Forster 2019

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Traveller Community and health
practitioner stories of self and each
other: A poststructural narrative
analysis
Natalie Forster
Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD in Sociology

The University of Edinburgh
2018
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Declaration
I declare that this thesis has been composed solely by myself and that it has not
been submitted, in whole or in part, in any previous application for a degree. The
work presented is entirely my own.
Signed
.............................................................................................................................
Natalie Forster
October 2018
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Abstract
Research attention to Gypsy and Traveller health has grown in recent decades and
highlights significant inequalities in health and access to services experienced by
these groups. Existing work in this area tends to prioritise consideration of how
Gypsies and Travellers speak from a position of belonging to their particular ethnic
or cultural group, often producing fixed and universal claims about the health beliefs
and experiences of Traveller Communities. Little research explores the social
production of Gypsy and Traveller health identities, or how ethnicity may intersect
with wider identity positions in Traveller Community accounts of health. In addition,
health practitioner and Traveller Community accounts have rarely been considered
alongside one another, and the ways health practitioners construct identities in
relation to their work with Traveller Communities has largely evaded the gaze of
health and sociological research.
This thesis sought to contribute to understanding of these areas. It examined the

identity positions Traveller Community members and health practitioners project for
themselves and each other, and where these identities collide or coalesce in stories
of health interactions. Poststructuralist informed narrative inquiry guided interviews
with Romany Gypsies, Irish Travellers and health practitioners working with these
groups. This approach was chosen for its view of identity as multiple and shifting,
and as it enables concurrent attention to both the discourses governing possibilities
for talk about Traveller Community health, and how actors work within these
constraints to give accounts of themselves.
An analysis of participant narratives reveals two overarching areas of potential

concordance or dissonance in the identity positions claimed by health practitioners
and Traveller Community members. The first contrasts the ‘body work’ practitioners
undertook to downplay ‘professional’ identity and position themselves as close to
community members, with Gypsy and Traveller requests for greater access to
professional advice and medical screening. The second concerns divergence in the
extent to which Traveller Communities were presented, and presented themselves,
as future-oriented in relation to their health. Drawing on poststructuralist theory, I
argue that representations of Gypsy and Traveller orientations to time and space are
central in the positioning of these groups as compliant or resistant to health advice,
and to understanding relations of power and resistance in health interactions. The
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thesis generates insights for communication between health workers and Traveller
Community members, suggesting a need for attention not only to cultural or
structural barriers, but reflection on how practice is influenced by the stories we tell
about Traveller Communities, the identities practitioners claim for themselves in
relation to their work with ‘disadvantaged’ groups, and the interests these serve.
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Lay summary
Research suggests that Gypsy and Traveller Communities experience significantly
poorer health outcomes and increased difficulties accessing health services
compared to many other groups. Explanations for these inequities in existing
literature tend to focus in on the unique health beliefs and experiences of these
groups and produce sweeping statements about how Traveller Communities are in
relation to health. This risks categorising Traveller Communities as ‘all the same’ or
reinforcing the exclusion of Gypsies and Travellers by emphasising their difference.
The research reported on here aimed to accommodate variety and complexity in

Traveller Community health narratives by exploring how Gypsies and Travellers may
experience health not only as a Gypsy or Traveller, but by reference to other
everyday roles. It also sought to address the lack of opportunities observed within
existing research for Gypsies and Travellers to tell their own stories and describe
themselves in relation to their health. By considering health practitioner and
Traveller Community accounts within the same study, it intended to hear both ‘sides’
of the story and understand where these groups are ‘reading from the same page’
and where the stories we tell may need to be adjusted to work more effectively
together. These aims were accomplished through the adoption of a narrative
approach involving interviews with Romany Gypsies, Irish Travellers and health
practitioners working with in a public health capacity with these groups.
Findings revealed two key areas in which there was potential for misalignment in the
roles that health practitioners and Traveller Communities project for themselves and
each other. The first concerned stories about access to health screening and advice.
While health practitioners often worked to portray an image as close to community
members by downplaying ‘professional’ signals, Traveller Community members
themselves communicated a desire for greater access to professional advice and
medical screening. The second relates to differences in the degree to which Gypsies
and Travellers were presented as concerned with their future health. While Traveller
Communities often accepted the need to change their behaviour now to be healthy
in future, an ingrained narrative that Travellers were less able to prioritise future
health led to a reluctance to broach health behaviour by practitioners. This thesis
adds to understanding of how communication between health workers and Traveller
Community members can be facilitated. It suggests a need to consider not only
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cultural or structural barriers to health and service access but promote reflection on
the ways that taken for granted stories and the framing of practitioner roles may
impact on practice.
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Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I offer sincere thanks to my supervisors, Dr Angus Bancroft and
Dr Stephen Kemp; your guidance has pushed me to think in entirely new and
exciting directions and without your support and encouragement, I could not have
completed this thesis. I am also grateful for the financial support received for this
work through a University of Edinburgh Graduate School Scholarship and wish to
thank my examiners Professor Colin Clark and Professor Nasar Meer for their
invaluable feedback, and for making my viva a much more pleasant experience than
expected!
I express my deepest appreciation to the Gypsies, Travellers and health

practitioners who took part in this research. The entrustment of your stories has
provided me with motivation at the hardest times and I can only hope that I have
done them justice.
To all at the civil society organisation who supported this research, our
conversations have provided much appreciated opportunities for critical thought
which, together with your pragmatic assistance have been pivotal to this research.
For your time and patience, I am extremely thankful.
I owe thanks to several colleagues for their support during this process, and who are
too many to name here. Particular thanks are, however, extended to Monique
Lhussier, Phil Hodgson, Sonia Dalkin, Susan Carr and Cathy Bailey for their advice
on navigating both everyday and unexpected research challenges, and their
understanding, particularly in these last stages of writing up.
Last but by no means least I offer heartfelt thanks to my family and friends, of which
a few deserve special mention. To my partner Richie, for his constant
encouragement and for shouldering an unequal share of our joint responsibilities
while I undertook this work. To Roxanne, Rosie and Wendy for their positivity, and
for helping me switch off when required. To my Dad, Stu Forster, for his steady
belief that I could get to this point, and injection of necessary humour. To my
Godmother Wally, for her unconditional acceptance. Finally, to my wonderful Mam,
Chris Stevenson, whose determination I will always find inspirational, and to whom I
dedicate this work.
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Table of Contents
Declaration ............................................................................................................. 3
Abstract .................................................................................................................. 5
Lay summary ......................................................................................................... 7
Acknowledgements ............................................................................................... 9
List of tables .........................................................................................................13
Transcription key ..................................................................................................13
CHAPTER 1 - Introduction....................................................................................15
1.1 Definition of terms .........................................................................................16
1.2 Traveller Community rights in public, political and health spheres .................18
1.3 Contribution of the thesis ...............................................................................23
1.4 Theoretical approach.....................................................................................26
1.5 The research(er) story – locating myself in the research ...............................32
1.6 Thesis overview ............................................................................................35
CHAPTER 2 - Existing and unfolding storylines in Gypsy and Traveller health
research ................................................................................................................39
2.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................39
2.2 The social construction of ‘health’ and public health ‘problems’ .....................39
2.3 The making of the ‘problem’ of Gypsy and Traveller health ...........................41
2.4 Gypsy and Traveller health: a cultural or structural problem? ........................47
2.5 Unfolding storylines – Traveller identity as hybrid and contingent ..................60
2.6 Health practitioner identities ..........................................................................71
2.7 Summary .......................................................................................................77
CHAPTER 3 - Methodology: Generating another story about Gypsy and
Traveller health .....................................................................................................79
3.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................79
3.2 Research aims ..............................................................................................79
3.3 Narrative inquiry ............................................................................................80
3.4 Methods ........................................................................................................84
3.5 Ethical issues ................................................................................................98
3.6 Summary .....................................................................................................101
CHAPTER 4 - Reading from the same page? Traveller Community, general
population and practitioner definitions of health .............................................103
4.1 Introduction .................................................................................................103
4.2 Traveller Community health constructions ...................................................103
4.3 Health practitioner definitions of health ........................................................116
4.4 Summary .....................................................................................................120
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CHAPTER 5 - ‘Where the real work goes on’ and ‘splendid white middle-class
isolation’: practitioner identities as in touch with ‘vulnerability’ .................... 123
5.1 Introduction ................................................................................................. 123
5.2 Discourses drawn upon and used ............................................................... 123
5.3 The positioning of self in relation to others .................................................. 130
5.4 Interpersonal interaction.............................................................................. 136
5.5 Summary .................................................................................................... 138
CHAPTER 6 - ‘I wouldn’t change to be anything else’: vulnerability to poor
health and its problem for Traveller Community identities ............................. 139
6.1 Introduction ................................................................................................. 139
6.5 Summary .................................................................................................... 167
CHAPTER 7 - ‘They really liked me’: how practitioners sought to maintain their
accepted status when broaching lifestyle behaviours .................................... 169
7.1 Introduction ................................................................................................. 169
7.5 Summary .................................................................................................... 195
CHAPTER 8 - Touching wood and bucking up your ideas: Fatalism and
personal responsibility in Traveller Community accounts .............................. 197
8.1 Introduction ................................................................................................. 197
8.5 Summary .................................................................................................... 219
CHAPTER 9 - Discussion ................................................................................... 223
9.1 Introduction ................................................................................................. 223
9.2 Body work in interaction between practitioners and Traveller Community
members........................................................................................................... 223
9.3 Un-disciplined bodies? ................................................................................ 232
9.4 Race, culture and structure in narratives of Traveller Community health ..... 245
9.5 Summary .................................................................................................... 252
CHAPTER 10 - Conclusion................................................................................. 255
10.1 Introduction ............................................................................................... 255
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10.2 The research story: methodological reflections ..........................................255
10.3 A (provisional) ending: distilling the moral of the stories ............................261
References ..........................................................................................................269
Appendices .........................................................................................................295
Appendix 1: Interview guide for Traveller Community members ........................295
Appendix 2: Interview guide for health practitioners ..........................................297
Appendix 3: Observation record for Traveller Community members and
practitioners ......................................................................................................299
Appendix 4: Analytical framework to guide narrative analysis ............................301
Appendix 5: Participant information sheet for Traveller community members ....304
Appendix 6: Participant information sheet for health practitioners .....................307
Appendix 7: Participant consent form ................................................................310
List of tables
Table 1: Sample of Traveller Community members involved in the study................87
Table 2: Sample of health practitioners involved in the study ..................................90
Table 3: A comparison of health definitions used by Traveller Community members
and those found in the wider literature on lay health beliefs ..................................106
Transcription key
( )/(word) Signifies uncertainty about speech
[word] Indicates authors insertion
[ Indicates beginning of overlap in speech
] Indicates end of overlap in speech
... Signifies where words have been removed from the quote
(laughs) Indicates laughter
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CHAPTER 1 - Introduction
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about

what we pretend to be” – Kurt Vonnegut
This thesis explores the preferred health identities of Gypsies and Travellers and
where these identities collide or coalesce with those expressed by health
practitioners in relation to their work with these groups. There is mounting evidence
that Traveller Communities experience significant health inequalities (Cook et al.,
2013), accompanied by increasing analysis of the reasons for such poorer health
status (Foldes and Covaci, 2012). Indeed, the ‘problem’ of Traveller Community
health can be understood as a contested and politicised space, characterised by
competing claims about the nature of Gypsy and Traveller relationships to health.
Whether differences in health status are best accounted for by cultural or structural
factors forms the crux of much of this debate (see for example Smith and Newton,
2017). Rather than adding another voice to such analysis, or providing further
explanations for Traveller Community health, I aim to create a space whereby ways
of talking about Gypsy and Traveller health, and their attendant effects, are
themselves opened up for questioning. The thesis intends to redress what I saw as
limited opportunities within existing literature for community members to describe
how they wish to be seen in relation to their health, as well as a gap in
understanding around how practitioners present accounts of themselves and their
roles when working with Gypsies and Travellers. I argue that we cannot understand
the exclusion or inclusion of Traveller Communities in matters of health, by
examining only cultural differences, or structural barriers in access, important though
these may be. Rather, I suggest that we must also appreciate the potential for
concordance or discordance in the versions of self that Traveller Community
members and health practitioners project for themselves and each other, or in the
spirit of the above quote, what they each ‘pretend to be’.
This chapter begins with a justification of the terminology adopted throughout the
thesis in relation to both Traveller Communities and health practitioners and sets out
the reasons for the particular focus on public health roles and practice. Following
this, and in a bid to establish the topic’s contemporary relevance, I place the thesis
against a backdrop of popular culture, media and policy treatment of Traveller
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Communities and demonstrate the limited degree to which discourses on Traveller
Community rights have been taken up in practice. The contribution of the research
to existing fields of inquiry, and that on Traveller Community health in particular, is
then outlined, before I set out the rationale for the theoretical approach adopted and
attend to its potential limitations. An account is given of my own position in relation
to the study, providing the reader with an insight into the motivations and values that
have inevitably shaped my orientation to the research. The chapter finishes by
detailing the structure and argument of the remainder of the thesis.
1.1 Definition of terms

There is considerable definitional confusion surrounding the use of terminology to
refer to Traveller Communities (Maestri, 2017). The terms ‘Gypsies’, ‘Roma’,
‘Travellers’ and ‘Traveller Communities’ are often used individually, or in
combination, as container categories to describe diverse groups. This is despite the
distinct cultures of these communities and their potential self-identification with one
label in particular (Leeds GATE, 2014). For instance, the label of ‘Roma’, which is
used as a political category in Europe (Council of Europe, 2012; Traveller
Movement, 2015), is often extended to encompass Traveller communities native to
the UK, even though this term is not usually acceptable to English Romany Gypsies,
Irish Travellers, or Scottish or Welsh Gypsy Travellers. A distinction must be made
too with groups who are regarded as occupational or cultural as opposed to ‘ethnic’
Travellers such as Showmen and Circus people, New Travellers, and Bargee
communities who live on canals in the UK (Traveller Movement, 2015). While
English Romany Gypsies, Irish Travellers, and Scottish and Welsh Gypsy Travellers
are recognised as distinct ethnic groups in UK legislation, occupational and cultural
Traveller Communities have not been granted the same status. This is sometimes
on the preference of groups themselves, with Showmen and Circus people
preferring to define as trade groups (Leeds GATE, 2014). While all of the Traveller
Communities discussed above have a history of nomadism, most members of these
communities no longer travel full time and have now settled in housing (Bancroft,
1999; Ringold, 2000; Clark and Greenfields, 2006). This is the result of difficulties
maintaining a nomadic lifestyle in the face of policies, state systems and service
provision oriented towards sedentarism (Greenfields and Smith, 2010), and in some
European contexts, due to forced settlement (Bancroft, 1999). Even when settled in
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permanent accommodation, Traveller Community members may travel occasionally
or seasonally however (Niner, 2004). Although not always treated as such in policy,
a move into housing does not lead to a loss of Gypsy or Traveller identity, which
must be recognised as based on distinct ancestry, history, and cultural traditions
(Van Cleemput and Parry, 2001). As this research involved Romany Gypsies and
Irish Travellers specifically, the terms ‘Gypsies and Travellers’ or ‘Traveller
Communities’ are used throughout the thesis. As these expressions were used by
the Traveller organisation who supported the research and by Gypsy and Traveller
participants themselves, they were judged as acceptable. The plural ‘communities’
is adopted in recognition of the diversity of Traveller Community groups. Exceptions
to the use of these terms are found however in direct quotes, or when citing
research pertaining specifically to groups other than Romany Gypsies or Irish
Travellers.
The thesis is situated at the intersections of sociology and public health. A decision
was taken to focus the research on public health, since public health is concerned
with the health of the population (Orme et al., 2007), including differential health
outcomes across social groups (Dew, 2012), and is underpinned by principles of
equity and social justice (World Health Organisation, 1986; Dew, 2012; Faculty of
Public Health and European Public Health Association, 2017). The health inequity
experienced by Gypsy and Traveller community members thereby falls firmly under
a public health remit. The thesis involved practitioners working in any of the three
domains of public health practice as outlined by the Faculty of Public Health: health
improvement; health protection and improving services (Griffiths, Jewell and
Donnelly, 2005). The term ‘health practitioner’ is adopted throughout, rather than
‘public health practitioner’ to reflect the involvement in the study of those explicitly
badged as public health workers (e.g. ‘public health practitioners’ or ‘public health
specialists’), as well as those who are employed in wider occupations and sectors
but who nevertheless undertake public health work. I use ‘practitioners’ rather than
‘professionals’ when referring to participants, as some health workers in the study
distanced themselves from the latter term.
It is recognised that I have drawn an artificial distinction between Traveller

Community members and health practitioners here, and that these positions can, of
course, coincide. None of the Gypsy and Traveller Community members involved in
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the study identified as health practitioners. However, some Gypsy and Traveller
participants volunteered at the Traveller Community organisation supporting the
research, which involved participating in meetings and activities connected with
health. This enabled some insight into how Gypsy and Traveller health identities are
affected by involvement in health-related work, with this reflected upon in findings
where relevant.
1.2 Traveller Community rights in public, political and health spheres

Traveller Community ‘lifestyle’ has become something of a ‘bestseller’ in popular
culture (Barnett, 2011), reflecting a seeming ‘fetishisation’ of these groups in society.
This is illustrated by the publication of numerous Gypsy and Traveller biographies
(Whyte, 2001; J. Smith, 2008; Smith-Bendell, 2009; Walsh, 2009; Mckinley, 2011;
see for example Docherty, 2013) and increasing television coverage devoted to
Traveller Community lives. Channel 4’s “Big Fat Gypsy Weddings” programme, a
“revealing documentary series that offers a window into the secretive, extravagant
and surprising world of gypsies and travellers in Britain today” (Channel 4, 2013) is
typical of this trend, with viewing rates at the time exceeding those of any other C4
documentary (Frost, 2011). Other programmes have followed suit, including
‘Thelma’s Gypsy Girls’, ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Christening’, ‘My Big Fat Gypsy
Christmas’, and more recently, ‘Gypsy Kids: Our Secret World’. As is evident from
the use of language in the programme titles and descriptions, these voyeuristic
depictions often reinforce the ‘otherness’ of Gypsy and Traveller Communities. Such
coverage reflects media discourse on Traveller Communities more generally, which
has long perpetuated hostility towards these groups and entrenched divisions
between Traveller Communities and ‘settled’ society (Morris, 2000; Leahy, 2014;
Richardson, 2014; Cihan Koca-helvaci, 2016). Recent analysis of in print media
coverage of Gypsies and Travellers in Scotland found that Gypsies and Travellers
received an inordinate amount of attention relative to their population size (an
average of 1.5 stories per day over the 120 days studied) and categorised 48% of
these articles as representing these communities negatively (Amnesty International,
2014). This included associating Traveller Communities with dirt and reinforcing
stereotypes of criminality by referring to encampments as ‘illegal’ rather than
‘unauthorised’ (Amnesty International, 2014). Indeed, media discourses which
reproduce the ‘otherness’ of Traveller Communities often centre on the relationship
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of Traveller Community members to space, constructing these groups as ‘place
invaders’ who symbolise threats to spatial and public order (Kabachnik, 2010).
Media depictions of Gypsies and Travellers are reflected in everyday talk and public
attitudes towards these groups. According to the 2014 Global Attitudes Survey (Pew
Research Centre, 2014), 50% of people in Britain held an unfavourable view of
Gypsy or Roma Communities, while a recent YouGov survey reports that 42% of
respondents would be ‘unhappy with a close relative having a long-term relationship
or marriage with a Gypsy/Traveller’ (YouGov on behalf of the Traveller Movement,
2017). An analysis of comments about Gypsies and Travellers in online discussion
forums found similar representations of Traveller Communities to those employed in
the media, including connotations with crime or lawlessness; the categorisation of
Traveller Communities as ‘other’ or ‘abnormal’; and the generalisation of individual
behaviour to communities as a whole (Rowe and Goodman, 2014). Negative
attitudes toward Gypsies and Travellers have been found among politicians (Turner,
2000) as well as public service professionals. This is evidenced in police officers’
use of a private Facebook page to post racist remarks about Traveller Communities
(Bowcott, 2017) and findings of a recent evidence review which highlight the
discriminatory and prejudiced attitudes of European health care providers towards
Romany women in maternity services (Watson and Downe, 2017).
For all the damage of media representations such as those found in programmes
such as ‘Big Fat Gypsy Weddings’, controversy surrounding this coverage has
provoked dialogue and generated opportunities to challenge portrayals of Traveller
Communities (Taylor, 2012; Press Association, 2015). Out of this contestation is a
growing movement of young Gypsy and Traveller activists speaking out about the
inequities they face (Clark, 2017). Examples of high profile and successful legal
challenges to discrimination against Traveller Communities, such as the case
brought against a Wetherspoons pub in London (BBC, 2015) have also helped to
bring the injustices experienced by these groups into the public eye. Yet, as the
above research on public attitudes illustrates, the rights of Gypsies and Travellers
have, to date, received limited traction in popular discourse. Indeed, the
acceptability of racism against these groups doesn’t appear to have shifted in the 13
years since this was badged as the ‘last “respectable” form of racism’ by the then
Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality (BBC, 2004).
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Ambiguity around whether abuse toward these groups constitutes racism, due to
their position as a white and often indistinguishable minority, is one possible reason
for the lack of purchase of Gypsy and Traveller rights in society:
In popular understandings of racism in Britain there is a blind spot in relation

to Gypsy-Travellers. It is also a grey area in respect to the use of the concept
of racialization. They are white Europeans, runs the logic, therefore the
antipathy felt by other white Europeans towards Gypsy-Travellers cannot be
“racist” (Garner, 2017:1)
Goodman and Rowe (2014) found that an insistence that derogatory comments
towards a white group could not be considered racist was similarly used to deflect
accusations of racism in remarks made about Gypsies and Travellers on discussion
forums. While a ‘norm against racism’ was clearly displayed in contributions to the
discussion, no such social sanctions governed the admission of prejudice towards
Gypsies and Travellers, particularly where comments were predicated on
experience rather than ‘hear-say’ (Goodman and Rowe, 2014). Goodman and Rowe
(2014) therefore point to the importance of retaining a distinction between the
categories of ‘racism’ and ‘prejudice’. Recent considerations of the place of race in
the field of ethnic and racial studies similarly suggest a need to preserve race as a
concept and call for more precision in its use. Meer (2018) for instance, argues that
the category of race must be extricated from that of post-colonialism, stressing the
distinct contribution of race in understanding ‘whiteness’ and the social processes
that surround it.
Responding to the scarcity of material explicitly employing the concept of race to

Gypsy and Traveller Communities, Garner (2017) points to the planning system as a
significant mechanism in the racialisation of these groups. This is exemplified in a
recent parliamentary debate on ‘Gypsies and Travellers and local communities’ (HC
Deb, 9 October 2017); the title itself suggesting that Gypsies and Travellers are not
part of local neighbourhoods (McDonagh, 2017). Within this debate, the relationship
of Traveller Communities to the law, and who can and cannot be defined as
‘genuine’ Gypsies and Travellers, were core themes (HC Deb, 9 October 2017).
Recent changes to the definition of Gypsy and Traveller ethnicity for planning
purposes now excludes those who have ceased to travel permanently (Department
for Communities and Local Government, 2015). This reduces Traveller ethnicity to a
culture of nomadism, denies the rights of groups to self-define, and forces families to
travel to qualify for places on authorised Gypsy and Traveller sites.
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The racialisation of Gypsies and Travellers is also apparent in the area of health,
and comparable tensions are apparent surrounding the recognition or denial of
Traveller Community ethnicity in this domain. After receiving very little attention in
health policy historically (Parry et al., 2007), Gypsies and Travellers were targeted
more explicitly in UK and European policy in the mid to late 2000s. In 2005, the
Decade of Roma Inclusion was launched; a pledge signed by 12 European
countries (not including the UK) to address Roma poverty and exclusion, and reduce
inequalities between Roma and non-Roma in a number of priority domains,
including health (International Steering Committee, 2005). Traveller Communities
were later included in the UK Department of Health Pacesetters programme, which
was initiated in 2008 and focused on addressing health inequalities across
communities (Van Cleemput et al. 2010). A Primary Care Service Framework for
Gypsies and Travellers was set out in 2009 and Traveller Communities were among
four ‘socially excluded groups’ singled out for attention by the Department of Health
‘Inclusion Health’ programme, along with people who are homeless, sex workers
and refugees and asylum seekers (Department of Health, 2010; Social Exclusion
Task Force, 2010). While this marks a shift in policy to explicitly consider the needs
of Gypsies and Travellers, it is notable that UK policies frame the health needs of
Traveller Communities through the broad lens of inequality and exclusion rather
than by reference to race or ethnicity, which itself is likely to have repercussions for
how this issue is approached.
This policy attention has coincided with a surge in research in this area, with a
review of the literature illustrating that the majority of work on Gypsy Roma and
Traveller health has been undertaken post 2010 (Cook et al., 2013). However, as
has been shown for parallel areas, the surge of interest in Gypsy and Traveller
health has delivered little by way of improvements in circumstances for these
groups, and policy appears to have preserved the inequity experienced by Traveller
Communities as part of the status quo. For instance, while the evaluation of The
Decade of Roma Inclusion has been hindered by the poor availability of data (Fésüs
et al., 2012), evidence suggests that this has made limited tangible difference to the
lives of Roma people (Fésüs et al., 2012; Rorke, Matache and Friedman, 2015;
Sándor et al., 2017). This limited success has been attributed to resource issues, a
lack of measures to enforce implementation, ill-defined and limited involvement of
Roma and their representatives, and restricted autonomy of government actors
21
involved in the process (Decade of Roma Inclusion Secretariat Foundation 2015,
cited in Brüggemann, Friedman and Friedman, 2017). The Decade has been
credited with raising the profile of Roma inequality and ensuring this stays on the
political agenda (Brüggemann, Friedman and Friedman, 2017), feeding into the later
European Commission’s (2011) Framework for National Roma Integration
Strategies. However, the EU Framework has encountered similar challenges in
delivering on Roma inclusion. Indeed, in 2012, Britain was judged by the European
Commission as having failed to implement all measures to address discrimination
set out in the Framework, including those specifically pertaining to health (European
Commission, 2013). The UK’s impending exit (at the time of writing), from the
European Union creates further doubt with respect to institutional and political
leadership to promote the inclusion of Gypsy and Traveller Communities. A
ministerial working group was established in November 2010 and outlined 28
commitments to addressing disparities in outcomes experienced by Gypsy and
Traveller Communities, including five health specific pledges (Communities and
Local Government, 2012). Progress toward these commitments is currently being
reviewed in a Select Committee Enquiry. Many of these commitments were process
driven, addressing questions around what more needs to be done. This has resulted
in a number of reports and guidelines (Ministerial Working Group on Tackling
Inequalities experienced by Gypsies and Travellers, 2014) that review the current
state of affairs and produce further statements of the problem, but which have not
moved beyond rhetoric to concrete action. The issue of data monitoring is a case in
point. The ‘Hidden Needs’ Inclusion Health report (Aspinall, 2014), reiterated the
extensiveness of gaps in data monitoring for Gypsies and Travellers that had been
articulated years earlier (Doyal et al., 2002). However, its recommendation of
including Gypsies and Travellers as ethnic groups in the NHS data dictionary has
yet to be translated into practice. This again shows some hesitancy with regard to
the explicit use of race or ethnicity in framing efforts to address Gypsy and Traveller
health, and suggests similar ambiguity surrounding the definition of Gypsies and
Travellers for health purposes to that found in planning policy. This picture is further
complicated by the fact that health is itself a contested attribute (Smailes and Street,
2011) which can give rise to varying definitions of, explanations for and approaches
to Traveller Community health.
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1.3 Contribution of the thesis
The above discussion highlights the politicised and racialised nature of talk about
Traveller Communities in political, public and health spheres. The discourses or
cultural narratives governing talk about, and practices towards Traveller Community
members have been examined in areas such as social geography (Bancroft, 2000;
Holloway, 2005; Richardson, 2006; Kabachnik, 2009, 2010, 2012; Shubin and
Swanson, 2010; Shubin, 2011), education (Cudworth, 2008; Bhopal, 2011; Bhopal
and Myers, 2016; Hamilton, 2017), media and cultural studies (Jensen and
Ringrose, 2013; Casey, 2014; Goodman and Rowe, 2014; Leahy, 2014; Okely,
2014; Rowe and Goodman, 2014; Tremlett, 2014a; Pusca, 2015), social welfare
(Vanderbeck, 2009) and academia (Stewart, 2013; Crowley and Kitchin, 2015;
Acton, 2016). By comparison, less attention has been paid to the discursive
construction of Traveller Communities in relation to health, and existing work has
tended to avoid troubling the racialisation of Gypsies and Travellers in this area.
Given the extensive critique of Traveller Community representations in public
discourse and other fields of inquiry, the limited attention to the social construction of
Travellers in relation to health, and of health in relation to Travellers was surprising.
It could be argued that there is a culture/structure divide in explanations offered for

Traveller Community health in the literature. Research in this area is weighted
heavily toward an analysis of Traveller Community health beliefs and attitudes, as
distinct and often homogeneously conceived cultural groups. This search for, and
assignment of characteristics to Traveller Communities in relation to health can itself
be considered a form of racialisation, with this concept encompassing social group
differentiation through the attribution of cultural characteristics (Fox, Moroşanu and
Szilassy, 2012). Although there exist well-established sociological critiques pointing
to the potentially stigmatising effects of using concepts of race, ethnicity and culture
to explain health differences (Ahmad, 1996; Fernando, 2002; Ahmad and Bradby,
2007), these are not widely referenced in the literature on Gypsy and Traveller
health. Matthews (1998) forms one exception to this, arguing that the dominance of
a biomedical perspective may pathologise Traveller Community culture. Some
challenge to arguments of cultural difference has also been made on the grounds
that structural barriers are more salient in explaining the differential health status of
these groups (Smith and Newton, 2017). Indeed, such arguments are underpinned
by a wealth of health services research that, while not explicitly critiquing essentialist
23
cultural explanations, has long highlighted numerous structural constraints impinging
on the ability of Traveller Communities to attain an equitable standard of health
(Feder, 1989; Van Cleemput and Parry, 2001; Cemlyn et al., 2009; Foldes and
Covaci, 2012; McFadden et al., 2018). It was only recently however that the relative
importance of cultural versus structural barriers has been subject to direct and in
depth empirical scrutiny, drawing on data from Gypsies and Travellers themselves
(Smith and Newton, 2017).
Despite the long recognition of structural barriers impinging on Gypsy and Traveller
health, difficulties in accessing health services among these groups have persisted
(McFadden et al., 2018), suggesting that this recognition has not been met with
sufficient action to address these injustices. I was keen to explore the stories that lie
behind action or inertia to improve Traveller Community health, as well as the ways
that ingrained narratives of both health service providers and Traveller Community
members may limit efforts to tackle inequalities, even after structural barriers are
removed. The research set out in this thesis is based on the idea that narrative is
not merely a carrier of meaning, but constitutive of the social world, and that vice
versa, narrative possibilities are shaped by the discursive or socio-cultural
conditions of a society at a particular time (Tamboukou, 2013). Thus, rather than
adding a further interpretation of the causes of Traveller Community health, this
research turns its attention to the narratives employed to explain Gypsy and
Traveller health, and their constitutive effects, as objects of study in their own right.
Understanding the discourses or narratives influencing the possibilities for speech,
thought and action in this area will provide insight into those that perpetuate or can
challenge conditions of inequality for Traveller Communities.
Awareness of Traveller Community culture and its potential impact on health

communication and interaction is well attended to in the literature (Vivian and
Dundes, 2004; Dion, 2008; Francis, 2010a, 2010b; Lane and Tribe, 2010; Davis and
Lovegrove, 2016). Yet, communication is also likely to be influenced by the roles
and identities that Traveller Community members and practitioners project for
themselves and each other, or, to borrow from Frank (2002), their diagnoses of each
other as people. A gap in existing research was identified around the versions of self
that Gypsies and Travellers, and health practitioners claim within health interactions.
Hodgins, Millar and Barry (2006) contextualised the willingness of Traveller
24
Communities to draw on structural explanations for their health by reference to the
risk of ‘spoiling’ one’s identity. However, the identity implications and management
of potential stigma by Traveller Communities in the face of the health inequalities
they experience is yet to be explored in depth. In addition, few studies in the area of
Traveller Community health consider the perspectives of Traveller Community
members and health practitioners alongside one another, and to my knowledge, no
studies have examined the ways that health practitioners present accounts of
themselves when describing their work with Traveller Communities. It is to these
areas that the current research also seeks to contribute.
The literature to date has tended to present a homogeneous picture of Traveller

