Space and place

Irish Journal of Anthropology Volume 18(1) ISSN: 1393-8592

Divided Spaces: An Examination of everyday racism and its impact on young

Travellers’ spatial mobility.

Abstract

This research builds upon the understanding that our relationships to

space are mediated through our social and cultural identities. It draws

on Michel De Certeau’s theory of the use of ‘tactics’ to counteract the dominant ‘strategies’ used to control and regulate the movement of Irish Travellers. The theoretical literature provides a contextual

framework for an analysis of the limited spatial practices of young

Travellers. Racial boundaries exist that are socially constructed and

are policed and governed in order to control and tighten their spatial

mobility. The study highlights the veracity that young Travellers are

severely restricted in their movements.

Keywords: spatial mobility, Travellers, everyday racism, ethnicity and space

Introduction

In contemporary society, the spatial mobility of young people in general has been

circumscribed by restrictions and regulations placed on their movement as a consequence of

stereotypes associating them with unpredictability and irresponsibility (see for example

Devlin 2005 and 2006; Cohan 1980; Falchikov 1986; Giddens 1993 and Griffen 2004).

Specific groups of young people are further constrained in their use of space as a

consequence of perceived risks and restrictions resulting from the status of their particular

ethnic, religious, racialized and gender identities (see for example Leonard 2007, Nayak

2003, Black 2005 and Hopkins 2007). The European Union’s ‘freedom of movement’

principle is central to the theme of security and justice for all EU citizens. However, not all

citizens have equal opportunities to move freely. Lefebvre’s (1968) work on the ‘right to the

city’ concentrates on the ‘right to difference’ whereby respect and celebration for social

diversity is essential for basic citizenship rights. The historical on-going regulation against

Travellers’ nomadic movements in Ireland has resulted in limited spatial mobility which

affects life chances and opportunities. Restrictions placed on movement are excessive; for

example occurring via a process of linking Travellers to criminality; it is now a criminal act

to camp in public space (see the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2002).

It is generally recognised and accepted that Travellers are the most marginalised community

in Ireland (see McVeigh 2007). In terms of spatial mobility, the process of exclusion has

socially produced the Traveller image to be viewed as undesirable, thus, it has become

essential for authority (government, urban planners and policing bodies) to have their spatial

mobility controlled. For example, in 1998, Fine Gael County Councillor John Flannery

indefensibly suggested that Travellers can be compared to “pedigree dogs or livestock”

whereby “tagging” is necessary. Thus, he was suggesting that all Travellers be ‘tagged with

microchips like dogs’ in order to monitor their movement (Independent.ie, 1998). He was

cleared by the courts of inciting hatred against Travellers.

Methods

Research plan

This research utilized a thematic qualitative methodology; discussions were drawn from

audio recorded focus group interviews with 18 young Travellers aged between 16-18 years of

age. Madeleine Leonard’s (2007) method of using geographical maps in focus groups was

used for this study. Using maps in qualitative research has proved “valuable” in

understanding youth’s “perceptions” of their location in a city (Darbyshire et al 2005, p.422,

also, see Leonard 2007; 2008).

Sampling Procedure

Participants were recruited through Traveller support groups in Galway. Ethical approval for

this research was attained from the University of Limerick Research Ethics and Government

Committee.

Data analysis

The data collected for this research identified many themes, however for the purpose of this

paper I will concentrate on the theme of everyday racism.

A map of Galway City was used in which the participants marked areas where they go and do

not go. Colored stickers were provided to the participants; they marked ‘safe’ areas with

green; areas of ‘risk’ with red and areas in which they ‘self-regulate’ with yellow. This

provided a comprehensive understanding of their spatial practices. See sample tables below:

O O O O O O O O

O O O O O O O O

O O O O O O O O

O O O O O O O O

O O O O O O O O

O O O O O O O O

Beach Cinema Shopping

Centres

Park Youth

clubs

Discos Sport

facilities

Traveller

Events

Table 1: Girls Chart

O O O O O O O O

O O O O O O O O

O O O O O O O O

O O O O O O O O

O O O O O O O O

O O O O O O O O

Beach Cinema Shopping

Centres

Parks Youth

clubs

Discos Sport

facilities

Traveller

Events

Table 2: Boys Chart

O = Racially regulated O = Positive spatial practices O = Self-regulated

Research Findings

Everyday racism

In modern Ireland there has been reluctance to recognize the extent of racism against Irish

Travellers. The Encyclopaedia of Race and Racism (2013) suggests that there are three

strands of everyday racism- “the marginalization of those identified as racially or ethnically

different”; “the problematization of other cultures and identities”; “symbolic or physical

repression of (potential) resistance through humiliation or violence”, Travellers experience all

three strands. The clear spatial division between Travellers and non-Travellers in Ireland is

no doubt as a result of the historical phenomena of the clamp down on the Traveller/nomadic

culture especially after the introduction of the Report of the Commission on Itinerancy in

1963.

