Nomads and mobile places: disentangling place, space and mobility

Though there is a danger that 'place' may become subsumed or ignored in research as attention now shifts to questions of 'mobility,' discussion of place has burgeoned throughout academia. Many texts declare that place is important, or proclaim the power of place. While place has been shown to be a fundamental part of human existence, what does this then mean for those who are characterized as not being interested in places? Examining nomadic Gypsies and Travelers in Britain, who are often constructed as placeless, highlights that this is not simply a representational concern, but has a tangible empirical affect, impinging on their everyday practices as well as influencing policies and laws that actively deny them their right to place. By exploring various definitions of place and how this impacts the understanding of mobilities, I demonstrate that the meaning ascribed to nomads is dependent upon a spatialized definition of place which is underpinned by the space-place binary. It is this aspect of the discourse that allows for nomads to be constructed as out-of-place wherever they are, and by recognizing this we can avoid framing placelessness as a natural characteristic of nomadism. Reconceptualizing place allows for more nuanced understandings of nomadism, as our identities are constructed in relation to both place and mobility, not just one or the other. Keywords: MobilitiesplaceGypsies and Travelersnomadismplacelessness Acknowledgements I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions. Michael Curry also provided me with valuable comments on earlier versions of this article. The usual disclaimer applies. Support for this article was provided by a PSC-CUNY Award, jointly funded by The Professional Staff Congress and The City University of New York. Notes Portions of this article are derived from my dissertation completed in 2007 in the Department of Geography at the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA). 1. While many Roma prefer to call themselves 'Roma' and find the label Gypsy demeaning, Gypsies in England and Wales self-ascribe as Gypsy and that is how I will refer to them. 2. The term Gypsies and Travellers encapsulates English Gypsies, Welsh Gypsies, Irish Travellers, New Travellers, Scottish Travellers and so on. In the British context, when discussing nomadic ways of life and/or perceptions of nomadism, all these groups are relevant to examine as not only are they often confused with one another but they can all attain 'Gypsy status' within planning law due to their caravan dwelling and nomadic practices. 3. This article is foremost a conceptual exploration, with the case of Gypsies and Travellers to be used for illustrative purposes, not as the central focus that would necessitate drawing on deeper ethnographic data and analysis. 4. My focus on geographer's definitions of place is not to imply that place is the sole domain of geography as a discipline. Instead, because place, as a concept and term, is one of the main themes that geographers draw upon, geographers have provided the most discussion and definitional attempts. Though place has entered into the formal conceptual lexicon of disciplines like cultural studies and anthropology since the 1980s, there are still many times, since other frames of analysis, in part due to disciplinary histories, are utilized, the role of place is rendered invisible and overlooked (see Kabachnik Citation2010a). 5. This leads to misunderstandings and to what Curry (Citation2002a) has termed discursive displacement, where multiple meanings are being understood by various readers/participants. Someone will use a term, with a particular meaning in mind, but another person will understand it as meaning something else entirely, leading to ambiguity, slippage and ultimately confusion. 6. Space is often used interchangeably with place. De Certeau (Citation1984) actually switches space with place, using the term space when clearly talking about place. The definition of Deleuze and Guattari's (Citation1986, Citation1987) 'smooth spaces', Lefebvre's (Citation1991) 'social space' and Soja's (Citation1996) 'third space' align with place as well. 7. This stance is similar to Gilroy's (Citation1993) notion of anti anti-essentialism, enabling one to avoid essentializing place, while at the same time not reducing place to mobility and flux and denying its materiality. 8. Out of all the characteristics of the more nuanced theorizations of place that have been postulated as of late, this facet is still the most commonly overlooked and inadequately addressed. 9. See www.freedomship.com and English (Citation2011). 10. Or as Casey refers to them, as 'two different orders of reality' (Citation2001b, p. 404). 11. While not conflating space and place, nor ignoring one over the other, Tuan and many others, including Entrikin (Citation1991), Sack (Citation1997) and Agnew (Citation2005), advocate adopting a middle ground, emphasizing the important aspects of both concepts, while accentuating the important interrelationships between them. This, I contend, still upholds the binary and relies on a spatialized model of place. 12. Both conceptions of place, the traditional and the progressive, are utilized by Gypsies and Travellers. 13. This reveals that approaches to place are still informed by the legacy of positivism (see Curry Citation1996). 14. See Agnew (Citation2005) for an excellent overview of the core issues in the place–space debate. 15. It is not just people – but objects – that are mobile. See Urry (Citation2007, p. 45) for delineation of the various mobilities and immobilities of objects. 16. As Cresswell states (Citation2010a, Citationb), we must be wary of exaggerating the newness of the new mobilities paradigm, which overemphasizes the mobilities generated by modern communication and transportation technologies. 17. For a summary of the recent mobilities literature, see Cresswell (Citation2010b). 18. This was found in government Circular 1/94, Gypsy Sites and Planning. 19. Applications by those qualifying for 'Gypsy' status are denied 90% of the time, though this lowers somewhat upon appeal. In contrast, non-Gypsies have an 80% approval rate (ACERT and Wilson Citation1997).