied at different periods according to wider social, political and economic conditions (Kenrick and Puxon, 1972; Fraser, 1995). However, the prejudice and marginalisation experienced by nomadic communities today, while displaying much historical continuity, is also related to factors specific to contemporary socioeconomic and political processes such as a general increase in inequality and polarisation of life chances as well as a growing social and political intolerance towards disadvantaged groups over the past three decades (McGhee, 2005). As Wacquant (2008) observes, these processes have unleashed massive ‘structural violence from above’ on large sections of the unskilled labour force in the ‘advanced’ economies of the western world, consigning many to economic redundancy and social marginality (2008, p 24). At the same time as traditional ‘blue collar’ jobs have been decimated through deindustrialisation and globalisation, so the (former) manual working classes have had to contend with large-scale immigration that is generally championed most vocally by those social groups who benefit directly or indirectly from a cheap and flexible immigrant labour force (Hanley, 2011). Consequently many immigrants are channelled into the same decaying and spatially segregated neighbourhoods as economically redundant sections of the native population. These marginalised segments of the native and immigrant populations are socially and spatially segregated from the rest of society, where ‘territorial stigma’ with its attendant class and ethnic dimensions is a reality of their daily lives. As Wacquant notes:

Authorised site (also known as a ‘licensed site’)

A site which has planning permission for use as a Gypsy and Traveller site.

Cant/Gammon/Shelta

Cant is technically a form of Celtic language group which includes Gammon and Shelta languages used respectively by Irish and Scottish Travellers. Irish Travellers will often use the term ‘Cant’ interchangeably with ‘Gammon’, the specific language spoken within their community.

Caravan

Mobile accommodation consisting of kitchen area and bedrooms. Referred to as a trailer by many Gypsies and Travellers. (New Travellers may often live in converted trucks/buses/vans or other forms of living vehicles which fulfil the same function as a caravan.)

Chalet

Term used by Gypsies and Travellers, usually referring to a mobile home on a site, specifically a form of mobile home which resembles a bungalow.

Chavvy/chavvies

Romani word for ‘child/children’.

Cushti/cushy/kushti

Romani for ‘good’/something positive.

Divvy

Mad (“my cousin can be right divvy …”). Romani term.

Dukkering

Romani word for fortune-telling.

Fairs, or specifically named events such as ‘Appleby’ or ‘Stow’

Horse Fairs and associated cultural events dating back centuries attended by large numbers of Gypsies and Travellers to trade animals, meet friends and relatives; buy and sell and meet potential marriage partners. Of huge cultural significance, and for many sedentarised Gypsies and Travellers the only times in the year when they ‘travel’ or live in a trailer.

Family site

A private caravan site owned and occupied by an (extended) family. Broadly equivalent to owner-occupation in mainstream housing.

Gavver

Romany word used by Gypsies/Travellers to refer to the police.

Gorje/Gorgio/Gorge/Gaujo/Gadje/Gaje – ‘Settled community’/Country People/Flatties

‘Gorjer’ (spelt in a variety of different ways) is a Romani term used by Gypsies to describe all non-Gypsies and Travellers.

‘Settled community’ is a term used by Gypsies and Travellers to describe people who are not Gypsy or Traveller by ethnicity or culture and who live in bricks and mortar housing.

‘Country People’/‘Flatties’ are the Irish Traveller equivalents of the ‘gorjer’ and refer to non-Travellers resident in housing.

Gypsies/Travellers (statutory definition – 2004 Housing Act)

The Housing (Assessment of Accommodation Needs) (Meaning of Gypsies and Travellers) (England) Regulations 2006 (Statutory Instrument 3190/2006) were implemented in order to resolve the definition of Gypsies and Travellers in relation to the duties under the Housing Act 2004.

Social inclusion, diversity and cultural resilience

As outlined at the beginning of this book, the key objectives of this study were to highlight the main causes behind the settlement of Britain's travelling communities and to explore the individual and collective manifestations of this trend. We have discussed the ways in which longer-term processes of settlement and sedenterisation have occurred in tandem with wider processes of urbanisation and industrialisation. In this study we have made manifest the stark impact of the implementation of successive post-war government policies, transforming an entire culture through making nomadic lifestyles progressively untenable.

The enforced immobilisation of the majority of Britain's Gypsies and Travellers and their continuing marginalisation highlights a number of basic contradictions in what is purported to be a diverse yet socially inclusive nation while raising fundamental questions over the nature of inclusivity and ‘tolerance’. Enforced settlement (which, as the empirical sections of the text testify, has been the majority experience for housed Gypsies and Travellers) has for many of our participants been a deeply dispiriting experience which has left a legacy of social exclusion, bewilderment and resentment mirroring the narratives of Aboriginal peoples in America, Australia and elsewhere (ALRC, 1986; Manson et al, 1996). The relentless drive to sedentarisation regardless of the human cost, begs the question of whether political support for ‘choice’, minority lifestyles and endorsements of equal rights is motivated primarily by political expedience, as a diversion from more deep-seated economic and class-based social divisions and a malaise in citizen engagement across the UK

McGhee (2005) suggests that ‘intolerance of intolerance’ represents more than political ‘lip service’ and is in fact part of a wider political project striving towards commonality in respect of the ‘shared values and standards of an emergent citizenship for a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-faith Britain’ (2005, p 12). Whilst on the surface this may seem laudable, it does raise the problematic spectre of a mono-cultural amorphous model which submerges class, culture and individual identities and practices. These policy goals are also continually frustrated both by subversive individuality and undermined, as Tam (2005) notes, by the spread of insecurity and social fragmentation engendered by economic forces and an increasing concentration of power.

