Politics Of Mobility And New Age Travellers

Ruth Phillips [email protected]

THE POLITICS OF MOBILITY: A LITERATURE REVIEW ________________________________________________________________ “Mobility is human … longer sits dynamic – roots”

central to what it is to be Culture, we are told, no in places, but is hybrid, more about routes than Tim Cresswell, 2006:1

“Nowadays we are all on the move” Zygmunt Bauman, 1998a:77

Mobilitymay be considered as central to ideas and practices of modern or, if you prefer, post-modern Western societies. Both Bauman and Cresswell, in the above quotes, are referring to our current propensity for travel, whether this is in a physical sense or via the internet and cable TV, but they also refer to what Cresswell (2001; 2006) terms a ‘metaphysics’ of mobility. That is to say, an understanding of and relationship to the world which is couched in terms of time, space and distance. Whether we ‘stroll down memory lane’, get ‘stuck in a rut’, ‘go the distance’ or ‘fall at the first hurdle’, metaphors of mobility orientate us to the world in much the same ways as metaphors of ‘place’ do (Cresswell, 2004).

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Mobility, then, permeates our culture, yet its very ubiquity makes it somehow ‘unseen’ and ‘natural’, thus able to conceal powerful ideologies (Cresswell, 2006:22) and this alone should demand attention. The very term ‘mobility’, as opposed to ‘movement’,

is

loaded

with

socially-produced

meaning

(Cresswell, 2006:3) and is thus inherently political. In fact, were it not for a desire to foreground the notion, it would almost be ridiculous to speak of a ‘politics of mobility’, for mobility can hardly be apolitical, either in practical or representational senses. Cresswell

(2006)

draws

our

attention

to

the

conflicting

representations of “mobility as progress, as freedom, as opportunity, and as modernity, sit[ting] side by side with mobility as shiftless, as deviance and as resistance” (2006:2). Thus, certain forms of mobility – commuting to work, foreign holidays, student gap years – are positively encouraged, whilst others – hitchhiking, tramping, nomadic lifestyles - are frowned upon, at best, and criminalized at worst. Bauman (1998a; 1998b), on the other hand, focuses on the stratification of our consumer society where Those ‘high up’ are satisfied that they travel through life by their heart’s desire and pick and choose their destinations according to the joys they offer. Those ‘low down’ happen time and again to be thrown out from the site they would rather stay in (Bauman, 1998a:86). Mobility, according to Bauman (1998b:39), is one of the freedoms demanded by the consumer in his or her quest to

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2 31st October 2008

eradicate the boredom which is the antithesis of all that consumer society stands for. Yet, as he points out, Common remedies against boredom are not accessible to those in poverty, while all unusual, irregular or innovative counter-measures are bound to be classified as illegitimate and bring upon their users the punitive powers of the defenders of law and order (Bauman, 1998b:39). Hitchhikers, Tramps, Gypsies and New Age Travellers can all be seen to have employed ‘unusual, irregular or innovative counter-measures’ to achieve mobility, and have been cast as ‘outsiders’ in our society. Examining such outsider groups can tell us a great deal about the dominant culture (Cresswell, 1996:9; Sibley, 1981:4) and may provide an opportunity to make visible the politics of mobility. The transgression these outsider groups have committed (Cresswell, 2004:103) highlights a paradox whereby The social ‘other’ of the marginal and of low cultures is despised and reviled in the official discourse of dominant culture and central power while at the same time being constitutive of the imaginary and emotional repertoires of this dominant culture (Shields, 1991:5). In other words, these outsider groups embody the ideology of mobility which is at the heart of modern society, whilst at the same time representing a threat to society by the very practice of that mobility (Cresswell, 2001:14).

