“What Kind of People Do You Think We Are?”

The Scenography of Gypsy Performances of Difference

Bibliographic Data

ID19001099
AuthorsAspasia Theodosiou, Αspasia Theodosiou (Hellenic Open University, corresponding author)
Year2010
Volume17
Issue4
Pages327-347
Publication date2010-07-12
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueIdentities (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1070-289X • E-ISSN: 1547-3384
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/1070289x.2010.492290
OpenAlexW2002941373
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited41

In Parakalamos (a village in NW Greece) Gypsyness, historically constituted as a "disheveled otherness," claims a space of encounter with people and actions that are "other," but also arise from within, ossified, but also ephemeral and fleeting. By exploring the way Gypsies in Parakalamos discussed and experienced processes of identification, I shift the issue of Gypsy otherness away from the well-ordered schema of neatly divided communities usually found within Gypsy ethnography, and I am concerned with the scenography of Gypsy difference: drawing upon a more general discussion on stereotypes, identity, and difference, I explore the situatedness, instability and partial character of Gypsy performances of difference, which nonetheless cannot lie outside the topography of marginality in and through which Parakalamos Gypsies have emerged as particular historical subjects. Key Words: GypsynessGreeceprocesses of identificationdifferencestereotypesencountersmarginalityplace Notes This article was first presented at the workshop "The European Roma: Theorising Marginality, Resistance and Integration" organised in Paris by Paloma Gay y Blasco and Caterina Pasqualino (October 2005). I thank all the participants of the workshop for their useful comments. I also thank David Sutton, Katharine Tyler, Rosie Read, and Penelope Papailias for their supportive engagement at various stages of this article. Address correspondence to Aspasia Theodosiou, Keryneias 18, 26 441 Patras, Greece. E‐[email protected] 1. The term new gypsy ethnography is coined here to account for the more recent studies on Gypsies strongly influenced by CitationOkely's seminal work (1983). 2. For more details about the way place is discussed in Gypsy studies see CitationTheodosiou 2004; Citation2008. 3. While the term Roma (CitationVermeersch 2005: 456, CitationGay y Blasco 2002: 174) has been promoted in Greece as the politically correct alternative to the derogatory designations of Yiftoi and Tsinganoi, it is noteworthy that the term usually used is Tsinganoi. For the term Athiganoi see CitationKozaitis (1997: 181). 4. Yet, most Gypsies in Greece are nowadays sedentary. 5. With the exception of the Muslim Gypsies in Western Thrace, many Gypsies were unable to acquire Greek citizenship until 1967. Many Gypsies who had been expelled from Turkey as part of "The Exchange of Populations" in the 1920s were seen and treated as "aliens of Gypsy descend" and not as refugees (CitationTrubeta 2008). 6. Names of gypsy groups sometimes code places: e.g., "khalkidaioi" (those coming from khalikda), "Rumelia" (those coming from Rumeli). 7. There is a multiplicity of otherness in Parakalamos. There are Greki and Northern Epirots (CitationGreen 2005), Vlachs (CitationAlexakis 2006), Sarakatsani (CitationCampbell 1964), and Gypsies. Prioritizing my informants' preferred self-ascription, Yiftoi, I adopt throughout the article the term Gypsies. 8. See CitationChang (1993) for more on the association of Ottoman system and pastoralism. 9. Gypsy studies are usually predicated on an unsurpassable opposition between the two worlds. CitationStewart (1997: 237) argues that "the gypsy and peasant ethic are constituted by a series of structural oppositions, at once economic, social and moral." 10. Before World War II the current site of Parakalamos was mostly a collection of straw huts used by the upper villagers. Their settlement in the plain started toward the end of the Ottoman rule (1913) and was completed a bit after World War II (CitationGogos 1995: 28). Parakalamos does not constitute a unique case. "This literal shifting of villages up or down the hills appears common in Epirus for centuries" (CitationGreen 2005: 57). 11. Borders with Albania were drawn in 1923 but were crossed freely until 1946, when they became tightly closed by the communist regime in Albania. 12. During the Ottoman period there was a general emphasis on the trope of movement. See CitationGreen (2005: ch. 2 and 3) and CitationLambridis (1993[1870]). 13. See CitationClogg (1992) for more. 14. For Todorova the Balkans stands for a "disheveled" Europe, a "pre-modern" self, and does not constitute a depiction of the other (CitationGreen 2005: 151). 15. In Thrace, Gypsies are also called Katsiveli. In everyday Greek language this term signifies a person with untidy hair. In other words, katsivelos signifies a 'disheveled' appearance. (CitationRombou- Levidi 2009: 205). 16. For a similar strategy of the Roma in Athens see CitationKozaitis (1997: 183–184). 17. See CitationGreen (2005), CitationTheodosiou (2008, forthcoming). 18. See also CitationBrown and Theodossopoulos (2004) for an account of what they call the liberal approach to stereotypes. 19. CitationArdener (1989: ch.3, 7, and 14) has pointed out that being identified by others, being 'named' may effect self-identification. 20. Although I have not framed my discussion here in terms of essentialism, Stoller's point that "a notion of essence does not necessary rest on immovable parts but on the strategic inclusion of different attributes, of a changing constellation of features and a changing weighting of them" (1997: 2000) seems very relevant. 21. See CitationNelson (1999: 347) for a similar critique. 22. I am implicitly referring here to the assumption usually expressed within gypsy ethnography that the strict differentiation between Gypsies and non-Gypsies creates links between the individual Gypsy communities (e.g., CitationFormoso 2000; CitationGay y Blasco 2002). 23. See CitationTheodosiou 2007, 2008, forthcoming for more. 24. Such a focus on the social draws from CitationStrathern's (2006) distinction between the social and the cultural

Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Ethnography · Genealogy · Scenography · Sociology · Anthropology · Balkans: History, Politics, Society · Gender Studies · History · Romani and Gypsy Studies · South Asian Studies and Conflicts

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