Conventional and frequently romanticised portrayals of Gypsy and Travellers’ lives are often preoccupied by ‘paradigm[s] of romanticism and a biological/hereditary nexus’ focusing on these aspects of identity until members of those communities are beyond recognition as members of wider civic society (Belton, 2005, p 46). This text seeks to examine the decline of nomadic lifestyles among Britain's Gypsy and Traveller population and ‘rehumanise’ the debate through exploring the impact of a (largely enforced) sedentary existence on these communities and the collective adaptations that have evolved in response to significant changes to their traditional way of life.

This book explores how these changes have had both generational and gender-based impacts, as over recent decades there has been a steep decline in the ability of Gypsies and Travellers to live a nomadic existence, as residence on permanent caravan sites and in conventional housing has become the norm for most of the estimated 300,000 population (CRE, 2006). The majority of this population, as many as two thirds, are now believed to be living in ‘bricks and mortar’ housing. The large-scale settlement of travelling communities has been driven by successive policies that have sought to accommodate Gypsies and Travellers (and to some extent recognise their continued cultural preferences for caravan dwelling) whilst engaging with the stubborn and continued issue of unauthorised encampments and the resulting tensions with the settled community (Richardson, 2007b). In practice such policies have often had the unintended consequences of worsening the situation by inflaming conflicts with settled society whilst simultaneously accelerating the settlement of Gypsies and Travellers onto a declining supply of official pitches or, for many more, into social housing where they place additional demands on an already overstretched housing stock. Despite the rate and size of this settlement into ‘bricks and mortar’ in recent decades and an extensive body of research into the housing ‘careers’ and residential patterns of other minority groups, this book represents the first detailed study of Gypsies and Travellers in housing to be published in Britain.

This chapter draws predominantly on two focus groups conducted in the South East and South West research sites in addition to data gleaned from secondary analysis of GTAA focus groups and household interviews conducted in the primary research locales. It explores the experiences of young housed Gypsies and Travellers (aged 25 or less) and the evolving nature of spatially bounded social relationships among these youthful cohorts, for many of whom life in conventional housing has been their predominant experience. The chapter focuses on the dynamics of intercommunity and interpersonal relations and discusses how an increasing social and cultural convergence with non-Traveller youth generates generationally specific understandings of Gypsy/Traveller identity as well as intergenerational divergences in those conceptualisations. These differences predominantly coalesced around notions of collective identity; the differing emphasis placed on the symbolic role of nomadism; in attitudes surrounding intergroup relationships and the importance placed on boundary maintenance and corresponding perceptions of ‘authenticity’ (see further Chapter Six). The timing and intersection of radical social transformations (such as the move from nomadism towards settlement) and generation-specific attitudes are central to understanding the tension that emerges between older cultural precepts and an emergent youth culture more attuned to new social circumstances (Sztompka, 2000).

Under such conditions new solidarities and identities develop, which express two contradictory forces: inter-generational conflict, in addition to a simultaneous desire for identification and continuity with the parent culture (Smith, 2005). Edmunds and Turner (2002, p 6) argue that a ‘sociology of generations’ and of generational consciousness must begin with the historical context and shared experiences through which that consciousness was formed. Such a perspective was utilised by the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) in their analyses of post-war working-class youth culture, and is relevant to a fuller understanding of how the undermining of nomadic traditions and the transplanting of Gypsies and Travellers into housing is mediated by both gender and age-cohort. Collective responses and adaptations to external change are differentiated on the basis of both, whilst still retaining an overall adherence to more generalised shared values and worldviews. As Clarke et al (1993) note:

The previous chapter highlighted the main routes through which the Gypsies and Travellers interviewed in the different locations included in this study arrived in housing. While a degree of autonomy could often be exercised in relation to neighbourhood (see Chapter Eight), for many the move into housing was experienced as a severe limit on individual agency and an attendant diminution of accustomed lifestyle. As noted in Chapter One, fundamental and rapid changes in one's social landscape can impact traumatically at a group level, and ‘supply the prevailing mood and temper, dominate its imagery and its sense of self, [and] govern the way that members relate to each other’ of a collectivity (Erikson, 1995, p 190). At the individual level, such transformations may constitute a ‘blow to the psyche that breaks through one's defenses so suddenly and with such brutal force that one cannot react to it effectively’ (Erikson, 1995, p 187). This chapter addresses the participants’ experiences of moving into housing and the multi-layered sets of concerns that must be addressed when moving into what is frequently an alien type of accommodation while simultaneously having to deal with an unfamiliar and foreign set of circumstances.