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3 31st October 2008

Perhaps the key word here is ‘threat’ – there is certainly a consensus, running throughout the literature, that nomadic groups have been perceived as a serious threat to society in some form or another. This much is clear from all the legislation which has been introduced over the years to deal with the Traveller ‘problem’ and which, in the UK, stretches back to the early 16th century (Okely, 1983:1) and culminates, most recently, in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill in 1994. Whether the threat is analysed psychologically (Bauman, 1998a; Hetherington, 2000; Sibley, 1995), politically (Halfacree, 1996; Okely, 1983; Rojek, 1988) or spatially (Cresswell, 1996, 2006; Sibley, 1999), it is nothing new. Travelling people have demonstrated remarkable persistence and continuity (Sibley, 1986) in the face of both personal and cultural persecution (Okely, 1983) and have become one of those recurring moral panics which were hinted at by Stanley Cohen (1980:9). Cohen’s (1980) model suggests that a moral panic is created when a deviant group draws a reaction from the public. The deviance, exaggerated in the media, becomes an issue of public concern and this leads to further deviance and still greater concern. Ultimately, legislation is introduced to deal with the deviant group. Chris Rojek (1988:28-29) argues that the concept of moral panics cannot be applied to New Age Travellers because of its “annual regularity”, but I would argue that this ‘annual regularity’ only represented a seasonal highpitch to the societal reaction. Rojek was writing in 1988 and can thus be forgiven for not seeing the bigger picture: legislation, Ruth Phillips

4 31st October 2008

which effectively outlawed the Travellers way of life (Martin, 2002:724), was finally introduced in 1994. It is interesting to note that academic literature pertaining to travellers peaked in the late 1990’s with the introduction and aftermath of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill, and has petered out in recent years. This also coincides with an apparent peak and decline in media coverage and, perhaps, a popular perception that the ‘problem’ has disappeared. However, on examining the history of Gypsies (Okely, 1983), Tramps (Cresswell, 2001) and other nomadic cultures there appears to be a pattern of recurring moral panics, over a long period of time, usually resulting in legislation against these outsider groups. Travellers, of one kind or another, are folk devils who just refuse to disappear! New Age Travellers are often categorized as separate and distinct from Gypsies, not least by Gypsies themselves (cited by Levinson & Sparkes, 2004:720) and certainly in terms of government policy (Wilkin, 1998). Nonetheless, studies of Gypsies provide a useful starting point and actually highlight a number of similarities. Some of the earliest ethnographic studies of Gypsies by social scientists are contained in Farnham Rehfisch’s

1975

collection,

Gypsies,

Tinkers

and

Other

Travellers, which attempts to overcome a previous lack of “reliable

studies

on

their

social

structure

and

social

organization” (1975:Preface). Yet accounts contained here still hold descriptions of travellers as ‘pariahs’ and ‘parasites’ (Barth, 1975:287). Okely (1983) and Sibley (1981) have both Ruth Phillips

5 31st October 2008

produced ethnographic studies which successfully address this attitude by relating the Gypsy culture to the dominant culture of which it is, in fact, a part (Okely, 1983:30), and by highlighting the ethnocentricity of both popular and academic (mis)understandings of Gypsy culture (Okely, 1883:33; Sibley, 1981:23-24). I would, however, repudiate the importance of race as a factor in the Gypsies status as ‘other’ (Sibley, 1981:29).

Levinson

and

Sparkes

(2004:710)

discuss

the

“nomadic mindset” of Gypsies whereby Travelling often remains integral to the Gypsy sense of identity even when the amount of travelling achieved seems to constitute little more than ‘holidays’(2004:710) That this mindset is also claimed by New Age Travellers (see, for example, Lowe & Shaw, 1993:218-243) contradicts the widely held view “that travelling was ‘in the blood’, the only explanation for which is Gypsy ancestry” (Levinson & Sparkes, 2004:711). The majority of New Age Travellers were not born on the road since this movement only emerged in the 1970s and there are differing views, not about the history of these origins but certainly about the causes. Kevin Hetherington’s (2000) study of New Age Travellers clearly identifies the travellers as having chosen this way of life (eg, 2000:6) yet this is misleading and his account, whilst providing a thorough history (2000:1-29), fails to adequately locate this within the social context of Britain in the 1970s and 80s. Ultimately, then, he presents a picture of New Age Travellers which has been criticized by Greg Ruth Phillips

