Gypsy Economy ─ Romani Livelihoods and Notions of Worth in the 21st Century

"Economic arrangements of Romanies are complexly related to their social position. Authors explore these complexities, including how economic exchanges forge key social relationships of gender and ethnicity, how economic opportunities are constructed andseized, and how economic success and failure are transformed into attributes of social persons. They explore how, despite -- or perhaps because of -- their unstable and ambiguous position within the market economy, shared today with a growing number of people facing precarity and informalisation, Roma and Gypsy communities continuously re-create more or less viable economic strategies. The ethnographically based chapters share accounts of socially and vulnerable populations that face their situation withself-determination and creativity"--Provided by publisher.

Martin Fotta is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Institute for Ethnology at Goethe University Frankfurt. He is working on a book focusing on money-lending practices of Calon Gypsies of Bahia, Brazil.