Accommodation crisis: the racialization of travellers in twenty-first century England

Abstract

Racialization is frequently deployed but seldom defined precisely. The agent(s) and mechanisms of the process are often not analysed. Such processes have multiple agents, mechanisms and rationales, all of which may change over time. The key agents of the racialization of Gypsy/Travellers in England have historically been the State and the media. This article claims that a key mechanism in the racialization of Gypsy-Travellers in the twenty-first century is the English planning system. There has been a long-term racialization of Gypsy-Travellers based around criminality, dirt and various threats to order. Gypsy-Travellers respond to the State's criminalization of their cultures by both adjusting their degree of mobility, and engaging with the discriminatory planning system to procure more advantageous outcomes. Gypsy-Travellers' "cultural adaptations" end up further embedding the existing racist frame, in which they unfairly gain advantage over sedentary people by simultaneously infringing rules and claiming they are discriminated against.

Roma heteroidentification in the National Roma Integration Strategies of the European Union countries

“…If they are nomads, they live in camps, then on the margins of society, therefore not part of it (McGarry, 2014: 761). This kind of stigmatisation can be seen through public policies, as Garner (2019) has shown for the case of England or Manzoni (2017) in Italy. It is also necessary to specify that there is a wide range of ways to be a nomad, some of which are perhaps closer to being sedentary.…”

Bjerck, Hein B. (2022) Archaeology At Home: Notes on Things, Life, and Time

“…For example, many Aboriginal peoples did not traditionally use landscapes in the fragmentary way that developed from Eurocentric concepts of land ownership; rather, homelands were part of a more expansive whole (McCormack 2017). Home on the move lifeways of gypsies and travellers are increasingly criminalised through planning laws which enshrine exclusionary concepts of "home" (Garner 2019).…”

The minority within the minority: The survival strategies of Gypsy and Traveller students in Higher Education

“…Recurrently they are portraited as dangerous and deviant outsiders (Richardson and O'Neill, 2012), with politicians often referring to Gypsy or Traveller encampments as 'invasions' or 'incursions'. Unfortunately, the urban policy for these site remains woeful, resulting in an increase of overcrowded areas with long rehousing waiting lists (Richardson and Cardona, 2016) and autocratic challenges for those who want to get planning permissions on owned land (Garner, 2019). Thus, Gypsy sites are often points of contestation in communities, with many non-Travellers not wanting Gypsies or Travellers to live near them.…”