Community health. The potential for diversity and intersectionality in health
experience within and across Traveller Community groups is less often considered.
This tendency to homogenise groups and uphold binaries between Gypsies and
Travellers and ‘settled’ society is identified within the parallel area of planning, as a
further device for the racialisation (Garner, 2017). In addition, Garner (2017: 10)
points to the ways that the tabloid press portrays Travellers as ‘virtually never
normal citizens’, overlooking the mundane and ordinary aspects of life among
Traveller Communities. Such representations resonate with discourses of
Orientalism, which construct ‘the Orient’ as an unfamiliar and romantic, but also
inferior ‘Other’, in whose reflection the Western self is constituted (Said, 1978).
Indeed, Lee (2000) suggests that ‘Gypsylorism’1 operates in a similar fashion,
singling out and discursively constructing Gypsies and Travellers as groups. The
relationship between the West and ‘the Orient’ or ‘Other’ is not maintained though
separation, but through contact and exchange (Hirose and Pih, 2011). The Orient
can be both a subject of allure as well as disdain, reflected in the appropriation of
non-western culture and symbols (Sardar, 1999). Indeed, Hirose and Pih (2011), in
regard to consumption, show the significance of ‘authentic’ experience of the other
in validating one’s own authenticity. This resonates with concern for what constitutes
‘genuine’ Gypsies and Travellers in society, and with the simultaneous
romanticisation and contempt for nomadic lifestyles (Bhopal and Myers, 2008) in
historical and contemporary representations of these groups. A recent Gypsy and
Traveller rights campaign ‘We Are All So Many Things’ (London Gypsies and
1
A term referring to members of the Gypsy Lore Society, established in 1888 and those writing in the
associated Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, dedicated to scholarship on Gypsies
25
Travellers, 2017) seeks to counteract essential representations of these groups,
pointing to the multiplicity of identities and everyday roles and contributions of
Traveller Community members. Within this research, I aim to open up for
questioning those narratives that position Traveller Community members as
intrinsically different or Other regarding their health. By looking at characterisations
of Traveller Communities in relation to health, by both community members
themselves and health practitioners, I aim to contribute an understanding of the
racialisation of Traveller Communities in health spheres. I explore the narratives
shared by Gypsy and Traveller Community members and the population more
generally, as well as where these groups draw on distinct narrative resources or
forms of storytelling due to the uniqueness of their social position. In seeking to
understand how Gypsy and Traveller ethnicity intersects with wider identity positions
in relation to health, I aim to attend to the mundane as well as unusual health
experiences of Traveller Communities and avoid reinforcing images of these groups
as exotic. The specific research questions addressed by the thesis are as follows:
1.3.1 Overarching research aim

To explore how Traveller Community members and health practitioners position
themselves and each other amid multiple, competing and co-existing narratives
surrounding the ‘problem’ of Traveller Community health?
1.3.2 Specific research questions:

 What are the constructs of health drawn upon by health practitioners and
Gypsies and Travellers?
 What are the preferred health identities of Gypsies and Travellers?
 What are the preferred identities of health practitioners in relation to their
work with Traveller Communities?
 How do health constructs and preferred identities collide or coalesce in the
narratives of Traveller Community members and health practitioners?
1.4 Theoretical approach

A poststructural lens was taken for the research since, to borrow Fox’s (1993)
phrase, it enables an examination of ‘the politics of [Gypsy and Traveller] health
talk’. A poststructuralist approach rejects ultimate truth claims, instead viewing any
26
spoken or written representation of ‘truth’ or ‘reality’ as dependent upon the
particular historical and cultural context2, and infused with power (Coveny, 1998;
Cheek, 2000). Poststructuralism favours a ‘responsibility to otherness’ over a
‘responsibility to act’ (White, 1991). While the latter necessitates set definitions of
people and phenomena, and the closing down of some modes of thought,
poststructuralism aims to uncover voices that may be silenced by such tendencies.
This approach was therefore well suited to the research, which seeks to challenge
attempts to fix representations of Gypsies and Travellers in relation to health in
existing literature. In its commitment to subjugated voices and exposing the
contingency of knowledge and group constructions, poststructuralism also helps to
avoid the stigmatisation of those who may be deemed as out of step with dominant
ideas and practices (Wright, O’Flynn and Macdonald, 2006), as may be the case
where Traveller Community members are presented as practicing health differently.
By acting, as far as possible, as a conduit for the stories and identities expressed by
Traveller Community members and health practitioners, the research aims to create
a space whereby dominant narratives ‘about’ Traveller Community members can be
opened up to challenge, and whereby community members are able to present a
version of themselves in relation to health.
In accordance with the emphasis on multiple truth claims, poststructuralists deny the
existence of an autonomous and essential self, existing outside of social
relationships (Elliot 2005). From this perspective, identity is not coherent and stable
but fragmented and fluid, instead changing according to social position or time point,
and negotiated through interactions with others (Blumenreich, 2004; Osgood, 2010).
Rather than treating Gypsy and Traveller accounts of health as fixed inner attitudes,
a poststructural theoretical orientation therefore enables a critical examination of
how Gypsy and Traveller health identities are produced within, and constrained by,
the differing discourses operating in society about the health of these groups. Using
a research approach that theorises identity as multiple, fluid and shaped by
2
It is important to distinguish between the differential usages of culture throughout this thesis. The
above section critiqued explanations for differential health outcomes predicated on the cultural
distinctiveness of Traveller Communities. I do not however deny any influence of culture on health;
this stance that would be incompatible with the theoretical position adopted. The thesis does not
seek to elaborate cultural differences between Traveller Communities and other social groups, but
rather examines the overarching cultural conditions of society that produce definitions of and
approaches to Traveller Community health, including the construction of ethnic and cultural
difference itself.
27
discursive processes therefore enables exploration of the potentially conflicting
identity positions held by individual Traveller Community members and practitioners
amid the contested narratives in circulation. It also facilitates attention to how
identity as a Traveller Community member, or health practitioner working with these
groups may intersect with other identity positions in stories of Gypsy and Traveller
health. The work of Foucault and Deleuze and Guattari is drawn on in particular for
this study, theorists who are categorised as falling within a poststructuralist tradition
(though not necessarily identifying themselves as such).
1.4.1 Foucault on discourse, power and subjectivities

Foucault’s work has been particularly influential in understanding how subjectivities
or ‘selves’ are produced through discourses (Rose, 1999), including those on health
and illness. Foucault defined discourses as ‘practices that systematically form the
objects of which they speak’ (Foucault, 1969). His work investigated the processes
through which some discourses come to be afforded legitimacy, or truth status while
others are relegated (Foucault, 1980; McHoul and Grace, 1995; Cheek, 2004). It
also examined the constitutive effects of dominant discourse on the possibilities for
knowledge, speech and action within a given time point. For Foucault, knowledge
and power were bound together; the authoritative knowledge produced through
discourse enables techniques of power to be exercised such as surveillance or
confession, which in turn, generate further knowledge (Foucault, 1977, 1980).
Foucault’s theories led to a radical re-conceptualisation of power, illustrating that
power cannot be understood only by reference to negative effects such as
repression, denial or exclusion but must be seen as productive, both of knowledge
and also forms of subjectivity (Foucault, 1980). Foucault's theories therefore assist
in understanding the extent to which the identities of Gypsies and Travellers, and
health practitioners are shaped by dominant health discourses, and their associated
entanglements in relations of knowledge/power. In Discipline and Punish (1977),
Foucault illustrates a shift away from the visible and coercive operation of power
(exemplified by crude forms of public punishment), to more insidious disciplinary
forms of power which govern through the production of ‘docile bodies’ who monitor
their own behaviour in line with dominant discourses. Foucault termed this type of
power 'biopower' (Foucault, 2004). Power, as conceptualised by Foucault is
therefore not possessed or wielded by individuals or institutions, but is characterised
as ‘omnipresent’, and operates as a ‘network of relations constantly in tension, in
28
activity’ (Foucault, 1977: 26). For Foucault, it was therefore necessary to study the
‘micro-politics’ of power and its exercise at a local level (Foucault, 1980). Foucault
coined the term ‘governmentality’ (Foucault, 2007), to refer to this ‘conduct of
conduct’ (Foucault, 2003) and the concurrent focus on the population and individual
subjects (Fox 1993). Inherent in the definition of power as ‘action upon an action’, is
the presence of agency and the possibility of resistance, since were there not the
potential for struggle, there would be no relation of power (Foucault, 1982:789). An
application of Foucault’s theories was therefore felt appropriate to examining the
potential for struggle purported in the literature between accepted public health
doctrine, and the culture and practices of Traveller Communities. While individuals
are theorized as having agency within the constraints of discourse by Foucault,
“their intentionality is never their own”, in so far as they are restricted by their
historical and linguistic context (Heller, 1996). As such, Foucault has received
criticism for his view that there exists no means of resistance outside of power
relations (Fox, 1993). Foucault’s theories also provide limited depth on the forms
that resistance may take (Pickett, 1996). For this reason, the work of Deleuze and
Guattari (1984, 1986), which expands upon the idea of resistance introduced by
Foucault (Lash, 1984; Fox, 1993; Reid, 2003; Bignall, 2008) will also be utilised in
the research, to understand the possibilities for resistance available to Traveller
Communities and practitioners.
1.4.2 Expanding resistance with Deleuze and Guattari

Deleuze and Guattari share Foucault’s view of power as productive of subjectivities,
viewing individuals and bodies as inscribed by social (and physical) forces (Lash,
1984), rather than free from constraints (Deleuze, 1992; Fox, 2002; Winslade,
2009). Deleuze and Guattari coined the concept of the body-without-organs (BwO)
to refer not to an anatomical body, but a political space or territory on which a
struggle takes place between the motivations or ‘desire’ of individuals and the social,
psychological and physical relations that seek to limit what the body can do
(Deleuze and Guattari, 1984; Fox, 2011). Winslade describes how Deleuze and
Guattari conceive of a map of intersecting “lines of power” which:
express assumptions about how the world is, how life works, who each
person is, which identities are legitimate, and which are marginal (2009: 336)
These lines of power then act to “territorialise” the BwO through “marking out limits”
and prescriptions for normative action upon it (Fox, 2002). The clustering of relations
29
that seek to territorialise the body, together with a body’s own desires are referred to
by Deleuze and Guattari as ‘assemblages’ (Fox, 2011). It is the sum-total of the
elements of the assemblage that constitute the BwO and the limits and possibilities
of what a body can do (Fox, 2011).
Deleuze and Guattari locate the capacity for resistance in their concept of desire
(Deleuze and Guattari, 1984). They were critical of the psychoanalyst Lacan's notion
of desire as a 'lack', which exists in the realm of the symbolic and instead conceived
of desire as a positive force which, similar to Foucault’s conception of power, is
productive and has real effects (Fox, 1993). The capacity of desiring and
experimenting individuals provides opportunities for new relations to be generated
(Fox, 2012), for example, through new connections, experiences, changes in the
environment, or a confrontation, and which enable a de-territorialisation of the BwO
(Fox and Ward, 2008). The relationship of Nomads to the state symbolised
resistance and this de-territorialised subject in Deleuze and Guattari’s work
(Deleuze and Guattari, 1986). The outcome of de-territorialisation is a 'nomad
subject'; one who, in a moment of reflexivity steps temporarily outside of those
identities and roles ascribed it, to become ‘other’ (Fox and Ward, 2008). For
Deleuze and Guattari, it is the process of ‘becoming’ other rather than the fixing of
identity, in which escape from power is achieved. Deleuze and Guattari
distinguished between ‘striated’ and ‘smooth’ space; state apparatus striate space
by measuring and quantifying it, and are oriented towards occupation and
sedentarism (Deleuze and Guattari, 1986). Nomads on the other hand distribute
themselves in, or ‘flow’ across an open space (characterised by the desert or the
steppe) which is free from the lines and codes imposed upon state space (Deleuze
and Guattari, 1986). However, while Deleuze and Guattari do make reference to an
absolute form of de-territorialization (characterised as a line of flight) and a
‘nomadic’ subject free from the constraints of power, this is conceived an ideal, and
something which is never fully realised (Reid, 2003). The territorialisation and de-
territorialisation of the BwO was therefore viewed by Deleuze and Guattari as a
continual process (Fox, 1993; Winslade, 2009). Assemblages continually evolve as
the mix of relations, or their relative intensities alter, and the de-territorialised subject
is always re-territorialised, although the pattern of power inscriptions may alter (Fox,
1993), with the result that an individual can ‘do more or different things than before’
(Fox, 2012). Given the tradition of nomadism in Traveller Communities, this
30
theoretical perspective had immediate appeal in helping to unpack the struggles of
power and resistance that may exist in the relations between Traveller Communities
and health discourses, services, and practitioners.
1.4.3 Is poststructuralism a just approach?

It is also important to acknowledge and respond to some notable and well-rehearsed
critiques of poststructuralism however. Although a concern with power and its
entanglement with knowledge production are central to poststructuralist theory (Fox,
2014), the usefulness of such approaches in challenging unequal power relations
and achieving social change has been questioned on a number of counts. The
privilege given to language and discourse in poststructuralist work is argued to
downplay attention to the material body (Williams, 2006) or concrete realities (Buch-
hansen, 2005; Howarth, 2013), leading authors to question the application of
poststructuralism to the study of social structures or institutions (Howarth, 2013).
However, following Atkinson’s (2002: 80) argument that ‘action is (almost) always
determined by ideas, whether we are cognisant of them or not’, I judge the value of
a poststructuralist approach to lie in the tools it provides for scrutinising systems of
thought and speech that create and sustain social structures (including those
reproducing health inequalities for Traveller Communities).
A further criticism directed at work in a poststructuralist vein focuses on the refusal

of these approaches to engage in normative evaluation; a stance argued to
undermine action for social justice (Taylor, 1984; Howarth, 2013), and potentially
reinforce the subjugation of marginal groups (Cole, Hill and Rikowski, 1997).
Poststructuralist conceptions of identity as fragmented and multiple, and the
restriction in focus to the local operation of power, are further principles argued to
immobilise action to improve social conditions, by weakening opportunities for
collective identification and action (Kelly, Cole and Hill, 1999; Cole, 2003). These
issues are of obvious relevance to the focus of this research, which concerns the
inequity experienced by Traveller Communities in relation to health. However, I
argue that it is possible for poststructuralist work to contribute towards achieving
social justice without making strong normative claims. I find the potential of
poststructuralist approaches to be encapsulated in Foucault’s statement that ‘my
point is that not everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous’ (Foucault, 1984:
343). A poststructuralist approach will enable the dangers associated with the
31
different discourses on Traveller Community health to be elucidated, which can then
inform our selection from among those available. Moreover, in the scepticism of
poststructuralist approaches toward all knowledge claims and labels, they force us
to question the very concept of social justice itself (Atkinson, 2002) and the
categorisation of minority or marginalised groups (Tremain, 2015) on which our
attempts at social change are founded. This enables an unmasking of the ways that
power is operating even within efforts for social justice, including those of
researchers themselves. Whether a focus on multiple identity positions and local
sites of power reduces opportunities for solidarity is also questionable. Highlighting
within group differences, and the co-existence of ethnic and other identity positions
(e.g. as mothers, fathers, employees, carers, students etc.) may weaken group
mobilisation for rights, but it may also encourage cohesion across ethnic groups by
suggesting that we are unified in our difference, and by drawing attention to shared
experiences and common humanity. Lastly, since it is within personal and
institutional contexts that wider discourses find their outlet and are reproduced,
limiting the sphere of analysis to local micro political relations of power does not
necessarily preclude a focus on broader social processes (Atkinson, 2002).
1.5 The research(er) story – locating myself in the research

In keeping with poststructuralist concerns regarding the power effects of
(re)presentations advanced through the research, I must situate myself in relation to
this work. Following Savin-Baden and Howell Major (2013), I have considered my
positionality in relation to three areas: a) the research topic, b) research participants,
and c) the research context and process. Here I discuss my general orientation to
the research topic, how my interest in the research area developed, and how this
standpoint may have influenced the research. The impact of my position in relation
to participants and the research process and setting will be discussed in my account
of study methods (Chapter 3) and woven throughout the presentation of findings
where this is of contextual importance.
I first became interested in researching Gypsy and Traveller health when learning
about human rights legislation and the multiple inequalities experienced by these
groups during my undergraduate degree. I focused my undergraduate dissertation
on the development of culturally accessible counselling services for Gypsies and
Travellers and throughout this work, developed an interest in the ways that Traveller
32
Communities were defined and categorised with respect to public health. I pursued
this interest further while studying for a postgraduate certificate in public health,
before being really pleased to have the opportunity to undertake more substantive
research in this area during PhD study. Alongside this academic interest, the
burgeoning focus on Gypsies and Travellers in popular media, which often
perpetuated negative stereotypes, strengthened my commitment to undertaking
research to challenge representations of these groups. I therefore approached the
research motivated by a concern with social justice and must acknowledge this
political standpoint. The degree to which researchers should take up roles of
activists is increasingly being debated in public health forums. A workshop at the
2017 European Public Health conference suggested that public health actors cannot
see themselves as simply ‘technicians’ but must act on the ‘moral mandate’ of public
health, a discipline which is ‘founded on values such as justice, interconnectedness
and solidarity’ (Faculty of Public Health and European Public Health Association,
2017). That my research was driven by such motivations was, on reflection,
important in approaching the Traveller organisation involved with this research for
support. One of the reasons I was attracted to working with the particular
organisation approached was their political engagement and concern with issues of
language and representation of Traveller Communities, which chimed with the aims
of the research. Yet, research in such a politicised environment also brings
challenges for both researchers and supporting organisations. Given the widespread
discrimination faced by Traveller Community members, it is understandable that
organisations who represent Gypsies and Travellers may feel the need to act as
‘gatekeepers’ to protect community members from further harm and avoid
jeopardising their trusted position. Members of the Traveller Community
organisation that supported me with the research have described how they
deliberately put barriers in place for researchers approaching for help to avoid over
consultation and ensure that only those who were serious and have the required
sensitivity receive support. I was conscious when approaching the organisation that
staff would be attuned to various signals in order to check that I wasn’t prejudiced
towards Gypsies and Travellers. That in my initial contact, workers of the
organisation recognised and commented positively on the fact that I use capitals to
refer to Gypsies and Travellers as ethnic groups is an illustration of this dynamic. In
informal communication, members of the organisation relayed alternative stories
whereby people had been refused access because they had used phrases such as
33
‘Travellers are interesting, aren’t they?’ which implied they were motivated more by
their own curiosity as opposed to a concern for human rights. Whilst this use of
language is, of course, not a substitute for being genuinely non-discriminatory, I was
very aware of a need to convey my benevolence by using these recognised signals.
I made sure I was aware of possible cultural beliefs of Traveller Community
members, and took care in how I described the research, and in my use of
language. While much of this came naturally from my reading and prior engagement
in the field, this often gave rise to considerable anxiety in case I unwittingly caused
offence. I was aware of the politicised environment not only through my engagement
with those working in the field, but also through my interaction with those in society
more generally. Describing my research interest has often acted as an opening for
people to express their personal and sometimes stereotypical or prejudiced views
about Gypsies and Travellers. One person asked if I’m ‘pro-Gypsy’, demonstrating
how as a researcher I myself am positioned using a binary of those that are ‘for’ or
‘against’ Gypsies. On describing my research to others, I often see their curiosity
piqued and find that, despite my best efforts, it can be difficult to avoid the very fact
that my research is with Traveller Communities being treated as a form of currency
that helps to establish its value or interest. Navigating these issues, and engaging
with reading on the ways that practitioners uphold their own morality through their
representations of groups (Kowal and Paradies, 2005) has helped me to consider
the ways that I am enacting my own personal ethics through this research, including
via my presentation of self within this positionality statement (Bishop and Shepherd,
2011). I have tried to consider and convey my own values to the reader and avoid
becoming closed off to aspects of the literature and research data that do not fit with
this stance. For example, I initially approached the research with quite a simplified
understanding of practitioners as agents of oppressive discourses or institutions.
This did not account for the ways that public heath actors may move between
approaches that seek to assimilate Traveller Communities, and those which respect
cultural differences, with this potentially leading me to be under-sensitised to
discourses that portray Traveller Communities more sensitively. Adopting a reflexive
stance has, I hope, encouraged me to adopt a more balanced outlook toward the
stories shared through the research, though it must be acknowledged that what
follows is inevitably a partial reading, informed by the motivations detailed above.
34
1.6 Thesis overview
Having justified the terminology adopted, this chapter situated the thesis against the
broader landscape of talk and practice in relation to Traveller Communities in
society generally. I have suggested that despite the raised profile of Gypsy and
Traveller rights in public and policy discourse (including that pertaining to health),
these arguments have not been widely accepted, nor converted into tangible
differences in the lives of Traveller Community members. While much work has
sought to describe and explain the inequalities in health experienced by Traveller
Communities (the latter often advocating cultural or structural explanations), I have
pointed to an absence of research which takes up the discourses in circulation about
the health of these groups, and their effects, as objects of study in their own right. I
have argued that an awareness of these discourses is important, in order to
understand the opportunities that these generate or curtail in relation to Traveller
Community health, and have positioned a poststructural approach as appropriate to
this aim. I have acknowledged that my reading of Gypsy and Traveller health
represents only one among many possible and have attempted to give an insight
into the value systems and motivations underpinning my particular approach.
Chapter two provides an overview of prevailing and unfolding storylines on research

around Traveller Community health, tracing the historical generation of evidence on
the health inequalities experienced by Gypsies and Travellers. It points to a gradual
intensification of the public health gaze directed toward these groups and highlights
the politics surrounding the construction of Gypsy and Traveller health as a public
health problem. The chapter expands on the tension I have identified in the literature
around whether the problem of Gypsy and Traveller health should be categorised as
a structural or cultural problem, and addresses the possible limitations of each
approach. I present a gap in research on the discursive construction of Traveller
Community health, and the potentially nuanced and complex nature of Traveller
Community and health practitioner identities.
Chapter three provides a rationale for the adoption of narrative inquiry as the
methodology for the study and situates my own approach to narrative in relation to
the diversity of traditions in this field. I outline my stance in relation to two key issues
within narrative research: the examination of ‘big’ or ‘small’ stories, and the extent to
which narrative approaches can raise the profile of subjugated voices. The methods
35
I used to generate, analyse and present participant stories are then discussed,
along with key ethical issues considered throughout the research.
Chapters four to eight present the findings of the study. Chapter four provides an
entry point into findings, describing the constructs of health used by Traveller
Community members and health practitioners. The remainder of the findings
chapters form linked pairs, reporting first on practitioner then on Traveller
Community accounts around key identity issues for participants. By presenting the
accounts of practitioners before those of Traveller Communities, I do not aim to
privilege practitioner voices. In opting for the order chosen, I treat practitioner
narratives as a further attempt to define how Traveller Community members are in
relation to health among the many already available, before then providing an
opportunity for Traveller Community members to respond to these narratives and
have ‘the last word’ on how they are viewed in relation to their health. Chapters five
and six examine who is given authority to define Traveller Community members in
relation to health, and the nature of evidence that is used in support of these claims.
In chapter five, I show how practitioners drew on a combination of scientific and
experiential evidence on the health of Traveller Communities, arguing that their
emphasis on the latter is significant in how they construct and maintain a position as
‘specialist’ in working with ‘vulnerable’ groups. Chapter six points to the confluence
of biomedical discourses, statistics on life expectancy and embodied or experiential
knowledge in Traveller Community representations of their health. Taken together, I
argue that these discourses create a requirement for Traveller Community members
to account for their poorer health status, increase anxiety about potentially hidden
health issues and entrench ‘vulnerable’ identities. Chapters seven and eight address
the extent to which Traveller Communities were treated, and presented themselves
as fatalistic, or personally responsible for their health. Chapter seven, illustrates how
discourses positioning Traveller Communities as less future-oriented and difficult to
engage in relation to health create a reticence among practitioners to broach health
promotion with these groups, and lead to strategies to disguise health advice.
Chapter eight demonstrates the coexistence of discourses on fatalism or lack of
control, and those of self-determination or personal responsibility for health in Gypsy
and Traveller accounts. It suggests that counter much of the existing work in this
area, Traveller Communities are not beyond the reach of health promotion doctrine,
36
demonstrating the concern of Gypsies and Travellers in the study to project
identities as morally responsible health citizens.
To avoid clouding the narratives of participants, an analysis of how empirical

findings relate to prior academic work is presented separately, in Chapter 9, rather
than woven into the data chapters. Here, I pick up threads that run throughout the
findings chapters and discuss these in the context of previous work on Gypsy and
Traveller health and relevant theoretical literature. I first draw on theories of ‘body
work’ to interrogate the significance of body presentation and emotional conduct in
interaction between health practitioners and Traveller Communities. The
maintenance of the body and emotions are argued to be crucial in how practitioners
build and maintain trust with community members and construct identity positions as
‘in tune’ with the lives of groups categorised as disadvantaged. Such labour
requirements are further argued to be mediated by institutional norms. The chapter
then examines a discrepancy found between practitioner and Traveller Community
reports regarding Traveller Community orientations to time. Representations of time
are argued to be core to the positioning of Gypsies and Travellers as resistant to
health advice, and associated attempts at the spatial or temporal regulation of
Traveller Communities in health interaction. Lastly, the chapter revisits issues
around the racialisation of Gypsies and Travellers in relation to health, and the
employment of cultural or structural explanations, considering the research findings.
While participants rarely used race explicitly as a frame, I point to the operation of
cultural racism in the attribution of health characteristics to Traveller Community
members which community members themselves did not identify with. I argue that
the use of a racial lens must be accompanied by considerations of class and notions
of disadvantage, since these lenses were interwoven in Traveller Community and
practitioner explanations of health. Practitioner claims to a privileged position of
acceptance in working with Traveller Communities are related to the concept of a
‘White Saviour Complex’, and the potential risk of this stance in perpetuating limited
engagement of wider health services with these groups.
Chapter ten concludes the thesis by considering the strengths and limitations of the
study. It draws out the implications of study findings for practice, and suggests
recommendations for further research in the field. Consideration is given to my own
37
positionality and role as a Gadje3 researcher, the extent to which I can effect change
through the research, and the risk that this research produces equally fixed or
essential (re)presentations of Traveller Communities.
3
A Romani term used to refer to settled, or non-Romany people
38
CHAPTER 2 - Existing and unfolding storylines in
Gypsy and Traveller health research
2.1 Introduction
This chapter reviews existing narratives in the literature on the health of Gypsy and
Traveller Communities and identifies areas that are ripe for greater sociological
investigation. It first explores the construction of Traveller Community health as a
public health ‘problem’ and of Gypsies and Travellers as groups who are particularly
‘unhealthy’ or ‘at risk’ in epidemiological work. Following this, I highlight a
predominant concern with understanding what makes Gypsies and Travellers
unique or distinctive in relation to health, pointing to ambiguity regarding whether
Gypsy and Traveller health inequalities should be explained in structural or cultural
terms. A clear gap is highlighted around the empirical examination of how Traveller
Community members and health practitioners give accounts of themselves amid
competing narratives of Traveller health, and the limits and possibilities that
available discourses create for the identities that these actors express.
As this PhD research addresses the health identities of English Romany Gypsies
and Irish Travellers currently residing in the UK, the literature review prioritises a
consideration of material pertaining to the health of these groups. However,
international literature and that relating to other Traveller Communities is utilised
where little or no literature was available focused on these specific groups and/or
from the geographical context of the UK.
2.2 The social construction of ‘health’ and public health ‘problems’

Health has been branded as a ‘slippery concept’ (Blaxter, 2010: 161) in that its
meaning is contested, varies depending on the social context and changes over
time. For example, traditional, biomedical definitions of health as the absence of
disease have largely given way to more positive and encompassing descriptions,
epitomised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) classification of heath as ‘a
state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence
of disease or infirmity’ (WHO, 1946). Though widely celebrated for advancing an
aspirational approach to the promotion of health, the WHO definition has also
39
attracted criticism. It’s characterisation of health as a ‘complete state’ is not only
argued to result in the medicalisation and risk categorisation of an increasing range
of everyday life domains (Huber et al., 2011), but to prevent the majority of the
population from attaining status as healthy (Smith 2008). This definition has
therefore been suggested as inappropriate in the current context of an ageing
population and an increased burden of long-term conditions (Huber et al., 2011).
More recently, alternative definitions have been proposed, which draw on
transactional understandings of stress and coping (Lazarus and Blackfield Cohen,
1977), and which view health as ‘the ability to adapt and to self-manage, in the face
of social, physical and emotional challenges’ (Huber et al., 2011; Jambroes et al.,
2016). Concerns about this new definition have also been raised however, including
on the grounds that it advocates a reactive approach which may undermine the
preventative aims of public health (Becker, 2011), and detract from action to
address the broader structures of power which generate inequality in health
(Czauderna, 2011; Scott-Samuel, 2011; Shilton et al., 2011; Jambroes et al., 2016).
This struggle over how health is to be defined illustrates the socially constructed
nature of health.
If health is to be understood as a social construct, it follows that those issues taken

to constitute public health problems can similarly be viewed as socially produced. In
their analysis of the ‘New Public Health’ (a term used to describe the renewed
interest in the social, economic and environmental influences within the discipline),
Petersen and Lupton (1996) argue that the status afforded to epidemiology as a
neutral and scientific method conceals the wider social, cultural, organisational and
political interests which generate ‘public health problems’. Applying a Foucauldian
theoretical lens on knowledge-power relations, they point to the disciplinary role of
public health, which employs techniques of surveillance and risk categorisation in
order to monitor and regulate individual and population behaviour in the name of
health (Petersen and Lupton, 1996). Indeed, scholars in this tradition have pointed
to the ways that public heath agendas are often founded in concerns around moral
regulation rather than objective evidence (Campos et al., 2006; Pike, 2011). This
body of work therefore highlights the importance of examining the social and cultural
conditions which shape what is judged as a public health issue and associated
action. Inspired by work in this tradition, I now turn to consider how Gypsy and
Traveller health was established as an area of public health concern.
40
2.3 The making of the ‘problem’ of Gypsy and Traveller health
It is beyond the scope of the chapter to give an exhaustive summary of the evidence
on the health status of Traveller Communities, which is available elsewhere (see
Cook et al. 2013). Rather, this section charts the historical production of evidence on
the health of Traveller Communities to understand how these groups came to be
framed as particularly ‘at risk’ or vulnerable in health and epidemiological literature.
Early indications of the health inequalities experienced by UK Gypsies and