6 31st October 2008

Martin (2002:724) as overly romantic and voluntaristic. I would add to Martin’s (2002) critique that Hetherington takes Sibley’s (1995) use of psychoanalytical theory (Rodway, 2004:259) a little too far in, for example, positioning Travellers as the ‘stranger’ being “symbolically sacrificed so that social order may be renewed” (2000:23). Whilst Hetherington’s account may be a little too esoteric (Martin, 2002:728), that is not to say that a consideration of the psychological role of the ‘other’ is not useful. Bauman’s (1998a) discussion of ‘the tourist and the vagabond’ – which may usefully be seen as Weberian ‘ideal types’ – posits the vagabond as the tourist’s “inner demon”, not because of what the vagabond is, but because of what the tourist could become, yet he still maintains a practical orientation: While sweeping the vagabond under the carpet – banning the beggar and the homeless from the street, confining him [sic] to a far-away, ‘no-go’ ghetto, demanding his exile or incarceration – the tourist desperately, though in the last account vainly, seeks the deportation of his own fears (1998a:97) Referring to an article in the Daily Telegraph (1986) in which a group of New Age Travellers are said to be “soiling” an area of the New Forest, Cresswell (1996:83) makes the same kind of link between the physical actuality and the psychological effect: The residents holidaymakers travel and will The ‘hippies’, Ruth Phillips

are homeowners and settled, and the are engaging in legitimate forms of eventually return to a home and a job. however, are clearly ‘deviant’ in their 7 31st October 2008

nonsettled lifestyle, and thus they soil normality (my italics). The notion of the ‘other’, of ‘difference’, is often linked to ideas about dirt and disease (Cresswell, 1996:81; Sibley, 1995:106), and the mobile other represents a further threat to the spatial organization of society (Cresswell, 1996:87; Sibley, 1999:139). Cresswell (2006:17), citing James Scott (1998), describes how modernity always involved the imposition of spatial order onto chaotic nature, hence the anxiety that mobile people provoke. Others have gone further, suggesting that the presence of the ‘other’ exposes fundamental deficiencies in modern society (Halfacree, 1996:44; Okely, 1983:2) so that, as Hetherington (2000:18) states, “it is not that the stranger brings disorder but that he or she reveals order to always be a process rather than a thing”. These fears become myths in the popular imagination: Tramps, Gypsies and Travellers are soap-dodgers; they are idle and work-shy; they have no respect for private property (for refutation of these myths see Davis et al, 1994, and Webster & Millar, 2001). A common myth, of the ‘rural’ and/or ‘real’ Gypsy, is explored by both Okely (1983) and Sibley (1981) yet, unfortunately, these

are distinctions

which

continue

to

be

applied

in

comparing Gypsies (real nomads) to New Age Travellers (deviants)

–

eg:

Government

policies,

cited

by

Wilkin

(1998:115) – as well as between early New Age Travellers (real travellers) and the later arrivals to the scene (deviants) – eg: Hetherington (2000). Sibley (1995:102) describes the “enduring Ruth Phillips

8 31st October 2008

stereotypes of Gypsies … as a constituent part of the rural scene” and goes on to state that Stereotypes often include elements of place so that discrepancy or acceptance depend on the degree to which a group stereotype matches the place in which it is located (1995:102) Whilst it may be extending the point slightly to suggest that Gypsies will actually find ‘acceptance’ in rural places, it is no great surprise that Wilkin’s (1998) empirical study of council policies for Travellers found that rural areas have better provision. Urban Gypsies are seen as doubly-deviant since their stereotypes are simply not located in urban places, and little provision is made for them here (Wilkin, 1998). There is plenty of historical evidence to show that Gypsies have always had a connection to urban areas (Okely, 1983:30), yet the rural myth has persisted, not only as a “yardstick against which outsiders are measured” (Sibley, 1981:6) but perhaps more as a yardstick with which to beat them! Sibley (1995:102) laments the way “Gypsies in the city are likely to appear out of place and to be represented in negative and malign terms” but then goes on to locate New Age Travellers firmly in the countryside (1995:106-107). In fact, many studies connect New Age Travellers with a desire for rural life (Cresswell, 1996; Halfacree, 1996; Hetherington, 200; Rojek, 1988; Sibley, 1995) and this assumption is as problematic for New Age Travellers as it has been for Gypsies (Okely, 1983; Sibley, 1981; 1995), resulting in an ongoing distinction between ‘real’ New Age Travellers and “town-based squatters, crusties and buskers” (Hetherington, 2000:70). Just as “the Gypsies can only survive as a group Ruth Phillips

