The Time Of The Gypsies

by Michael Stewart

Overview

Until 1989 it was official Communist policy in eastern Europe to absorb Gypsies into the 'ruling' working class. Since 1989, the Gypsies have become the scapegoat of postcommunism. More Gypsies have had their houses burned and have been killed in racist attacks in the first six postcommunist years than in all the time since World War II. Today the

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367319014
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/13/2019
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Michael Stewart received his Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and is currently a reporter with the BBC.

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Illustrations — Foreword /Maurice Bloch — Acknowledgments — A Note on the Text — 1 Introduction: The Lowest of the Low — Part One — The Gypsy Way — 2 Gypsy Work — 3 A Place of Their Own Gypsy Settlements — 4 "We Are All Are Brothers Here" — 5 Breaking Out — Part Two — Beyond The Ghetto — 6 Making Workers Out of Gypsies — 7 Gaos, Peasants, Communists, and Gypsies — 8 Staying Gypsy in a World of Gatos — Part Three — The Reinvention of the World — 9 Sons of the Market — 10 A Passion for Dealing — 11 Brothers in Song — 12 The Shame of the Body — 13 Conclusion: Marginality, Resistance, and Ideology — Glossary — Appendix — Notes — Bibliography — About the Book and Author — Index.

Editorial Reviews

Anthropologist Stewart, a research fellow at the London School of Economics, conducted fieldwork among the Gypsies of Harangos, Hungary, in the 1980s. Focusing primarily on the economic life of one Roma settlement, Stewart also addresses broader questions: Why are Gypsies perceived by others as threatening? How has their way of life survived despite relentless persecution and, in the case of the Harangos Gypsies, Communist policies of assimilating them into the working class? He argues convincingly that the differences between mainstream and Gypsy cultures are more the result of social and economic marginalization than of the Gypsies' non-European origin. This theory and Stewart's interesting analyses of horse-trading, purity beliefs, and song traditions are grounded in a lively and sympathetic documentary of Gypsy life in a small community. Recommended for academic and large public libraries.Judy Sierra, Eugene, Ore.

Library Journal

Based on 18 months of observation of daily life in a Hungarian Rom settlement, the author describes the Gypsy way of life, attempts by the authorities to assimilate Gypsies, and Gypsy resistance and ideology. B&w photographs. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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