Gypsies, photographic representation and the media: an anthropological interpretation

Cameras were rare among English Gypsies in the 1970s. However, professional photographers, mainly from local newspapers, apparently gained sufficient trust to record multiple, one-off Gypsy images, and some were retrieved from now-closed offices near my fieldwork localities. The photographs were invariably of individuals known from Gypsy sites where I had co-resided. Ultimately, experience from extensive fieldwork can reveal in outsiders’ photographs, alternative, even contradictory perspectives hidden from the professional gaze.


VMMA-Pitt Rivers Museum Seminar Series Hilary 2019

Pitt Rivers Museum Lecture Theatre (off Robinson Close)

Fridays at 1pm (Weeks 1-8)

Convened by Clare Harris and Chris Morton