The marginalization of Travellers identified as racially or ethnically different

By signing the Lisbon Treaty in 2007 and ratifying it in 2009, Ireland along with other

European Union member countries agreed to combat poverty and exclusion through the

European Union’s social policy; the EU social inclusion strategy was developed. However,

inclusion based on ethnic difference was never the Irish government’s policy for the

“Traveller problem” (Report of the Commission on Itinerancy, 1963), it was and still is

assimilation and acculturation. The denial to recognise Traveller ethnic identity by the Irish

government has been criticised by international human rights agencies such as CERD, ECRI,

FCNM and the EU Race Directive.

“They think you can just stop being a Traveller”

“Yeah because we are Travellers they put us living beside dumps

where we are cut away from everyone else”

“It’s a sin really the way they treat us and then they try telling us to

‘fit in’ as if you can stand there and let people put your culture down”

How space is contested and negotiated is central to the separation between Travellers and the

majority population. Travellers view space differently and as nomads they tend to have a

close connection to the land whereby boundaries are unobserved or tactically maneuvered.

Galway city has a history of excluding Travellers from the city centre boundaries. In 1925,

the Galway Chamber of Commerce was worried about Travellers being in the city during

tourist season believing British and American newspapers would publish a description of

“beggar life in Galway” (cited in Helleiner 2003, p.53). By 1939, legalization and by-laws

were introduced to “put itinerants out of the area” (p.54). By 1953, the city council outlawed

temporary camps to be set-up in the city and by the 1980s Travellers who were still living in

the city remembered the risks of camping within the city boundaries; continuous summons

and fines were given (p.57). The evidence that Galway city is a divided city therefore, is

coming from a historical context whereby Travellers were excluded on the justifications of

“protecting public health or the economic interests of the city” (p.58). The young Travellers

in my study discussed racist incidents as a common routine as if they were becoming immune

to it and ‘tactics’ (De Certeau 1984) were utilized in order to negotiate spatial practices.

“When we are going anywhere - we prepare ourselves for what could

happen, like, you just never know if we’d be allowed in or not,

sometimes you just can’t look too much like a Traveller cos if you do,

you know there’s no way you’re getting in”.

“We don’t walk up to the door together; we try mix in with the crowd

and pretend we are with other people”.

“You just have to hold you’re head up high and get on with it”.

Conflicts and tensions between Travellers and non-Travellers have resulted in young

Travellers sensing and experiencing feelings of antagonism towards their identity and in turn

Traveller spatial practices become restricted forcing them to negotiate their mobility or

immobility on a daily basis.

The problematization of Traveller cultures and identities

Irish attitudes towards ‘tinkers’ and Travellers in the 19th century were influenced by social

Darwinism and by the growth of bourgeois nationalist ideals (Jim MacLaughlin, 1999). Anti-

Traveller and anti-nomad racism is deeply rooted in an ideology of sedentarist superiority

which regarded ‘unsettled’ people as racially inferior to settled people. Previous to the new

Irish state, Irish people were portrayed as nomads, beggars, ignorant, uneducated, backward,

superstitious and violent people by the British; a discourse which was entirely transferred

onto Travellers after the construction of a nationalist Ireland. (Ợ hAodha 2006, p.138). The

dominant populace was embarrassed by its past and Travellers were a constant reminder.

Clearly, the limited spatial mobility of Travellers can be understood from a historical context

of state legalizations and racism (Gmelch 1976; McCann et al 1994; Drummond 2007).

Micheál Mac Gréil’s 2010 report Emancipation of the Travelling People concluded that

settled people’s attitudes towards Travellers includes- “60.1% would not welcome a Traveller

as a member of the family; 72.3% would support Travellers ‘to live their own way of life

decently’; 63.7% reject Travellers on the basis of their ‘way of life’; and 18.2% would deny

Irish citizenship to Travellers”.

