Questioning Gypsy Identity: Ethnic Narratives in Britain and America critically examines stories of Gypsy lives against the framework of social theories that illustrate how identity arises out of the cultural complexity of individual biographies, families, and communities. Growing up in an English Gypsy family, Brian Belton offers readers a unique perspective, writing what are essentially stories of people_how they are made, their social force, and what they collectively create.

Brian Belton's powerfully original book examines Gypsy lives against the framework of social theories that illustrate how identity arises out of the cultural complexity of individual biographies, families, and communities. Addressing the lack of contextual and social perspectives in the existing literature and the underlying assumption of a consistent Gypsy lineage, he explores the subject of identity to include the broader social context in which the population exists. He argues that Gypsy identity is created and maintained not only by tradition and heredity, but also by social and ideological factors that give rise to the 'ethnic narrative' of Gypsy identity. Growing up in an English Gypsy family, Belton offers a unique 'outsider-insider' perspective to Questioning Gypsy Identity, writing what are essentially stories of people_how they are made, their social force, and what they collectively create.

Chapter 1 Introduction: A Gypsy Lineage
Chapter 2 The Ethnic Gypsy
Chapter 3 Defining American Gypsies
Chapter 4 Historical Genesis of American Gypsies
Chapter 5 Gypsies in Social Bondage
Chapter 6 Ethnicity as Narrative
Chapter 7 Colonialism and the Gypsies
Chapter 8 Defining Legislation
Chapter 9 Towards a New Paradigm of Gypsy Identity
Chapter 10 Appendix: The Gypsy Lore Society (GLS)
Chapter 11 Bibliography
Chapter 12 Index
Chapter 13 About the Author