Concluding remarks

Summary

The ending cannot be a conclusion as if I began with a hypothesis to be tested, in accord with the methods of positivism. Nor has this study been cast as ‘problem-oriented’. In so far as there is a problem to be confronted, it is one which has been created largely by the dominant non-Gypsy order. The Gypsies have been classed as problematic because they have refused to be proletarianised, and have instead chosen to exploit self-employment and occupational and geographical flexibility. Within the larger economy they provide a variety of goods and services, many of which other persons or groups cannot or do not wish to provide. Using kinship and descent to restrict entry into the group, Gypsies express and maintain their separateness through ideas of purity and pollution.

The separation between Gypsy and Gorgio is socially constructed and can never be absolute. The Gypsy economy is interdependent with that of the larger economy, and the Travellers have always had to negotiate with Gorgio authorities for intermittent access to land. A ‘modernisation’ theoretical approach is to be rejected. It is a misrepresentation to suggest that the Gypsies were once self-sufficient and that they have inevitably been threatened by industrialisation and urbanisation. New problems have emerged for them, but these have not necessarily been those of economic redundancy. New occupations have been exploited. The Travellers' main difficulties in Britain have been the increased restrictions placed on their access to camping land.