Nomads Under the Westway

Irish Travellers, Gypsies and other traders in west London

Christopher Griffin

As warden of the Westway site, social anthropologist Dr Christopher Griffin had a rare opportunity to immerse himself in Traveller culture. A proponent of humane, experiential ethnography, he observed and listened to the Gypsies at the site as he carried out his duties as caretaker. Lasting friendships were established which deepened his knowledge of Gypsy society.

This scholarly yet personal account combines social anthropology with the direct experience as site warden of the Gypsy encampment under London’s Westway. Reflexive and partly autobiographical, Nomads under the Westway is a history of West London’s Gypsies and Travellers set in a broader context of immigration and race relations.

Themes include the idea of London’s "foreignness" to the author as the child of Irish parents, and again when he returns from many years abroad; also the Irish in England more generally; and how the "wheeler-dealer" culture forms an integral part of the metropolitan economy.

Ambitious in scope, the book undertakes both a long historical view (going as far back as 1800) and a detailed survey of cultural practice amongst Travellers and Gypsies today.

Christopher Griffin is a Lecturer in Sociology and Anthropology at Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia. Born in London to Irish parents, he gained his doctorate in Social Anthropology at Sussex University and spent seven years in Fiji at the University of the South Pacific. Between 1984 and 1987 he was warden of the Westway permanent caravan site for Gypsies and Travellers in West London.

ISBN-10 1-902806-54-9

ISBN-13 978-1-902806-54-9

September 2008, 384pp

Paperback £14.99 / US$29.95