Deprecating Gypsy Work: Normative Discourses And Varieties Of Mobility In 17th – 19th Centuries Transylvania
Deprecating Gypsy Work: Normative Discourses And Varieties Of Mobility In 17th – 19th Centuries Transylvania

Summary/Abstract: The present article approaches regressively the topic of the Gypsies’ work and its relations with the spatial mobility. I first take a look in the portraits of a generic Gypsy as imagined by the armchair and field anthropologists of the 18th and 19th centuries, later addressing the matter of inner and outer peripateticism, migration, vagabondage etc. by directly analyzing some 18th century archival sources. My intent is to unbiasely reveal the varieties of mobility assumed as ethnic identity by the administrative authorities (be them guild, estates or Habsburg imperial representatives) even by the Gypsies. In the background, I point on the juridical status, ecological determinants, local traditions and needs that provided sufficient reasons for the outliving of this spatial and work management behavior.

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