Groups That Don’t Want In: Gypsies and Other Artisan, Trader, and Entertainer Minorities
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 15: 307-330 (Volume publication date October 1986)
S B Gmelch
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)
As I read “Groups That Don’t Want In: Gypsies and Other Artisan, Trader, and Entertainer Minorities” I became increasingly disheartened and disappointed. Sharon Bohn Gmelch gave ample warning of the limited nature of the subject matter covered in the review, but still I had hoped for more. Gmelch writes that gypsies were “relegated to the status of unintegrated social and economic marginals” and as such “ignored or regarded as barely legitimate subjects for serious study.” She indicates that there wasn’t an abundance of scholarly literature to be found and that from that already limited pool she would further limit the review “primarily to anthropological works published in English.” It’s not as though I haven’t been aware that I’m currently engaged in a very Westernized (particularly Americana) study of anthropology. It’s not as though I haven’t been aware that sometimes anthropological works only have the appearance of an emic-informed discussion. I just recently encountered a discussion of the possibility and effects of this type of bias and misrepresentation while reading “India: Caste, Kingship and Dominance Reconsidered.” Maybe it’s just hard to prep for what early “academic” study and literature is often like; it seems to take a long while to sift out bias, particularly in culture studies. Gmelch makes no pretenses that the literature discussed is necessarily fair, balanced or objective. The review seemed more an organized discussion of how artisans, traders and other entertainer minorities deviated from the “norm” as opposed to a discussion of the culture of those groups. I had hoped for the latter. The review was published in 1986; I’ll have a look around for more recent work on the subject. The review was published in 1986; I’ll have a look around for more recent work on the subject.
Reading this review, I have reassessed my decision to push reading “Regional Studies” to a later date outside my current yearlong survey of anthropology. At least some of the reviews in the “Regional Studies” category in the Annual Review of Anthropology are written by locals. I’m gaining a clearer understanding that I need to incorporate these sooner rather than later. Academia, in similar fashion to the wider culture, seems so given to reproducing bias that it is imperative to counter-act this tendency as aggressively as possible.