Travellers were derived largely from the anecdotal accounts of health professionals
(often health visitors)(Crout 1987; Lawrie 1983; McCann 1987; Moreton 1987; Peck
1983; Raper 1986; Streetly 1987, 1990; Windess 1987, Morris 1987, Patterson
1982, Jackson 1990, Mason 1990). Attention was predominantly given to issues
affecting women and children in these reports, likely reflecting their authorship by
practitioners with responsibility for maternal and child health, and who are almost
exclusively women themselves. Concerns were commonly noted around accident
rates in children (Lawrie, 1983; Raper, 1986); family planning and contraception
(Lawrie, 1983; Raper, 1986; Crout, 1987; Streetly, 1987; Windess, 1987),
immunisation (Crout, 1987; Streetly, 1987; Windess, 1987), children’s
developmental screening (Crout, 1987; Streetly, 1987; Windess, 1987), and infant
feeding (Lawrie, 1983; Raper, 1986; McCann, 1987). Traveller women are described
as treating their own health as secondary to that of their family members, and as
experiencing particular hardship due to their responsibility for rearing children within
challenging environments (Lawrie, 1983; Raper, 1986). Non gender-specific issues
were also highlighted however, including the need for health education around
alcohol, smoking and diet (Crout, 1987), risk of infection (Lawrie, 1983), high
prevalence of undiagnosed conditions (Lawrie, 1983), intermarriage (Streetly, 1987)
and hereditary diseases (Raper, 1986). These reports also highlighted poverty,
difficulty accessing services, lack of appropriate accommodation and the poor living
and working conditions experienced by Traveller Communities (Lawrie, 1983; Crout,
1987; Streetly, 1987). While positive aspects of Traveller Community health are
sometimes noted, as seen in Crout’s (1987: 14) suggestion that childrearing in
Traveller Communities is ‘generally good’ and that ‘house dwellers could usefully
learn from their example’, the predominant story here is one of health need and
disadvantage. Often these accounts are sensationalist in tone and position these
groups as distinct or ‘Other’ to the general population. For example, the titles of
41
numerous articles feature puns around nomadism such as ‘on the road to better
health’ (Lawrence, 2007) or ‘stopped in their tracks’ (Morris, 1987), and some use
ornate language and storied presentation to describe Traveller Communities and
their health (see for example Morris (1987) and Windess (1987)).
Alongside the emergence of these accounts were some notable attempts to

systematically assess the health status of Gypsy and Traveller Communities in the
UK and Ireland (Linthwaite, 1983; Pahl and Vaile, 1988; Barry, Herity and Solan,
1989; Feder, Salkind and Sweeney, 1989; Feder, Vaclavik and Streetly, 1993;
Feder, 1994; Lewis and Drife, 2001). These studies again focused mainly on issues
of maternal, infant and child health and pointed to significant health inequalities
(Hajioff and McKee, 2000). An early report by Save the Children in the UK
(Linthwaite, 1983) reported a stillbirth rate for Traveller mothers 19 times that found
in the general population. This study was poorly received by Gypsies, Travellers and
representative organisations however, with findings questioned both on the grounds
of methodological rigor and their negative representation of Gypsies and Travellers
(Pahl and Vaile, 1988; Acton et al., 1998). This highlights the potentially stigmatising
effects of narratives on the poor health of Traveller Communities and the politics
surrounding the production, use and receipt of evidence in this field. While later
studies indicate that child health outcomes may not be as stark as initially reported
by Linthwaite (1983), they also report higher stillbirth (Barry, Herity and Solan,
1989), perinatal mortality and infant mortality rates (Pahl and Vaile, 1988; Barry,
Herity and Solan, 1989) compared with national figures. The Confidential Enquiry
into Maternal Deaths in the UK between 1997 and 1999, suggested that Gypsies
and Travellers have the highest maternal mortality rate of all ethnic groups (Lewis
and Drife, 2001). These later studies also provided some confirmation of high rates
of childhood accidents (Pahl and Vaile, 1988), low breastfeeding rates (Pahl and
Vaile, 1988) and low and differential uptake or completion of childhood
immunisations (Pahl and Vaile, 1988; Gordon et al., 1991; Feder, Vaclavik and
Streetly, 1993) among Traveller Communities. Studies in this period found mortality
rates which were twice as high for male Travellers and three times as high for
female Travellers than for settled community members, even comparing
unfavourably with those among the most socio-economically disadvantaged groups
in the UK (Barry, Herity and Solan, 1989). Furthermore, life expectancy at birth was
calculated at 9.9 years less for Traveller men and 11.9 years less for Traveller
42
women than for the settled population. Self-reported health among Gypsies and
Travellers was reportedly poor, with only 6% of women reporting that they hadn’t
experienced illness in the past 5 years and around 14% having experienced anxiety
and depression (Pahl and Vaile, 1988).
While these studies provided an early attempt to quantify research on the health
status of Travellers, notable gaps remained, and several criticisms were levelled at
this work. Reviews pointed to the limited evidence pertaining to the UK (Hajioff and
McKee, 2000) and the small scale and anecdotal nature of studies, criticising these
for lacking rigor and impartiality (Doyal et al., 2002; Aspinall, 2005). Given the lack
of reliable demographic information on Gypsy and Traveller populations, questions
were also raised about how far samples were representative and ‘truly’ reflected
health differences between Traveller Communities and settled populations. For
instance, the recruitment of Traveller Community members through health visitors in
many of these studies was identified as a potential source of bias, since those in
contact with health visitors might be expected have greater health needs (Acton et
al., 1998). Further problems were identified around the reliance on recall and self-
report (Pahl and Vaile, 1988). Despite questions about the reliability of evidence,
these statistics on the health status of Traveller Communities were so oft repeated
and cross-cited without acknowledgement of their limitations, that they attained
status as unquestionable facts, inflating the weight of evidence in the area (Doyal et
al., 2002). This suggests that the construction of Traveller Community health as a
problem worthy of attention is not based on epidemiological evidence alone and
points to the influence of additional drivers. Indeed, Haijoff and McKee (2000) argue
that the predominant focus on genetics, reproductive health and communicable
disease in the early literature is indicative of apprehension about the threat Traveller
Communities pose to the health of the majority population, and concerns of
‘contagion’, as opposed to concern for the health of Gypsies and Travellers
themselves (Hajioff and McKee, 2000).
There has since been a proliferation in the number of epidemiological studies on the
health status of Gypsies and Travellers (Cook et al. 2013; Foldes and Covaci 2012;
Parekh and Rose 2011, Carr et al. 2014). This burgeoning interest is potentially
attributable to the increased policy attention to these groups through the Decade of
Roma Inclusion (2005) and Inclusion Health agenda (2010). Spanning a much
43
broader geographical area (Cook et al., 2013), this work retains a strong focus on
child and adolescent health but has moved away from the earlier preoccupation with
communicable diseases and genetics (Zeman, Depken and Senchina, 2003; Cook
et al., 2013). Work in Sheffield (Van Cleemput and Parry, 2001; Parry et al., 2004,
2007, Van Cleemput et al., 2004, 2007) and later, the All Ireland Traveller Health
Survey (Abdalla et al., 2010) have been seminal in establishing evidence on the
comparative health status of Traveller Communities. These studies confirm many of
the indicators of poor health among Traveller Communities suggested by earlier
studies. This includes lower than average life expectancy and increased mortality
rates (Abdalla et al., 2010), increased prevalence of long-term conditions or
disabilities which restrict everyday activity (Parry et al., 2007) and fewer years spent
in good health (Abdalla et al., 2013) than the general population. Gypsy and
Traveller Communities are significantly more likely to self-rate their general health
as poor compared to socio-economically disadvantaged members of the general
population (Parry et al., 2007) and other ethnic minority groups (Peters et al., 2009),
with ethnic differences still apparent after adjusting for potential confounders such
as age, sex and smoking (Peters et al., 2009). Higher rates of anxiety and
depression have also been found among Traveller Communities relative to the
general population (Goward et al., 2006) and other ethnic groups (Peters et al.,
2009), as well as increased rates of suicide among Irish Travellers (Walker, 2008;
Abdalla et al., 2010). Studies report that Gypsies and Travellers are significantly
more likely to smoke compared with other groups (Parry et al., 2007; Peters et al.,
2009). Van Hout and Hearne (2017) further suggest that previously low rates of drug
and alcohol use in Irish Traveller Communities are now increasing. Early concerns
regarding maternal and child health are also reinforced in more recent studies,
which suggest higher rates of miscarriage (Parry et al., 2007), higher infant mortality
rates (Hamid, Kelleher and Fitzpatrick, 2011) and low or patchy acceptance and
completion of vaccines compared to the general population (Dixon, Mullis and
Blumenfeld, 2016; Jackson et al., 2017).
Despite these efforts to improve evidence of Gypsy and Traveller health status, the
absence of routinely collected data on Gypsy and Traveller Communities continues
to hinder evidence generation on Gypsy and Traveller health (Cook et al., 2013).
While Gypsies and Irish Travellers were included as ethnic categories in the 2011
Census, population estimates obtained through this source are likely to be an
44
underestimation, as Traveller Communities may fear identifying themselves due to
the risk of discrimination, and as surveys may fail to capture those who are mobile
(Mulcahy et al., 2017). That the Government’s stated intention to include Gypsies
and Travellers in the NHS data dictionary (The Traveller Movement, 2015) has not
yet been enacted, further exacerbates this issue. In addition, even with the
availability of robust data on Gypsies and Travellers, finding appropriate comparator
groups is difficult. Traveller Communities are stratified with respect to wealth (P.
Padfield, personal communication, 2010), and operate according to a somewhat
separate ‘economic subsystem’, making it difficult to compare socio-economic status
(Hodgins, Millar and Barry, 2006; Parry et al., 2007). Indeed, Travellers often
experience ‘spatialised’ as opposed to simply financial poverty, arising from their
geographic and cultural exclusion (Clark & Cemlyn 2005). For instance, Traveller
Community members are often forced to settle in hazardous locations that are near
busy roads or refuge sites, lack basic amenities such as water and sanitation
services, and are isolated from services (Cemlyn et al. 2009; Matthews 2008).
However, the use of comparators from the most socio-economically deprived
sections of the general population in many of the above studies suggests that
findings are likely to provide the most conservative estimate of health inequalities
experienced by Gypsies and Travellers. Overall, that evidence which is available
points to significant inequalities experienced by Gypsy and Traveller Communities.
While evidence underlining the health ‘needs’ of Traveller Communities is now

increasing, this has not yet been matched with research on how these needs can
best be met. Earlier calls for greater research evaluating the effectiveness of
practice and interventions to improve Gypsy and Traveller health (Doyal et al., 2002;
Aspinall, 2005) have been reiterated in recent reviews (Foldes and Covaci, 2012;
Cook et al., 2013; Carr et al., 2014; McFadden et al., 2018) despite a gap of over a
decade. This is notwithstanding notable exceptions however (Kelly et al., 2006;
Mason et al., 2006; Charikar, 2008; Greenfields, 2009; Molnár et al., 2010; Van
Cleemput, Bissell and Harris, 2010; Schaaf, 2011; Brady and Keogh, 2016; Kirwan
and Jacob, 2016). The longstanding emphasis on the vulnerability of Traveller
Communities, and the lack of concerted action on alleviating health inequalities has
entrenched a ‘deficit model’ (Morgan and Ziglio, 2007) of understanding of Gypsy
and Traveller health. This focus may, in part, be a reflection of a system in which
funding for health interventions is allocated on the basis of demonstrated needs of
45
groups or communities, rather than a recognition of strengths or assets (Canvin et
al., 2009). An emphasis on ‘need’ may enable groups such as Traveller
Communities, who have been historically underserved, to gain access to required
resources (Doyal et al., 2002; White, 2002; Canvin et al., 2009). However, the
literature also points to potential problems with such presentations. Crawford (1994)
describes how groups who are deemed ‘unhealthy’ come to symbolise all those risk
factors associated with illness and can come to be treated as scapegoats onto
whom the health anxieties of the majority population can be projected. Indeed, this
is evident in Haijoff and McKee’s (2000) suggestion that early research on Traveller
Community health was motivated by concerns about the risks of contagion these
groups posed to majority society. Given the moral imperative of health (Petersen
and Lupton, 1996), such portrayals can also stigmatise these groups and potentially
damage wellbeing by reinforcing low expectations and perceptions of worth (Malin,
Wilmot and Manthorpe, 2002; Canvin et al., 2009). Indeed, needs-based
approaches which position Traveller Communities as ‘victims’ or particularly
‘vulnerable’ are increasingly subject to challenge, as seen for instance in ongoing
work in the UK to explore the assets of Traveller Communities (Leeds GATE, 2017).
This section highlights the gradual intensification of the epidemiological gaze applied
to Gypsy and Traveller Communities. Gypsy and Traveller health appears to have
been simultaneously highlighted and obscured as a public health problem. On the
one hand, evidence has supported the identification of health needs among these
groups; on the other, shortfalls in statistical information undermines the
establishment of Traveller Community health as an area of concern. The politicised
nature of Gypsy and Traveller health was demonstrated, and it has been suggested
that the generation of, and reception to ‘evidence’ in this area cannot be divorced
from social and cultural conditions which surround it. In particular, this concerns
representations of Gypsies and Travellers as Other, as a possible risk to wider
populations, and as particularly ‘in need’ with regard to health. Having discussed the
framings of Traveller Community health status in the literature, I now move on to
explore the explanations offered for the poorer health of these groups and ideas
about the character of Gypsies and Travellers that are implicated within these.
46
2.4 Gypsy and Traveller health: a cultural or structural problem?
The employment of ethnicity to explain the differential health status of groups has
long been critiqued (Bhopal, 1997; Ahmad and Bradby, 2007). Concepts of ethnicity
and culture have replaced those of race in the categorisation of groups with respect
to health, but have retained many of the problems of prior racial thinking (Ahmad
and Bradby, 2007). Namely, the attribution of definitive and innate characteristics to
groups, and the reinforcement of a ‘cultural deprivation’ framework that blames
minorities for their poorer health (Smith and Newton, 2017). In the field of Gypsy and
Traveller health, the concepts of ethnicity and culture are used imprecisely and often
interchangeably (Smith and Newton, 2017). Such conceptual confusion is perhaps
unsurprising given fundamental and long-standing disputes in Romany studies
regarding the extent to which Traveller Communities can be considered to have a
distinct ethnicity, and the defining characteristics that underpin such claims (Mayall,
2004). While some have argued that Traveller Communities are separate ethnic
groups (defined according to common origin and ancestry, language and genetics),
others have steered away from the use of ethnicity to understand Traveller
Community identity, favouring socio-cultural demarcations (Mayall, 2004; Tremlett,
2014b). Among those who eschew a focus on ‘ethnicity’, Tremlett (2014b) identifies
two main positions. The first, which has tended to be taken by anthropologists,
delineates Gypsies and Travellers according to cultural beliefs, practices and ‘way of
life’ (see for example Okely, 1983). The second tends to be adopted by sociologists
and rejects essentialist cultural explanations, instead emphasising structural factors
such as poverty in explaining the collective experiences of Traveller Communities.
Similar ‘camps’ to those identified by Tremlett (2014b) are discernible in the
literature on Traveller Community health, in regard to whether the ‘problem’ of
Gypsy and Traveller health should be explained in cultural or structural terms. Some
stress cultural influences (i.e. shared norms, customs, belief systems, and way of
life) on health-related behaviours and uptake of health services. Others explain the
differential health status of Traveller Communities by reference to inequalities in the
social and material resources that are required to attain a good standard of health
(Smith and Newton, 2017). This division between cultural and structural
explanations will now be explored in more detail.
47
2.4.1 The cultural storyline
Helman (2007: 2) defines culture as “an inherited ‘lens’ through which the individual
perceives and understands the world that he inhabits and learns how to live within
it”. Culture operates at many different layers (including at societal, institutional, sub-
cultural or community levels), with each individual belonging to multiple and nested
cultures (Helman, 2007). Recognition of the socially constructed nature of health
and the potential for health to be defined and practiced differently depending on the
cultural context has led ‘lay’ conceptualisations of health to develop as an important
area of study. Research into ‘lay’ experiences and theories about the causes of
health and illness is used to provide insight into the systems of thought that shape
people’s lifestyles and decisions around engagement with health advice and
services (Nettleton, 2013). It also recognises and seeks to learn from the expertise
people have of their own circumstances of inequality and disadvantage (Smith and
Anderson, 2018). Qualitative research undertaken in this tradition with Gypsy and
Traveller Communities tends to prioritise consideration of how Traveller Community
members speak from a position of belonging to their particular ethnic and cultural
group (Smart, Titterton and Clark, 2003; Zeman, Depken and Senchina, 2003; Carr
et al., 2014; Smith and Newton, 2017), starting from a premise of difference and
seeking to elicit the distinct health-related beliefs and experiences of these groups.
This work has articulated a number of cultural attributes of Traveller Communities in
relation to health.
2.4.1.1 Definitions of health

Traveller Community members are presented as defining health itself differently
from other sections of the population. Gypsies and Travellers are suggested as stoic
and accepting of illness, describing themselves as healthy even when experiencing
a number of health complaints (Treise and Shepherd, 2006; Van Cleemput et al.,
2007; Jesper, Griffiths and Smith, 2008). These groups are argued to conceptualise
health and illness in predominantly physical and functional terms (Treise and
Shepherd, 2006; Van Cleemput et al., 2007), treating mental health issues as
‘commonplace’ and as a poor excuse for failing to keep up with everyday
responsibilities compared to visible and physical health complaints (Treise and
Shepherd, 2006). Yet research carried out in Sweden, albeit based on a very small
sample, found Roma women to define health according to ‘inner strength’ or ‘feeling
well inside’ rather than the absence of physical complaints (Alex and Lehti, 2013).
Research has also suggested that Gypsies and Travellers adhere to a collective as
48
opposed to individualistic concept of health (Lehti and Mattson, 2001; Goward et al.,
2006; Hassler and Eklund, 2012; Alex and Lehti, 2013), with this finding used to
explain patterns of accessing health services. Lehti and Mattson (2001) for example
describe how women often attended primary care in succession, asking for similar
treatments or help with similar issues. Collective definitions of health are contrasted
with ‘typical’ forms of health service provision which are organised around the roles
of autonomous individuals (Goward et al., 2006). While claims about the distinct
definitions of health adhered to by Traveller Communities are frequently espoused in
the literature, to the best of my knowledge, research had not yet undertaken any
systematic or comprehensive comparison of definitions of health used by Traveller
Communities and those used by ‘lay’ people more generally.
2.4.1.2 Hygiene and modesty

A further aspect of Traveller Community culture that has received attention concerns
hygiene practices (McLeish, 2008; Lane and Tribe, 2010). Indeed, this reflects an
interest within anthropological work more generally surrounding the ways that dirt
and purity are employed in the reinforcement of morality and social order (Douglas,
1966). Gypsies and Travellers are noted to believe in the greater purity of the top
versus the bottom of the body (Zeman, Depken and Senchina, 2003). The bottom
half of women’s bodies are said to be viewed as particularly polluting during
menstruation and pregnancy, with this informing preferences around care such as a
desire to give birth in hospital rather than the home (Vivian and Dundes, 2004). The
literature also details cultural norms surrounding the modesty and sexuality of Gypsy
and Traveller women which: govern the display of women’s bodies to men other
than their husbands (Okely, 1983); prohibit women from having sex before marriage
(Papadopoulos, 2007); and lead to a preference for sexual health not to be
discussed with children (Hodgins and Fox, 2012). Cultural beliefs around cleanliness
and modesty are themselves cited as leading to a reluctance to engage with some
health promoting behaviours such as breastfeeding (Okely, 1983; Reid and Taylor,
2007; Dion, 2008; Condon and Salmon, 2015). Likewise Feder et al. (1993) suggest
that immunisation is a practice through which 'symbolic boundaries' are upheld
between Travellers and the majority population, illustrating how health practices are
treated as separating Traveller Community members from the ‘settled’ population in
the literature. Cultural ‘taboos’ around dirt, hygiene and bodily practices are often
judged to be ‘primitive’, potentially placing Traveller Communities in opposition to
49
‘civilised’ values. However, Douglas (1966) challenges this stance, demonstrating
that rituals of purity are common to both primitive and contemporary societies.
Furthermore, Douglas (1966) illustrates that any attempt to create strict rules or
classifications is fallible and open to contradiction, given the difficulty of
encapsulating all aspects of human life, and as customs may not be upheld rigidly
by members.
2.4.1.3 Traveller Communities as ‘closed-off’ groups

Traveller Communities are presented as having a ‘cultural pride in being tough and
self reliant’ (Van Cleemput et al., 2004: 38), and as maintaining their separation from
settled society (Zeman, Depken and Senchina, 2003; Ho and Cordovilla, 2004;
Treise and Shepherd, 2006; Van Cleemput et al., 2007; Jesper, Griffiths and Smith,
2008). There is a common preconception that Gypsies and Travellers prefer to ‘look
after their own’ (Minority Ethnic Carers of People Project, 2014) and are unwilling to
access mainstream services (Treise and Shepherd, 2006; Jesper, Griffiths and
Smith, 2008). Hesitance to accept help is suggested to be particularly apparent for
issues which are ‘taboo’ within Traveller Communities, such as drug and alcohol use
(Fountain, 2006; Van Hout, 2010), or mental health issues (Parry et al., 2004;
Goward et al., 2006). Gypsies and Travellers are often suggested to be reliant on
those within their family or community for health advice, and to have a strong
tradition of sharing information inter-generationally and by word of mouth (Lawrie,
1983; Raper, 1986; Vivian and Dundes, 2004; Dion, 2008; Peinado-Gorlat et al.,
2015; Dixon, Mullis and Blumenfeld, 2016; Jackson et al., 2017). The importance of
family in providing care for older people (Lane, Spencer and Mccready, 2012) or
those with a terminal illness (Jesper, Griffiths and Smith, 2008) is presented as a
further cultural trait of these groups. Indeed, data from the 2011 UK Census
suggests high numbers of Gypsies and Travellers providing unpaid care (Office for
National Statistics, 2014), though this is not necessarily for cultural reasons.
2.4.1.5 The Travelling lifestyle and attitudes to time

The nomadism of Traveller Communities is a further aspect of culture cited as
influential over health. Gypsies and Travellers have been found to make a direct link
between their ability to uphold a nomadic way of life and their wellbeing, with the
health benefits of nomadism including: freedom and control; the ability to maintain
proximity to extended family; and fresh air (Van Cleemput et al., 2007). Participants
in the study by Van Cleemput et al. (2007) expressed their concerns about forced
50
assimilation and described the ‘culture shock’ of a move into housing as detrimental
to their psychological health. However, difficulties associated with nomadism are
also reported, with participants commenting specifically on the lack of appropriate
accommodation options, poor facilities on official sites, and a lack of access to basic
amenities and health services when living on roadside (Van Cleemput et al., 2007).
Condon and Salmon (2015) further suggest that travelling results in ‘disrupted
contact’ with health professionals and point to practical difficulties such as a lack of
space and privacy in caravans as creating difficulty breastfeeding for Gypsy and
Traveller women.
Ideological as well as practical concerns are raised about the impact of nomadic
lifestyles. Traveller Communities are presented as conceptually as well as physically
nomadic, with these groups described as having different attitudes to time. Indeed,
conceptualisations of time are not universal, and have been suggested as varying
historically, and across cultures, connected with broader processes of social change
(van Tienoven, 2018). The commodification of time and the rationalisation of labour
processes during the industrialisation of society are suggested as instrumental in the
subjection of individuals to greater forms of temporal control (Fox, 1999). This was
evident in a transition from the task-oriented labour systems of agrarian societies, to
highly routinized and clock driven work patterns (Adam, 1990; Bergmann, 1992; van
Tienoven, 2018), and the imposition of a clear separation between work and leisure
time (Bergmann, 1992). Hall (1994) distinguishes between monochronic and
polychronic systems of time. Monochronic societies are hugely time-disciplined,
employing several devices (such as clocks and calendars) for measuring and
directing time. Monochronic time is conceived as linear; time periods are divided into
distinct parts, activities are completed one at a time, and the adherence to pre-
planned schedules is stressed. By contrast, societies that function according to
polychronic time are suggested as more present-oriented, placing less emphasis on
the rigid adherence to schedules, with the result that ‘appointments are not taken
seriously and as a result are frequently broken’ (Hall, 1994: 265). Polychronic time
perspectives are primarily driven by human relationships; people and activities are
not allocated a specific time slot and systems of communication are open, with
several activities undertaken at once. In its concern with human connection and
contrast to bureaucratic structures of work performed outside the home, polychronic
time has been associated with the domestic realm, and has been couched as what
would be traditionally be conceived of as a ‘female’ approach to time. These
51
different time systems have also been connected with perceptions of agency, with
those in polychronic societies adhering to a philosophy that one has control over
time and those with monochronic understandings instead viewing themselves as
governed by time (Hall, 1994). A distinction is also made between linear, clock-
based conceptions of time, in which the separation of past, present and future
introduces the ability to control and prepare for the future (Davies, 1994; Leccardi,
1999), and process or cyclical formations of time (Davies, 1994; Juhila, Gunther and
Raitakari, 2015). The latter understand time by reference to the recurrence of events
(such as day/night or the seasons), contrasting with one-directional, linear
perspectives which advance a view of the future as open to change and potentially
different from the past (Juhila, Gunther and Raitakari, 2015). Process
understandings of time stem from an analysis of care work, which cannot be
structured according to pre-determined times and durations and instead responds to
needs as they arise (Davies, 1994; Fahlgren, 2009; Juhila, Gunther and Raitakari,
2015). As in polychronic approaches, different care activities are often undertaken
simultaneously, making it difficult to quantify how much time has been devoted to
this type of work (Davies, 1994). Though not explicitly, Traveller Community
members are presented within the literature as adhering to time systems that are
polychronic, as opposed to the monochronic, linear notions of time which dominate
the organisation of society (including health services). Connected with nomadism,
Traveller Communities are presented as leading unpredictable and unstructured
lives, and as less likely to adhere to set appointment times (Lawrie, 1983; Raper,
1986; McCann, 1987; Feder, 1989; Lehti and Mattson, 2001; Goward et al., 2006).
McCann (1987: 295) suggests for instance that ‘The Traveller woman’s day is
unstructured to a great degree: she only responds to the demands of the
immediate’, and that ‘Time scheduled sessions are not suitable for this group at their
present level of social organisation’. Recent research, however, found only a small
minority of Gypsies and Travellers to suggest a tendency in Traveller culture not to
adhere to appointments (Jackson et al., 2016).
Perhaps drawing on romantic ideas of Gypsies and Travellers as liberated from the
conventions of majority society (Tremlett, 2014a), these groups are also presented
as affording less importance to social boundaries or rules. Peck (1983) for instance
suggested that a ‘cultural bias towards a life free of rules and regulations has often
automatically deprived gypsies of their rights to health care, education and social
52
security.’ Parallel literature on education points to potential for conflict between the
rules imposed by educational institutions and Traveller Community lifestyles. The
highly structured school environment, with fixed rules and hierarchy has been
suggested as imposing unfamiliar limits on Gypsy and Traveller children’s
behaviours (Levinson, 2008; Bhopal, 2011). Teachers were found to construct
Traveller culture as ‘disruptive and abnormal’, since ‘Gypsy and Traveller pupils do
not fit into the neat stereotype of obedient, quiet, diligent pupils’ (Bhopal (2011: 481).
Levinson (2005, 2008) points to potential conflict between Gypsy and Traveller
culture and ‘mainstream’ educational environments in regard to the use of time and
space during play. Traveller children were observed as disinterested in forms of play
that involved set rules and turn-taking, or concentration for an extended time, with
these characteristics explained by reference to “a natural restlessness” (Levinson,
2005: 514). Indeed, Levinson (2005) argues that these differences in orientation to
play are one way through which Gypsies and Travellers can reassert boundaries
between themselves and settled society, and maintain a distinct identity position.
Such differences are contextualised by reference to the faster progression from
childhood to adulthood within Traveller Communities and the greater integration into
and contributions of Traveller children to adult life. This cultural context is cited to
result in Gypsy and Traveller children favouring play that involves real life objects
and acts as form of preparation for adult roles, and preferring a more autonomous
and relaxed style of learning through observing and contributing to work alongside
adults (Levinson, 2005). This approach to learning requires Gypsies and Travellers
to have ‘both the (spatial) freedom to get up and move around during learning, and
the (temporal) freedom to decide when to stop, start and take breaks’ (Levinson,
2008: 241). Traveller Community adherence (or lack of adherence) to rules for
conduct are also considered in relation to health behaviour. Dion (2008) argues that
where children are not exposed early on to ‘boundary-setting’ in a school
environment, they may then struggle to manage within a system ‘in which rules and
boundaries prevail’. This lack of discipline is suggested as manifest in the difficulty
Gypsies and Travellers experience in declining children’s requests for unhealthy
food and drinks, with this in turn suggested to prevent children learning to self-
regulate their diet and even extrapolated to potentially result in the inability to
abstain from risky behaviours such as substance use later on in life (Dion, 2008).
53
Parallel research points to the potential for time to act as a mechanism of social
control and to the relations of power inherent in the priority given to Western, linear
systems of time relative to conceptions of time within other cultures (Adam, 1990;
Davies, 1994). Nanni (2011) illustrates how the imposition of dominant systems of
time were integral to the colonial project in Australia. Indigenous systems of time
were judged (relative to European conceptions of time) as inferior, characterised as
lacking regularity or rationality and as liable to disrupt dominant conventions of time
and ‘order’ (Nanni, 2011). It is through these discourses that Indigenous people
were characterised as belonging to more primitive times, and the hegemony of what
were deemed ‘civilised’ European systems of time was preserved (Nanni, 2011).
Constructions of Aboriginal populations in relation to space merged with those in
regard to time in justifications for colonial actions. Rather than claiming ownership of
land by inhabiting, constructing boundaries around, and farming land, Aboriginal
communities move through space in a seasonal pattern, in response to the
opportunities provided by the land. Colonial practices were defended both on the
grounds of a lack of ownership of land by Aboriginal communities and arguments
about a lack of ‘rational rhythm or regularity in the lifestyle’ of Aboriginal populations
(Nanni, 2011). Efforts to physically fix Aboriginal people in place through settlement
and the re-structuring of Aboriginal temporalities to reflect those that were dominant,
formed a key technique of power in the colonial enterprise (Nanni, 2011). Much of
this was achieved through the enforcement of rigid timetables to ensure adherence
to the ‘regularity and uniformity’ of work as conceived in European temporalities, and
to overturn the rhythm and rituals by which Indigenous people organised their lives
(Nanni, 2011). However, the multiple different meanings and values attributed to
time creates opportunities not only for attempts at temporal control, but also
resistance to them (Fox, 1999). While the above discussion demonstrates the
potential significance of time and space in understanding relations of power and
resistance in interactions between Traveller Communities and health services or
practitioners, this is, at present, unexplored in the health literature.
2.4.1.4 Fatalism
Another oft-cited claim in the literature is that Traveller Community members have a
fatalistic attitude with respect to their health (Petek et al., 2006; Van Cleemput et al.,
2007; Dion, 2008). Fatalism is defined as ‘a belief that negative outcomes may
occur to oneself or others regardless of attempts for personal control’ (Keeley,
54
Lanelle and Condit, 2009: 737). Research suggests that Gypsy and Traveller
Communities may prefer not to hear a diagnosis of conditions such as cancer,
believing the diagnosis itself to be detrimental to health (Van Cleemput et al., 2007;
Jesper, Griffiths and Smith, 2008). Fatalism is therefore presented as a view that
hampers a preventative approach to health (Petek et al., 2006; Van Cleemput et al.,
2007; Dion, 2008), leading to late attendance for health problems which in turn
perpetuates poor health outcomes (Lehti and Mattson, 2001; Van Cleemput et al.,
2007). This relates to portrayals of Traveller Community members in relation to time
explored above, since a fatalistic outlook contrasts with linear views of time that are
integral to health promotion and view future health consequences as determined
through current action. It is important to distinguish here between beliefs themselves
and the forms of expression used by Traveller Communities however. For instance,
Jesper et al. (2008) highlight how Traveller Community members distinguished
between benign and malignant cancers, and metastasised versus localised cancer,
but did so in a more storied form; referring to differences between male and female
forms of cancer and their amenability to treatment. A variation of narratives on the
fatalism of Traveller Communities presents these groups as having ‘chaotic lives’
(Gill et al., 2013) and therefore an inability to give priority to preventative health in
light of more pressing material and structural concerns (Hodgins, Millar and Barry,
2006; Jesper, Griffiths and Smith, 2008; Ipsos MORI, 2009; London Borough of
Richmond upon Thames Public Health Department, 2014). Again, this is presented
as borne out in Traveller Community members’ use of health services, namely, their
higher attendance at accident and emergency services and lower engagement with
primary care and health education (Hodgins, Millar and Barry, 2006; Jesper, Griffiths
and Smith, 2008). This too aligns with representations above of Traveller
Communities as more present-focused. While recognising structural constraints on
behaviour, reference to low prioritisation translates the focus back to the realm of
personal responsibility, thereby forming a pseudo-structural explanation.
2.4.2 Critiquing the cultural storyline

Taken together, the above narratives suggest a picture of Gypsy and Traveller
Communities as largely unconcerned with their health; as adhering to health beliefs,
traditions and behaviour which stand in opposition to those promoted in the name of
health; and having lifestyles which are incompatible with current systems and
methods of health service delivery. As summarised by Acton:
55
Gypsies themselves, like members of any ethnic group, have a tender
concern for their own bodily wellbeing. Nonetheless, much of the limited
scientific epidemiological and policy literature on Gypsy health in the UK
tends to assume rather the opposite; that along with specific knowledge
about particular diseases and symptoms, health education for Gypsies must
also teach a new and previously lacking concern for health (1998: 45)
Acton’s statement remains true today, with Smith and Newton (2017: 3) more
recently critiquing the use of cultural attitudes such as those described above to
explain Gypsy and Traveller health inequalities. Many of these arguments have
been so frequently repeated that they have become taken for granted ‘facts’ about
Traveller Communities. This is exemplified in research seeking to explain low
breastfeeding rates among Gypsies and Travellers. Despite data suggesting that
Gypsy and Traveller attitudes toward infant feeding practices may be more neutral
and less fixed than previously imagined (Pinkney, 2012), sweeping representations
of their attitudes towards breastfeeding behaviours persist. The title for a recent
article by Condon et al. (2015) presents an overall impression of Gypsies and
Travellers as preferring not to breastfeed, and reinforces divisions between these
groups and the settled majority in its choice to quote the following statement by one
participant in the research: ‘You likes your way, we got our own way'. This is
notwithstanding data cited within the article that some mothers had indeed decided
to breastfeed, which provides counter evidence to this claim. This illustrates how
pervasive narratives about cultural difference can be, even despite the presence of
alternative stories. Too great a focus on culture can have important implications and
is critique has been well rehearsed in the literature already. Such conceptualisations
can pathologise Gypsy and Traveller culture by judging this according to dominant
standards for health beliefs and practices (Matthews, 1998; Fernando, 2002),
present groups as irresponsible due to their rejection of some forms of health
services (Hajioff and McKee, 2000) and ultimately blame communities themselves
for their health problems (Ahmad, 1996; Matthews, 1998). A cultural explanation has
also been suggested to obscure the role of structural and material influences on
health (Ahmad, 1996; Koupilová et al., 2001; Smart, Titterton and Clark, 2003) such
as racism and discrimination (Ahmad, 1996; Nazroo, 2003). There is a risk that
where cultural beliefs are viewed as deficient for health, this gives rise to attempts to
assimilate Gypsies and Travellers and change their cultural practices (Ahmad 1996;
Reid & Taylor 2007). For example, criticisms have focused on the ways in which
welfare services underpinned by sedentary values act to prevent nomadism
56
(McVeigh, 1997), despite travelling often being cited as important for promoting
mental health by Gypsies and Travellers (Van Cleemput et al., 2004).
2.4.2.1 Cultural assets

To avoid the potential blame associated with the cultural explanations for Traveller
Community health, some work identifies health-promoting aspects of Gypsy and
Traveller culture. For example, authors point to quick recovery of Traveller
Community members from illness or surgery due to stoic attitudes to health (Van
Cleemput et al. 2004) and high levels of parental support and monitoring (Cook et
al., 2013). The tight bonding ties of Traveller Communities are described as
beneficial in providing social support and assistance during times of illness (Van
Cleemput et al., 2004), preventing the isolation of older community members (Lane,
Spencer and Mccready, 2012), buffering against the negative effects of racism,
discrimination and adversity (Goward et al., 2006; Smith and Ruston, 2013) and
promoting wellbeing (Mcquillan and Van Doorslaer, 2007; Alex and Lehti, 2013;
Dimitrova et al., 2013). Cultural norms among Traveller Community members have
also been described as discouraging the uptake of some ‘unhealthy’ behaviours
such as the use of drugs (Van Hout and Hearne, 2017). Indeed, increasing drug and
alcohol use by Traveller Communities has been attributed, in part, to greater contact
with settled community members as Gypsies and Travellers become dispersed into
housing (Hurcombe et al., 2012; Van Hout and Hearne, 2017). Thus, for this issue
we see a reverse of the usual argument that Traveller culture is problematic for
health and potentially polluting to wider society. These views reflect a growing
movement in public health research away from assessing the needs or deficits of
communities towards recognition of the resilience displayed by groups experiencing
adversity (Canvin et al., 2009), and the assets or strengths of communities in
relation to health (Morgan and Ziglio, 2007; Glasgow Centre for Population Health,
2011). The application of resilience or asset-based perspectives may help to reduce
stigmatisation and refocus attention on the agency of individuals and communities to
influence their health and circumstances. However, these approaches have also
received criticism for placing responsibility on individuals and communities to adapt
to imbalances of power rather than to seeking to address them (Bottrell, 2009).
Research also points to a need to recognise the ways that social context may
promote or hinder resilience at different time points, rather than treat resilience as
an individual trait (Backett-Milburn et al., 2008; Canvin et al., 2009). In addition,
57
while these alternative perspectives introduce balance in the consideration of
culture, they too employ externally imposed standards in evaluating whether cultural
practices are ‘good’ or ‘bad’ for health (Schneeweis, 2011) and as Tremlett
(2009:164) has noted with regard to cultural representations, risk substituting ‘the
widespread notion of a “bad” Gypsy for a “good” or “misunderstood” Gypsy’.
2.4.3 The structural storyline