Race like public space is socially produced and constructed in order to justify discriminative

spatial and social practices. Henri Lefebvre (1974) stressed that these practices are what

govern the experiences of everyday life. The effects of these negative attitudes on young

Travellers were obviously visible during the discussions.

“It’s not fair really the way we are treated but sure you get used to it”

“According to them we are all trouble, we are the ones that get

blamed for everything even when we are in the right”

“People always ask me about Big Fat Gypsy Weddings, it can get

annoying because you just keep repeating yourself all the time and

then when you tell them that all Travellers are not like that or we

don’t do ‘grabbing’ they look at you like you are telling lies”

Encountering racism and intolerance in everyday life has become such a normal experience

for the young Travellers that they have managed to negotiate their spatial mobility to the

point of using the ‘tactic’ of finding ways to hide their Traveller identity.

“You can’t dress to Travellerish; sometimes I wear glasses to make

me look more posh”

“My brother can’t say that he is a Traveller coz then he will lose his

job”

“When you get stopped at a disco sometimes you wish you weren’t a

Traveller, not wish! “Not wish! - You didn’t look like a Traveller I

mean - just to get inside (pauses) - but you’re born who you are and you have to be proud”.

“Sure they will never accept us as Traveller people”

The discussions revealed that anti-Traveller racism is a normalised action in Irish society that

is prolonged and sustained by the ‘problematization of Traveller cultures and identities’.

Symbolic or physical repression of (potential) resistance through humiliation or violence

“FOUR Travellers have been awarded €1,200 each by equality officers for the "humiliation"

and "distress" they suffered after they were refused service in a pub at a Christmas party”

(Independent 2002). Arland D. Jacobson wrote “the purpose of humiliating others within

larger social contexts is to disempower them and to control them, and at the extreme, to

eliminate them” (2013). The long historical struggle for cultural and ethnic recognition has

resulted in Travellers being ‘disempowered’ and ‘controlled’ while feeling that culture and

identity is being eliminated.

In 2004, the International Coalition of Cities against Racism was launched by UNESCO; this

was designed to fight racism from the roots of the design and planning of urban areas. Cities

were the focus because “their composition, design and governance reflect historical patterns

and ideologies of discrimination” (p.3). The ‘right to the city’ was Lefebvre’s declaration “for

the recognition of the urban as the (re)producer of social relations of power, and the right to

participation in it” (Gilbert and Dikeç 2008, p.254). The idea was a tactic to legitimize “the

refusal to allow oneself to be removed from urban reality by a discriminatory and segregative

organization” (p.255).

The symbolic violence towards Traveller identity posed a threat to future physiological well-

being. Mental health issues among Travellers are troubling as 11% of deaths are caused by

suicide; suicide is 7 times higher for the Traveller community than the settled population and

it is most common among young males aged between 15-25 years old (AITHS, 2010).

“People wonder why there is so much suicide in Travellers (looks

around the room) – when I think; been not liked or, they been racist has something to do with it”.

“Sure you have to get bored being stuck in all the time, then when

you do go out it actually feels worse because you have people judging

you all the time”.

“Of course you get bored and then you have plenty of time on your

hands to be thinking too deeply about things”.

“It’s worst for the boys I think, because we can fill our time chatting,

cleaning or minding the children, the boys just sit around bored and in

a bad mood (rolls her eyes) - you can’t blame them really!”

Smith et al argued that “culture may act as a protective factor or as a facilitating factor that

increases risks of suicide to already vulnerable groups” (cited in Walker 2008, p.20).

The young Travellers discussed issues with a sense of violation through excessive regulation,

surveillance (by the city council) and restrictions on their spatial mobility.

“We can’t even climb the walls in our site coz if you do a voice

comes out of the speaker telling us to ‘GET DOWN NOW’ they are watching us the whole time”

“They watch us like a hawk everywhere we go”

“Yeah it’s like an open jail or something”

“There is nothing out here, look this is where they threw us, would anyone else live here, no, there is nothing here, we are stuck 5 miles

outside of the city with no buses or shops or houses or anything, the

only thing that is out here is the rubbish dump next door, nice”

“Every time I go into that shop I get followed around like I am going

to rob something, it would make you sick”

City spaces are divided into categories that represent the use and identity of spaces depending

upon the extent of the racial/cultural divisions created.