Bennett (1998, p 215) notes that ‘culture shock’ refers to the ‘anxiety that results from losing all of our familiar signs and symbols of social intercourse’. This anxiety arises due to the loss of perceptual reinforcements from one's own culture and exposure to new stimuli which can be disorientating in terms of disruption to familiar cultural patterns. The concept is pertinent in understanding the transition from sites or the roadside into housing, which also involves a deeper-rooted transition from a cultural framework that emphasises a ‘we’ consciousness, collective identity, emotional dependence and group solidarity towards one premised on an ‘I’ consciousness defined by emotional independence, individual initiative, the right to privacy and personal autonomy (Kim, 1995, p 4).

Since the mid 19th century questions surrounding the urbanisation of Gypsies, the consequences of increasing contact with ‘gaje’/‘gorjer’ (non-Gypsy) society and the qualitatively different nature of such interactions in urban contexts, have been central to scholarly debates concerning the origins and destiny of this group. According to Mayall (2004), the most basic distinction in this debate is between two paradigms. The first provides racial, linguistic and ancestral explanations highlighting the Indian origins of the various diasporic Romani groups that are today scattered around the world (Hancock, 2002; Kenrick, 2004). This model was initially promoted in the journal of the Gypsy Lore Society (GLS), which was founded in 1888 by scholars and others interested in the culture and language of the Gypsies. At that point in its history, the GLS favoured a model based on scientific racism, which was strongly opposed to the ‘mixing’ of cultures and sought only to legitimise those Gypsies deemed to be of ‘pure-blooded’ ancestry (Hancock, 2007). Whilst the stigmatisation of ‘half-breed Gypsies’ and the insistence on the purity of bloodline is now widely discredited as a product of its time, the early work undertaken by members of the GLS into linguistic and socio-cultural patterns remains critical to the recognition of Gypsies as a people with Indic origins and an admixture of diverse European heritages as they made their way from the Balkans (where they were first recorded in around 1300 ce) towards the British Isles.

In contrast, the second model of Gypsy and Traveller origins offers a socio-historical explanation pointing to the many indigenous nomadic groups that emerged in Europe in the early modern period. This perspective highlights nomadism, economic and cultural practices and collective stigmatisation as the primary criterion for inclusion (Gmelch, 1986; Lucassen et al, 1998). Despite the overlap between these positions and an acknowledgement of intermixing between Romani and indigenous travelling groups, the political and legal ramifications of this dichotomy means that such nuances have often been ignored. Classification of different nomadic groups along racial lines and the construction of status hierarchies to classify those groups has long been of concern to state officials and other commentators. Historically, argues Mayall (2004, p 4), official efforts to label different nomadic groups for legislative and policy purposes symbolise the perennial failure of state responses to nomadism and provide ‘the clearest instances of how responses and category definitions are inextricably linked’.

We have identified how settlement into conventional housing can entail significant psycho-social and practical challenges for former caravan dwellers. In our subsequent exploration of the various difficulties in adjusting to housing experienced by respondents we will focus on how living in proximity to close kin and being able to access networks of social relationships act as a protective factor in preserving wellbeing (Dawkins, 2006; Fletcher, 2009). The community-based nature of Gypsy/Traveller culture centred around principles of ‘bounded solidarity’ – in-group oriented and with a strong sense of collective solidarity engendered by external threats to the group – has been observed amongst these communities in various historical and geographical contexts (Okely, 1983; Gmelch, 1986; Sanders, 2002). This and the following chapter investigate the structure and nature of these social relations in the study areas and delineate the patterns of interactions that simultaneously generate social closure and boundary maintenance along cultural and ethnic lines and characterise inter-group relations with co-resident neighbours from outside of the travelling community. As explored in previous chapters, inter-group relations and a merging of boundaries between Gypsy/Travellers and largely low-income groups is not a new phenomenon though we posit that in recent decades the pattern of such engagements may be changing in the light of increased diversity within low income areas of dense public housing (Rutter and Latorre, 2009). This chapter thus examines how neighbourhood-level factors influence the cohesiveness of social relations that exist between housed Gypsies (see further Chapter Eight), the nature of inter-group contacts and the extent to which social ties transcend their own boundaries to include their ‘gorjer’ neighbours.

While structural and societal level factors have most commonly been invoked to explain the persistently marginal status of Gypsies and Travellers this status manifests itself, and is contested, in everyday social interactions. For Bottero and Irwin (2003) issues of identity and difference are located within grounded accounts of social practice that consider the relational aspects as ‘elements and outcomes of social changes’. Social relations, they point out, are variable across different historical and cultural contexts, and ‘a focus on their particular articulation helps to shed light on the shaping and reshaping of social experiences and inequalities’ (p 464).