A further critique of cultural explanations is found in arguments which emphasise the
greater salience of material and structural factors as opposed to attitudinal barriers
in influencing Traveller Community uptake of preventative health behaviour and
services (Hawes, 1997; Matthews, 1998; Smart, Titterton and Clark, 2003; Smith
and Newton, 2017). Cultural factors refer to the ‘frames’ guiding how people
understand and make choices in their lives, and their subsequent impact on heath
(Scambler, 2013), thereby incorporating attention to lifestyle influences. Material and
structural factors on the other hand, denote the concrete or social conditions of
society which impede or promote health chances (Scambler, 2013). This includes
the unequal distribution of wealth, aspects of the environment, and racial and
gender inequality for example. Smith and Newton (2017) recently brought the
tension between cultural and structural influences to the fore in their analysis of
Gypsy and Traveller approaches to childhood immunisation. They question the
notion of a global cultural outlook among Traveller Communities concerning
vaccination, and instead position structural influences as more important in
influencing uptake (Smith and Newton, 2017). Similarly, work has critiqued
interpretations of Traveller Community mistrust of services as a cultural orientation,
and strict readings of Traveller Community health through the lens of bonding
versus bridging ties (Smith and Ruston, 2013; Smith and Newton, 2017). These
authors instead point to the contextual influence of racism and discrimination in
generating suspicion towards mainstream health services. Smith and Newton (2017:
244) argue that ‘the notion that GRTs are inalienably ‘different’ and ‘hard to reach’
has legitimised the minimal progress in reducing inequalities experienced by
members of these communities’. Indeed, an in-depth reading of the literature reveals
evidence that counters presentations of Traveller Communities as a group who are
difficult to engage in health initiatives. Traveller Community members have often
been suggested to place great importance on receiving appropriate advice,
examinations or interventions from the best qualified medical professionals (Van
58
Cleemput et al., 2007; Jackson et al., 2016). Where systems of care are altered to
be more accessible and welcoming to Gypsies and Travellers, there is some
evidence that this in itself can be sufficient to increase uptake of services. For
instance, pragmatic changes to a GP service in Doncaster (e.g. to extend
appointment times and offer immunisations straightaway rather than through a
referral) resulted in increased uptake of immunisation (from 4% to 70%) and cervical
screening (from no uptake to 55%) by Gypsies and Travellers (Millet, 2014). These
increases are despite suggestions of cultural rules pertaining to pollution and
modesty (Okely, 1983) which might be expected to apply to these health issues.
Acton et al. (1998) similarly point to examples of the acceptance of cervical
screening where this was communicated clearly.
2.4.4 Critiquing the structural storyline

In emphasising the influences on health that are beyond personal control, the
structural/material perspective counteracts the potential for blame to be directed at
individuals or groups for their health. In considering the social context, this work also
therefore moves away from the attempts to offer fixed understandings of Gypsy and
Traveller beliefs within cultural perspectives. This perspective treats health beliefs
and practices as produced in interaction with structural conditions, as well as
attending to the impact of social structures in their own right. However, this
perspective too, has attracted criticism. While this work has highlighted links
between material or social circumstances and health, less attention has been given
to understanding the precise mechanisms which underpin these relationships
(Williams, 2003). Epidemiological research such as that on Traveller Communities
has tended to study different structural influences in isolation and treat these as
static variables. This is argued to reduce these determinants to individual risk
factors, disregard the potentially interactive and cumulative operation of these
elements, and insufficiently capture the complexity of people’s lives (Macintyre,
1997; Williams, 2003; Øversveen et al., 2017; Chenhall and Senior, 2018). A lack of
focus on the role of institutions (including healthcare institutions) in generating or
mitigating against inequalities forms a further criticism of work on structural
determinants (Beckfield et al., 2015). The literature on inequalities in health is
largely polarised between structural perspectives on the one hand, and cultural or
behavioural perspectives on the other (Øversveen et al., 2017) and the politically
charged nature of these positions (Scambler, 2013) is suggested as potentially
59
creating a false anthesis (Macintyre, 1997). Writers have called for greater
consideration of the ways that health is shaped at the intersection of structure and
agency, and the ways that individuals work within or resist the structural forces that
influence their lives (Williams, 2003; Chenhall and Senior, 2018). Both theoretically
informed research (Chenhall and Senior, 2018) and narrative methodologies
(Williams, 2003) are cited as enabling attention to the relational aspects of
individual, cultural and structural forces in affecting health chances.
2.5 Unfolding storylines – Traveller identity as hybrid and contingent

While cultural and structural approaches disagree on the basis of Roma identity,
Tremlett (2014b) nevertheless argues that both perspectives reinforce the idea of
Roma as a separate and coherent group. The preoccupation in Romany studies with
the features that make people ‘Gypsy’ or ‘Roma’ side-lines similarities between
Gypsies and other groups, and analysis of how broader societal discourses such as
those concerning gender and class also affect these communities (Tremlett, 2014b).
In addition, neither cultural or structural perspectives recognise their own role in
producing and reproducing Traveller Communities as a category (Tremlett, 2014b).
This section describes emerging approaches that aim to overcome these limitations
in their view of identity as fluid and contingent. In doing so, it highlights unfolding
and unexplored avenues in the application of these approaches to the area of
Traveller Community health; avenues to which the present study seeks to
contribute.
Authors have recently put forward the case for applying the concepts of ‘super-
diversity’ or ‘hybridity’ (Vertovec, 2007) to the study of Gypsy and Traveller identity
(Pantea, 2014; Tremlett, 2014b). Super-diversity moves away from a view of
ethnicity as a fixed or stable category and instead treats ethnicity as one among
many cross-cutting and interacting aspects of identity (such as labour market
experience, gender, sexuality, socio-economic position, disability or geographical
position) (Vertovec, 2007). The interplay or blending together of these categories
leads to new or hybrid identities (Pantea, 2014). While superdiversity therefore
resembles the concept of intersectionality, in that it aims to be sensitive to the
multiplicity of positions that shape our experiences, it differs from intersectional
approaches in that is does not retain a focus on bounded groups to the same
60
degree (Tremlett, 2014b). While not explicitly acknowledged as such, different
framings of Traveller Community ethnicity are represented in campaigns for the
recognition of Roma or Traveller Community rights. Political campaigns such as
Roma Pride demand inclusion through explicit identification, recognition and
celebration of Romany people and privilege notions of ethnicity. On the other hand,
a recent UK campaign ‘We Are All So Many Things’ (London Gypsies and
Travellers, 2017) embodies ideas of hybridity and superdiversity by encouraging
people to recognise the constellation of roles and identities that Gypsies and
Travellers occupy in society and avoid these groups being seen only through the
lens of their ethnicity.
2.5.1 Health beliefs as complex and varied

A close reading of the literature reveals some challenge to essentialist
representations of Traveller Communities in keeping with the approach of super-
diversity (though not referenced explicitly), by those who point to variation and
complexity in health attitudes and practices within these groups. Both Jackson et al.
(2016) and Smith and Newton (2017) found very few instances of wholescale
rejection of immunisation by Traveller Community members, instead pointing to the
nuanced nature of these decisions. Some were accepting of immunisation but
communicated a preference that children were immunised at an older age, or for
separate rather than combined MMR vaccinations for example (Jackson et al., 2016;
Smith and Newton, 2017). Attitudes to specific vaccines varied, and beliefs differed
across specific Traveller Communities and generationally (Jackson et al., 2016).
Decisions were also affected by personal experience and the visibility of illness in
the community (Smith and Newton, 2017). The views expressed by Gypsies and
Travellers towards immunisation do not appear from nowhere, and often relate to
reports in the media (such as the now discredited link between the MMR and
autism). This response to such media messages itself demonstrates concern and
engagement to protect and promote health. Smith and Newton (2017) also highlight
how individual community members differently enact supposed cultural values,
including those on the importance of children, with this attitude underpinning
decisions both for and against immunisation (Smith and Newton, 2017). Hints are
also provided as to the potential for cultural identity to intersect with other identity
positions in Gypsy and Traveller decisions about health. Van Cleemput et al. (2004)
explained Gypsy and Traveller uptake of maternity services which breach cultural
61
‘taboos’ by suggesting that on these occasions, the role of motherhood was
prioritised over adherence to cultural norms.
Though less often explored in the literature, the similarity in Gypsy and Traveller
beliefs to those of other sections of the population provides a further basis for
critiquing the treatment of Traveller Communities as a discrete group. As Gmelch
(1996: 177) suggests: ‘Travellers do not work or live in a vacuum, their identity and
lifestyle is unquestionably influenced by their connexion to the larger society’.
Traveller Community members have been noted to hold similar beliefs and concerns
to those found in the majority population around immunisation (Jackson et al., 2016;
Smith and Newton, 2017), end of life and advanced care directives (Peinado-Gorlat
et al., 2015) and preferences for information to assist decision making in cases of
acute childhood illness (Neill et al., 2014). Mistrust in health services among
Traveller Communities is argued to be reflective of a broader decline in public trust
of health experts and advice (Smith and Newton, 2017). Indeed, smaller asides to
dominant narratives of cultural difference position Gypsies and Travellers as
interested in and engaged with health generally (Hodgins, Millar and Barry, 2006) as
well as information and advice pertaining to specific health issues, including that on
immunisation (Smart, Titterton and Clark, 2003; Smith and Newton, 2017), asthma
management (Brady and Keogh, 2016), maternity care (Reid and Taylor, 2007) and
cancer treatment (Jesper, Griffiths and Smith, 2008). Indeed, participants in the
study by Jesper et al. (2008) themselves noted the need to avoid generalising about
Gypsy and Traveller beliefs about terminal illness. Notwithstanding the above
insights, the nuanced health attitudes and practices of Traveller Communities are
often reduced within the literature to a basic and essentialising message about the
(largely negative) influence of Traveller culture on health. There has, to date, been
limited overt analysis of the potentially complex nature of Traveller Community
accounts of health, nor the potential similarities in health narratives and identities
expressed by Traveller Communities and wider groups.
Applying broader literature on lay articulations of health and illness also poses
challenges to the attribution of fatalistic beliefs to Traveller Community culture. While
fatalism is often reported as if this is a unique value system of Traveller
Communities, cancer fatalism has been found among many other ethnic minority
groups (Vrinten, Wardle and Marlow, 2016) as well as those of low socio-economic
62
status (Beeken et al., 2011). Furthermore, whilst often presented as more prevalent
in ‘disadvantaged’ groups, research has found that individuals of both low and high
socioeconomic status employ fatalism to explain infertility (Bell and Hetterly, 2014).
Some variation was apparent however in how individuals of differing social status
used fatalism, owing to differential access to resources and previous experiences
with health services (Bell and Hetterly, 2014). Research in this area also questions
the binary categorisation of people as wholly fatalistic or non-fatalistic (Keeley,
Lanelle and Condit, 2009) and has pointed to a need to distinguish between globally
fatalistic remarks (where no expectations of personal control were expressed) and
those implying a limited sense of control (where control was claimed over some
areas but not others) (Keeley, Lanelle and Condit, 2009). The view that fatalism
necessarily precludes engagement in behaviour to improve health has also been
challenged. Bell and Hetterly’s (2014) research disrupts the traditional dichotomy
between fatalism and agency, suggesting that fatalism can in fact be agential (e.g.
when people take a deliberate choice to adopt this stance), and agency can be
motivated by fatalism (e.g. where higher powers are presented as also affording free
will). Drew and Schoenberg (2011) similarly highlight examples whereby discourses
of fate or religion actually promoted healthy behaviour, as can be seen in ideas that
‘your body is a temple’ or that ‘God works through Doctors’. Indeed, in a similar vein,
distinctions between ‘lay’ and biomedical or professional accounts of health are
increasingly recognised as problematic. ‘Lay’ accounts have been demonstrated to
integrate multiple and competing ideas about health (including biomedical
viewpoints) (Hughner and Kleine, 2004; McClean and Shaw, 2005). Likewise, many
therapies previously considered ‘alternative’ have been appropriated within medicine
(Blaxter, 2010), and clinicians have been long been recognised to deliver medical
advice in ways that are compatible with, and sometimes reinforce ‘lay’ or ‘folk’
perspectives (Helman, 1978; Blaxter, 2010). In recognition that fatalism may not act
as a global or fixed outlook, research has examined the social functions that
fatalistic talk fulfils (Keeley, Lanelle and Condit, 2009; Drew and Schoenberg, 2011),
giving insight into the potential benefits of fatalism as opposed to negative
connotations which stem from the privileging of autonomy, control and
independence in Western societies (Bell and Hetterly, 2014). This work points to the
role of fatalism in balancing gaps between the universal desire to achieve health,
and circumstances which limit possibilities for health (Keeley, Lanelle and Condit,
2009). According to this reading, fatalism can be described as a rational response to
63
circumstances such as poor health or long-term illness (Keeley, Lanelle and Condit,
2009), and witnessing deteriorations in the health of other community members
(Drew and Schoenberg, 2011). This helps to understand why fatalism is often
associated with disadvantaged groups, for whom the gap between health and
resources is particularly great (Keeley, Lanelle and Condit, 2009). Indeed, this
argument is reflected in Smith and Newton’s (2017) work, which adopts a critical
realist stance and views the health beliefs and practices of Traveller Communities
as shaped through an interaction between the agency of Gypsies and Travellers,
and the structural constraints or freedoms they are afforded by the world in which
we live. However, Bell and Hetterly (2014) found that fatalism can actually help
people to maintain hope with respect to fertility outcomes, contrasting with previous
depictions of fatalism as a negative or pessimistic orientation. Keeley et al. (2009)
report three specific functions of fatalism: ‘stress relief’; ‘uncertainty management’;
and ‘sense making’. The stress relief function of fatalism refers to the avoidance of
worry and stress about potential illness. Managing uncertainty describes the use of
fatalism to cope with the unpredictable nature of illness. Finally, sense making refers
to the ways that participants used fatalism to rationalise one’s current behaviour and
deal with the consequences of past behaviour (e.g. where participants claimed that
the opportunity to change one’s behaviour was now too far gone). It has also been
suggested in previous literature that fatalistic remarks may enable a form of face-
saving and protection from potential blame or embarrassment (Bolam et al., 2003).
Keeley et al. (2009) were unable to substantiate this function within their study
however, which analysed the content of participant responses alone, since any
explicit mention of the use of fatalism to save face, would itself result in a loss of
face for participants.
While fatalism is therefore a concept which is being subject to increasing

problematisation, there is, at present, very little which applies this debate specifically
to Gypsy and Traveller Community health beliefs. Counter recent developments in
the conceptualisation of this term, fatalism is often uncritically accepted as a fixed
inner health belief within the literature on Traveller Community health.
2.5.2 The discursive production of identity

The above reported literature starts to form some challenge to the narrative of
Traveller Community members as homogeneous in their rejection of certain forms of
health services, and to the use of culture or structure as rigid explanations for Gypsy
64
and Traveller health. However, one aforementioned criticism remains unaddressed:
that neither cultural or structural perspectives explicitly consider the role they
themselves play in creating and sustaining notions of Traveller Community group
identity and ‘truths’ about Traveller Communities and their circumstances. In the
case of the former approach, this takes the form of essential claims about Traveller
health beliefs, and in the latter, judgements about the causal relationships between
social structures and Traveller Community health beliefs and behaviours. Neither
approach attends to the discursive processes and associated power relations
through which Traveller health identities are produced, claimed or resisted, nor the
limits or possibilities for action that result from different forms of talk about Gypsy
and Traveller health (including those produced by researchers and academics).
The work of Frederik Barth (1969) is relevant here. Barth (1969) was critical of prior
anthropological presumptions (such as those found in the Traveller Community
health literature) of an ‘internally shared culture’ among ethnic groups. Challenging
the notion that ethnic distinctions are maintained through geographical and social
separation, Barth illustrates the continuation of ethnic boundaries despite movement
across them and contact between different groups. As such, Barth (1969: 15) urged
the study of on-going social relations through which ethnic boundaries themselves
are constituted and maintained, rather than ‘the cultural stuff’ that these boundaries
contain. In common with the approach advocated by Barth (1969), this study
examines the criteria employed to construct and sustain boundaries between
Traveller Communities and others, in relation to health, by both public health
practitioners and community members themselves.
Indeed, some work (beyond the realm of health), has sought to apply this approach
to an understanding of Gypsy and Traveller identity. Buckler (2007) studies how
‘Gypsiness’ is learned and taught through particular forms of storytelling. This
includes a preference for grounding stories in connections with known, real people,
and a reinforcement within stories of the dangers associated with ‘strangers’ who
are not known and trusted. These storytelling practices are shown to contrast with
the attempts of settled community members to produce stories which speak to the
motives of Gypsies as a ‘singular, cohesive and bounded entity’, creating the
potential for communication to breakdown in interactions between these actors
(Buckler, 2007). However, this work also produces some challenges to the notions
65
of boundary employed by Barth (1969). Although Barth acknowledges the fluidity of
boundaries, Buckler (2007) argues that a line is nevertheless drawn which is
recognisable to individuals positioned either side of it. Indeed, this concept is
suggested to be potentially less applicable to groups such as Gypsies and
Travellers, for whom a distinct claim to ethnicity is contested, and who are therefore
‘always and inescapably on both sides of any boundary’ (Buckler, 2007: 8). Buckler
(2007) shows how boundaries between, and the storytelling conventions governing
groups are not deterministic, but liable to shift when confronted with other ways of
interacting, and during efforts to establish mutual ground. This highlights the
importance of attending to the ways in which boundaries are maintained, as well as
the ways they may dissolve or breakdown (even temporarily).
The relative absence of a discursive lens in the literature on Traveller Community

health specifically is puzzling, given how prominent this has been in the examination
of other aspects of Gypsy and Traveller lives, including the construction and
regulation of Gypsies and Travellers in relation to space and place (McVeigh, 1997;
Bancroft, 2000; Kabachnik, 2010; Clark, 2014; Turner, 2016), and the othering of
Gypsy and Traveller Communities in the media (Clark and Campbell, 2000; Morris,
2000; Amnesty International, 2014; Richardson, 2014). It is also surprising given the
well-established critique of health promotion as a source of regulation (Petersen and
Lupton, 1996), and the frequent positioning of Traveller Communities as culturally
resistant to this advice. Authors in the field of Romani studies generally have
highlighted the need to look at the politics surrounding the labelling and
categorisation of Roma, as opposed to merely focusing on their lifestyles and
traditions (Vermeersch, 2007). However, as will now be demonstrated, this hasn’t
yet been explored in depth in the area of Traveller Community health and this
therefore formed a key area that I sought to address through the research.
We have seen already that fatalism has been questioned on the grounds that its
distinction from agency is, in fact, more complex and nuanced than often assumed.
Yet some have also problematised the motivations which lie behind the use of
fatalism as a concept, and its potentially harmful consequences. For instance, it has
been argued that research on fatalism is biased towards a focus on underserved
groups (such as Traveller Communities) who are labelled as ‘others’ and who are
seen as ‘problematic or ignorant’ (Drew and Schoenberg, 2011). Authors have
66
therefore cautioned against treatment of fatalism as a characteristic of groups who
are disadvantaged:
Negatively framing fatalism and then constructing it as a belief among

individuals of low SES justifies their subordination and blameworthiness (Bell
and Hetterly, 2014: 71)
Yet again, in the Traveller Community health literature, there is little overt
recognition of the role that discourses such as fatalism may play in reinforcing the
exclusion of these groups. Within this study, I do not treat fatalism as an inner health
belief that reflects the material circumstances in which one lives, but as a social
construct that is applied to and used by groups to position themselves in relation to
self and others; examining the work that this performs for people and the effects that
this has.
There is some research available that critiques the labels applied to Traveller
Communities in regards to their health from a phenomenological approach, and
which questions externally defined, normative definitions of Gypsy and Traveller
‘vulnerability’ for example (Heaslip, Hean, and Parker 2016a; Heaslip, Hean, and
Parker 2016b). Heaslip et al. (2016b) argue for a blending of this ‘etic’ approach with
an ‘emic’ perspective that understands the ‘essence’ of vulnerability, as experienced
by community members themselves. This work aims to achieve a sense of the
‘shared humanness’ of Gypsy Traveller Community members and others, thereby
transcending individual experience. It therefore challenges the external labelling of
Traveller Communities while maintaining a concern with inner ‘lived experience’.
However, using this perspective, the labels applied to Traveller Communities are
challenged only up to a point, with the ascription of vulnerability itself remaining
unquestioned.
There are also some notable exceptions to the lack of focus on discursive
constructions of Traveller Communities in relation to health. Schneeweis (2011)
analysed the construction of Roma people in Romanian health promotion materials,
finding three conflicting but co-existent discourses. The first, most dominant
discourse positioned Roma as disadvantaged and ‘in need’ of intervention or
‘correction’ from non-Roma people, and drew a contrast between ‘modern’ health
service practices, and the ‘traditional’ Roma methods of health promotion
(Schneeweis, 2011). In this discourse, behaviour change was presented as
67
requiring ‘persuasion and influence’, including through appeals to fear (Schneeweis,
2011). The second discourse, while still having the dominant discourse of behaviour
change and integration at its root, advocated a different solution; the incorporation of
Roma culture into health messages (Schneeweis, 2011). Alongside these main
discourses, Schneeweis (2011) found evidence of a third ‘just the Roma’ discourse
however. This contextualised the differences of Roma communities and did not
depict Roma according to stereotypes, but recognised diversity and presented
Roma as able to articulate their health needs and choices. While health promotion
documents adhering to this latter discourse contained a lack of practical solutions for
health professionals, this was viewed as beneficial in preventing practitioners from
operating according to preconceived ideas about Roma people and culture. The
extent to which these findings are directly transferable to the UK is not currently
clear, since, to the best of my knowledge, no comparable analysis of the discursive
construction of Traveller Communities in relation to health has yet been conducted.
In addition, the work of Schneeweis (2011) was limited to an analysis of health
promotion materials about the Roma, and questions therefore remain around how
far identities and constructions of Traveller Communities in relation to health may
differ in the talk or stories of health practitioners and Traveller Communities. Further
exception is found in the work of Reid (2005), and Reid and Taylor (2007). Reid
(2005) applies Foucault’s notion of discourse to critique discussions of Traveller
Community culture in maternal health care. She argues that epidemiological studies
which are presented as objective fact have resulted in problematic understandings
of Traveller culture among midwives and suggests that the dominance of medical
discourses in informing maternity practitioners’ views give rise to portrayals of
Travellers as at greater risk with regard to their health. This in turn is suggested to
result in a fixed view of Traveller culture as standing in opposition to healthy
pregnancy and childbirth and associated problems of victim blaming and
assimilation attempts (Reid, 2005; Reid and Taylor, 2007). Reid (2005: para 25) also
comments that there ‘has been little resistance by traveller women to the
persistence and dominance of medical discourse’. Through her feminist lens, she
explains this by presenting Traveller Community women as a group who have been
silenced by: the masculinised construction of Traveller Communities overall; their
experiences of racism, discrimination and inequality; and the authority of medical
discourse in defining and acting on Traveller Community needs. As a result, Reid
(2005: para 26) argues that Traveller Community women are forced to ‘structure
68
their world through dominant discourse’, a language in which, owing to its scientific
and ethnocentric nature, they are suggested as ‘relatively inarticulate’. In this
respect Reid (2005) therefore appears to reinforce the very ‘them-us’ perspective of
that she aims to deconstruct; Traveller Community members’ are presented as
doing health differently as a result of their culture, but find their own ways devalued
in a system that privileges a biomedical understanding of health. There is limited
room in Reid’s analysis for the possibility that Traveller Community members may
draw on similar discourses to other groups in society or utilise biomedical
perspectives. Later work by Reid and Taylor (2007), while acknowledging that
Traveller culture is enacted in a fluid way, nevertheless makes general claims about
the cultural attributes of Traveller Communities in relation to maternity care. For
instance, where they suggest that ‘bottle-feeding seemed well rooted in Traveller
culture’ (Reid and Taylor, 2007: 254). This leaves unanswered questions about
which health discourses have currency in Traveller culture, and the extent to which
dominant discourses also filter into the ways that Traveller Community members talk
about health and illness. In addition, this work focuses particularly on maternity care,
and only one of Reid’s articles reports on empirical research, with this incorporating
the views of Traveller Communities alone and neglecting to include the voices of
health practitioners.
Critique of dominant representations of Traveller Community members in relation to

health can also be found in the work of civil society organisations who represent
Traveller Community members. The Minority Ethnic Carers of People Project (2014)
produced a book entitled ‘Two Sides of the Same Story’ which challenges many of
the misconceptions about Gypsies and Travellers commonly heard among service
providers (though not specific to health). This includes statements that Traveller
Communities prefer to ‘look after their own’, are ‘hard to reach’ and ‘don’t want to
engage with outsiders’. Although not explicitly adopting a discursive approach, this
work shows an acute awareness that the stories that we tell about community
members have the power to shape the practices, experiences and identities of
health practitioners and Traveller Communities. This therefore also reinforces the
salience of an in-depth and empirical examination of these discourses and their
implications, looking specifically at health in the UK context.
69
Radley and Billig (1996) distinguish between the treatment of health narratives as
conduits to people’s fixed inner health beliefs, versus socially situated ‘accounts’
through which they present versions self and identity. This comparison also helped
to crystallise my understanding of the current literature on Traveller Community
health, and the specific contribution that I could make through this research. As
shown earlier, the literature on Traveller Community health predominantly adopts
the former of Radley and Billig’s (1996) approaches, affording a taken for granted
status to Traveller narratives and producing concrete and universal claims about the
health beliefs and circumstances of Gypsies and Travellers. It is to the latter of
Radley and Billig’s (1996) categories that I concern myself in the present study,
examining the identity positions that Traveller Community members and health
practitioners project for themselves and each other through the health stories they
tell. This incorporates attention to how identities are negotiated in relation to
prevailing societal discourses. The concept of identity is not altogether absent from
discussions of Gypsy and Traveller health. Greenfields and Smith (2011) for
example looked at the health impact of a denial of ethnic identity following a move
into housing, as well as the ways that strength of belonging to a Gypsy Traveller
Community enabled resilience in response to difficult living environments. However,
this work treats identity (or the denial of identity) as a further factor which explains
health experiences and outcomes, rather than studying the health identities of
Gypsies and Travellers in their own right. Some consideration of Traveller
Community health identity is also evident in research on how Traveller Community
members describe the causes of their health (Hodgins, Millar and Barry, 2006).
Previous research indicates that those experiencing structural disadvantage are
often unwilling to admit the existence of health inequalities (Blaxter, 1997; Smith and
Anderson, 2018). This reluctance to label the inequality one experiences is
explained as an attempt to avoid stigma and reclaim agency (Smith and Anderson,
2018). Yet, by contrast, research with Traveller Communities has found a greater
willingness to describe the structural inequalities experienced (Hodgins, Millar and
Barry, 2006). This difference in findings is potentially due to the use of vignettes in
interviews with Travellers, since talking about the health of others rather than
oneself invokes less risk of spoiled identity (Hodgins, Millar and Barry, 2006).
Alternatively, Hodgins et al. (2006) suggest that the strength of identification with
Gypsy or Traveller ethnicity, and increased politicisation of the needs experienced
by these groups may better allow them to acknowledge inequality and accept a
70
version of themselves as ‘needy, requiring intervention and assistance’ (Hodgins,
Millar and Barry, 2006: 1988). Further research is required to explore in more detail
how Traveller Communities manage the potentially stigmatising effect of
experiencing health inequalities, particularly since other studies have found Traveller
Community members to express surprise or disbelief that their health compares so
poorly to other sections of the population (Van Cleemput et al., 2007; Jenkins,
2010).
2.6 Health practitioner identities

This final section of the chapter examines the treatment of health practitioner roles
and identities in current literature on Traveller Community health. This is important
given calls for more research on those in positions of power, as opposed to that
which makes detailed accounts of the beliefs and practices of marginal groups
available for utilisation by more powerful groups (Acton, 1974; Vanderbeck, 2005).
Such appeals have not been followed through to fruition in the area of Gypsy and
Traveller health to date, and health practitioners who work with Traveller Community
members have largely avoided the gaze of health and sociological research
(Watson and Downe, 2017). Likewise, research rarely considers the narratives of
health practitioners and Gypsies and Travellers alongside one another (though
Jackson et al., 2016 forms a notable exception). That literature which does examine
practitioner perspectives highlights troubling examples of racist and discriminatory
attitudes and practice (Janevic et al., 2011; Jackson et al., 2016; Watson and
Downe, 2017). This includes views expressed by service providers that Roma,
Gypsy and Traveller women are less educated, intelligent or health literate (Janevic
et al., 2011; Watson and Downe, 2017), do not listen to or comply with health advice
(Watson and Downe, 2017); are negligent of their children’s health (Jackson et al.,
2016; Watson and Downe, 2017); and are uncivilised and less human (Watson and
Downe, 2017). Practitioners have also been found to suggest that Traveller
Community members misuse emergency services (Jackson et al., 2016; Watson
and Downe, 2017) and fail to prioritise health appointments (Jackson et al., 2016).
The literature describes the experience of ‘Gypsy fear’ among health workers
(Janevic et al., 2011). Practitioners in the study by Jackson et al. (2016) relayed
accounts of colleagues who were frightened about working with Traveller
Communities, and some practitioners described feeling intimidated by groups of
71
Traveller men when visiting sites. Goward et al. (2006) point to the influence of
negative media coverage, suggesting that practitioners internalise harmful
stereotypes about Traveller Community members. Work also points to a lack of
understanding of Gypsy and Traveller culture. For example, practitioners have been
noted to struggle to provide support where Traveller community understandings of
mental health do not match their own (Goward et al., 2006). Yet, sensitivity is
needed in order that a focus on cultural awareness does not lead to rigid
assumptions about the needs of Traveller Communities which fail to accommodate
potential within group differences. Even positive portrayals of Gypsy and Traveller
culture, such as the preference to care for elderly relatives at home, where
extrapolated to the community as a whole, may lead to the withholding of support
that some families may wish to receive. Rigal (1997) found that health care
professionals tended to discuss only injectable methods and intrauterine devices for
family planning due to assumptions of poor compliance with drug regimens, despite
Gypsies and Travellers favouring oral contraceptives. A tension is therefore evident
between producing guidelines for practice which respect cultural preferences while
avoiding creating uniform recommendations that give little scope for individual
variation.
There are some examples of programmes that have helped to overcome the
discrimination Traveller Communities face in access to services, including the use of
Roma health mediators in Europe (Roman et al., 2013). Other examples of
initiatives to reduce barriers to health care among Gypsies and Travellers include:
outreach; the development of specialist health provider roles or dedicated services
to work with Traveller Communities; and provision of handheld records to enhance
continuity of care (McFadden et al., 2018). However, evidence on the effectiveness
of interventions to increase service accessibility and address the racism and
discrimination experienced by Traveller Communities within health environments is
lacking (Watson and Downe, 2017; McFadden et al., 2018). Watson and Downe
(2017) found that where Traveller Community members have contacts who work in
the health sector or receive support from Romany health workers this improved
access to these services, as did knowledge of one’s health care rights. Cultural
awareness training for health providers delivered in collaboration with Traveller
Community members is another common strategy. However, in keeping with the
critique explored above, concerns have been raised that cultural awareness training
72
may reinforce ‘essentialist racial identities’ and stereotypes (Watson and Downe,
2017), entrench ideas of ‘otherness’ (Kowal, Franklin and Paradies, 2013) and deny
the complexity of identity (McFadden et al., 2018). Indeed, some work in this area
highlights the promise of an intersectional, or hybridity lens (such as that explored
above) for addressing racism and discrimination. Watson and Downe (2017) explain
more positive encounters in which Traveller Communities are seen as intelligent and
capable by reference to social identity theory, suggesting that approaches based in
multiple categorisation can avoid dehumanisation and rigid insider/outsider
classifications (Watson and Downe, 2017). In tackling racism and prejudice, Howard
and Vajda (2016: 43) stress the need for practitioners working with Romany people
to be ‘reflective about our own positionality and practice’ in order to become more
aware about the ‘operation of invisible power’. By invisible power Howard and Vajda
(2016) are referring to the unspoken privilege attached to ‘whiteness’ that results in
a lack of recognition of power relations amongst members of the majority population
working with Romany communities. This approach, they suggest will enable the
ways that such invisible power impacts on the “sense of self and position among
those who work for ‘Roma inclusion” (Howard and Vajda, 2016: 52). Howard and
Vajda (2016: 50) therefore agree that it is not enough to seek to reduce
discrimination by increasing practitioner knowledge of the situations faced by
excluded groups; these efforts must challenge ‘the deep-seated beliefs and the
unconscious bias that everyone carries with respect to Roma people and
communities’. Yet, they also stress that this can be very difficult for practitioners who
have been programmed to deny any attention to the role whiteness plays in
contributing to their privileged positions, and instead favour alternative explanations
such as professional ability, education and job roles (Howard and Vajda, 2016). Daly
(2015) also points to the importance of creating a space whereby practitioners can
reflect on their unconscious prejudices, and the ways these attitudes may enter into
their practice with Traveller Community members. To date, research and
interventions with the aim of increasing accessibility of health services have focused
predominantly on alleviating cultural or structural barriers. In addition, health
practitioner perspectives have been approached in much the same way as those of
Gypsies and Travellers; both parties are presented as holding fixed inner beliefs
which they bring with them to health encounters. To the best of my knowledge,
research has not yet been undertaken to empirically investigate the versions of self
that practitioners present in stories about their work with Traveller Communities, and
73
how they may strive to uphold these identities through their practice. Much work
therefore exists to understand how communication between practitioners and
Traveller Community members may breakdown due to a lack of cultural awareness,
or pragmatic barriers. A gap is evident however, around how communication may be
hindered or facilitated by concordance or discordance in the identities that health
practitioners and Traveller Communities project for themselves and each other.
It is important to acknowledge that counter narratives to those of discrimination are