Everyday racism; a restriction on spatial mobility

Performative spatial practices in public space according to De Certeau and Lefebvre are the

vehicle for generating boundaries. Powerful agents use ‘strategies’ to draw boundaries in

space whereby certain social groups are required to use ‘tactics’ in order to resist the

dominant and negotiate the boundaries of social space. My study discovered that the young

Travellers have adapted to limited spatial mobility and established tactics to resist some

restrictions (physical and symbolic).

“We never go into shop B when Z is working, he always follows us

around and then we ask why and then we get barred”

“The guards are always around there so if you walk down you know

you are more than likely going to be stopped, searched and asked

questions”

“I just stay at home most of the time with the girls”

Research (see Lefebvre 1974; Löw 2008; Black 2005; Hopkins 2010) proposes that urban

areas are governed by a social contract whereby rules are in place in order to engage

peacefully with one another in public space. For this to function effectively one of the basic

rules is to treat everyone with respect. The subjective experience of the young Travellers in

my study discovered that they did not feel respected in any sense. Ironically, it is the

Travellers that are seen as not being capable of upholding the social contract.

“They think we are going to break up the place or something”

“Seriously though, it don’t matter who’s in the wrong cos we get the

blame anyway, every time”

“We are never allowed to explain ourselves, no matter what you say,

they already have their mind made up that we are bad people and

nothing will change their mind, you can see that in their eyes, the way

they look at you it’s as if you are just a bit of dirt on their shoes”.

The above quotes highlight the young Travellers’ perspective of how they are viewed in

everyday lived space. The stigma of ‘trouble’ attached to the Traveller identity immediately

creates conflict and resistance in public space. The young Travellers spoke about the

importance of maintaining their Traveller identity in a space of conflict.

“We need to show that we are proud to be Travellers, we are always

going to be here so they will eventually have to accept us for who we

are”

“It is great to be a Traveller, I love celebrating who we are like

‘Traveller Pride Week’ and the fairs”

“I would never deny being a Traveller but some people do and I think

that is wrong, it’s like when Peter denied god, you couldn’t get any

luck for it”

Characterised as being ‘failed settled people’, ‘drop-outs’ or simply ‘dregs of society’

Travellers are physically bounded to city locations that would be classed as undesirable for

anyone else to live. Lefebvre (1968) expressed “the right to difference and the right to use the

centre, a privileged place, instead of being dispersed and stuck in ghettos” (cited in

Goonewardena et al 2008, p.261).

“We can’t get in or out of the city unless we are driven in by someone

so it is rare that we go in”.

“I hate living here sure it’s like they just want to keep us hidden away

behind high walls so no-one can see us as if we are just going to

disappear or something”

“I love living here coz you always have someone to chat to”

Although some of the young people spoke about being treated unfairly seldom did they

recognise the treatment as racism or use the concept.

“I just think it is because we are too different, we are two separate

groups and that’s that”

“They don’t understand us and they don’t want to either”

“It doesn’t bother me anymore I am so used to being treated different;

I wouldn’t change being a Traveller for the world”

These thoughts of having no choice to accept racism can be related to similar research into

‘Islamophobia’ and other ethnic minority group experiences (see Aitchison et al 2007;

McElwee et al 2003).

Conclusion

Spatial regulations placed on young Travellers such as being denied access or being

stereotyped plays a significant role in inequality and has the potential to cause future mental

health issues. A study conducted by Sellers in 2003 (cited in Jackson and Carter 2007, p.8)

investigated the relationship between physiological distress, racial discrimination and identity

among young blacks and found that racial discrimination makes life more stressful and can

cause mental health problems such as anxiety and depression. To understand race related

stress researchers have highlighted the importance of appreciating the effect that identity

status has on physiological and mental health.

Spatial segregation in cities is a historical phenomenon that is associated with the rigid

divisions and distinctions made between rich and poor, good and bad, powerful and

powerless; these divisions are mainly social that are produced and re-produced by conscious

acts by those who hold the power. The physical and social separation between groups of

people in the city not only supports segregation but it also reproduces it. Mats Franzén 2009,

argues that “[...] if people and activities are of different kinds, space can be supposed to be

implicated in not only the reproduction, but also and more importantly, in their constitution”.

The dominant construction and control of the city by the settled population has resulted in

young Travellers being excluded from any decision making processes that affect their life.

My study revealed that spatial exclusion produces a situation where it is very difficult to

challenge the prejudices that inform that exclusion because of a lack of opportunity for

interaction between the ‘oppressors’ and ‘oppressed’.

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