Questioning Gypsy Identity

Book excerpt: Brian Belton's powerfully original book examines Gypsy lives against the framework of social theories that illustrate how identity arises out of the cultural complexity of individual biographies, families, and communities. Addressing the lack of contextual and social perspectives in the existing literature and the underlying assumption of a consistent Gypsy lineage, he explores the subject of identity to include the broader social context in which the population exists. He argues that Gypsy identity is created and maintained not only by tradition and heredity, but also by social and ideological factors that give rise to the "ethnic narrative" of Gypsy identity. Growing up in an English Gypsy family, Belton offers a unique "outsider-insider" perspective to Questioning Gypsy Identity, writing what are essentially stories of people--how they are made, their social force, and what they collectively create.