evident among practitioners. The above call for greater research focused on the roles
of ‘oppressors’ as opposed to only the ‘oppressed’ conveys a sense of fixed power
relations between groups. However, empirical work which examines youth welfare
efforts with Traveller Communities (Vanderbeck 2009, Vanderbeck 2005) suggests
that people do not occupy a static position as ‘oppressed’ versus ‘powerful’ or
‘resistant’ versus ‘compliant’. Vanderbeck (2009) found that discourses and practices
adhered to by ‘youth working’ practitioners could not be easily classified as either
assimilationist or empowering. Practitioners were critical of practice which attempted
to erode Traveller culture, and expressed a commitment to ensuring that services
were user led (Vanderbeck, 2009). However, they simultaneously outlined a hope that
outreach would lead to greater use of mainstream services, and sometimes promoted
positive views to young people about school when parents were not present
(Vanderbeck, 2009). Similarly, Kowal and Paradies (2005) found that practitioners
working with Aboriginal communities discursively constructed Indigenous health
attitudes as understandable and rational given the contextual constraints. Discourses
employed by practitioners functioned to uphold the position of Aboriginal communities
as “morally sound health seeking citizens”, as well as practitioners’ own morality by
rejecting attempts to control or change Aboriginal beliefs (Kowal and Paradies, 2005,
p. 1353). The context in which practitioners work must also be recognised; balancing
the requirements to obtain funding or meet targets while also providing services that
are acceptable to Traveller Communities is noted as a key challenge by practitioners
(Reid 1993; Vanderbeck 2009). Peck’s (1983: 365) early practice reflection on
working with Gypsies and Travellers: ‘I sometimes feel that I have lost my way as a
health visitor’, highlights the potential struggle practitioners may experience in
meeting the requirements of their professional roles when practicing with Traveller
Communities. Relations of power may sometimes tip away from practitioners and
toward the supposedly ‘oppressed’ group. Gypsies and Travellers are not simply
74
passive recipients of health services. Maintaining the trust of Traveller Communities
was a key concern of welfare staff, and Gypsies and Travellers often reminded staff
of their ability to withdraw from the programme if the services were not appropriate to
them (Vanderbeck, 2009), suggesting that Gypsies and Travellers were not without
agency in influencing service provision. Nor were Gypsies and Travellers
straightforwardly resistant to all welfare provision, engaging with some of the welfare
services or activities offered (Vanderbeck, 2009).
Given the recognition of racism and discrimination towards Traveller Communities,

the importance of building of trust between Traveller Community members and
practitioners is noted persistently in the literature (Lhussier, Carr and Forster, 2016;
Mcfadden et al., 2016). Indeed, practitioners have been found to emphasize the
requirement that the ‘right person’ is employed to work these groups (Jackson et al.,
2016). Schneeweis (2011: 304) similarly found that success stories of good
communication and partnership between doctors and their Roma patients referred to
‘the doctor of the gypsies,’ or the ‘true guest of honor’. Practitioners have been found
to describe those who work with Travellers as ‘more understanding and less
judgemental’ than other colleagues (Jackson et al., 2016). However, there has been
little in depth empirical analysis of which attributes are taken to constitute identity as
the ‘right person’ to work with Traveller Communities. Sociological work on the place
of the body in the performance or performativity of identities (Butler, 1990), and
attention to the role of ‘body work’ in employment (Gimlin, 2007) are potentially useful
here. This work illustrates that it is no longer the products of labour alone which are
bought and sold, but also the bodies, or body attributes of employees (McDowell and
Court, 1994). The concept of ‘body work’ concerns the work that health practitioners
do to manage their own bodies and those belonging to the individuals with whom they
work (Twigg et al., 2011). Brown et al. (2011) point to the centrality of body work, in
addition to verbal communication, in the ability of professionals to establish and
maintain trust in gynaecological health care. They call for further research examining
the embodied nature of trust in a wider range of healthcare settings and with other
health professionals (Brown et al., 2011). In a similar vein, conceptualisations of the
emotional labour associated with some employment positions is also likely to have
analytical purchase in understanding the establishment of relationships between
Traveller Community members and health practitioners. ‘Emotional labour’ or
‘emotion work’ refers to the ways that employees process emotions in order to project
75
the facial and body image that their position demands (Hochschild, 1983). Hochschild
suggests that emotion work involves three components:
First, they require face-to-face or voice-to-voice contact with the public.

Second, they require the worker to produce an emotional state in another
person – gratitude or fear, for example. Third, they allow the employer,
through training and supervision, to exercise a degree of control over the
emotional activities of employees (Hochschild, 1983: 147).
By this definition, health practitioners involved in the present research can be

characterised as involved in emotional labour. Practitioners working in a public
health capacity may seek to generate a range of emotional reactions in those they
work with, including: a sense of security, trust and acceptance in their advice and
ability; reflection on one’s current situation and possible actions; anticipation, hope
or perhaps even worry about future health outcomes; or a sense of enjoyment or
pleasure in the process of health promotion activities themselves. While some
practitioners were working in a more strategic public health role and therefore
worked less directly with community members, even these individuals had
experienced face-to-face interaction with Gypsies and Travellers during a tour of the
Traveller site or at one-off health promotional events and activities. Finally, although
the extent of institutional governance of emotion may vary depending on
employment sector, health practitioners are often required to work in accordance
with professional codes of conduct which stipulate guidelines and boundaries
regarding emotional expression. The UK Public Health Register (UKPHR) Code of
Conduct (2013: para 7) advises that UKPHR registrants should ‘Treat everyone
politely and with respect’ for example. The Nursing and Midwifery Council code of
conduct (2015: 15) states “make sure you do not express your personal beliefs
(including political, religious or moral beliefs) to people in an inappropriate way”.
Indeed, it has been suggested broadly that the increasing bureaucracy of modern
organisations has entailed a move away from the establishment of relationships
through personal or emotional exchange toward the implementation of strict rules
and the separation of private and work life (Gerth and Wright Mills, 1958). Some
have suggested that professions have become increasingly stripped of emotion and
become too technical and procedure driven (Hingley Jones and Ruch, 2016).
Indeed, this resonates with recent debates on whether we should view public health
practitioners as not just technocrats, but politically and emotionally motivated in
achieving social justice (Faculty of Public Health and European Public Health
Association, 2017). Hoschschild (1983) suggests that people may experience a
76
tension that can be harmful for their wellbeing where they are required to project
emotions as part of their job role that contrast those they are experiencing. In
response to this tension, Hochschild (1983) distinguishes between two responses.
The first is ‘surface acting’, where people fain the required response while retaining
the authentic emotion underneath. An alternative reaction was ‘deep acting’ where
employees alter their emotional state to fit with the emotions they were required to
project (for instance, by rationalising the behaviour of airline passengers to make
this more acceptable).
Despite the likely involvement of emotional labour in a range of healthcare settings,

a recent review of emotion work in health care suggests that the majority of research
focuses on clinical roles and particularly nursing (Riley and Weiss, 2016). The focus
on nursing is likely owing to the place of ‘care’ in claims to specialist expertise within
the nursing profession (Bolton, 2000) as well as the fact that nursing is still a female
dominated profession and gendered assumptions treat emotion work as women’s
work (Riley and Weiss, 2016). Emotion management has been neglected within
social work (Winter et al., 2018) and again, is not something that has explicitly been
applied to health work with Traveller Communities.
2.7 Summary
The literature review has highlighted the gradual construction of Gypsy and Traveller
Community health as a public health problem. Far from being a neutral endeavour,
evidence production in this area is argued to have been affected by a number of
socio-cultural influences, as reflected, for example, in the greater attention to
Traveller Community women and children than men, and the early focus on health
conditions that pose a risk of contagion. The chapter has also highlighted conflicting
explanations for the poorer overall health of these groups, with a particular tension
evident between cultural and structural perspectives. An enormous amount of
qualitative research has focused on the influence of culture, looking to uncover the
inner health beliefs and attitudes of Traveller Communities, and assess their
compatibility with health promotion advice and ‘mainstream’ health systems. Others
question the use of a cultural lens due to its potential to blame Traveller
Communities for their poorer health status, and instead emphasise the role of social
structures on health. While the structural approach provides some critique of the
stories told about the health of Traveller Communities, the solution advocated is in
77
replacing the cultural discourse with another more accurate one; that it is societal
structures and not culture that prevent Traveller Communities from attaining the best
possible standard of health. These approaches therefore share a concern to
uncover the reality of the influences on the health of Gypsies and Travellers and
potentially reinforce considerations of Traveller Communities as a bounded group.
The chapter has pointed to limited consideration of the potentially multiple, co-
existing and conflicting identities which operate for Traveller Communities in relation
to heath and pointed to key gaps in understanding around how practitioners
construct and perform identities in relation to their work with these groups. I have
argued that a gap in analysis exists (notwithstanding a few notable exceptions) with
respect to how the different discourses in circulation (including those produced
through academia) impact on conceptualisations of, and approaches to improve
Traveller Community health. The following chapter outlines the methodological
approach adopted by the study in order to contribute greater understanding in these
areas.
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CHAPTER 3 - Methodology: Generating another story
about Gypsy and Traveller health
3.1 Introduction
This chapter outlines the approach to researching the preferred identities of
practitioners and Traveller Community members taken in the study. It begins by
restating the overall aims guiding the research. The rationale for adopting the
methodological approach of narrative inquiry, in support of these aims, is then
provided, including a discussion of how I approach narrative in light of the study’s
poststructural theoretical orientation. Following this, the concrete approach to data
collection is outlined, encompassing methods for sampling and recruiting
participants, and for generating, analysing and presenting stories. Throughout this
presentation of methods, I endeavour to give a reflexive take on key challenges I
experienced in the field and how these were managed, specifically with respect to:
generating storied data; self-disclosure; and negotiating researcher boundaries. The
chapter finishes with a discussion of fundamental ethical issues arising through the
research, and how these were dealt with in practice.
3.2 Research aims

As identified in the literature review, the area of Traveller Community health is a
contested territory, characterised by competing, but often nonetheless essentialising
claims about how Gypsy and Travellers are with respect to their health. When
reflecting on existing work, I found it troubling that frequently repeated statements by
those in positions of relative power (and often ‘outsiders’ to those communities being
described) came to be regarded as unquestionable ‘facts’ about Gypsies’ and
Travellers’ relationship to health. I therefore sought out an approach which would lay
bare and open up to questioning the ‘stock stories’ (D’Arcy, 2016) told about
Traveller Community health, and their associated impacts. This includes a
consideration of researchers’ roles in (re)producing representations of Gypsies and
Travellers, something which is virtually absent in the health literature to date. While
consideration of identity was important, I also wished to avoid the tendency already
critiqued in the literature review, of viewing practitioner or Traveller Community
identities as stable and homogeneous, instead seeking an approach that
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acknowledges the conflicting and nuanced ways in which these groups position
themselves. Having earlier justified the adoption of a poststructuralist theoretical
perspective in pursuit of these aims, the chapter now provides a rationale for the
selection and variant of narrative inquiry adopted as the methodology for the
research.
3.3 Narrative inquiry

As the research intended to examine the impact of stories told about Traveller
Community health, narrative approaches had immediate appeal. This methodology
has been applied successfully to understand the construction of Gypsy identity
(more broadly), and the significance of storytelling practices in interactions about
accommodation between Gypsies and service providers (Buckler, 2007). It therefore
shows promise for the study of Gypsy and Traveller health identities, and the role of
stories in communication between Traveller Communities and health practitioners.
A diversity of approaches are contained under the term narrative inquiry (Riessman,
1993; Squire, Andrews and Tamboukou, 2008; Stanley and Temple, 2008). Squire
et al. (2008) distinguish between two major traditions underpinning narrative
research: 1) humanist approaches, and 2) culturally-oriented and linguistic
approaches informed by structuralism, poststructuralism and postmodernism.
Humanist approaches tend to employ individual biographical or life story methods,
assume unity and coherence in people’s stories and identities, and emphasise
individual agency in the ordering and telling of events to construct a meaningful
account of identity (Loots, Coppens and Sermijn, 2008; Squire, Andrews and
Tamboukou, 2008). By contrast, those in the latter tradition examine the broader
structures and workings of power that condition narratives, and instead treat stories
as a means through which people enact socially situated performances of numerous
and sometimes contradictory aspects of self and identity (Loots, Coppens and
Sermijn, 2008; Squire, Andrews and Tamboukou, 2008). In keeping with the
philosophical underpinnings of the research, and the aim to allow for the potentially
multiple identities of Traveller Community members and health practitioners,
poststructuralist informed narrative inquiry was adopted for the study, inspired by
exemplars in this tradition (Blumenreich 2004; Goodley & Roets 2008; Roets et al.
2008; Sermijn et al. 2008; Tamboukou 2008).
80
Discourse analysis was considered as an alternative methodological approach since
it shares a concern with the ways in which talk and language is shaped by, and
reproduces wider social norms (Riley and Hawe, 2005). However, discourse
analysis has been criticised for reducing people entirely to ‘positions in discourse’
(Hollway, 1994). A narrative approach was therefore favoured since it affords
greater agency and creativity to individuals (Riessman, 1993) to produce an
‘account of themselves’, albeit examining how they do so within discursive
constraints (Burck, 2005; Goodbody and Burns, 2011). In its attention to time and
context (Riley and Hawe, 2005), a narrative approach also assists in understanding
the complexity of people’s lives and social interactions (Kirkman, 2002), thereby
enabling the production of rich detail on the layered and shifting positions of Gypsies
and Travellers and health practitioners depending on the context. Having described
the overall orientation to narrative research adopted by the study, it is necessary to
state my position in relation to two connected debates in the field: the interest in big
versus small stories, and the extent to which narrative research is judged as raising
the profile of subjugated voices.
3.3.1 Big or small stories

In adopting a narrative approach, it is necessary to define what I take to be a story.
A distinction is often made in narrative research between ‘big’ and ‘small’ story
approaches (Squire, Andrews and Tamboukou, 2008; Sools, 2013). Big stories are
typically generated through research interviews where participants tell their stories,
often over several hours, with little interruption from the researcher (Squire, Andrews
and Tamboukou, 2008; Sools, 2013). Small stories, on the other hand tend to
describe naturally occurring talk, attending to the ‘micro-linguistic and social
structure’ of everyday interactions (Squire, Andrews and Tamboukou, 2008). This
distinction between small and big stories need not only refer to the type of data
generated however, but can also inform the analytical approach (Sools, 2013).
Thus, attention to big stories enables larger patterns and dominant themes to be
discerned (Pheonix, 2008; Sools, 2013). By contrast, small story approaches focus
attention on subtle storylines that do not necessarily fit ‘neat’ definitions of stories
(Pheonix, 2008) and the process of performing identity and agency rather than only
the content of narratives (Sools, 2013). With respect to health and illness research,
Sools (2013) suggests a number of avenues to which a small story approach can
contribute. For example, small stories can help to explore health (as opposed to
81
illness) since the taken for granted nature of health may mean that it is not
considered exemplary enough to feature in big stories (Sools, 2013). Furthermore,
small stories enable exploration of the entanglement of health with other life issues;
of incoherence, as well as coherence in the construction of health or illness
experiences; the on-going construction of health or illness throughout time, rather
than through retrospective reflection; and the negotiation of multiple and varying
moral positions regarding health which bring opportunities to transform dominant or
pervasive stories (Sools, 2013). The adoption of a small story approach was
therefore deemed most useful for this research due to its capacity to explore if and
how Gypsies, Travellers and practitioners draw upon multiple identity positions or
discourses available, as well as how these are negotiated in conversation with
myself during and outside of research interviews.
3.3.2 Raising subjugated voices

Though dilemmas of representation are a concern in all research, they are
particularly acute in research, such as that reported here, which aims to critique
representations of a group as ‘other’ without perpetuating their ‘otherness’ (Burck,
2005). Narrative research is often presented as having emancipatory potential
through its ability to raise the profile of subjugated voices (Riley and Hawe, 2005).
Indeed, the role of stories as a potential form of resistance to power has been noted
as a common interest which ties together the different branches of narrative
research (Squire, Andrews and Tamboukou, 2008). The operationalisation of this
aim differs per narrative tradition however. For instance, some approaches reject a
view of the researcher as able to look within narratives and reveal what is not clear
to participants themselves, instead adopting a minimal approach to analysis which
allows stories to speak for themselves and generates insights by simply placing
narratives alongside one other (Frank 2010). Such an approach attempts to prevent
the researcher from ‘finalising’ representations of participants through the research
process (Frank 2010). As Gypsies and Travellers have been subject to multiple
attempts to define how they are with respect to health by those outside of the
community and have had limited opportunities to shape their own image in this
regard, this minimalist approach to analysis was initially considered. However,
further reading revealed that raising the profile of marginalised voices was less
straightforward than it had first seemed. An approach of allowing participant voices
to ‘speak for themselves’ has been criticised for affording narratives a privileged
82
status and treating these as representing an individual’s ‘authentic’ experiences or
feelings (Atkinson 2009; Thomas 2010). This claim is argued to conceal the social
production of stories (Atkinson 2009) in terms of both the contextual influences on
the storytelling event (Blumenreich, 2004), and the researchers privileged position
and inevitable influence over how to condense and present people’s stories
(Osgood, 2010). This PhD research sought to understand the ways that Traveller
Communities and practitioners construct accounts of themselves and each other
when talking about Traveller Community health, and the potentially shifting and
contradictory identity positions available to these actors. A more analytic approach
was therefore felt appropriate, since this attends to the performative nature of stories
and narratives, told to achieve certain representations, given the social context
(Atkinson 2009; Riessman 1993; Stanley & Temple 2008). The research therefore
treated research interviews as a ‘political occasion’ (Riley and Hawe, 2005, p. 230),
within which participants located themselves among the varying possibilities
available to talk about Gypsy and Traveller health.
Researchers claiming to ‘give voice’ though narrative research have also been
criticised for expressing their own ‘personal ethics’, aligning themselves with the
experience of the ‘oppressed’ patient rather than that which is taken to be the
uniform, oppressive narrative of the professional (Atkinson 2009). Indeed, this
dilemma around personal ethics is one which dates back to Becker’s (1967)
question of whether sociologists should ‘take sides’ with the ‘underdog’. Yet, as the
work by Vanderbeck (2009) has shown, this is likely to be a simplification of the
much more ‘fluid’ circulation of power between practitioners and Traveller
Community members. I was also concerned that the strategy of letting stories speak
for themselves might have the opposite effect of that intended; to leave a reading of
Traveller Community members’ narratives so open may enable them to be used in
support of the aims of those in relative positions of power. I therefore felt that
precisely because of my personal ethics, it was important to offer my own reading of
narratives. This is accompanied however, by reflexive commentary (set out in the
introduction and throughout findings chapters) which gives insight into how my
interpretations were formed (Blumenreich, 2004) and the potential influence of my
experiences, motivations, and similarities or differences to research participants on
the data and findings generated. In keeping with the poststructuralist approach to
narrative, stories are seen as emerging in the context of localised acts of telling. It
83
follows that the stories generated are treated as a partial representation of health
practitioner, and Gypsy and Traveller identities (Lucius-Hoene and Deppermann,
2000). This in itself means that the research does not ‘finalise’ participants but
presents this thesis as one possible reading, open to dialogue, further interpretation
by audiences of the research (Riessman, 2008) or reuse, amendment or
embellishment (Frank 2010).
3.4 Methods
Poststructuralist informed narrative inquiry guided the operationalisation of all
phases of the research, which utilised qualitative interviews, supplemented by
informal participant observation. These methods were adopted with the aim of
creating opportunities for Traveller Community members and health practitioners to
tell stories about their experiences and, in doing so, give contextually situated
accounts of self and identity.
3.4.1 Sampling and recruitment
3.4.1.1 Site selection

As described above, the research started from a recognition of the ways that
Traveller Communities are defined as a homogeneous community in relation to
health, and a desire to open up this presentation to potential challenge. Since the
research also aimed to explore how Traveller Community and practitioner identities
may be entangled with other identity positions or wider societal discourses, a
decision was made to focus the research on one geographical location, with a single
‘community’ of Gypsies and Travellers. Although a maximum variation approach to
sampling (Baker & Edwards 2012; Patton 1990) from sites across the UK was
initially considered, such an approach was rejected since this would make it difficult
to determine the extent to which individuals within a community might move
between individual and shared/community stories. A focus on a tight-knit community
was therefore favoured as this attends to the potential for the same events or
contexts to be storied differently by individual Traveller Community members and
health practitioners. This is in keeping with the theoretical framework, which takes a
plurivocal approach that examines the multiple, interacting and competing
84
perspectives surrounding Traveller health and moments of connection or ruptures
throughout the community (Stehlik, 2004).
The research was carried out in an area of Northern England4. Selection of the
specific location for the research was driven by both theoretical and practical
concerns. Firstly, an area was required in which significant numbers of Gypsies and
Travellers reside. Secondly, it was important to select an area in which initiatives to
improve Gypsy and Traveller health were ongoing. This ensured that health
practitioners working with Traveller Communities could be recruited to the research,
and meant that Gypsy and Traveller stories about engagement as well as exclusion
from health services and initiatives could be accessed, thereby helping to achieve
rich data (Miles and Huberman, 1994). As Traveller Communities are minority
groups who may be mistrustful of research or wish not to disclose their identity due
to previous experiences of discrimination, recruitment has been noted as
challenging (Brown & Scullion 2009; Cemlyn & Briskman 2002). As such, this
research recruited Gypsies and Travellers through an organisation working with
Traveller Communities (Brown and Scullion, 2009; Davies, 2009). A third
consideration in the selection of a study locale was therefore the existence of such
an organisation, and their agreement to support the research. Recruiting Gypsies
and Travellers through this organisation also helped to ensure that the research was
conducted sensitively and in a culturally appropriate manner (Groger, Mayberry and
Straker, 1999; Brown and Scullion, 2009). Finally, practicality also informed this
choice in terms of the researchers’ ability to travel to undertake the research. Initial
contact with the Traveller organisation approached for support was made through a
known contact in another Traveller Community organisation.
3.4.1.2 Traveller Community sample

Similar considerations to those guiding the selection of a research site informed the
sampling of Traveller Community members for the research. Initially, the research
aimed to recruit from one ‘community’ (e.g. Romany Gypsies or Irish Travellers)
encompassed under the broad grouping of ‘Traveller Communities’. This aim was in
keeping with divisions drawn between diverse sub-groups (Powell, 2008) and in light
4
Given the relatively small and close-knit network of Traveller Communities, representative
organisations, and health practitioners who work with these groups in the UK, the precise location of
research has been anonymised to protect the confidentiality of participants.
85
of the separation of Irish Travellers and Romany Gypsy residents between two sites
in the study area. However, an open-minded approach to recruitment and the
conceptualisation of ‘community’ was maintained during the research and was led
by the self-definitions of Gypsies and Travellers themselves. In practice, recruiting
members from only one ethnic community was neither practical, nor necessary
conceptually. Participants identified as either Romany Gypsies or Irish Travellers,
and some communicated strong preferences about which label they were identified
by. However, activities at the organisation drew these distinct groups together, and
differences were not generally drawn between Romany Gypsy and Irish Traveller
experiences of health, by either community members themselves or those from the
representative organisation. I avoided recruiting those who were experiencing
unusually adverse events (e.g. Traveller Community members currently battling
against a high-profile eviction for example) which might lead to extreme accounts,
instead aiming to access accounts that were more ‘typical’ of everyday health
concerns and engagement with health services.
Traveller Community participants were initially identified through engagement in

activities at the supporting organisation, and with the assistance of staff. Snowball
sampling (Patton 1990) was then used to recruit Gypsy and Traveller participants to
the research. Snowball sampling is an approach which is beneficial when accessing
groups who are stigmatised or may be reluctant to take part in research (as has
been suggested for Traveller Communities), since introductions from those who are
trusted can encourage participation (Atkinson and Flint, 2001). Snowball sampling
also helped to avoid problems associated with recruitment through organisations
alone, including the exclusion of those who are not in contact with services and
selectivity in the identification of participants by gatekeeping organisations (Groger,
Mayberry and Straker, 1999; Brown and Scullion, 2009; Abrams, 2010). For the
purposes of this research, a snowball approach also enabled the boundaries of the
‘community’ to be drawn by participants themselves rather than pre-determined.
Snowball sampling “plays into social dynamics of accessibility in terms of power and
rights: who may find and possess what type of knowledge about whom?” (Noy,
2008). Thus, the process of snowball sampling itself contributed information about
who was deemed to have authority to speak about health that helped to
contextualise research findings. It is important to acknowledge that sampling was
subject to a degree of convenience however, in that it was dependent on
86
suggestions from workers at the organisation, in the early stages of the research
particularly, as well as introduction to those I happened to meet during participation
in organisational activities. Given the potential difficulties that have been noted
around the recruitment of Traveller Communities to research due to over-
consultation and potential mistrust, this was accepted as a limitation of the research.
Ten Traveller Community members were recruited to the research. Table 1 provides
an overview of the characteristics of Gypsy and Traveller participants.
Table 1: Sample of Traveller Community members involved in the study
Participant Ethnicity Accommodation type

Patricia Irish Traveller Local authority site
Lucy Gypsy Housing
Brigid Irish Traveller Local authority site
Bernadette Irish Traveller Local authority site
Catherine Irish Traveller Local authority site
Kelly Irish Traveller Local authority site
Sophia Gypsy Housing
Charlotte Gypsy Housing
Jane Irish Traveller Local authority site
Eleanor Irish Traveller Housing
While the research had intended to interview Gypsy and Traveller men and women,
it proved difficult to recruit men. This is reflective of trends in current health
literature, and likely results from the fact that health and community activities at the
organisation were almost exclusively aimed at women, creating fewer opportunities
to meet and discuss health with Traveller men. That I am a woman myself may also
have contributed, meaning that connections could more readily be formed with
Traveller women, and as, for some individuals, and in some settings, a female
researcher talking alone to a Traveller man may be viewed as inappropriate (Okely,
1983). While the absence of Traveller men in the sample might be treated as a
limitation in the research, this also brought benefits. Balancing breadth and depth in
small sample sizes, and the challenge of comparing diverse accounts were key
considerations in sampling decisions. Given the small-scale nature of the research,
it would not be possible to include sufficient numbers in each cell of a sampling grid
to illuminate how different characteristics (e.g. gender, age, ethnicity,
87
accommodation type, extent of engagement with health services) influence the
stories told. Nor was the research concerned with using maximum variation
sampling to identify experiences that were common to Traveller Communities as a
whole. This would also mark a move away from the spirit of the research, which
aims to avoid essential representations and explore how multiple and shifting
subject positions may co-exist in the account of any one individual. As such, a
homogeneous sample with respect to gender enabled attention to complex and
unique identity presentations even among a relatively homogeneous group
(Traveller Community women). Some variation was nevertheless evident in the
sample of Traveller Community participants with respect to ethnic sub-group,
accommodation type, engagement with volunteer work at the organisation, life
stage, experience of parenthood, and health status or experience of long-term
condition(s). The ways that these various positions interacted and were employed in
the accounts of Traveller Community women are discussed throughout the findings
chapters. Traveller Community members under the age of 18 were not included in
the study.
When recruiting Traveller Community members to the research, time was first spent
building trust with Gypsies and Travellers and those who work with Traveller
Communities by visiting the community organisation and participating in group
activities. Information about the research was provided gradually, before then
inviting participants to take part in interviews. Despite concerns around possible
difficulties in recruitment, most Gypsies and Travellers approached were willing to
take part in the research, likely as a result of approaching Traveller Community
members through an organisation and staff who were known and trusted. Indeed,
Traveller Community members were often very willing to discuss their health and
were remarkably open about their experiences.
3.4.1.3 Public health practitioner sample

Given that Traveller Communities are a minority group, there was a restricted
sample of practitioners working in a public health capacity with these groups in the
study area. Although some practitioners (e.g. Specialist Health Visitors) are
frequently described as working with Gypsy and Traveller Communities, there are
no nationalised roles with a specific remit to improve Gypsy and Traveller health. In
addition, service provision for Traveller Communities is often patchy, reliant on short
88
term funding and dependent on the actions of local champions (Aspinall, 2005).
These factors therefore meant it was not possible to say definitively which type of
health practitioners would be approached at the outset of the research. This was
further complicated by the fact that public health as a discipline has a broad focus
and involves a wide range of professionals. Public health has been described as
‘Everyone’s business’ (NHS Providers, 2017), with this echoed in initiatives such as
‘Making Every Contact Count’ (Public Health England, 2016), which encourage all
NHS staff to capitalise on routine interactions with the public to introduce
conversations and advice about health improvement. For the purpose of this study,
practitioners were defined as having a public health remit where they practiced in
any of the three domains of public health practice as defined by the UK Faculty of
Public Health (Griffiths, Jewell and Donnelly, 2005).
Given the locally specific nature of public health service provision for Traveller
Community members and the difficulty therefore in identifying potential participants
from outside of the field, members of the Traveller organisation supported in the
identification of health practitioners to be approached for their involvement in the
study. This was followed by a snowball approach to sampling to generate further
contacts. Table 2 details the characteristics of the eight health practitioners who
participated in the study. There was some variation in the practitioner sample
according to the sector in which they work (e.g. local authority, NHS or civil society),
their job role (e.g. as public health practitioners, public health specialists, midwives,
or community health workers) and whether they worked in strategic or more applied
positions. Although one of the eight practitioners involved in the research was a
man, given the very limited number of male health practitioners working with
Gypsies and Travellers in the area, this individual has been allocated a female
pseudonym to protect their anonymity.
Given the diversity in local provision for Traveller Community health, and the
diversity of practitioner roles working with these groups, it is unlikely that
practitioners will have a coherent identity. While there was previously a National
Association of Health Workers for Travellers that might have contributed to such a
sense of shared identity, this disbanded in 2007. However, practitioners’ common
position in working with or for Traveller Community members provided at least one
possible axis though which some sense of collective identity could be articulated.
89
Drawing the sample from one geographical area allowed access to similarities and
differences across practitioner accounts, and between the accounts of practitioners
and Traveller Communities in relation to the same events and circumstances.
Table 2: Sample of health practitioners involved in the study
Participant Employment sector
Hazel Local authority
Karen Local authority
Caroline Local authority
Becky Civil society organisation
Sandra Civil society organisation
Louise Local authority
Nicola NHS
Linda NHS
3.4.2 Generating stories

