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A comunidade traveller constitui um grupo minoritário na República da Irlanda. Não sendo mais do que 0,6% do total do país, esta comunidade, como se constatará pelo estudo que avança, tem todas as morfologias e culturalidades da comunidade cigana/gipsy que existe um pouco por toda a Europa. Como o próprio nome indica, o nomadismo (por oposição ao sedentarismo) presente na sua cultura é o seu mais forte elemento identitário. Pela revisão da literatura efectuada bem como pelas conversas diárias tidas com a comunidade traveller, constatamos que certas abordagens e pensamentos já estão muito explorados pela literatura sociológica e não só (como o enviezamento e parcialidade nas abordagens promovidas pelos media; a marginalização, o racismo, a discriminação; as comparativamente piores condições de vida e de acesso aos meios e recursos à sua disposição; a menor esperança média de vida; o défice escolar bem como a recíproca inadequação do sistema de ensino à cultura traveller; a passividade...). Assim, tentaremos percepcionar e divagar rumos a partir de um ângulo que nos parece não muito explorado: a capacidade reivindicativa de uma minoria étnica, neste caso, a comunidade traveller irlandesa. A falta de participação cívica e societal e a marginalização subsequente (o círculo reprodutivo da lateralidade inactiva), coloca-nos sobre o mesmo as interrogações sobre esta letargia (aos olhos da sociedade mais vasta) de não empenhamento nos cânones tidos por apropriados e tanto detentores como distribuidores de privilégios. Eis o âmago da questão que se propõe aprofundar.

It is widely assumed in both popular and scholarly imaginaries that Travellers, due to their 'nomadic mind-set' and non-sedentary uses of land, do not have a sense of place. This thesis presents an ethnographic account of an extra-legal camp in Southeast London, to argue that its Traveller inhabitants do have a sense of place, which is founded in the camp's environment and experientially significant sites throughout the city. The main suggestion is that the camp, its inhabitants, and their activities, along with significant parts of the city, are co-constitutionally involved in making a Travellers' sense of place. However, this is not self-contained or produced by them alone, as their place-making activities are embroiled in the political, economic and legal environment of the city. This includes the threat and implementation of eviction by a local council, the re-development of the camp's environs, and other manifestations of the spatial-temporalities of late-liberal urban regeneration. The thesis makes this argument through focusing on the ways that place is made, sensed, and lived by the camp's Traveller inhabitants. It builds on practice-based approaches to place, centred on the notion of dwelling, but also critically departs from previous uses of this notion by demonstrating that 'dwelling' can occur in an intensely politicised and insalubrious environment. Therefore, I consider dwelling in the context of the power asymmetries of place and urban precarity, as well as how it is crucial to making a home-in-the-world. Depicting a family fiercely and desperately striving to hold onto place in the time-space of the late-liberal city, a situation that affords them little promise of a future, the thesis destabilises established understandings and analysis of Travellers' experience, in a contemporary context. Chapter one considers how men's skilled activity, building materials and machinery are involved in creative acts of correspondence, which coalesce to make the camp a liveable place for its inhabitants. The central suggestion is that, through making and inhabiting the camp, it also comes to make and inhabit those involved in such activities. However, the family's ability to structure their own world, by building themselves a place to live, is contingent on a range of socio-political constraints that subject them to infrastructural violence. Chapter two turns from the camp's built environment to examine women's caregiving and home-making practices. It considers women's haptic involvements with their caravans, suggesting that these activities are not simply practices of creative homemaking but, due to the central role they play in raising families, they position women as world-formers. It also examines the ways that women's caregiving activities are intensified by the camp's insalubrious environmental conditions, and how these are involved in the unmaking of the family's matriarch. Chapter three considers the relationship between men's economic activity and the city. It draws correspondences between men's economic transactions with non-Travellers, and hunting, suggesting that each practice consists of the skilled capacity to procure resources from particular environments. Chapters four and five turn from Travellers' own place-making activities, to examine how a sense of place is produced from, and fractured by, the threat of eviction. In the first of these, I consider the role that state-administered documents, definitions and imaginaries play in shaping the spatial parameters of place for the Cashes. In the second I examine the ways that eviction, and the broader spatial-temporalities of late-liberal urban redevelopment, coalesce in the camp to produce a sense of place and time that is charged with affect and uncertainty.

<p>This research project asks: to what extent are voluntary organizations included in the policy processes that make decisions regarding the needs and interests of atypical groups? Both urban Aboriginal peoples and Travellers are defined as atypical groups due to their indigeneity and their separate treatment by the state because of cultural differences characterized by nomadism, language and distinctive lifeways preserved by oral traditions. Their marginalization was exacerbated as they transitioned to urban centres after the middle of the twentieth century and the state, although it acknowledged these groups, did not accommodate their needs and interests. In an era of neoliberalism where significant responsibility for welfare has shifted to the voluntary sector, marginalized groups still require disproportionate assistance by the state in policy areas of education, health and housing and they rely on voluntary organizations to provide culturally appropriate programs and services and to advocate for their needs and interests. Applying a scalar analysis, this project isolated three key concepts that are interdependent yet distinct, that are critical to inclusion. First, is incorporation of culturally relevant programs on the micro scale. Second, is atypical group representation in policy processes on the meso scale. And third, their collaboration with government on the macro scale. On balance it appears that urban Aboriginal peoples in Canada have moved closer to inclusion in policy processes due to their success in incorporation, representation and collaboration. In contrast, Travellers in Ireland face greater obstacles in collaborating with government, which impacts on their representation in policy processes and their incorporation of programs and services to meet the needs and interests. The trajectory of these findings suggest that urban Aboriginal peoples will continue to collaborate with government and move closer to goals self-determination while Travellers will continue to struggle against prevailing societal domination to achieve ethnic minority status.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)