Housed Gypsy Travellers, Social Segregation and the Reconstruction of Communities

Abstract

This paper explores the ‘accommodation careers’ and social adaptations of Gypsies and Travellers living in ‘bricks and mortar’ accommodation and the implications of this trend for current concerns pertaining to social segregation and ‘parallel communities’. The paper discusses the ‘constrained choices’ regarding accommodation that Gypsies and Travellers face, before considering the structure of social relations in their respective localities. The strategies by which cultural identities are sustained in housing and how the presence of kin and other Gypsy/Travellers helps to mitigate some of the difficulties experienced are explored. However, the argument is made that while frequent social interaction and the maintenance of a distinct cultural identity provides a crucial source of support, there is also the danger that social relations become restricted to close ‘bonding’ networks, thus intensifying the social isolation of Gypsy/Traveller communities and further fragmenting neighbourhoods along ethnic lines.

Keywords:

• Gypsy/Travellers
• social networks
• social segregation
• discrimination
• neighbourhoods
• migration

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all the Gypsies and Travellers who gave their time to participate in the research projects. Preliminary findings from this study were presented at the 2007 Social Policy Association Annual Conference at the University of Birmingham and we would also like to thank the anonymous referees for their constructive comments on earlier versions of this paper.

Notes

¹ Clarke v SSETR (2002) JPL552