The Irish Travellers Are a Minority Community - Essay Example

Cultural Anthropology: Irish Travellers The word culture is derived from the Latin word colo-ere which means to cultivate. It refers to all the various forms of human actions and symbolic structures that give such activities importance. There are many definitions of the word culture. All the different explanations of the word culture help us to comprehend the different criteria used for assessing human activity. The term culture is used by the anthropologists to refer to the worldwide human capability to catalog, systemize and pass on their expressions symbolically. (Culture, 2006) Anthropology is the study of humanity. It is a holistic study since it involves all the human beings and their multiple attributes. It is different from other humanistic branches of knowledge as it gives a lot of importance to the cultural aspect of the humans. There are various branches of anthropology. Cultural anthropology is one of them. It is also known as social anthropology or socio-cultural anthropology. It is a branch of anthropology which deals with the study of various cultures of human beings. (Anthropology, 2006) Human beings are a product of the surroundings they live in. It is because of this reason that human beings living in different places and conditions have different cultures. That is why people living in different environments have cultures that are different from each other. (Anthropology, 2006) It is due to these different circumstances that the Irish Travellers are so unlike from the rest of the society. Irish Travellers are people who are constantly on the move. They tend to travel and change settlements frequently. A house is considered to be a stopping place between travels and their one stop can last for either 20 years or for 20 days. (The Travellers: Ireland's Ethnic Minority, 1999) As the name suggests the Irish Travellers are people of Irish origin. They are also known as The Pavee. Approximately 25,000 of them live in Ireland, 15,000 in Great Britain and 10,000 in the United States. ( Irish Travellers, 2006) The Irish Travellers are a minority community and they have lived on the fringes of the Irish society for thousands of years.They have very distinguishable cultural practices and they share a common blood line.They have a distinct language of their own known as Shelta and have their own rituals regarding death and cleansing. Most of the travellers living in the Republic of Ireland have no access to basic ammentities like toilet facilities,electricity and piped water. They prefer to live in extended families where a male member of the family is generally the head of the family.( The Travellers : Ireland's Ethnic minority,1999) It is believed that the travellers are the progenies of the peasants who were displaced by Cromwell's ethnic cleaning and by the famine in 1845 in Ireland. Most experts believe that the Irish Travellers have been within Ireland for almost 800 years or much earlier. ( The Travellers : Ireland's Ethnic minority,1999) There are some who argue that they are descendants of the nomadic tribe Tarish. ( Irish Travellers , 2006) The Travellers due to their nomadic lifestyle have not profited from the health and education services which are mostly organized to help people with settled structures, that is with permanent adrresses. ( The Travellers : Ireland's Ethnic minority,1999) They are being forced to give up their cultural identity by confirming to the government regulations so that they can fit into rigid state systems.This is one of the central reasons for the depriviation of the Travellers since 1960.The government has refused them the basic right to mobility and employment flexibility. The government has faced disastrous results when it has tried to integrate the Travellers into rigid moulds created by cultures very dissimilar from the Travellers. ( The Travellers : Ireland's Ethnic minority,1999) Shelta the language of the Travellers has never been broadcast on Irish television and is not even taught in all Traveller schools. Most of the literary missions carried out by the government has been in the English language.Shelta is considered by many as an artifical language or a dialect rather than as a proper language. ( The Travellers : Ireland's Ethnic minority,1999) In the United States there are Northern ,Southern and Western Travellers. The Southern Travellers allow their girls to be married at a young age of 11 years to 20+ year old men. They are mostly married to their first or second cousins.Among the Travellers a girls main goal is to marry since the men folk are the traditional providers for the families. The brides parents are expected to pay the grooms parents a dowry.Most Travellers in the U.S. live in trailers and look for home repair work. ( Irish Travellers, 2006) In many ways the Travellers are similar to the gypsies of Europe. But unfortunately they have never been assigned the exotic aura of the gypsies since they lack the foreign ancestry. In order to project a bohemian seal of approval Europeans many a times claim to be distant descendants of the gypsies.But this is not done in the case of the Travellers since the Travellers seldom marry anyone from the settled community.Even to this day it is considered to be a great shame for a settled Irish family if this was to happen.And vise versa the Travellers do not consider any member of the settled community married into their community as one of them.The Travellers generally marry one of their own members or they get married to the gypsies. The Travellers try to establish an affinity as soon as they meet each other since their identities are defined by relationships. ( The Travellers : Ireland's Ethnic minority,1999).The Travellers generally marry very young. Their average family size is eight children.