While in practice data generation is not separable from analysis, as the researcher
begins to form interpretations during engagement with people in the field (Riessman,
2008), these processes are discussed separately here for clarity.
3.4.2.1 Interviews
Data was generated through interviews with community members and health
practitioners. Interviews with practitioners took place either at the organisation
supporting the research, or at practitioners’ workplaces. Interviews with Traveller
Community members were held at the organisation supporting the research, or in
participants’ homes. All participants gave their permission for the audio-recording of
their interviews, which were then transcribed verbatim.
In keeping with a leaning towards ‘small’ stories, interviews did not ask people to
recount their life-stories, but adopted a more interactive style which allowed
90
participants to move in and out of storytelling mode alongside offering more general
observations, or to use stories to support or refute conversational claims (Bamberg
and Georgakopoulou, 2008). Participants were prompted in ways that encouraged
them to tell stories about times and sequencing of events in their lives. For example,
by asking participants to give examples of events, and to describe these in detail,
using phrases such as ‘can you tell me about a time when that happened?’, ‘or can
you tell me about a time that displays that at its most clearest’, as well as follow up
questions such as ‘what happened next/then’. Interview guides for Traveller
Community members and practitioners are provided in Appendices 1 and 2.
However, interviews were left sufficiently open to allow participants some control
over the direction of the discussion (Riessman, 2008). While Sermijn et al. (2008)
advocate a technique of asking people to decide for themselves where to begin
telling their story to avoid imposing identity positions onto participants, this was not
felt appropriate for the present research. As can be seen in the excerpt from the
start of an interview using this approach (Sermijn, Devlieger and Loots, 2008), such
a request can be uncomfortable for participants and may therefore discourage
participants from telling their stories. I did however try to avoid asking participants
directly about how their experiences of health were influenced by their ethnicity,
instead allowing people to draw on different identity positions as they saw fit. That
said, I did sometimes ask more directly about Gypsy or Traveller identity where I
was struggling to keep the conversation flowing.
When planning and conducting interviews, a great deal of consideration was given
to the forms of health talk that are available to people and how to get access to
everyday accounts of health (as opposed to only illness) through the research. The
majority of research on narratives of health and illness has focused on illness as
opposed to health (Lawton, 2003; Hughner and Kleine, 2004). This likely results
from the status of health as a taken for granted or unremarkable experience
(Scheper-Hughes and Lock, 1987) which is not, therefore, deemed story worthy.
That health is not something which is achieved, but a state that is constantly striven
towards and always open to challenge by the onset of illness further complicates
this issue. The combination of a small story approach, and asking people specifically
to describe times when they were healthy was successful in encouraging Traveller
Community members to talk about experiences of health as well as illness.
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I found that participants often did not switch very readily into storytelling mode
during interviews. This gave rise to a concern that despite my efforts to phrase
questions in a way that invited participants to tell stories about their experiences
(e.g. asking about concrete scenarios, and sequences of events), I was not
generating data that was compatible with a narrative approach. This was particularly
so for practitioners, and it seemed as if processes of professionalisation may
discourage professionals from telling about their work in more ‘everyday’ formats
such as stories. Cornwell’s (1984) distinction between people’s public and private
accounts of their lives is also relevant here. Cornwell (1984) found that when
interviewed for the first time, people often provided polite (public) responses, but
that over time, and as she developed a closer relationship with participants, she
increasingly accessed private accounts, which included more negative or
controversial details of their experiences. In addition, direct questions were more
likely to evoke public accounts, while invitations to tell stories resulted in a shift to
more natural forms of communication and reduced the power imbalance, resulting in
the provision of private accounts (Cornwell, 1984). Whether research can ever
access ‘private’ or authentic accounts is however debatable (Radley and Billig,
1996), given that accounts cannot be separated from the audience and social
context in which they are told. In the case of some health practitioners interviewed, I
sensed a greater reluctance to discuss times in their practice that were challenging
or some form of censorship over what was disclosed. This was less often the case
for Traveller Community members, who more often told stories about their health
and experiences of services, and who for the most part readily provided details
about positive and negative aspects of their health, their family circumstances, and
their experiences with health services.
In light of the ways that stories may evolve or change as relationships with
participants develop, I considered undertaking second interviews to explore how
stories and identity presentations may alter over time. However, after engagement in
the field it was decided that this was neither appropriate nor necessary. Given
concerns described above about over-consultation, I felt that it was important to
ensure the demands of taking part in the research were not too onerous for Traveller
Community members. Some Gypsies and Travellers themselves drew interviews to
an end or indicated that they had provided all the information they could on the
subject using statements such as ‘that’s all, I have nothing else to say now’. To ask
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these individuals to take part in further interviews was felt to be inappropriate. This
decision was also informed by the views of Traveller Community members at a
conference I attended, who suggested that they become tired of repeated requests
from researchers for information. In the case of practitioners, simply undertaking a
second interview was unlikely to be sufficient in developing the degree of trust
required to increase their ease in telling stories or discussing potentially challenging
or embarrassing experiences in their work, where they had not done so already.
However, participation in activities and meetings at the organisation supporting the
research enabled engagement with most Traveller Community and health
practitioner participants outside of interviews, thereby providing an alternative
means of accessing the ways that stories change across time and context.
3.4.2.2 Informal participant observation

Where participants gave permission, data generated through informal observation
and discussion during fieldwork visits, and participation in routine activities at the
Traveller organisation were utilised for the study and recorded in the form of detailed
field notes. This included participating in activities such as healthy cooking sessions,
gardening and a sewing group; accompanying Traveller Community members to
health events or meetings; and sitting in on meetings between health practitioners
and staff from the Traveller Community organisation. Pragmatically, this was
achieved through weekly visits to the supporting organisation during the fieldwork
phase of the study. Informal observation facilitated consideration of the extent to
which narratives are well rehearsed, and may change over time, or according to the
social context or audience, as well as similarities or differences between reported
and enacted practices. In addition, by spending time with community members, I
was able to observe if and how community members themselves drew on and used
narratives about their ethnicity when talking about their health. Observation records
(see Appendix 3) were also kept for each participant to record my reflections on the
ways that interpersonal interactions surrounding interviews, and similarities or
differences between myself and participants may have influenced the data
generated.
3.4.2.3 Self-disclosure and researcher boundaries

An important consideration throughout the research was the amount of information
that I should disclose to participants about myself and my own views. In some
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cases, this decision was straightforward. I declined to provide any information where
this would breach participant confidentiality, or alter existing views that people held
toward one another in the research field. However, when asked questions about
myself, providing that these didn’t require the disclosure of detailed personal
information, I answered them. For instance, Traveller Community members often
asked where I was from, or whether I had children, while practitioners often asked
about my study and my organisational affiliations. Disclosures of this kind may be
seen within some research traditions as biasing the data generated and indeed, I
was sometimes concerned that I was disclosing too much. However, as the
research was asking people to give very detailed and personal accounts of their own
lives and experiences, I felt that it was important to provide some information about
myself in order to counter the imbalance associated with the one-directional flow of
information in research interviews. I also hoped that this would help participants to
feel more comfortable in sharing their stories, particularly given that participants may
not necessarily have trusted me straightaway. This applies both to Traveller
Community members due to misrepresentation and discrimination, but also to
practitioners, for whom telling stories about their experiences to a stranger carries
some risk of judgement regarding their professional standing and conduct. Concerns
for both groups are amplified by the highly politicised area of the research, in which
people are (rightly) very sensitive about how Traveller Communities are talked
about, and what language is used when doing so. An openness to respond to
questions about myself also had benefits. For instance, reflecting on the questions I
was asked by participants helped me to contextualise findings from interviews.
Furthermore, it enabled points of connection and dissonance between myself and
participants to emerge, producing valuable insights into shared understandings and
practices with respect to health, and how identities were formed in the process of
interaction. It is also important to note that although I took care not to be too leading
within interviews, participants were very able to express disagreement with
suggestions that I offered when needed and demonstrated this on many occasions.
Rather than trying to control out my influence on the research, I have sought to
make this visible to the reader throughout my analysis and presentation of findings.
Similar consideration was required with respect to drawing boundaries around my

role and practices as a researcher. At the outset of the research, I discussed with
members of the supporting organisation how far, if at all, I should undertake
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advocacy work alongside the research. Given the pressures around time and
capacity faced by the organisation, it was important to try and ‘give back’ and
support their work where possible. However, we felt that involvement in formal
advocacy work was not appropriate since it would blur the boundaries of the
researcher role and as I do not have advocacy training. It was agreed that where
need arose, I was able to assist in small tasks such as reading letters for community
members or relaying issues back to the organisation where participants expressed a
wish for me to do so. Generally, there were few occasions where this was needed.
3.4.3 Analysis and presentation of stories
3.4.3.1 Transcribing interviews

Approaches to the transcription of interviews vary according to the aims of and
approach to narrative inquiry (Elliot 2005; Riessman 2008). Since this research
views stories as socially produced, I ensured that my own talk was included in
transcripts, in order to capture the ways that data is co-constructed throughout the
interview (Riessman, 2008; Sools, 2013). The issue of whether or not to ‘clean up’
participant transcripts or to retain details of accent, mispronunciations, or colloquial
terms is also often debated (Oliver, Serovich and Mason, 2005). Avoiding ‘cleaning
up’ the transcript might cause offence if participants were to later read
representations of their words (Oliver, Serovich and Mason, 2005). This also invites
readers to make assumptions about participants, for instance, by associating accent
or terminology with education or particular social classes (Oliver, Serovich and
Mason, 2005). Yet, to clean up the transcript represents an active imposition of the
researcher’s interpretation of participants’ intended phraseology. As the research
treats language as an important means through which identity is constructed, and
strives to avoid, as far as possible, the (re)presentation of participants, I resisted
cleaning up participant transcripts. I was however, sensitive to any aspects of
participants’ speech that were unique and may therefore lead them to be
identifiable, changing this where required.
3.4.3.2 Analysing narratives

There are no prescriptive guidelines for the analysis of narrative data (Riessman,
2008). As such, the analysis and presentation of narratives was informed by
exemplars of narrative research (Riessman, 1990; Blumenreich, 2004; Goodley and
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Roets, 2008; Roets, Reinaart and Van Hove, 2008; Sermijn, Devlieger and Loots,
2008; Tamboukou, 2008), and remained sensitive to the stories emerging though
the research. A dialogical/performative approach to data analysis was adopted, due
to its view of identity as ‘plurivocal’, and of stories as performed and produced within
particular contexts to achieve particular functions (Riessman, 2008). Following the
theoretical framework, the analysis process attended to the multiple and shifting
identity positions people draw on when producing a version of self, and the ways
people move within relations of power and resistance (Blumenreich 2004; Goodley
& Roets 2008; Roets et al. 2008; Sermijn et al. 2008; Tamboukou 2008). The
analysis incorporated attention to the presentation of identity through both the
content of participants’ accounts and how stories are told (Riessman, 2008). Insights
from Fraser (2004), Goodbody and Burns (2011), Richmond (2002), Pheonix (2008),
Riessman (2001) and Lucius-Hoene (2000), on the pragmatics of narrative analysis
were used to develop methods for operationalising the analysis process. The
analysis was broken into four phases which were followed in a flexible and iterative
manner:
Stage 1: analysed individual narratives for how the identities of each participant
were constructed within multiple nested contexts; from macro discursive conditions
through to more micro levels of interaction. Specifically, this stage examined the
construction of identity at three layers, also attending to the interaction between
them:
1) The discursive
Examined how dominant discourses create possibilities or limits for the identities
that can be expressed, and how actors draw upon these discourses when
accounting for themselves.
2) The positioning of characters in stories
Explored how participants position themselves in relation to others in the stories

told, and how this supports their identity claims.
3) The interpersonal
Analysed how the identity positions expressed by participants were accomplished

through interpersonal interaction with myself, the researcher.
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A set of analytical questions asked of the data for each domain is set out in
Appendix 4. Overall, the analytic framework provides insight into the “the stability,
generality and context dependency of an identity aspect in question” (Lucius-Hoene
and Deppermann, 2000). In addition to the above layers of analysis, this stage of
also noted the constructs of health that were used by each participant and which
underpinned the identities expressed.
Each narrative was uploaded into NVivo software management programme and
coded according to each level of analysis. For example, an overarching theme was
developed for the discursive level with sub themes for different discourses that are
present in participants’ accounts (e.g. The imperative of health, low life expectancy
of Travellers).
Stage 2: involved the production of a story map for each individual (Richmond,
2002) which presents a summary of how the different forms of positioning at each
above layer of analysis came together to constitute participant identities.
Stage 3: compared and contrasted narratives within Traveller Community and

practitioner participant groups. Narratives were compared not only for the content,
but for differences in style and tone (Fraser, 2004). The overall accounts of
practitioners and Traveller Community members were then compared to see how
the different accounts mapped onto each other, exploring areas of convergence and
divergence in the identity positions expressed by Traveller Community members
and health practitioners, and in the ways these different participant groups talk about
Gypsy and Traveller health.
Stage 4: entailed the organisation and presentation of an overall narrative about the
stories generated through the research.
The multi-layered form of analysis undertaken, combined with the desire to explore
similarities and differences both within and across practitioner and Traveller
Community accounts gave rise to considerable complexity and therefore challenge
in how to present findings. For each participant, there were a number of points of
interest in terms of how identity was constructed through: their interpersonal
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engagement; the positioning of actors in their stories; and the discourses they drew
upon. While there was much commonality across narratives in how individuals
sought to position themselves, there were unique aspects to the narratives in how
they did so. There was a need to balance attention to individual variation, while also
finding a way to group and discuss similar aspects of the data together in order to
present a meaningful account for the reader. This was accomplished by starting with
the discourses that were used in participant accounts, since by definition, these
were less likely to be unique to individuals. The implications of these discourses for
the identity positions that can be claimed, and how these inform the positional and
interpersonal aspects of participant narratives could then be mapped out. This
produced clusters of discourses, strategies for positioning characters in stories, and
aspects of interpersonal interaction which together surround key identity issues at
stake for practitioners and Traveller Community members. This process was
undertaken for both Traveller Community and practitioner groups, before looking
across these different clusters to identify the ways that these may, in turn, shape
interaction between these actors.
This approach to presenting stories throughout the thesis does ‘fracture’

participants’ narratives to a degree, something that narrative approaches ordinarily
try to avoid. However, this is in keeping with the poststructuralist approach adopted
in the research, which explores multiple and fragmented aspects of self and identity.
The decision to report in this way was also driven by a desire to be inclusive of all
participant stories. Due to the number of participants involved in the research, it was
not possible to present extended accounts of participant narratives, necessitating an
approach of looking across narratives to find common (and broad) narrative threads,
under which individual stories (including similarities and differences) could be
presented. That said, it is hoped that the use of cross-referencing and summary
retains a sense of the preferred but conflicted identities for each participant.
3.5 Ethical issues

Approval was sought for the study through the University of Edinburgh ethics review
process and from the NHS Hospital Trust from which some practitioners were
recruited. The British Sociological Association Statement of Ethical Practice (British
Sociological Association, 2017) also guided research conduct. While consideration
98
of ethics and issues of power are woven throughout the thesis, this section
addresses how fundamental principles of ethical practice were ensured.
Given the high levels of illiteracy among Gypsy and Traveller Communities, there
was a need to adapt the usual processes of seeking informed consent. Information
about the study was provided to participants in a written format (Appendices 5 and
6), as well as recorded onto CDs which were given to Gypsy and Traveller
participants to keep. However, in practice, the provision of CDs appeared to be of
limited use in ensuring informed consent, with no participants reporting having
listened to this. The provision of the CD did appear to have the alternative and
unanticipated effect of helping to build relationships with participants however, with
Gypsy and Traveller Community members often expressing appreciation that I had
made the information accessible in this way. Information about the study was
therefore provided to Gypsy and Traveller study participants verbally (alongside the
written information sheet), which proved to be a much more appropriate method of
ensuring informed consent. These reflections are consistent with research on the
effectiveness of methods to increase comprehension of study information among
research participants (Flory and Emanuel, 2004). Statements on the consent form
were read to participants where needed, and after this, participants were
comfortable and willing to sign written consent forms (Appendix 7), a copy of which
they were also given to keep. To ensure that participants had sufficient time to
consider whether they wanted to take part in the research, information about the
study was given to participants at least one week before they were interviewed.
Assurance was given that participants were able to opt out of the research at any
time (up until the date at which the findings would be published), without giving a
reason, and that if they chose to do so, this would not affect their rights in any way.
A process of continuous consent (Richards and Schwartz, 2002; British Sociological
Association, 2017) was also followed, particularly when seeking permission to
include information volunteered during informal interaction with participants outside
of interviews. Echoing Guillemin and Gillam’s (2004) distinction between procedural
ethics and ‘ethics in practice’, managing processes of consent in the field was often
more difficult than planned. For instance, participants and those supporting the
research could be quite forceful in suggesting to others that they should take part,
and it was sometimes necessary to respond to this by following up with suggested
participants and making it clear that they were not obliged to do so.
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Participants’ contributions have been anonymised by using pseudonyms, to ensure
that they cannot be identified. I opted not to ask participants to choose their own
pseudonyms, in case they selected names shared by others in the community who
hadn’t taken part, but who may then be mistaken for having done so. In order to
select names that were culturally appropriate, I generated pseudonyms for Gypsy
and Traveller participants from the family trees of Romany Gypsy and Irish Traveller
families which were available online. For health practitioners, I used an online
random name generator. The small research field, combined with a tendency to
provide extended excerpts of people’s speech in narrative research posed particular
challenges for maintaining participants’ confidentiality. This was dealt with by
changing or removing details of participant accounts that could lead them to be
identified. When participants suggested others who might take part in the research
that had already been interviewed, I avoided indicating that this was the case and
simply thanked them for their suggestion. Again, upholding confidentiality was more
challenging in practice than expected. For instance, I often found that those in the
research field didn’t afford the same importance to confidentiality that I did as a
researcher. People sometimes asked for information disclosed by others in
interviews that would breach their anonymity and it was necessary to state explicitly
that I could not provide this.
Careful attention was given to safeguarding the rights and wellbeing of participants
in the research process. Details of people’s stories were asked for tentatively (e.g.
‘do you mind saying a little bit more about that?’) in order that people did not
experience pressure to provide information they did not want to disclose.
Participants rarely became upset during the research, but where this was the case,
it was made clear to participants that they did not have to continue with the
interview. Where advocacy issues emerged during interviews, these were (with
participant’s permission) made known to advocacy workers at the supporting
organisation. Lone worker protocols of the supporting organisation were followed to
ensure the safety of the researcher in cases where research interviews were
conducted in participants’ homes.
Another key ethical consideration in the research, given the small population of
Gypsy and Traveller Communities was the potential for consultation fatigue. Gypsies
and Travellers are over-researched, yet have seen little by way of concrete
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improvements to their lives as a result (Brown and Scullion, 2009). I was therefore
careful to avoid raising expectations about what would result from the research
among both community members and the organisation supporting the research. Key
to managing this issue was ensuring that the support and involvement asked for
from the organisation and participants was not too burdensome (Brown and
Scullion, 2009). Members of the Traveller organisation supporting the research have
commented positively on my ability to work independently. Where possible, I also
tried to ‘give back’ to participants and the supporting organisation, including by
promoting events held or resources developed by organisation, sharing a report on
emerging findings, giving community members lifts to events during fieldwork,
making a phone call for a participant, and assisting one community member to get a
car insurance quote using a comparison site. I debated whether to return to
participants with transcripts from the interviews and invite them to make changes to
these. However, as practitioners were judged to be more likely and able to review
transcripts given practical considerations around illiteracy, I decided not to do so in
order to avoid reproducing any power inequality between practitioners and Traveller
Community members with respect to the ability to retract information.
3.6 Summary
This chapter has outlined the methodological and practical approach taken for the
study. The combination of a poststructuralist theoretical underpinning and narrative
methodology has been suggested to enable a dual focus on the constraints
discourses impose for Traveller Community and health practitioner subjectivities, as
well as the ways these groups use or work within these discourses to construct
preferred identities. This approach also encouraged consideration of the potentially
multiple identities of these actors. In doing so, the methodology adopted responds to
key gaps identified in the literature around: a) the role of identities other than
ethnicity in informing how Traveller Community members account for their health;
and b) how the identities and practices of health practitioners and Gypsies and
Travellers are informed by the forms of talk about Traveller Community health that
are available. The chapter has also rationalised the methods for generating and
analysing data which were adopted and reflected on key challenges experienced
with respect to conducting myself and ‘doing’ ethics in the field. Some of these
issues are common to all qualitative research, such as considerations around self-
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disclosure and researcher boundaries for instance. Others were more unique given
the research area. The politicised environment surrounding Traveller Community
research heightened challenges in relation to: gaining the trust of both sets of
participants; accessing practitioner accounts of unsuccessful as well as successful
practice; and managing existing relationships between actors in the small research
field. Likewise, the operationalisation of some key ethical principles demanded
greater attention, including the protection of anonymity within a small and well-
connected network, and ensuring informed consent in cases of illiteracy. The next
chapter begins the presentation of study findings with a consideration of the
definitions of health used by Traveller Community members and health practitioners.
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CHAPTER 4 - Reading from the same page? Traveller
Community, general population and practitioner
definitions of health
4.1 Introduction
This chapter explores the repertoires of health definitions used by Traveller
Community members and health practitioners involved in the study. A decision was
made to begin the findings chapters by discussing the ways participants represent
the concept of health, since ideas about the nature of health will have implications
for the identities and practices of Traveller Community members and health
practitioners. As such, the chapter provides a foundation for later chapters, which
examine the possibilities and limits in the identity positions available for these
actors. Definitions of health employed by Traveller Community members are first
presented and compared with those found in ‘lay’ sections of the population more
broadly, with this demonstrating qualitatively similar representations of health.
Definitions of health used by practitioners are then discussed. The chapter highlights
a large degree of convergence in constructions of health used by Traveller
Community members, members of the lay population more generally, and health
practitioners. All groups reference multiple and wide-ranging aspects of heath,
encompassing narrow health outcomes or behaviours through to broader concepts
of psychological and social wellbeing. A key difference is however identified
between Traveller Community and health practitioner framings of social wellbeing.
4.2 Traveller Community health constructions

As shown in the literature review, existing work on Gypsy and Traveller health has
tended to explore the health beliefs, attitudes and practices of Traveller
Communities as an isolated group. Work in this area has largely focused onx Gypsy
and Traveller beliefs about the causes of health and illness and, with some
exception (Hodgins and Fox, 2012), does not give in depth consideration of how
Traveller communities construct health. Given that constructions of health are a
product of our position in society, and shaped at the intersections of class, gender
and culture (Nettleton, 2013), it is reasonable to assume that Traveller Community
members may define health differently to other groups. However, as was also
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demonstrated in the literature review, the tendency for studies to focus in on the
specific perspectives of Traveller Communities has led to definitions and beliefs
about health being interpreted as unique to these groups, even where they have
been found among other sections of the population. To date, there has been limited
systematic comparison of the extent to which Gypsy and Traveller Community
members use similar or different constructions of health to those found in the wider
population. It is to this gap that the following discussion aims to contribute. In doing
so, I do not claim to offer a fixed interpretation of the meanings that Traveller
Community members ascribe to health and how these differ from those expressed
by other groups, but rather aim to give an indication of how far Gypsy and Traveller
definitions draw on broader cultural narratives about what counts as health.
4.2.1 Talking about ‘health’

Previous studies on lay accounts of health and illness have highlighted the difficulty
people have describing ‘health’ (Blaxter, 1990), suggesting that health wasn’t an
idea which people had given prior thought to defining or which people were well
rehearsed in discussing. Within this study, Traveller Community members did not
appear to have the same level of difficulty in articulating what health is, with most
offering some reflections in this regard. This is likely owing to the differences in the
framing of the questions within the current study, which asked people to think of
times in their life, when they were healthy/not healthy and to elaborate on why they
describe themselves in this way at those times, rather than asking for definitions of
health in abstract terms. This strategy enabled participants to elaborate on why they
considered themselves to be healthy in more concrete terms. It is also potentially a
reflection of change in context; it has been argued that health now occupies a much
greater place in public consciousness, meaning that people are likely to find it easier
to talk about this concept (Nettleton, 2013). That said, there were examples of
difficulty describing health, particularly among those with poor health or who were
less concerned with behaving healthily, as has been found before (Blaxter, 1990).
While participants were for the most part able to describe health, they often
appeared more comfortable discussing episodes of illness, serving as testament
that illness as opposed to health is a more remarkable event and more story worthy.
The unspoken nature of health was also reflected in the research process itself.
When asked to suggest others whom it would be useful to interview, participants
tended to recommend those who had experience of health issues and viewed those
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without health problems as having less to contribute. While it is possible therefore
that the research process has reinforced this approach of knowing health through
illness, this was countered by the involvement of Traveller Community members
without long-term conditions in the research.
4.2.2 Health definitions

The most striking finding with respect to health definitions employed by Gypsies and
Travellers was how closely these mirrored those found in research on lay definitions
of health among the general population (Blaxter, 1990; Hughner and Kleine, 2004).
Indeed, all definitions of health used by Traveller Community members related to
categories of health which have been documented previously, and the phrases used
by Traveller Community members interviewed were often remarkably similar to
those used by participants of other studies. Table 3 provides a detailed comparison
of Traveller Community health definitions and those found in the wider literature.
Categories of health definitions detailed in Table 3 are discussed in turn below, for
clarity. However, in actuality, Gypsy and Traveller Community members often
employed multiple definitions in their constructions of health.
As in previous studies of lay health beliefs among the general population (Blaxter,
1990; McKague and Verhoef, 2003; Hughner and Kleine, 2004), Traveller
Community participants often drew on narrow biomedical definitions of health as the
absence of illness. While existing research suggests that those experiencing long-
term conditions are less likely to define health as the absence of illness (Blaxter,
1990), this definition was used by Traveller Community members currently living
with and without chronic illnesses. Again, this is likely to be reflective of the
approach taken which enabled people to reflect on times when they felt healthy
(including historically).
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Table 3: A comparison of health definitions used by Traveller Community members and those found in the wider literature on lay health
beliefs
Definition of health Example statements from Traveller Community Example statements from the wider literature (Blaxter
participants 1990)
Health as the I never had any ailments I didn’t get colds or anything Health is when you don’t have a cold
absence of illness (Charlotte)
When you don’t hurt anywhere and you’re not aware of
I’ve not had like no problems health wise or anything so any part of your body
I think it’s alright (Lucy)
Because he’s never seen a doctor in 50 years
Never hardly went to the doctors (Patricia)
Was never in hospital for anything (Brigid)

Health as ability to I could go’n stand down at the bus stop and wait for a Health is being able to walk around better, and doing
undertake bus and go in town (Patricia) more work in the house when my knees let me
everyday activities
She was about eighty-five she could do as much as Being able to do what you want to when you want to
what a 18 year old could do (Lucy) health is freedom
Used to keep the house really well... see to the three

children (Charlotte)
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participants 1990)
Health as a reserve He was he’s a lucky man to be alive the way he lived He goes out on the drink but never gets a hangover or
his life (Eleanor) a headache
Old women at 50 you think 3 children there’s not an Both parents are still alive at 90 so he belongs to
ailment on them it’s just some people’s bodies is healthy stock
different (Brigid)
He has had an operation and got over it very well
That’s the finish, drained, exhausted, run down, or shut
down Done, broken down, finished, cracked up, washed out
Health as lifestyle I wouldn’t say I’m very healthy I smoke twenty fags a I call her healthy because she goes jogging and she
day (Kelly) doesn’t eat fried food. She walks a lot and doesn’t drink
alcohol
I’m quite healthy nowadays erm compared what I used
to be cause…I used to smoke… but in the way of She does all the right things. She eats plenty of fruit
eating I’m not a very healthy eater I do eat a lot of junk
food (Eleanor)
I think I’ve got quite a healthy lifestyle really erm I

always go for a walk every day when I go home (Lucy)
Health as fitness Before that I was really fit, really healthy (Charlotte) There’s a tone to my body, I feel fit
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participants 1990)
Your health and strength is everything (Catherine) I can do something strenuous and don’t feel that tired
after I’ve done it
My sisters 43 and she’s a bit fanatic one of them fit
fanatic people and she’s real thin (Brigid) My skin is good and my hair isn’t greasy and I can do all
the things I want without feeling tired
She’s overweight but that’s not because that she’s not
tried to be healthy and fit (Lucy)
Health as having I wake up in the morning feeling fresh I think oh I’ll get Full of get up and go
energy up I’ll do this I’ll do that (Lucy)
Bright in mind and body
You’re full of energy (Eleanor)
Feeling like conquering the world
I’m not as tired and I’ve the energy to do things (Brigid)
I feel like getting out of bed in the morning
You’re up you’re bouncing about (Bernadette)
When I’m healthy I feel like tackling the cooker and
I’ve got no energy in me body (Sophia) getting it clean
Health as mental I’ve got a bit of peace and contentment about that and I Relaxed
wellbeing feel more relaxed and at ease about things (Eleanor)
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participants 1990)
When I’m down I just being truthful I just don’t know Emotionally you are stable, energetic, happier, more
what to do with myself (Catherine) contented and things don’t bother you so
Frustrated, Fed up, Down, Miserable Happy to be alive
Glad to get up each day

Health as social Me children’s me life and I shout and I think what were Not short with people
relationships you I sometimes think what am I doing shouting at
children for no reason sometimes (Brigid) Enjoying the family, having more patience with them
It makes you feel down and miserable when you know She paints and she’s a member of the theatre club and
that he’s not well (Sophia) a lot of other groups
I was an outgoing person I wouldn’t stay in I’d be out I call her healthy because she’s always doing things for
Friday Saturday and Sunday (Jane) other people
I lost children I were down but now I’ve gained children

into the world and now I’m back up I feel better in
meself that’s the best thing about it as long as I’ve got
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participants 1990)
my family and my family and children I feel perfect my
health is perfect (Catherine)
Health despite I haven’t got a great big illness but I have like health I’m very healthy apart from this arthritis
disease/levels of iss- problems like chronic fatigue and anemia high
health and illness blood pressure sometimes but nothing really major so
I’m healthy usually (Brigid)
You have to pick yourself up its different when you’ve

got a cold or a flu or anything like that that’s completely
different but it’s when you get big problems big
problems that’s it (Catherine)
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Functional definitions of health, as the ability to undertake everyday activities
(Blaxter, 1990) were also common in Gypsy and Traveller accounts. While
particularly evident in the accounts of those who were living with chronic illness, a
definition of health as function came through in nearly all accounts. This definition of
health encompassed the ability to fulfil: social roles such as looking after children or
caring for family members; domestic responsibilities such as cooking or cleaning,
education and paid or voluntary work; and social or leisure activities such as going
out for dinner, going to car boot sales, taking the children on trips out, or attending
church. This resonates with Hughner and Kleine’s (2004) category of health as
‘freedom, the capacity to do’, which refers to the ability to undertake not only
essential tasks but having the control to live life as you choose.
A definition of health as a reserve is used to refer to the idea that differences in

individual constitutions influence people’s susceptibility to illness, sometimes despite
their risk behaviour (Blaxter, 1990). This was present in Traveller Community
narratives to a degree, and mirroring findings from the general population (Blaxter,
1990), was often used to describe the health status of others as opposed to oneself.
The notion that health is a resource which depletes gradually over time was also
evident in participants’ language, which was again analogous to that found in wider
studies (Table 3).
Unlike in previous research, which has shown that people tend to describe others
rather than oneself as healthy as a result of ‘virtuous behaviour’ (Blaxter, 1990),
some Traveller Community members did describe themselves as healthy due to
their lifestyles. Again, this might be accounted for by the study approach, with
interviews focusing mostly on how participants described themselves in relation to
their health, and which therefore provided less opportunities for community
members to describe the health of others they knew. As was found in research by
Blaxter (1990), the definition of one’s health according to lifestyle behaviour tended
to be introduced by those who gave priority to explanations of individual control over
health, those who were younger and/or those who did not have a long-term health
condition. This is not to say that lifestyle behaviour was absent in the accounts of
those with long-term conditions, but rather that, in these interviews, discussion of
lifestyle behaviour tended to be prompted by the researcher and to be linked to the
management of existing health conditions.
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Participants sometimes referred to health in terms of ‘fitness’ or ‘strength’ or used
these terms synonymously with health. Health as fitness was connected with a
definition of health as lifestyle, and with physical and sporting activity. This theme
was less apparent than others in participant accounts however, chiming with
findings in the wider literature that men were more likely than women to define
health in terms of physical fitness (Blaxter, 1990). Indeed, engagement in physical
activity or training was explicitly suggested by Eleanor to have a gendered
dimension when she describes men as more likely to do physical training. However,
Eleanor went on to explain how changes in Traveller Community lifestyles to
become more settled meant that children were more often in school, and women
therefore had more time to go to the gym.
Traveller Community members interviewed often defined health as having energy,

reflecting definitions of health as vitality in existing studies of lay health beliefs.
Definitions of health as energy were connected with ideas about the body, which
was described as both fuelled by, and as the container for this energy. Participants
not only referred to physical energy, but emotional energy. Eleanor described being
‘mentally drained’, when undergoing stresses and strains caused by difficulties in a
family relationship for example.
Mental health was discussed frequently by Gypsies and Travellers when defining
their health, perhaps unsurprisingly given that most participants reporting having
experienced mental health issues and/or having taken anti-depressants at some
point in their lives. Experiences of anxiety or depression were most commonly
reported. Some women specifically described experience of post-natal depression,
and one person described having difficulty socialising or leaving home. When
defining mental health, a separation is made between negative definitions focused
on the presence or absence of mental health conditions and more positive and
encompassing definitions (Royal Society for Public Health, no date; Keyes, 2006).
Positive definitions are in turn are divided between hedonic approaches focused on
short term emotional states of wellbeing or happiness (the pursuit of pleasure and
avoidance of pain), and eudemonic approaches which encompass the extent to
which people are satisfied with life, have a sense of purpose, scope for self-
actualisation, experience autonomy and have control over their lives and
environments (Lamers, 2012). Given the rates of mental health issues experienced,
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it is unsurprising that Gypsy and Traveller participants often used negative
definitions focused on the presence or absence mental health conditions. However,
as shown in Table 3, community members also drew on broader definitions of
mental health, albeit often to illustrate poor rather than good mental health.
Examples of achieving emotional wellbeing were reflected much less frequently in
participant’s comments and happiness was not a term used by any participants
when describing their states of health. As Table 3 demonstrates, Traveller
Community members did refer to emotional states when describing their health, and
some participants made reference to enjoyment or pleasure gained from a
Travelling lifestyle, or activities such as gardening for instance. Eudemonic
dimensions of wellbeing were also apparent, whereby responsibilities to children
and participation in employment were described as providing a sense of purpose,
and as preventing boredom and encouraging socialising which are important for
wellbeing. The importance of autonomy and independence was noted as important
for mental health in the context of living with long-term conditions, as was a control
over the environment in relation to the difficulties posed by living on the same plot as
a large extended family, and an ability to cope with domestic tasks in a trailer versus
a house.
As has been found for women among the wider population (Blaxter, 1990), many
participants defined times of health by reference to their social relationships, or
their ability to participate in social activities. Almost all participants described the
positive impact on mental health of being around friends and family and a sense of
belonging to a wider community. Traveller Community members presented their own
health and wellbeing as interconnected with that of family members. Catherine’s
comment in Table 3 presents fluctuation in mental health, ‘feeling down’ or ‘up’, as
corresponding straightforwardly with times of loss and the arrival of children
respectively. Indeed, the profound effect of the death of family members among
Traveller Communities is something that has been described in previous studies
(Van Cleemput et al., 2004). Like participants in Blaxter’s (1990) study, Gypsies and
Travellers described health in terms of their ability to cope with or relate to family
members, and their attitudes towards others. Furthermore, times of health were
connected with interest and ability to participate in social life. The lack of value
attached to a Traveller identity has clear potential to impact on the social wellbeing
of participants. Brigid described being made to feel low, ashamed, and humiliated by
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prejudice when accessing health services for instance. Catherine similarly alluded to
the impact on mental health of being forced to downplay identity, the difficulty finding
employment, and the requirement to declare one’s illiteracy when accessing
services.
Traveller Community women often introduced the idea of different levels of health
or illness in their accounts, distinguishing between minor health complaints such as
common colds, flu, or feeling generally down or tired, and more serious health
issues. This theme was also evident in participants’ comparisons of their own health
at different time points in their lives and of one’s own health with the health of
others. Participants sometimes described themselves as healthy despite living with
health complaints, resonating with previous categorisations of ‘health despite
disease’. Having described herself as experiencing a number of health conditions
including arthritis, high blood pressure, anaemia, and being on anti-depressants,
Sophia goes on to state that it is the health of her husband who is living with long-
term effects of a brain injury that is the ‘main concern’. These narratives have some
resonance with existing literature which describes stoicism and low expectations
with respect to health among Gypsies and Travellers (Van Cleemput et al., 2007).
Yet as demonstrated through comparison with wider literature, this potential to
describe oneself as healthy even when experiencing disease is not unique to
Traveller Communities (Cornwell, 1984; Blaxter, 1990). Furthermore, when reading
participant’s whole accounts, what might be classified as expressions of stoicism
often sat alongside accounts of great pain, suffering, struggle in carrying on with
everyday tasks. In addition, not all participants laid claim to health and many
explicitly described themselves as unhealthy due to illnesses experienced. Indeed,
the distinction drawn between minor and major health issues itself implies some
limits to attempts at the preservation of ‘health’ when experiencing disease. While
there were certainly many instances of Traveller Community members describing
keeping busy, refusing to ‘lay down and die’ and the need to fight or not give in to
illness, Catherine’s quote in the above table illustrates that boundaries were drawn
with respect to the health issues that can be endured. Some research has
questioned whether stoicism is necessarily negative, suggesting that it may actually
promote resilience in the face of illness (Moore et al., 2012). When there is not, in
the words of Sophia, a ‘miracle pill’ for a disease, treating stoicism as an
inappropriate response may be questionable. This leads on to a related point, which
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is that stoic positioning did not lead to a lack of uptake in health services. Rather,
Traveller Community members described seeking help for all manner of health
issues, from minor to major complaints.
4.2.3 The place of health