9 31st October 2008

within the context of a larger economy and society” (Okely, 1983:30), the same can also be said of New Age Travellers, and this has often necessitated urban living. Greg Martin’s ‘Generational differences amongst New Age Travellers’ (1998) attempts to explain this error by looking at the social context within which people went on the road.Martin (1998) suggests that the earlier New Age Travellers, who formed the original ‘convoy’ and free festival circuit in the 1970s, were people who “gave up the relative security of their jobs and their homes, and opted for what they believed to be an existence that offered a better quality of life” (1998:741). In contrast, those who went on the road in the mid to late 1980s were largely “economic refugees” who were “forced to do so for want of any reasonable alternative” (1998:745). This has an interesting relevance to Berger’s (1979) ‘cultures of survival / cultures of progress’, referred to by Sibley (1981:13-14). Berger (1979) asserts that the peasantry represent “a class apart” who “maintained or developed their own unwritten laws and codes of behaviour, their own rituals and beliefs, their own orally transmitted

body

of

wisdom

and

knowledge,

their

own

medicine, their own techniques and sometimes their own language” (1979:197) and can thus be identified with other “peripheral group cultures” (Sibley, 1981:14). This kind of peasant culture, then, is said to be a “culture of survival” which “envisages the future as a sequence of repeated acts for survival” (Berger, 1979:204). “Cultures of progress”, on the other hand, are those that predominate in modern society and Ruth Phillips

10 31st October 2008

are concerned with expansion: “they are forward looking because the future offers ever larger hopes” (1979:204). If we apply

this

to

Martin’s

(1998)

analysis

of

generational

differences, it could be said that the convoy was born of a culture of progress, at a time when they were “privileged enough to fight for quality of life issues” (1998:741). However, by the 1980s there was far more emphasis on survival as a result of Thatcherite policies which led to high unemployment, homelessness and increasing restrictions in the benefit system (1998:745). Many of the New Age Travellers in Martin’s (1998) study recognized the irony of their decision to go on the road, to provide themselves with cheap accommodation in the face of unemployment and homelessness, as being “entirely consistent with the prevailing political ideology of personal responsibility and enterprise” and felt that “the Governments reaction [w]as wholly unreasonable” (1998:749). Of course, when those in poverty find an “innovative counter-measure” it is always, as Bauman (1998b:39) stated, destined to be outlawed. For, just as Cohen (1980, cited by Sibley, 1995:40) said Our society as presently structured will continue to generate problems for some of its members … and then condemn whatever solutions these groups find. Yet, while the numbers have undoubtedly diminished, New Age Travellers, like other travelling cultures before them, have persisted (Sibley, 1986). Berger (1979) was pessimistic about the continuing survival of the peasantry but nonetheless he Ruth Phillips

11 31st October 2008

presented a model of a culture which has lived at the margins of the dominant culture and survived through adaptation and a degree of self-sufficiency (1979:197). Whatever has happened to New Age Travellers since the introduction of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act in 1994 – whether they have fled the country as Martin (2002:749) suggested, or simply found ways to stay out of the public consciousness – there is a distinct lack of academic literature concerning the ways in which New Age Travellers have adapted and survived.

