‘Here are the Gypsies!’ The importance of self-representations and how to question prominent images of Gypsy minorities

Abstract

Gypsy, Roma or traveller minorities remain a group that is still homogenized as the ‘other’11. There are an estimated 12 million Gypsy people across Europe, with the majority residing in Central and Eastern Europe. ‘Roma’ is the European institutional preferred umbrella term, but it is often rejected by activists and at a local level because many groups still identify as ‘Gypsies’ (Gay y Blasco 2002 Gay Y Blasco, Paloma 2002 ‘Gypsy/Gypsy diasporas: A comparative perspective’, Social Anthropology, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 173–88[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]; Mayall 2004 Mayall, David 2004 Gypsy Identities 1500–2000: From Egipcyans and Moon-men to the Ethnic Romany, London: Routledge[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]; Szuhay 2005 Szuhay, Péter 2005 ‘The self-definitions of Roma ethnic groups and their perceptions of other Roma groups’, in Kemény István (ed.), Roma of Hungary, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 237–46 [Google Scholar]). In this article I use ‘Gypsy’ as a translation of the Hungarian word cigány as this is how the participants self-identified.. The European imagination continues to be entrenched in the spectacle of their difference – images of weddings, musicians, funerals and fights are fascinating and are thus prioritized. But what would happen if the cameras were given to these people themselves? What if they became the image-makers? This article examines how ethnic studies might contribute to breaking the mould of the exoticized Gypsy through self-representations. The study here formed part of an ethnographic project among primary school pupils in Hungary. Using the photo elicitation method, children were given disposable cameras producing 451 photographs that then formed the basis of interviews. The results reveal very few indicators that could be described as significantly or distinctively divided into ‘Gypsy’ or ‘non-Gypsy’ identifications, questioning the status of difference in discourses around such minorities.