Some research examining lay perspectives has pointed to the huge potentiality that
health, as such a general and abstract category, seems to encapsulate; health is
defined as ‘everything’ (Davis et al., 1992) and with it everything is possible
(Herzlich and Pierret, 1987). This trend was also evident in the accounts of Traveller
Community members. This appeared to take two forms in the narratives. Health was
presented by one participant as all you need; paramount to, and rendering all other
needs superfluous:
Catherine: we don’t need cars we don’t need money we don’t need nothing
else people might might be on big fat gypsy wedding that ‘ah we’ve got
everything’ there’s good and bad in everyone let me tell ya but like what I say
as long as we’ve got our health and strength and we feel well in ourself to
look after our children then that’s it that’s all we need we don’t need nothing
else
A view of health as everything was also evident in Traveller Community members’

descriptions of what they could do when describing times of health. When looking
back and describing previous times in their lives when they were healthy,
participants sometimes appeared to overestimate their abilities. Charlotte suggested
for instance ‘I erm could do everything (laughs) and it’s not only that I could I did’.
Brigid similarly describes how ‘when I was 27 God forgive me I could...run anywhere
do anything lift anything’. Catherine described her health during a previous
pregnancy as ‘perfect’. Where times of health were defined by reference to lifestyle
we also see the employment of such extremes, as seen in the following statement
by Eleanor: ‘we had a good life we had a good healthy life together we always ate
healthy and done everything right’. Indeed, Sophia appeared to recognise and
correct this potential to exaggerate one’s abilities when reflecting on times of health:
Sophia: a few year ago I were alright its only come this last two to three year
that me health ‘s gone as its honest to god me health ‘s gone as it has gone
cause I could do any- you know what I mean I not to say I could jump off of a
cliff or something but I you could you know keep going motivate yourself
This suggests both the revered position of health, as well as a degree of

romanticisation of the concept of health among participants. Since these statements
were made in relation to previous health states, they may reflect this form of talk and
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embody a sense of nostalgia about previous health states. The distance acquired
when looking back fondly may encourage positive reflections on health. Such forms
of telling may create important implications for health identities however, potentially
helping to preserve views of health as difficult to attain.
4.3 Health practitioner definitions of health

Public health practitioners were asked in interviews to define health in the context of
their work with Traveller Communities. Reflections from the responses to this
question, along with other insights throughout interviews more generally about what
was felt to constitute health or a lack of health in Traveller Communities are
discussed here. These are grouped into three categories which could be discerned
from practitioner accounts: 1) life expectancy and the prevalence of health
conditions; 2) lifestyle behaviour; and 3) broader definitions of health. Thus, while
the first two consider narrow definitions of health focused on the presence of
disease and risk factors for disease, the third illustrates more holistic notions of
health articulated by practitioners. As there was less by way of surprising results in
the definitions offered by practitioners they are reported here more concisely than
definitions articulated by Traveller Community members.
4.3.1 Life expectancy and the prevalence of health conditions

When describing the health of Traveller Communities, practitioners sometimes drew
on narrow definitions of health centred on the presence or absence of disease, and
highlighted inequalities in health outcomes experienced by Gypsy and Traveller
Communities. Most practitioners described the lower life-expectancy, higher infant
mortality rates and greater instances of stillbirth among Traveller Communities.
Given how well reported these statistics are in the literature, it is unsurprising that
practitioners define Traveller Community health in this way. Practitioners also
commonly cited mental health issues and a higher prevalence of diseases such as
COPD, arthritis, dental problems and measles in these groups. One participant
described reports of epilepsy and eating disorders although these were presented
as not necessarily prevalent in the community as a whole. Higher incidence of
accidental injury in Gypsy and Traveller children was highlighted by one practitioner,
although others described lifestyle risk factors for childhood accidents.
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4.3.2 Lifestyle behaviour
Practitioners also defined the health of Traveller Communities in relation to lifestyle
behaviours. Smoking, use of alcohol or drugs, diet or exercise were those issues
discussed most often. Letting children play in unsafe environments was a further
behaviour identified, with this presented as contributing to rates of accidental injury
described above. Other issues were cited less frequently, including domestic
violence, the consumption of energy drinks or fizzy drinks, use of sunbeds,
immunisation, sexual health, dental care, and postnatal care. While all practitioners
defined the health of Traveller Communities in relation to lifestyle behaviour, there
was variation in the behaviours or combinations of behaviours that practitioners
discussed. In addition, there appeared to be competing claims around the extent to
which Traveller Community members were engaging in these behaviours, as with
smoking for example:
Karen: I don’t think many of them smoke I don’t I didn’t see any of the ladies
smoking or anything
Caroline: I mean there’s alcohol there’s smoking there’s drugs there’s a

whole range of things there’s poor diet
Similarly, a couple of practitioners presented certain health issues or lifestyle

behaviours as more of a problem than others, referring to these issues as ‘big
things’ or ‘biggies’. However, again, the issues which were weighted in this way
varied according to different practitioners:
Louise: I think the big things are mental health issues, domestic violence and
er alcohol so I think they’re the three biggies
Linda: immunisations that’s always a biggy
Linda: one of the big things certainly that [name] found and I found is the
amount of takeaways they have
Linda also presented some health behaviour issues deemed negative for health as
‘classic’ throughout the interview, referring specifically to the consumption of
takeaways, fizzy pop, and a reluctance to breastfeed:
Linda: they usually come out with a er a pat answer was ‘ah no we don’t do
that5 in our community’… breastfeeding’s a classic
5
‘That’ is used here generically by the practitioner to refer to any health issue which is considered to
be unusual among Traveller Community members
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Such presentations of these behaviours as classic, along with the suggestion that
Traveller Communities give an ‘off pat’ answer reinforce ideas that negative health
behaviours are typical of, and long engrained in Traveller Communities. Nicola’s use
of ‘they’d all be sort of talking to me about how many cans of red bull they drank a
day’ has a similar effect, generalising this behaviour and reinforcing this as the norm
within Traveller Communities. Such presentations may perpetuate commonly held
representations about the behaviours that are found in Traveller Communities and in
turn create a narrative that is itself quite difficult to challenge. While there are some
examples of shared narratives around behavioural health issues in Traveller
Communities, they mostly appear to vary across individual practitioners. This
suggests that discourses on the prevalence of lifestyle behaviours in Traveller
communities may be less well established, leaving more room for interpretation
based on personal experience and observation. However, consensus was apparent
that health related lifestyle issues were a problem within Traveller Communities,
even where there was disagreement around which issues these were.
Although behaviours were often associated with Traveller Communities as a whole,

practitioners did occasionally report these to be less static, or as varying according
to individuals. One practitioner described how some younger Traveller Community
women chose to breastfeed their babies for example and described changes in
community attitudes towards contraception over time:
Linda: using contraception more. Once upon a time they’d kind of leave it to
God as they would say
Some practitioners seemed reluctant to present Travellers as engaging in negative

behaviours, as seen below in Becky’s quote:
Becky: and also because of heavy smoking possibly heavy drinking erm by
their own admission and erm they might eat then order a takeaway very late
at night and this would happen on quite a few nights
The use of tentative language such as ‘possibly’ and ‘might’ initially suggests some
hesitance in presenting Traveller Communities as exhibiting these behaviours.
However, the shift to use less cautious language toward the end of the quote; ‘this
would happen on quite a few nights’ nevertheless provides a more concrete claim
about Traveller Community behaviour.
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4.3.3 Broader definitions of health
Practitioners did not draw solely on narrow definitions related to disease prevalence
and behavioural risk factors but incorporated attention to mental, social and
economic wellbeing. Practitioners described the high levels of stress experienced by
Traveller Community members due to being moved on or difficulties finding
accommodation, with this sometimes connected with risky health behaviours. Karen
suggested for example:
Karen: a lot of them [Gypsies and Travellers] are quite agitated…they’ve got
a lot on their minds I think that’s what I think came across to me, kept nipping
out for joints
Practitioners recognised a strong sense of social support within Traveller
Communities as beneficial to health. However, one practitioner raised concerns
around social isolation and loneliness among Traveller Community women living on
the site. Some practitioners presented bringing people together and providing
opportunities for social connection as a health improvement outcome in itself. One
practitioner described how health education sessions provided a form of escapism
from difficult daily realities such as potential eviction and daily responsibilities such
as childrearing, cleaning and the ‘traditional roles of Traveller women’.
Some practitioners discussed a desire to develop the skills and capacity of Traveller
Communities in order that they can, as Karen remarked, ‘help themselves’, whether
that be through increasing health literacy or community development approaches.
Practitioners made reference to ‘people reaching their potential’, or empowering
Traveller Communities to ‘have better lives’ within their definitions of health and
cited the need to address inequalities in life chances with respect to educational
outcomes, employment opportunities and housing which in turn impact on health
and life expectancy. Low levels of school attendance by Gypsy and Traveller
children was discussed by many practitioners. Practitioners recognised the potential
for different employment preferences among Traveller Communities, as well as the
desire to protect against cultural erosion which may give rise to different schooling
choices. However, participants also lamented what they saw as a lack of ‘aspiration’,
particularly among Traveller Community women, and low levels of engagement in
education, which was presented as providing opportunities and tools to move
forward in life generally, as well as improving health literacy. Practitioner views were
split however regarding whether general literacy training should be provided. While
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some practitioners presented this as essential to making population-wide health
messages more accessible to Traveller Communities, others saw this as forcing
unwanted agendas onto these groups.
Connected with these concerns, employment opportunities and the financial

wellbeing of Travellers also featured in practitioners’ representations of Traveller
Community health. Caroline expressed a concern that the conditions of life and lack
of employment opportunities may lead to a turn to criminality, although following this
with a comment suggesting this to be true also of other sections of the population,
such as those on benefits:
Caroline: I do worry about the conditions of life and you know the limited
opportunities and options that do mean eventually you lead to criminality or
other things because there’s so few ways of making a living
Karen too raised concerns about criminality, claiming some men within the local
Traveller Community to be illegal money lenders. Karen placed a particular
emphasis on the economic position of Traveller Communities in her narrative,
reflecting what she described as an interest in financial inclusion:
Karen: in their [Traveller Community members’] own minds they can’t do

anything they they they’re not job ready they can’t you know can’t read or
write so how are you gonna do that
Karen therefore described a need to empower Traveller Community members in

order to avoid fostering dependency on benefits. Indeed, literacy training was
mentioned specifically in relation to this issue, yet a contradiction was evident in
Karen’s suggestion that literacy training could focus on filling out benefit forms; an
approach which would also lead to dependency.
4.4 Summary
This chapter has discussed the ways that Traveller Community members, and
health practitioners define the idea of health as a general concept. It has
demonstrated huge convergence in the narrative resources used to define health
among Traveller Community members and wider sections of the ‘lay’ public. The
extensiveness of this similarity has not, to my knowledge, been previously reported
in the literature. This calls into question narratives of Traveller Communities as
working toward different goals or standards of health, which, given the value
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attached to health in society, may themselves have the propensity to stigmatise.
Narratives that Traveller Communities are stoic and describe themselves as healthy
despite disease often underpin claims that Traveller Communities are less likely
than others to engage with health services. This may reinforce a disinclination to try
and engage with these groups. Highlighting the commonality in definitions of health
used by Traveller Communities therefore calls into question those narratives that
position conceptualisations of health as the reason for problems in accessing health
services and point to greater potential for dialogue with respect to health than
previously assumed.
The chapter has also enabled some comparison of health definitions used by
Traveller Communities and health practitioners (in the context of their work with
these groups). It must be acknowledged however, that Traveller Community
members and practitioners are here defining health from different standpoints: the
former providing a first-hand account of experiences, and the latter defining the
health of a group with whom they work. Overall, there was a high degree of
symmetry in the definitions of health used by Traveller Community members and
health practitioners. Both drew on a multifaceted understanding of health, spanning
narrow biomedical definitions of health as the absence of illness, lifestyle behaviour,
and a recognition of the broader psychological and social dimensions of health.
Again, this alignment shows some promise for communication, suggesting that
Traveller Community members and practitioners construct the goal of health
similarly. However, some key differences were also apparent regarding
representations of social support available in the community and attitudes toward
education and employment. Both Traveller Community women and health
practitioners shared views generally about the benefits for health of economic and
educational engagement. While some community members raised concerns about
challenges in securing employment, there was little to suggest that Traveller
Community women have a lack of ‘aspiration’ to engage in education or
employment.
Having introduced the concepts of health employed by Traveller Community

members and practitioners, the remaining findings chapters explore the preferred
identities expressed by participants, and the ways these identities were
accomplished through: the discourses participants drew upon; the forms of self-
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other positioning employed; and interpersonal interaction with the researcher. The
first of these chapters now follows, exploring how discourses on the nature of
evidence worked to reinforce the specialist identities of practitioners as able to work
with Traveller Communities.
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CHAPTER 5 - ‘Where the real work goes on’ and
‘splendid white middle-class isolation’: practitioner
identities as in touch with ‘vulnerability’
5.1 Introduction
This chapter examines the nature of evidence used by practitioners when describing
the health status of Traveller Community members, and its significance in drawing
boundaries around who has, and who lacks authority to speak and practice in
relation to Traveller Community health. The chapter will show how health
practitioners construct preferred identities as particularly in tune with the needs and
experiences of Traveller Communities and other ‘vulnerable’ or ‘disadvantaged’
groups. An identity as expert in working with Traveller Communities is argued to be
generated and sustained through a confluence of: a) discourses on the relative
value of different forms of knowledge; b) the positioning of self as close to
communities and distant from ‘other’ professionals; and c) dissociation of self from
the researcher in regard to education. The role of these respective elements in
constructing the identities of practitioners will now be examined in more detail.
5.2 Discourses drawn upon and used
5.2.1 Public health discourses on Traveller Community health

As shown in the following quotes, practitioners often drew on ‘scientific’ public health
discourses on Traveller Community health, incorporating references to research,
evidence and statistics when describing the health needs of these groups:
Nicola: I had no experiential expectations so I suppose I went in having read

the limited literature erm that access to care was gonna be an issue for them
and that health outcomes are poor and that some of the negative health
behaviours as I perceive as negative like smoking and alcohol domestic
abuse abuse and things like that were issues that were going to be needed
to be tackled
Sandra: we knew that there was erm a is it high mor- high mortality
rates or
Researcher: yeah yeah
S: yeah high is it high or low I don’t know how to pru- put it [when
babies are dying
R: yeah I think it’s high]
S: [is it a high mortality rate
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R: yeah high infant mortality]
S: they have high infant mortality rates in under 5s
Louise: actually by living together they do I think from the research I might be
wrong but I think they do a lot better if they’re together don’t they than if
they’re settled and their outcomes are a lot better
Louise also described ‘reading up’ more generally about Gypsy history prior to
working with these communities, to better understand ‘where they’re coming from’.
Only two practitioners referenced the seminal Sheffield study on Gypsy and
Traveller health, both of whom were working in a more strategic capacity in public
health. Indeed, these same two practitioners were the only ones to mention the
Gypsy and Traveller Health Needs Assessment undertaken in the area, although it
is important to state that practitioners weren’t asked about these pieces of work
specifically. Thus, practitioners tended to reference evidence on the health of
Traveller Communities in a general way as opposed to citing specific sources.
Indeed, evidence on the poorer health of Traveller Communities appeared to have
achieved a taken for granted and well-rehearsed status among practitioners working
in the area. Practitioners sometimes described such knowledge as being passed on
explicitly, either by other practitioners or Traveller Community members themselves:
Becky: we knew because we’d been told that erm the inoculation levels were
very very low and that there had been measles epidemics in the Travelling
Community
Linda: this woman told me this Traveller said its quite common now for a lot
of women lot of women to smoke a bit more dope to smoke less cigarettes,
interesting
However, at other times, received wisdom about the health issues or behaviours of
Traveller Communities is not attributed to a particular source:
Caroline: I mean we know there are issues around alcohol

Linda: everyone knew that a lot of the R- erm just from being around in
[place name] and working as a midwife a lot of people knew that Travellers
didn’t want to get the MMR er because of all the controversy
Louise: I’ve never directly worked with Gypsies and Travellers but I’ve kind of
been working or I’ve worked in public health for twenty years so I kind of was
aware of the issues if you like
The phrases ‘we know’, ‘everyone knew’, as well as the suggestion by Louise that
she was aware of Traveller Community health issues tangentially by definition of
working in public health, illustrates how these narratives have become well-
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rehearsed truths about community members. Sandra’s use of the term ‘obviously’
when referring to the use of sunbeds among young Traveller women, and Karen’s
use of ‘ain’t there?’ after a statement about high levels of domestic violence in the
community also signal an expectation that I the researcher will have a shared
understanding of these issues.
The nature of ‘evidence’ was also discussed in relation to more strategic work to
improve Traveller Community health by those working in this capacity. For example,
Hazel described how the recent health needs assessment in the area had been
directed by community members and the Traveller organisation to highlight a gap
that they knew to exist around palliative care, due to recent community experiences:
Hazel: it wasn’t in terms of classic research the most robust but the the
questionnaires that we got the data from is pretty solid erm and I think it what
it did was it it basically reinforced very clearly the findings from the Sheffield
research erm echoed it almost almost completely erm we didn’t put in any
questions about immunisation which was a big erm gap on our part but it
was I think partly because there was so much focus on erm dying and death
and you know counselling and all sorts of other things and I think it it now I
can sort of think that was partly steered by the organisation because they
had seen gaps and they wanted to draw attention to those gaps but erm but
as I say we it w- there were some interesting findings
While Hazel explicitly articulated respect for ‘community’ or ‘cultural expertise’, a

lack of input early on from public health practitioners is presented as influencing the
degree of scientific rigour with which the questionnaire was conducted. The
prioritisation of end of life care is suggested to have resulted in other issues such as
immunisation being missed. This use of the needs assessment to confirm existing
knowledge highlights the politics surrounding the generation of ‘evidence’ on
Traveller health needs, and the contingency of this evidence on recent histories and
experiences of Traveller Communities.
5.2.2 ‘Folk’ tales on Traveller Community health

While ‘scientific’ evidence therefore occupied an important place in practitioner
accounts, alternative discourses were also apparent which formed some challenge
to the role of this evidence. The clearest illustration of adherence to counter-
discourses was where practitioners expressed explicit doubts about, or directly
questioned scientific evidence on health. This challenge of public health evidence
was most evident in Linda’s account. Although it is now widely accepted that the link
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between autism and the MMR has been disproven, Linda highlighted a potential for
this evidence to change and confirm this link in the future:
Linda: you know they heard as we all did back in the day that urm you could
get autism from the MMR well maybe you can maybe you can’t as far as I
know that the link isn’t there particularly at the moment but things change
Both here and in her suggestion elsewhere in the interview that, with respect to
beliefs about the risks of MMR immunisation, ‘they [Gypsies and Travellers] might
be right', Linda directly questions public health evidence on the benefits of
immunisation. While Linda resists presenting Gypsies and Travellers’ as incorrect in
their beliefs about vaccination, she does also state that she must be guided by the
evidence which is currently available. This tendency was also evident in the
reluctance of some practitioners to explicitly label health behaviours as negative,
even where these are well established as such in research. Nicola for instance,
corrects her description of smoking and domestic violence as ‘negative’ to instead
state those ‘I perceive as negative’. There is also some ambivalence in Becky’s
suggestion, when discussing the need for informed choice surrounding the use of
alcohol and consumption of saturated fat, that ‘you’ve gotta know what’s going to
happen to you possibly’. The use of ‘possibly’ here highlights the tension that can
arise for practitioners delivering health promotion advice since ‘risky’ behaviour
doesn’t always impact on people’s life expectancy. Similar trends are again
apparent in Linda’s discussion of early inducement in pregnancy for Traveller
Communities. Drawing on her experience, Linda hypothesised that Traveller
Community women have pregnancies that are slightly shorter than 40 weeks.
Linda’s explanation for this difference is somewhat unclear, in that she starts to
present this as the result of genetic differences before correcting herself to suggest
that ‘we’ve all got the same genetic background fundamentally’. She suggests that
Traveller women ‘have this kind of thing that they really do not like being overdue
their [due] dates’ and attributes this to the innate knowledge passed-down through
Traveller Community women regarding what’s best for them during their pregnancy:
Linda: although they the- don’t necessarily have the scientific knowledge
maybe some of their presumptions are correct erm passed down from family
to family
As such, Linda does not position current ‘scientific knowledge’ as the most important
source of evidence, but places this on an equal footing with community held
knowledge. Although she suggests that she can’t yet ‘prove’ this difference, Linda
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indicates an expectation that this will be proven in the future, suggesting the
convergence of these different forms of knowledge. She goes on to discuss how she
will therefore push for Traveller Communities to be induced early, where they
indicate this as their preference, and avoids being governed solely by the formal
evidence that is available:
Linda: there is a disproportionate amount of still births for all sorts of reasons
but one of them is placental insufficiency post term so you get a few things
like that and it filters down but it’s probably actually scientifically correct as
well but their innateness of knowing that I thinks important to listen to not not
dismiss and not say I know best cause I’m the midwife but go with some of
that stuff
Another example of practitioners accepting explanations which stand in contrast to

‘scientific’ understandings was evident in Hazel’s account:
Hazel: I heard the most extraordinary story from er and she was a quite a
senior health visitor she was about to retire...she told me that erm a lot of
she was very pro Gypsy a lot of Gypsies shouted particularly men because
they were deaf and you know that they went quite deaf quite early and I said
oh so there’s sort of possibly something genetic and she said no no no n- no
she said no they told me erm it it well its genetic now it was from sitting on
the wagons and the wagon wheels were metal so as they went along the
road with the clip clop of the horses and the metal wagon wheels it was so
loud that they eventually went deaf and I said well that couldn’t be inherited
and she said no no it no it i- no it is it and I was like (laughing) sorry if that’s
like saying if you if you dock a dog’s tail its puppy i- puppies ‘ll have short
tails it’s like no they don’t they still always have long tails you know it’s kind
of (laughs) you’re a bloody senior health professional talking this complete
but a Gypsy had told her that
The practitioner sets the context of the story by stating that the practitioner in
question is a ‘senior health visitor’ and ‘pro-Gypsy’; details that help to explain her
surprise that this individual would ascribe to the provided explanation for Traveller
Community hearing problems. They also help convey the pervasiveness of
misgivings about the community by illustrating that even those with significant
expertise and who are well intentioned make essentialist and questionable claims
about these groups. This excerpt also illustrates the kinds of stories and evidence
that have currency, and the explanations for health that are taken to be legitimate. In
this case, surprise that these views are expressed by a ‘senior health professional’
rest on understandings of what is known to be possible scientifically. That the
explanation had been provided by a Gypsy provides further contextual detail. It is
possible that as the practitioner is ‘pro-Gypsy’ they might buy into the stories that
Traveller Communities tell about themselves, even where these do not correlate
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with scientific explanations.
A further counter discourse to that of scientific evidence was evident in the priority
given to subjective evidence on the health of Traveller Communities. This was
sometimes reflected in the language used by practitioners, as in Hazel’s use of the
phrase ‘it feels like’ when describing the higher prevalence of accidental death in
Traveller Communities, and where she suggests that high consumption of alcohol by
men ‘just seems to be accepted’ within Traveller Communities. Some practitioners
described how you could know the ‘facts’ about the poor health of Travellers on the
one hand, but come to understand this differently on witnessing this first hand:
Becky: you can see that never mind reading the statistics of of a Gypsy
Traveller man living to 56 you you you’ve its written on their faces by the
lines on their faces really they seem to age very quickly in health terms
compared to the general population...you can see by what they say and
physically sometimes how they carry themselves that their health is not on
par with what you’d call the general population
The statement ‘never mind reading the statistics’ positions this more formal
evidence as less significant than observational evidence. Direct observation of
Gypsy and Traveller health status is presented as confirming or supporting statistics,
but also as bringing this home or helping this information sink in for the practitioner.
Becky’s suggestion that Traveller Community members wear their lower life
expectancy on their faces perhaps connects with stereotypical ideas of Gypsies and
Travellers as spending extended time outside and as having ‘swarthy’ or weather
beaten skin (Holloway, 2005). In contrast to representations of the health of groups
found in clinical evidence, the language used by this practitioner to describe the
observed health status of Traveller Communities is poetic and emotive, as seen in
the suggestion that the stress and poor health of Travellers is ‘written on their faces
by the lines on their faces’. This fits with an overall tendency throughout Becky’s
account to talk in an impassioned way. The notion that the faster ageing of Traveller
Community members was visible in their appearance was also hinted at in the
account of another practitioner however:
Louise: this woman she must have been oh early 20s she looked a lot older
than that but she must have been about early 20s
Louise went on to reference the healthy appearance of this women’s baby as a ‘big
fat lovely healthy-looking baby’, before correcting her use of ‘fat’ to ‘chubby’. This
suggests that practitioners may be supplementing public health discourse on what
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makes people healthy, with additional observational markers in judging the health of
the people they meet.
The difference between ‘dry’ statistics and hearing the stories of Traveller
Community members also operated at a more strategic level, where some
practitioners discussed the forms of evidence that were most likely to catch people’s
attention and prompt action to address Traveller Community health:
Hazel: if people are dutifully following process then when a community needs
assessment comes onto their desk that says these things should happen
they should be thinking OK how do I get these things into the strategic
planning of these organisations and there would be evidence that they’d
taken steps to do that and I actually don’t think mostly it happens like that I
think mostly it’s a kind of that’s really interesting but I’ve already got a
massive workload but if somebody walked through the door and talked to
them passionately about it and said can I come back to you in six weeks’
time and just see how it’s gone something probably would happen
Within the above extract, someone speaking personally and passionately to, and
developing a relationship with those in public health is presented as more effective
than simply providing a paper copy of evidence. This was particularly so given the
numerous needs identified within a given area, and public health practitioners’ heavy
workload. This mirrors the presentations of practitioners working more directly with
community members above in that hearing or seeing the situation first-hand is
presented as bringing the cold facts or evidence to life and as therefore more
powerful than written evidence. Sandra similarly emphasised the importance of
hearing about Gypsies and Travellers’ experiences from community members
themselves:
Sandra: we heard quite a lot rough stories really about the way they’d been
treated and I think when you hear it from the horse’s mouth so to speak it
makes you think twice
Likewise, Caroline reflected that it had been useful for Clinical Commissioning
Group members to see the community for themselves and the ‘human side of things’
to counteract potential stereotypes. Louise described how community members
gave a ‘powerful’ presentation to council workers, thereby also positioning stories
and personal engagement with community members as a form of evidence which
holds more sway. She discussed a visit to the site that had been arranged for health
practitioners with the aim of increasing understanding of health needs and described
how this had enabled her to gain a greater appreciation of how and why Traveller
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Community members lived their life as they did. Louise suggested that
conversations and observations during her visit to the Traveller Community site had
changed her perception of what the health issues were for Traveller Communities.
However, she described the importance of the community needs assessment in
generating robust evidence to inform the prioritisation of Gypsy and Traveller health
needs, suggesting that a balance is needed between different forms of evidence, or
perhaps that different forms of evidence have different functions. In addition, the
suggestion that experiential evidence could be more impactful than distanced or
formalised evidence was not noted by all practitioners. This distinction was less
evident in Nicola’s account for instance, in keeping with her tendency to talk in a
very objective way throughout her interview.
5.3 The positioning of self in relation to others
5.3.1 The emotional labour of health work

Connected with practitioners’ emphasis on Traveller Community health status as
having to be seen to being believed, practitioners highlighted the emotional impact
of witnessing the health of Traveller Communities first hand. Both Becky and Sandra
described the personal impact of hearing of stories from several Traveller
Community women who have experienced infant mortality for instance:
Becky: the infant mortality ’s very high within the community which is
shocking shocking to the young shocking to anybody but particularly
shocking to the young mums...because you could have a group and
everybody I mean everybody could have lost a child
Sandra: I was like you’re not just telling me one person this is woman after
woman after woman telling me these really shocking stories about you know
me sister lost a baby the mother themselves their daughter so it was
obviously you know a subject a sensitive subject but one that was very
honestly happening and they were being very honest about it to me so yeah
erm you can relate as a mother
Hearing these stories first hand is presented as shocking, and particularly so for
those who themselves identify with the experience of motherhood. Both Becky and
Sandra drew attention to the difference in heath or life-chances or that they could
expect for themselves, and those experienced by Traveller Community members.
Becky’s statement ‘you can’t make up those kind of stats’ draws on the common
trope of ‘you couldn’t make it up’ often used in storytelling to present something as
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so unusual or unlikely that it is beyond imagination. Her comment elsewhere in the
interview that the life expectancy of a Traveller man is the same as when her dad
was alive introduces comparison between her own sphere of reference and
expectations for health. Sandra draws a similar comparison between Traveller
Community expectations for health and those for herself and her ‘community’.
Sandra: I was quite shocked because I I personally in my circle of people I

know have never come across anyone who’s lost a baby to me that’s
unheard of in my community erm I’ve never known anyone have a stillborn
baby and I’ve never known anyone’s child die
While it is left unclear how Sandra is drawing boundaries in relation to her own
‘community’, she is nevertheless making a distinction between herself and Traveller
Communities. Louise suggested that she felt ‘sad’ about levels of unmet need in
Traveller Communities, using a similarly emotional term. Emotionally charged
terminology was also apparent in Karen’s account, when she suggests that Traveller
Community members’ attitudes to benefits ‘upset me actually’. The ways that this
emotional engagement was balanced with professional roles is elucidated further in
Louise’s narrative. When confronted with the needs of Traveller Communities on
site, she describes a desire to simply roll her sleeves up and try to fix the problems
she saw:
Louise: yeah well do you know what I wanted to do because my

background ’s nursing and erm my ini-immediate response
which was very irrational was erm I wanted to go and do a
health visitor training and then go back and work on the site
just being a health visitor on the site I just wanted to go and
do it
Researcher: mmm
L: was my initial reaction thought why it’s just easier to do it
yourself I just want to do it [so that was my]
R: (laughs)
L: I thought I really wanted I really felt very erm sad really that
this group of people had this level of health need and were
not getting the service that they should be getting
This emotional response is at odds with her more strategic position in public health;
Louise’s suggestion that her reaction was ‘irrational’ suggests that these emotions
are out of place in the context of her public health role. This highlights that emotions
may be afforded less credence by practitioners than other drivers such as ‘evidence’
when articulating a rationale for public health action. This is perhaps unsurprising
given that acting on evidence is something that features strongly in the ‘foundation
stories’ of the discipline of public health (Dew, 2012).
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It is important to state, however, that not all practitioners communicated the
emotional impact of their work. Indeed, this tendency to describe emotional
responses to hearing about the situations of Traveller Communities appeared to be
most (though not exclusively) apparent in the accounts of those who distanced
themselves from a traditionally ‘professional’ role and occupied community-based
roles. The following excerpt from Nicola, a health ‘professional’, serves to illustrate
this contrast, with infant mortality rates here defined in much more neutral terms:
Nicola: I suppose many of the Traveller women that I’ve worked with have
known of somebody from their community or within the community who have
lost a child and they bring that into their discussion and their relationship as
well with me as well
5.3.2 The ‘splendid white middle-class isolation’ of ‘other’ practitioners

