ABSTRACT
The gypsy woman entered the modern imagination in nineteenth century in a very unique fashion. In the process of accessing the hidden reality of gypsy women's life, both industries are helping to construct a new image for the contemporary gypsy woman. New technologies of representation like photography and film challenged the uniformity, allowing for a much more mixed image of gypsy communities to emerge. Early gypsy portraits were used by Nazi regime to create elaborate genealogies that allowed them to track otherwise undocumented gypsy families. The obsession with photographic portraits within poor gypsy communities remains to a large extent true today: posing for the camera of often intrusive others offers a chance to perform one's imagined identity either by playing to outsiders expectations or to a desired self-image. The non-profit world's focus on portrayals of gypsy women as victims, as well as potential solutions, also reinforces the need to perform the identity of victimhood in order to draw any benefits.