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References Barth, F (1975) ‘The social organization of a pariah group in Norway’ in Rehfisch, F (ed) (1975) Gypsies, Tinkers and Other Travellers London: Academic Press Bauman, Z (1998a) Globalization: The Human Consequences Cambridge: Polity Press Bauman, Z (1998b) Work, Consumerism and the New Poor Buckingham: Open University Press Berger, J (1979) Pig Earth London: Writers & Readers Publishing Co-op Cohen, S (1980) Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers London: MacGibbon & Kee Cresswell, T (1996) In Place, Out of Place: Geography, Ideology and Transgression Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press Cresswell, T (2001) The Tramp in America London: Reaktion Books Cresswell, T (2004) Place: A Short Introduction Oxford: Blackwell Cresswell, T (2006) On the Move: Mobility in the Modern Western World London: Routledge

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Davis, J, Grant, R & Locke, A (1994) Out of Site, Out of Mind: New Age Travellers and the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill London: The Children’s Society Halfacree, K (1996) ‘Out of place in the country: Travellers and the “rural idyll”’ in Antipode 28 (1) 42-71 Hetherington, K (2000) New Age Travellers: Vanloads of Uproarious Humanity London: Cassell Levinson, M & Sparkes, A (2004) ‘Gypsy identity and orientations to space’ in Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 33 (6) 704-734 Lowe, R & Shaw, W (1993) Travellers: Voices of the New Age Nomads London: Fourth Estate Martin, G (1998) ‘Generational differences amongst New Age Travellers’ in Sociological Review 46 (4) 735-756 Martin, G (2002) ‘New Age Travellers: uproarious or uprooted?’ in Sociology 36 (3) 723-735 Okely, J (1983) The Traveller-Gypsies Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Rehfisch, F (ed) (1975) Gypsies, Tinkers and Other Travellers London: Academic Press Rodaway, P (2004) ‘David Sibley’ in Hubbard, P, Kitchin, R & Valentine, G (2004) Key Thinkers on Space and Place London: Sage Rojek, C (1988) ‘The convoy of pollution’ in Leisure Studies 7 (1) 20-31 Shields, R (1991) Places on the Margin: Alternative Geographies of Modernity London: Routledge Sibley, D (1981) Outsiders in Urban Societies Oxford: Blackwell Ruth Phillips

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Sibley, D (1986) ‘Persistence or change? Conflicting interpretations of peripheral minorities’ in Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 4 (1) 57–70 Sibley, D (1995) Geographies of Exclusion: Society and Difference in the West London: Routledge Sibley, D (1999) ‘Outsiders in society and space’ in Anderson, K & Gale, F (eds) (1999) Cultural Geographies 2nd edition Australia: Longman Webster, L & Millar, J (2001) Making a living: Social security, social exclusion and New Travellers – Summary of Findings [online] Available at http://www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/socialpolicy/pdf/521.pd f Accessed 21/10/2008 Wilkin, K (1998) ‘Sustainable social exclusion: the case of landuse planning and newer travellers’ in Critical Social Policy 18 (1) 103-120 Bibliography Caplow, T (1940) ‘Transiency as a cultural pattern’ in American Sociological Review 5 (5) 731-739 Collin, M (1997) Altered State: The Story of Ecstasy Culture and Acid House London: Serpent’s Tail Cresswell, T (1999) ‘Embodiment, power and the politics of mobility: female tramps and hoboes’ in Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 24 (2) 175-192 Cresswell, T (2002) ‘Theorizing Place’ in Verstraete, G & Cresswell, T (eds) (2002) Mobilizing Place, Placing Mobility: The Politics of Representation in a Globalized World Amsterdam: Rodopi Dearling, A & Gubby (1998) No Boundaries: New Travellers on the Road (Outside of England) Lyme Regis: Enabler Publications Ruth Phillips

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Earle, F, Dearling, A, Whittle, H, Glasse, R & Gubby (1994) A Time to Travel: An Introduction to Britain’s Newer Travellers Lyme Regis: Enabler Publications Liégeois, JP (1987) Gypsies and Travellers Strasbourg: Council of Europe Maffesoli, M (1996) The Time of Tribes: The Decline of Individualism in Mass Society London: Sage Sandford, J (1975) Gypsies London: Abacus

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