ABSTRACT
The desire to classify, characterise and label satisfies a fundamental human need. Identifying ‘others’ not only forms part of the process of understanding ‘others’, and delineating and codifying responses, but also acts in the same way on self and those like self. The processes of defining, labelling and representing Gypsies are much the same as those involving any group, especially minority groups. The stereotypical descriptions adopt and adapt the language and concepts of any given period, and so reveal the nature and distribution of power in a society, and the influence of dominant ideologies and patterns of thought. Also, critically, the history of how Gypsies have been defined starkly highlights the consequences of identities being constructed and reproduced politically, culturally and linguistically. How they are built and what they contain have a key determining influence on responses. Our understanding of groups, and relations with others, is determined not only by what is known through direct, firsthand experience. It is also, crucially, shaped by what we think we know, derived from repeated images and impressions conveyed by language, pictures and words. Gypsies cross at least two mental maps: as foreigners or aliens, and as travellers or nomads. For outsiders, the greatest challenge has been to define the parameters of each of these defining characteristics and to establish the main criteria for identity. For the most part, when Gypsies settle, especially if they are not grouped together in established van towns, ghettos or distinct areas, they slip out of view.