( Friend,n.d.) On a number of occasions they have been depicted in films.For example in the film Snatch, Brad Pitt is portrayed as a typical Traveller.In the film Chocolat a tribe of nomadic travellers of Irsh origin are depicted.Pavee Lackeen ( Traveller Girl) which is a documentary style drama has been released in the year 2005.It portrays the life of a young Traveller girl. ( Irish Traveller, 2006) People outside Ireland are not really aware of the existence of the Irish Travellers and they are often confused with the gypsies of England and Wales. ( The Travellers : Ireland's Ethnic minority,1999) They are treated like the pariahs of the society.They are refused entry into clubs, pubs and hotels. They find it extremely difficult to host marriage wedding parties because they are unable to get a venue to do so. Since time immemorial they have either been demonized or they have been romantisized. They have been attributed with powers to cure infertility, cast curses and spells, predict the future and with uncanny guile. Well known dramatist Synge claimed that they even indulged in wife swapping. ( The Travellers : Ireland's Ethnic minority,1999) The lives of the Travellers have been affected in the most basic way because of their exclusion and marginalization from the settled community. More than 50% of the poulation of the Travellers is under the age of 15. Their children have hardly received post primary education and more than 80% of the Travellers are unlettered. They are exempted from all the institutions and structures of the Irish society. They face racial discrimination both at the individual and at the institutional level.( Racism In Ireland - Travellers fighting back.n.d.) The urban areas witness a lot of friction due to the government insensitivity and prosecution of the Traveller lifestyle. Some of the Traveller communities have been accused of leaving behind huge amounts of garbage at their temporary halting sites.They have also been accused of criminal activities against the local settled community. They are often thought to be masterminds of crime by the police. Like other wandering groups across Europe and America they are often linked with crime, force and other delinquent behaviour.( Irish Traveller, 2006) They face racial discrimination in the form of insulting labels like gypsy, tinker, knacker and pickey.The disparaging labels gyppo and gypolata are used against them mostly in Great Britain.The label of tinker and knacker is given to them because of the jobs which were carried out by their forefathers as metal workers and tin smiths. ( Irish Traveller, 2006) Due to the racism they lack self esteem and pride in their unique culture. Their self destructive and antisocial conduct is in response to the racial discrimination faced by them. Even in present times the gypsies and travellers face violent racist assaults.In several European countries they face Anti-immigartion hullabaloo and attacks.( Racism in Ireland- Travellers fighting back,n.d.) Even though various legislations have been ordained to protect the Travellers they still face a lot of discrimination.The life expectancy of the Travellers is much lower compared to the settled communities.Infant mortality is more than three times the national average.The children of the Travellers have not attained the same standards of education as their settled counterparts.Economies across the world now give more emphasis and focus to superior education. This is the reason why due to lack of proper education the children of the Travellers are unable to successfully integrate in the settled community.Several programs for the Travellers are trying to bridge this gap through the school systems and private organizations. ( Friend,n.d.) Even though various sites have been allocated to the Travellers to park their trailers they are not beeing able to accommodate all the Travellers.The Travellers are also not happy with the location of the sites.They want the sites to be near the settled communities so that they have access to basic health care,civic and education facilities, but unfortunately this move has not been welcomed by many people in the settled communities. ( Friend,n.d.) The Caravan Sites Act 1968 was passed to help the Travellers in their fight for equal rights.The Travellers movement was established in 1990 and it fights for equal status for the Travellers in Irish society. ( Irish Traveller, 2006) The Travellers received a lot of media attention during the British 2005 General Elections, when former conservative party leader Michael Howard extended his support in their appeal for retrospective planning permission. ( Irish Traveller, 2006) Michael Howard, John Major's home secretary advised that the Travellers should buy their own land and he assured them that they would be allowed to settle on the land. He said this after he bought forward the bill of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. (Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994,2006) The Travellers are of the opinion that until and unless they are allowed to use the retospective technique they will be rendered homeless and will be unable to settle with the closure of the caravan sites.Support networks have observed that the number of retrospective planning applications of the Travellers are overshadowed by commercial and settled applications. There was an international outcry over the violent methods employed for the evictions of the Travellers and the devastation of their caravans in 2004-2005. ( Irish Traveller, 2006) Travellers do not want to let go of their unique cultural identity and nomadic lifestyle.The Irish government has gradually started to become sensitive to their needs while making policy decisions.Even though there are changes in the national goverment level they are yet to reach the local government level.Local functionaries grudgingly pay lip service to the offical policy from the central goverment. ( The Travellers : Ireland's Ethnic minority,1999) Roma, Sinti, Sami are all nomadic communities who belong to different parts of the globe. The Roma people are also commonly