The Place of the Nomad: Situating Gypsy and Traveler Mobility in Contemporary England

Recent legal changes and a shortfall of over 4,500 pitches (places to stop) have criminalized the way of life of nomadic Gypsies and Travelers in England. This state of affairs is usually seen as natural, as a matter of an intractable struggle between nomadic and sedentary communities. There, because of their mobility, nomadic Gypsies and Travelers are represented as placeless, as inferior, and as the "other." If it is ironic that in today's mobile, globalizing world the mobility of Gypsies and Travelers in England is judged negatively, this judgment is not inevitable. Indeed, this judgment fails to recognize the extent to which the most mobile of people have strong attachments to place. This dissertation highlights the role of place in the lives of nomadic Gypsy and Travelers in contemporary England. It critically examines core geographic concepts, such as place, space, and mobility, in order to better understand how and why nomadic Gypsies and Travelers are othered. Drawing upon interviews with Gypsies and Travelers, as well as on an analysis of media and academic discourses, it challenges the image of the placeless nomad and shows how important place is for nomadic groups. It shows that the devaluation of nomads in general, and Gypsies and Travelers in particular, emerges from essentialist conceptions of place and from a space-place binary. A focus on mobility that situates it within a non-essentialist concept of place will avoid the difficulty faced by those who attempt to apply abstract and metaphorical conceptions of nomadism to actual nomadic practices. In the end, it will show, these conflicts are over the right to place, over whether nomadic Gypsies and Travelers in England will be allowed to have places where they belong---and legal homes.