known as the gypsies. It is widely believed that they have originated from the northern part of the Indian landmass. The Romas have not completely been accepted and integrated in the society by the settled communities.Because of their nomadic way of life, like the Irish Travellers they are still considered to be criminals by the settled communities.Traditionally the language spoken by the Roma people is Romani which is an Indo-Aryan language.But now most of them speak the language of the region they live in. ( Roma People, 2006) Some of the practices of the Roma people are similar to the Irish Travellers. For example they practice child marriage. The extended family is very highly regarded by the traditional Roma people. Unmarried women are expected to be virgins till the time they get married.Their social behaviour of the Romani people is governed by numerous purity laws. These laws are still followed by most of the Roma and the Sinti groups. The Romas have a very high sense of morality and taboos.The Romas became a part of the Evangelical movement after the second world war.They became ministers and created their own autonomous churches. This change has helped them to improve the image of the Roma people in the society because the work they do is considered to be lawful. ( Roma People, 2006) In America the Romas have contributed immensly to all genres of music.Even American country music has been inspired by their doleful violins and their soulful guitars. ( Roma People, 2006) Sami people are also known as Saami,Lapps and Lapplanders. They mostly reside in parts of northern Sweden,Norway,Finland and the Kola penuinsula of Russia.Sami languages is the language they speak.Their language is classified as Finno-Ugric. ( Sami, 2006) They are known as finner in northern Norway where a very large percentage of Sami live. ( Sami, 2006) All other terms apart from the word Sami are considered to be derogatory nowdays. If the term Lap is used by people then it is considered to be offensive. The term Sami is used to address foreigners in Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish and English. ( Sami, 2006) Most of the Sami people who live outside their traditional areas have integrated in the society and they lead modern lives.They do present-day jobs.In some parts of the Nordic countries the Sami people are entitled to carry on their traditional job of reindeer herding. ( Sami, 2006) Around the 19th century the Norwegian government tried to actively promote the Norwegian culture and language.This put the Sami culture under a lot of pressure. Around 1900 to 1940 Norway committed large sums of money and effort to wipe out the Sami culture.One of the well known pressure tactics adopted by the goverment is that anyone who wanted to buy or rent state lands for agriculture in Finmark had to prove their comprehensive knowledge of the Norwegian language. ( Sami, 2006) The war in 1944-45 was also responsible for the heavy devastation in Northern Finland and Northern Norway.The war was responsible for destroying the dewellings of the Sami people and for almost completely wiping out their culture.After the World War II the pressure on the Sami people has eased somewhat. ( Sami, 2006) In 1986 the national anthem and the flag of the Sami people, Sami Sago Lavlla was created. The first Sami parliament in Norway was elected in 1989.The Finmark law was passed in 2005 in Norway. This law gives a joint responsibility to the Sami parliament and the Finmark Provincial council for allotting the land areas previously considered state property.More than 98% of the provincial area that has been used by the Sami people now belongs to the Sami people or the Norwegian people and not to the Norwegian state. ( Sami, 2006) The Sinte or Sinti are also people who are nomadic in nature. The Sinte also includes communities who in German and Dutch are known as Zigeuner and in Italian as Zingari.They are commonly considered to be a subgroup of the Roma people. The Sinte people till recently were nomadic but in the present times only a small percentage of them are wanderers by nature.They have adapted to the surroundings that they dwell in and no longer live a life full of squalor.(Sinte, 2006) Thus in a nut shell we can say that the nomadic communities like the Irish Travellers, Roma, Sinte and Sami people have faced some or the other form of racial discrimination from the settled communities for a very long time. But with the passage of time gradually people from different cultures and various goverments are becoming sensitive to their needs and cultural uniqueness. This empathy and understanding will hopefully let these wanderers become a part of the fabric of the society without loosing their unique cultural identity. Reference List 1. Culture.2006. Retrieved April 4, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture 2. Anthropology.2006. Retrieved April 8,2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropology 3. The Travellers: Ireland's Ethnic Minority. 1999. Retrieved March 31,2006, from http://www.qub.ac.uk/en/imperial/ireland/travellers.htm 4. Irish Travellers.2006. Retrieved March 31,2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Travellers 5. Racism In Ireland - Travellers fighting back.n.d. Retrieved March 31,2006, from http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/rbr/travrbr2.html 6. Friend. Travellers- An Irish minority group .n.d. Retrieved March 31,2006, from http://www.allaboutirish.com/library/issues/travellers.shtm 7. Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994.2006. Retrieved April 11, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_Justice_and_Public_Order_Act_1994 8. Roma People.2006. Retrieved April 12,2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roma_people 9. Sami.2006. Retrieved April 10,2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sami 10. Sinte.2006. Retrieved April 10,2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinti Read More