When discussing the health needs and circumstances of Traveller Communities,
practitioners often positioned themselves as more ‘in touch’ with the lives of
Traveller Communities and other vulnerable groups, when compared with their
colleagues. When doing so, practitioners distanced themselves from ‘other’
practitioners who were more ignorant of the realities of everyday life for those who
are ‘disadvantaged’. Notions of class were often drawn upon to underpin claims of
greater empathy with these groups:
Caroline: all I’m saying is I think more than most people in public health I’m
used to working with vulnerable groups and disadvantaged communities and
I I don’t tend to judge as harshly but I think other people sort of have
impressions of this very lawless [Traveller] community where women are
downtrodden and kids are uneducated and it’s a life of crime and they die at
fifty and all the rest of it really I think for a lot of people in public health I
mean...these are people who spend their life in splendid white middle class
isolation they don’t understand how people in housing estates live and I have
to give intelligence
Here, Caroline presents herself as less judgemental of Traveller Communities, as

well as those experiencing disadvantage more generally. She draws on this position
of understanding to lay claim to authority in this area; placing herself in a role of
educating or giving ‘intelligence’ to practitioners in ‘splendid white middle-class
isolation’ and who are therefore less accustomed to working class community life.
Paradoxically, Caroline’s rejection of the impressions she attributes to other
practitioners, of Traveller Communities as lawless, uneducated, in dire health need,
and oppressive to women, actually reinforces these views. It does so as her own
lack of judgement is predicated on the idea that there are aspects of life to be found
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in Traveller Communities that might invite such judgement. It also essentialises
differences between Traveller Community and ‘middle class’ values, denying the
possibility that Traveller Community members can also be middle class. Similar
ambiguities appear elsewhere in the interview around presumptions of violence in
Traveller Communities:
Caroline: what did bother me was the fact that people were overwhelmingly
unremittingly negative ‘oh you don’t wanna go up to [Traveller Community
site]’ you know it was almost like you know like I can remember saying to
one girl what it the fu- you know fucking (alamore or sommat) she was
saying yeah they’ve got guns up there and everything and it since transpired
that yeah that does happen (laughs)
Researcher: ah right I hadn’t- I didn’t realise- right
C: I think somebody from [the Traveller Community] site shot someone
Researcher: ah ok
C: or so I don’t know whatever
Caroline rejects the perceptions of ‘other’ practitioners before going on to suggest

there had indeed been an incident of gun crime in on the Traveller site. The humour
with which Caroline reports this event introduces a degree of sensationalism about
crime in these groups, while her use of ‘whatever’ goes on to convey her own
indifference to the situation. Here and throughout her narrative, Caroline appears to
lay claim to a preferred identity as someone who is hardened to and used to working
with groups exhibiting ‘problematic’ behaviour. She describes receiving these
reactions from colleagues often ‘cause of the nature of the people I work with’. This
itself seems to draw on glamorised ideas of ‘toughness’. Indeed, this is a recurring
theme throughout her narrative, including where, in relation to the risk of community
members setting fires in meeting spaces on site she suggests ‘providing they don’t
torch us while we’re in there it should be fine’. These ideas were also expressed
more generally in relation to Caroline’s views about the role of third sector
organisations. Caroline was critical of attempts by third sector organisations to
model themselves on commercial organisations (e.g. by creating Chief Executive
Officers). She was also critical of the third sector in general for becoming an arm of
the state by uncritically accepting funding arrangements focused on narrow health
outcomes. She raised concerns that in doing so, third sector organisations are
moving away from a position of greater tolerance and understanding of people, and
the provision of an alternative to state services. In keeping with this view, Caroline
suggested that those working in charitable organisations should be more tolerant of
service user behaviours, with this again presented as a source of contention
between herself and the views of other public health practitioners:
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Caroline: I work with people who say to me I’ve said to them ‘why aren’t you
back at the drug agency’ ‘oh they chucked me out’ ‘why?’ ‘cause I said this
or I did this’ and I think well if you don’t expect someone off their head on
drugs to tell you to fuck off why you in this role you know and I just think I go
back to public health and they say to me yeah but there has to be protocols
in services I say yeah but that’s for professionals not for people as long as
they’re not punching your lights out
This again fits with Caroline’s romanticised presentation of practitioners who are
most able to deal with groups on the margins. The importance of an identity as in-
tune with communities is also apparent where Becky describes workers as ‘street
smart’ and positions this as important in their ability to engage with Traveller
Communities. Sandra similarly positioned herself as used to working with people
from a deprived background and as less shocked by the circumstances in which
people live:
Sandra: there’s still things that come up week after week that surprise me so
(laughs) erm yeah but I think you can be surprised and not show it or be
interested instead of going ‘oh my god really’ (laughs) which I think some
people I think some people do actually do that you know they’ll be quite I
mean we work in erm quite deprived backgrounds because my role with the
NHS is to work in that ten percent of deprived communities in [place] so I am
used to erm talking to families who’ve got drug and alcohol problems who
are lived in an over cramped houses who are struggling erm so it doesn’t
really phase me and if I do see something that does phase me I will keep it
to myself because I’ve had a lot of years training and I think it’s something
natural that you would do anyway if you’re that type of person
Sandra contrasts her familiarity with disadvantage, and her own approach of
managing and disguising any shock or disapproval with that of a co-worker,
attributing this difference to her colleague’s more ‘privileged background’:
Sandra: she’s [colleague] from quite a privileged background and she’s

University educated and erm to quite a h-hi-high specification and she has
always worked in top jobs and earned quite a lot of money and erm you
know...she’s quite well to do and speaks quite posh and erm sometimes
she’ll see things and go ‘oh my god [name] you wouldn’t believe this family
I’ve just seen’ you know and she’ll be like you know ‘they did this and they
did that and they did this and they did that’ and she’s like oh it were
disgusting you know and you really can’t be like that (laugh)
This echoes Caroline’s depiction of those who are privileged as less aware of and
more judgemental of the reality of people’s lives. Karen similarly points to a refusal
to display shock as significant in gaining the trust of community members, offering
the following interpretation of Traveller Community members revealing their breasts
to her: ‘they were just out to shock me and I didn’t get shocked’. These narratives
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illustrate how practitioners furnish an identity as someone ‘in touch’ with, and less
judgemental of community life, with this forming one way in which practitioners
articulate a position of authority in their work with Traveller Communities and other
‘disadvantaged’ groups.
Some practitioners articulated a division between public health professionals in

general and workers in other sectors, particularly those in more clinical roles. Both
Hazel and Louise presented those working in the discipline of public health as
particularly concerned with addressing health inequalities, and Hazel suggested that
public health representatives have greater recognition of the broader determinants
of health. Yet, participants also pointed to divisions within the discipline of public
health. Hazel distinguished herself from public health workers with a medical
background, who were suggested to advocate an individualistic approach to public
health and favour legislative and punitive methods for encouraging healthy
behaviour. Louise similarly suggested that practitioners in mainstream services often
lack an understanding of why people are in the situations they’re in. Hazel
positioned herself as operating from a health promotion perspective which
recognised the complex reasons underpinning people’s behaviour and encouraged
people to adopt behaviours willingly. She did, however, cite the avoidance of
resistance, or ‘backlash’ as the reason for avoiding more prescriptive approaches.
Public health itself was presented by Karen as an approach that is difficult to grasp
and not always understood, particularly among elected members who were
sometimes described as undermining public health efforts. After the recording was
switched off, Louise reflected on the ways that public health and community work
were seen by other spheres of the health service:
Louise said that there were different cultures in health and that from
experience of working as a nurse, there was a sense among people within
hospitals that that’s where the best staff work and that community work is
where people go when they get older and settle down, have kids. But as she
entered community work, Louise says she got a sense that that was where
the real work goes on. She felt that people in other health sectors can be
more judgemental about where people come from. She described how public
health can be seen as a bit of a softer option as you’re not working on the
frontline, suggesting that it is not looked upon positively and can be seen as
removed from what is happening on the ground (Extract from field notes)
The idea of public health as where you go to settle down was also present in
Karen’s narrative. Karen expressed regret that she no longer works as directly with
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community members but described a need to move away from more insecure
community development roles to get a ‘proper job’.
These accounts illustrate the ways that practitioners establish common identities
surrounding their role in working with Traveller Communities either by reference to
their particular affinity with the situations in which particularly disadvantaged or
vulnerable groups find themselves, or by reinforcing a sense of common shared
values relative to ‘other’ practitioners. Through these techniques, practitioners could
position themselves as championing the rights or needs of Traveller Community
members, and to some extent as swimming against the tide when doing so.
5.4 Interpersonal interaction
5.4.1 Distancing self from academia

Practitioners’ preferred identities as closer to, and more in tune with Traveller
Communities and other ‘disadvantaged’ groups were sometimes accomplished
through interpersonal interaction with myself. Participants did so by dissociating
themselves from academia or education and establishing this as a key difference
between themselves and myself. See for example my reflections taken from Becky’s
observation record:
Throughout conversations I got the impression that Becky was trying to

distance herself from academia – suggesting that she couldn’t have done a
PhD, that they [members in the organisation in which she worked] forced her
to do a Masters and on one occasion describing her dissertation as ‘not very
academic’
Becky raised the issue of PhD study on a couple of occasions in conversation

outside of her interview, repeatedly commenting on the lengthy period of study this
involved and suggesting that I must be ‘living and breathing’ the research. Becky
regularly downplayed her own education and abilities, suggesting on one occasion
that she’d been a ‘social experiment’ in that she’d been unusual in receiving an
opportunity to attend grammar school given her background. At another point, I
cringed as Becky suggested that I would be earning a large salary after I was done
studying, correcting her that this wouldn’t be the case. The number of comments
Becky made of this type suggests that this relationship with education forms an
important aspect of her preferred identity. Yet despite these explicit identity claims,
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and attempts to distance herself from academia, Becky drew widely on academic
ideas and concepts, referencing feminism, the theories of Paulo Freire and theory
surrounding community education. At the same time, I was very conscious that by
virtue of my engagement in PhD study, I was being ‘othered’ by Becky; positioned
as part of a ‘privileged’ group, which potentially carries a negative status as
someone distanced from, and different to community members and workers. Karen
positioned herself similarly in relation to education and myself, the researcher. She
described her difficulties in going back to undertake Masters study after many years
out of education, suggesting that she was ‘rubbish at writing’. These overt identity
claims were reinforced through smaller asides, when Karen joked that she ‘could
read, sort of’ on receiving the information sheet, and when she suggested that like
Traveller Community members she is a ‘hands-on’ and ‘practical’ person. Thus,
Karen also appeared to establish her difference from myself through her treatment
of study. A similar dynamic was evident in my interaction with Sandra. During the
interview, Sandra identified the limits of university education in providing
understanding the lives of community members:
Sandra: they will send erm a university-trained nutritionist who’s 21 year old
has never had children to work with a group of Mums who’ll be like ‘well
you’ve not even got how do you understand the challenges of feeding a baby
a healthy diet?’
Here, the hypothetical practitioner who is not only university educated, but young
and inexperienced in raising children of his or her own, is positioned by Sandra as
incapable of understanding the reality of the challenges surrounding infant feeding.
These are all characteristics (though perhaps debatably in the case of the label
‘young’!) that could apply to myself. Karen’s suggestion that I didn’t ‘look old enough
to be doing a PhD’ and that I ‘looked about 12’ positions me similarly. Thus,
although speaking in general terms, Sandra’s comment prompted me to consider
the extent to which I can fully appreciate the difficulties that Traveller Community
members might experience. Though not all practitioners did so, this further
illustrates the ways that practitioners could reinforce ‘street smart’ identities through
their positioning of self, relative to the researcher.
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5.5 Summary
This chapter illustrates the multiple narrative layers through which practitioners
constructed identities as having particular expertise in work with Traveller
Communities and groups they categorised as similarly disadvantaged. By
emphasising the importance of experience and face-to-face engagement with
Traveller Communities relative to formal and distanced evidence, practitioners could
reinforce their specialist and unique knowledge about these groups. This identity
position was further bolstered by emphasis on one’s personal rather than purely
professional care for the community, and the drawing of boundaries between self
and ‘other’ professionals, who were deemed to be less accustomed with the reality
of life for these groups. Narratives, which draw on sentimentalised ideas of being
moved by another’s plight and reinforce ideas around the unique understanding of
these practitioners of Traveller Community circumstances are perhaps
understandable given the likelihood that Traveller Community members may be
mistrustful of practitioners who are not known. However, these stories are also
potentially harmful in reinforcing divisions between the worlds of practitioners and
Traveller Communities, and in sustaining the position of Traveller Community
members as ‘vulnerable’ and only responsive to specialist health services. The next
chapter explores the sources of evidence that Gypsy and Traveller Community
members drew on in describing their health, and the implications for their health
identities.
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CHAPTER 6 - ‘I wouldn’t change to be anything else’:
vulnerability to poor health and its problem for
Traveller Community identities
6.1 Introduction
Discourses on the nature of evidence were significant in shaping the health
identities that could be claimed by Gypsy and Traveller participants. Gypsies and
Travellers drew on a combination of biomedical discourses, those on the lower life
expectancy of Traveller Communities overall, and those on embodied and
experiential knowledge when defining their health status. The chapter suggests that
adherence to biomedical discourses, together with awareness of the lower life
expectancy of Traveller Communities overall combined to create a key identity
tension for participants, with the poorer health of these groups seeming to invite
explanation by Traveller participants. Furthermore, the difficulties Traveller
Communities experienced relative to other groups (and myself) in getting access to
health services reinforced concerns that health issues were present but undetected.
This worked to entrench a position of ‘vulnerability’ and ‘neediness’. In light of this
context, discourses on embodied and experiential health knowledge were used to
emphasise requirements for greater support, or to challenge decisions or treatment
by health practitioners.
6.2.1 Biomedical discourse

Traveller Community members drew clearly on biomedical discourse in their
accounts of health and illness. Biomedical understandings adhere to narrow and
reductive definitions of health, locating the causes or risk factors for illness within the
individual body, emphasising personal responsibility for health, and downplaying
attention to the social or environmental causes of illness (Warwick-Booth, 2012).
The medical profession’s close ties to the production of scientific knowledge and
technological development has reinforced the expert and unique position of medical
practitioners in interpreting symptoms, producing a diagnosis and specifying a
treatment plan. In keeping with this discourse, Traveller Community members often
presented illness as latent and only detected through medical screening. In doing
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so, participants sometimes positioned themselves as unable to judge their own
health status definitively, instead placing this firmly in the realm of medical expertise:
Lucy: if you’re not going and like talking to professionals yeah you might
think your lifestyles healthy but if they examine you no you’re not you’re
unhealthy
Here Lucy suggests limits to one’s own evaluation of health status, which must
instead be confirmed by ‘professionals’. This is despite Lucy’s presentation of
herself as very informed about health throughout her narrative. This tendency was
also apparent at the end of the interview, when Lucy appeared concerned that other
opinions generated through the research may contrast with her own assessment of
what makes her healthy:
Lucy: probably when you asked all the others they’ll have different opinions
than mine it’ll all be different they’ll probably think that I might not even
actually be healthy but I have actually been and they’ve told me I seem to be
alright
Here, Lucy uses medical judgement to provide external validation of her own
assessment of her health when she says: ‘I have actually been and they’ve told me I
seem to be alright’. Others also referenced the potential for illness to be hidden from
view and emphasised the importance of receiving physical examination and tests
which could look beneath the surface of the body to reveal any hidden health
complications. Indeed, a lack of examination or follow up investigation were often
presented as a source of dissatisfaction where Traveller Community members
recounted negative experiences of accessing health services:
Brigid: I said ‘doctor how do you know what’s wrong with him if you’re only
writing down you have to check him’ ‘Oh I can see’ I said ‘you can see
through his body?’ he just looked at me and I just thought I won’t be able to
argue with him because I don’t think you should be a doctor if you’re not
going to look at a person proper do you?
Brigid’s question ‘you can see through his body?’ explicitly acknowledges the
limitations of tests that look superficially at bodily appearance. There is some
challenge of the professional in the form of Brigid’s direct questioning of the doctor
about a lack of examination. This is also evident in her comment of ‘I don’t think you
should be a doctor if you’re not going to look at a person proper’, which questions
the doctor’s motivations and aptitude for their job and positions them as negligent.
Yet, Brigid also places herself in a position of disempowerment relative to the
Doctor, where she suggests she ‘won’t be able to argue with him’. Acceptance of
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and challenge to medical expertise appear to be entwined here. It is not the need for
medical intervention that is being resisted, rather, the Doctor is challenged for not
following what are deemed to be the appropriate medical procedures. What is
demonstrated here is therefore not a wholescale rejection of medical treatment or
support, but rather a criticism of individual agents of the medical system for
inequality in the application of medical care and services. Jane used similar story
elements to those of Brigid when stressing the importance of being examined and
tested by medical practitioners, perhaps unsurprisingly given that these participants
are related:
Jane: I can go to my doctor now and say right I’ve got a pain there they won’t
examine you just ‘scription you a number of times I have like spots on my
head and I went to the doctor and I said doctor I went in and I went doctor
I’ve got a spot on me head he never examined me never looked did I have
them just wrote me a prescription for it sure couldn’t a that been anything
how does he know what it was well they do that every time
Jane’s statement of ‘sure couldn’t a that been anything’ also raises a concern about
serious illness going undetected because of a lack of thorough examination. Both
Brigid and Jane question the ability or motives of practitioners for what they deem to
be an unsatisfactory level of medical investigation. Charlotte also indicated a
concern that illnesses requiring urgent treatment were not being addressed quickly
enough due to long waiting times for GP appointments.
Many Traveller Community members articulated a desire for greater biomedical

surveillance and screening, not only to investigate health complaints, but also as a
pre-emptive assessment of health. Two Traveller participants indicated a desire to
be tested for Alzheimer’s due to family members having the disease, and a concern
that they may therefore be more susceptible themselves. Patricia similarly reported
an intention to ask for tests of her kidneys:
Patricia: I went with the same pain an he said it was a kidney infection and
give me the medication and it still didn’t work but…so I’m gonna persist see if
it is owt…I’m gonna ask is there any tests you can do to see if its anything to
do with me kidneys for me or whatever
Brigid also highlighted a need for more health checks in general:
Brigid: I went the other day like for a body scan thing for me kidneys
they said me kidneys is fine me liver is fine everything’s fine
so I hope next (forty years I’ve got like this I’d be happy)...but
with like health visitors should come out more I think to check
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you and like you should get your do you ever see they call em
they should check you more for like kidneys and things like
that I think do you
Researcher: like an MOT thing
B: yeah I think they should do that and then I do think like the
nurses should come out and check the children and check
you’re alright and some poor people can’t get into doctors
sometimes it takes you two weeks to get an appointment
Within Catherine’s account, this need for greater health surveillance and screening
was also extended to cover behaviour. She described a need for monitoring of
dangerous driving on the Traveller Community site for instance, and here described
her concerns around the level of health checks her child had received:
Catherine: it’s like my baby’s four month old I’ve only ever seen a midwife
once how do they know that that child’s not getting neglected that child’s not
getting abused come on at the end of the day they don’t know
Both Catherine and Jane suggested that there was a need for expansion in the
groups targeted for cervical cancer screening or the HPV vaccine, as seen for
example in the following excerpt:
Jane: see that’s another thing now about Travellers well also is we could
have we don’t get the medical help that we need we couldn’t little girls who’s
fifteen sixteen gets married right yeah they have to wait til thirty five and forty
thirty or its over twenty five to find out they’ve got that cervical cancer now
once they get married automatic it should be put for teenage married woman
to go in and get that smear test I don’t believe it should be over twenty five
because these girls is getting married at sixteen and having kids maybe half
that there were if they got checked for when they first got married and had a
child then they could () that on a part of their life maybe have it for five year
and die then d’you know what I mean () I think it’s ridiculous how they treat
people for that cervical cancer for erm you’re not allowed to get smear tests
til you’re over twenty five or something because obviously what do they
expect these young by the time they’ve got to twenty five they could be dead
cause it’s spread and killed them do you know what I mean
The above quote articulates a demand for cancer screening to be available to wider
sections of the population and resonates with Traveller Community participants’
requests for access to tests for Alzheimer’s which have not yet been developed.
Differences are therefore evident between public health approaches to assessing
risk or rationalising the availability of screening, and those found in Traveller
Community narratives. Arguments for broadening access to screening or
immunisation in Traveller Community accounts were based on the identification of a
gap in available services and couched in terms of equity in access to services and
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treatment across the population. As before however, Traveller Community members
did draw in an element of biomedical assessment of risk. This is seen in the
Traveller Community suggestions that the prevalence of people within a family with
dementia might place individuals at an increased risk of developing the disease.
Similarly, in the extract above, Jane suggests that a tendency for Traveller
Community women to marry earlier may mean they are at greater risk of cervical
cancer and therefore need earlier screening. Yet, these arguments differ from
justifications underpinning the allocation of public health measures such as
screening, which are based on risk-benefit calculations and scientific evidence. In
the case of cervical screening, this is not routinely offered to women under 25 due to
difficulty in detecting abnormal cells which will go on to develop into cancer among
this age group. This therefore suggests some gaps in explanation about which tests
are available and why tests are only offered to certain sections of the population.
It is also important to acknowledge that not all Traveller Community members

wanted greater access to screening however, and Kelly described how she attended
the GP reactively, in response to health complaints. This fits with her specific
presentation of self as generally unconcerned in relation protecting her health.
Nevertheless, for the most part, the above narratives illustrate that Traveller
Communities, were open to, and in fact wanted greater medical scrutiny of their
bodies.
Biomedical discourses were also reflected in the use of medical terminology by

Gypsies and Travellers, and emphasis on receiving the opinions of specialist health
professionals:
Patricia: he’d been diag- manic depressant at the time but I think they say
bipolar now but he was in hospital in and out and things I mean he wasn’t
just diagnosed by a doctor he was in hospital by the psychiatr- proper diag-
you know what I mean
Here, Patricia demonstrates her awareness of changes in the medical labels used to
refer to bipolar disorder. She also stresses that the community member she is
referring to had not simply been diagnosed by a doctor, but had received a ‘proper’
diagnosis from a psychiatrist, in hospital, with biomedical expertise therefore used
here to validate illness claims. There were instances of Traveller Community
members mispronouncing or having difficulty remembering the names of diseases,
as well using ‘lay’ terminology. As has been noted in previous research (Treise and
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Shepherd, 2006), Traveller Communities sometimes used less direct phrases to
refer to mental health issues including ‘bad with me nerves’, ‘baby blues’, and
seeing ‘imaginary friends’. There was also some suggestion that the word ‘mental’
has negative connotations due to its associations with madness. However, there
were also numerous examples of Traveller Community members using more
medicalised terminology such as ‘mental health’, ‘depression’, ‘postnatal
depression’, ‘manic depressant’, ‘bipolar’, and ‘anxiety’ instead of, or in addition to
‘lay’ terms. Catherine used both ‘baby-blues’ and ‘post-natal depression’ for
instance. Charlotte referred to the need for ‘self-care’ and ‘self-management’, terms
often employed in medical and public health discourse. She also described GP
practices as ‘sign posters’ to other services and referenced recent changes in health
and social care systems. This demonstrates that, as has been demonstrated for
other sections of the population (McClean and Shaw, 2005), Traveller Community
members had incorporated aspects of biomedical and ‘health professional’
discourse into their talk about health and illness.
6.2.2 Low Life expectancy

Many Traveller Community members involved in the study also drew on
epidemiological evidence on their lower life-expectancy and poorer health
outcomes. Catherine explicitly referenced research evidence on the lower life
expectancy of Travellers:
Catherine: [community member] done her research before she died of

cancer and er it was you die before 50 in Travelling in Travelling Community
you die before 50
Eleanor on the other hand suggested that this was a narrative that she’d heard in
conversation, highlighting its well-rehearsed nature:
Eleanor: I know it’s sixty for Travellers I know that because I’ve heard people
talk about it a good few times so it’s their lifespan is sixty but then settled
people obv- obviously sixty eighty I’d say probably twenty year on to that
The lower life expectancy of Travellers was also acknowledged by Brigid and Kelly.
While Patricia and Jane didn’t mention life expectancy specifically, Patricia
referenced the ‘bad health’ of Travellers, while Jane suggested that ‘we [Travellers]
die with a lot of things like cancer’. Sofia and Lucy did not discuss the lower life
expectancy or poorer health of Travellers as a group however. The recognition and
use of discourses on lower life expectancy by most Traveller Community
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participants contrasts with previous research in which Gypsies and Travellers
expressed surprise that their health compared so poorly with that of other groups
(Van Cleemput et al., 2007). This is perhaps reflective of increasing attention to, and
politicisation of the health inequalities experienced by Traveller Communities since
the publication of this seminal work, as well as the influence of the Traveller
representative organisation in the area studied.
6.2.3 Embodied and experiential knowledge

In addition to the use of biomedical discourses and those on lower life expectancy,
Traveller Community members often cited the role of their own embodied and
experiential knowledge in judging health and the pursuit of treatment options. This
reflects a discourse on the expertise of ‘patients’ and the empowerment of
individuals in decisions about their health and care:
Brigid: cause you know the difference in your own body like your body felt
different now you’ve tired all the time...so you notice the difference in your
own body from health to another
Catherine: when you’re up you’re up and when you’re down you’re down you
know when you’re not feeling well and when you are feeling well
The role of experiential knowledge is also apparent in Jane’s commentary on the

support available for those with mental health difficulties:
Jane: when I go to the doctor and they give is () how is tablets going to help
like i- give you tablets how’s that going to help they’ve got to offer somebody
to sit down and talk to somebody that’s suffered with them problems to know
like [community member] suffered from mental health like proper mental
nerves bad for years and she now she knows how to control it herself do you
know what I mean like could probably speak could properly do a story and
tell people how to help their self do you know what I mean
In asking ‘how is tablets going to help’, Jane explicitly questions the effectiveness of
medical intervention and instead positions community members with experience of
mental health difficulties as better placed to offer advice on how to manage these
issues. This recommendation is, again, in keeping with the rise of patient
involvement discourses which have sought to provide a greater role for ‘lay’
community members in the provision of health care and advice through roles such
as health trainers, expert patients, patient advocates and care navigators. Charlotte
describes drawing on medical advice and services selectively and judiciously, in
combination with responsiveness to her own body when making decisions about the
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uptake of treatment in relation to the management of her chronic condition:
Charlotte: I’ve got to be really careful cause I don’t want to put any wei- I’m
trying to lose weight but it doesn’t move and like over the winter I had three
lots of steroids so they stop you losing weight and they put you some on and
even though you’re not eating any different or exercising any more or less
you still and it just doesn’t come back down well I’ve I’ve I’ve managed to get
ten pounds off (laughs) yeah but the last steroid I had was in January I think
so its took from then to so its 6 half of the year to try and just get ten pound
back off and me arthritis isn’t better and I know when I go that’s partly what
put me off going to the doctors because they’ll want to give me them which
yes it will make me arthritis better for a while but it’ll put more weight on and
the more weight I have the more pressure then is on me joints so that’s erm
it’s a vicious cycle that I’ve got no way out of really
Connected with statements of embodied knowledge, and in contrast with biomedical

discourses, Traveller Community members sometimes presented health or a lack of
health as something that was apparent to a medically untrained eye, through the
observation of the body. Suggestions that illness is signified by physical appearance
(such as turning a different colour, losing hair, or having black circles under your
eyes) resonate with earlier practitioner statements about health being written upon
the bodies of community members. Indeed, the body was sometimes described as
both as a surface on which health is written and read by others, as well as one that
can be worked on by oneself to present health identities to others:
Charlotte: so it’s just make yourself look OK so other people cause if people
keep asking you if you’re alright you want to say no and then you’re not but if
you if if you look OK nobody asks and you’re like it’s a circle you kind of y-
fake it til you make it that’s what it’s called (laughs)
Charlotte demonstrates the interaction between the self, others and the body.
Admitting to others that you’re not OK is presented as reinforcing this identity
presentation in one’s own mind. In this statement the performative aspect of health
identities as well as the ways that these are shaped through social relationships
becomes clear. Outwardly presenting one's appearance in a way which signifies that
you are OK is therefore a way of avoiding this attention and having to admit poor
health status to oneself and others. These suggestions about the visibility of illness
contrast with the above emphasis on medical tests that could look beneath the
surface of the body. As the above discussions demonstrate, Traveller Community
members used biomedical discourses in conjunction with embodied knowledge and
expertise when defining their health status. Nevertheless, there was a strong
emphasis in participants’ accounts on the role of biomedical systems in detecting
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illness and providing assurance of health status. The ways in which the above
discourses played out in the positioning of characters in Traveller Community stories
about health will now be explored in more detail.

Taken together, the above discourses had two main implications for the identities of
Traveller Community members. The first was the need to account for one’s position,
by definition of belonging to a group with such poor health outcomes. The second
related to the ways that an absence of screening led to uncertainty over one’s health
status and therefore intensified concerns that health issues were not being attended
to appropriately. These will now be discussed in turn.
6.3.1 Poor health and its problem for identity

In a society in which health, and the pursuit of health is treated as a moral
imperative (Petersen and Lupton, 1996), belonging to a group who is described as
having poor health status may amplify the potential for negative judgement and this
appeared to create a key identity tension for participants. See for example the
following extract from Kelly’s account:
Researcher: Is there anything that you think that’s good about being a
Traveller for health?
Kelly: I dunno cause Travellers like the lowest what is it
R: like life expectancy?
K: life expectancy it’s like they all die young don’t they I dunno
obviously I wouldn’t change to be anything else I dunno
Travellers isn’t very healthy obviously but
Kelly’s acknowledgement of the lower life expectancy of Gypsies and Travellers is

immediately followed by the statement ‘obviously I wouldn’t change to be anything
else’, which appears to affirm and express pride in one’s identity as a Traveller
Community member. The use of ‘but’ following the statement that Travellers aren’t
healthy seems to encapsulate this moment of challenge and ambivalence with
respect to her position. A more explicit reference to this tension is found in
Catherine’s account:
Catherine: you die before 50 in Travelling in Travelling Community you die

before 50 because the health is that poor it is unrecognisable not not
because of we want to be like that it’s because we lack a doctors we lack a
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dentists we can’t get them because as soon as we give our address or our
postcode that is it that’s it they don’t want to know us
Here Catherine clearly attempts to counteract the risk of blame or judgement

associated with belonging to a group with poor health when she suggests this is ‘not
because of we want to be like that’, and instead points to structural factors
influencing the health of Travellers such as the discrimination which restricts access
health services. Following a description of the difficulty gaining access to GPs, and
before moving on to discuss a lack of employment opportunities available to
Traveller Communities, Catherine similarly describes a tension between the freedom
to express her identity as a Traveller, and the avoidance of discrimination:
Catherine: its hard trust me when you’re a Traveller and yeah I’d never deny
what I am because I’m happy for what I am I’ll tell you the truth
This chimes with the following quote from Patricia’s narrative in which she responds
to a question about whether Traveller Community members on site discuss health
with each other:
Patricia: yeah sometimes yeah about what they’ve got and what they ‘ant
and you know cause no a lot nine out of ten of them now goes they’re not
backward they know what d’ya know what I mean and they go to doctors and
things like that where years ago we wouldn’t of done but they do now yeah
they do talk to each other or what have you or do you know where I should
go and this that y’know what I mean
Patricia’s assertion that Gypsies and Travellers are not ‘backward’ points to the
potentially stigmatising effect of discourses that Travellers do not go to the doctors.
The accounts of Kelly, Catherine and Patricia therefore illustrate the potential for
identity as a Gypsy or Traveller to be spoiled by discourses on the low life
expectancy, poor health and lower health service attendance of these groups. This
tension was one that required management by participants through the positioning
of self and others when offering explanations for the poorer health of Traveller
Communities. The ways that Gypsies and Travellers managed this identity tension
through the position of self in relation to others when offering explanations for the
poorer health of Traveller Communities will now be explored.
As seen in the quote by Catherine above, one of the ways that the negative status
associated with poor health could be countered was by stressing the role of
structural conditions such as discrimination and inequity in access to resources and
services required for health. This was also apparent in Jane’s account in which the
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lower life expectancy of Travellers is explained by not having access to full health
checks and receiving appropriate treatment:
Jane: you see that’s why we die with a lot of things like cancer and things
like that because we won’t get no medical help
The following exchange between Catherine and Bernadette similarly positions

inequality in access to services as underpinning the different health outcomes of
Traveller Communities, presenting an extreme charge about the withholding of
treatment:
Catherine: I think in the the ways like fr- cancer things like that there I
think there should be a be- another way to cure it because at
the end of the day there’s all different kinds of things to cure
different things but I think there should be something to cure
that [alright they do
Bernadette: I think they are] they are a cure for cancer but they’re not
giving it to the poor they’re only giving it to the rich because
I’m not being ignorant what I’m going to say where do you
ever hear tell of a well to do person dying with cancer
C: No no
B: Look how many in the royal family
C: In the Travelling Co- In the Travelling Community in the
Travelling Community
B: like wildfire
C: it’s like wildfire in it
The suggestion that there should be something to cure cancer in the above extract
is interesting in seeming to demonstrate overconfidence in the ability of the health
services to provide this and downplaying the challenging and on-going nature of this
task. The view that there is in fact a cure for cancer that is withheld from the poorer
sections of society presents a picture which raises fundamental questions about the
equity of the health system, one that is underpinned by an unwillingness to address
cancer among poorer or marginalised sections of the population, rather than a
scientific inability to do so. This extract highlights the ways that identity as a
Traveller is interwoven with other identity positions, with the withholding of treatment
presented through a lens of poverty in addition to status as a Traveller Community
member.
Others referenced the hardship of Traveller Community lifestyles, particularly in

relation to accommodation, when explaining poorer health outcomes. Here too we
see the connection between explanations for health status and identity. Why a
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Traveller Community lifestyle is adhered to despite the difficulties this creates for
health appeared to be treated as something that must also be accounted for by
participants:
Patricia: they build you a shed with a kitchen in and think they’ve give you a
luxury and you have-its somewhere to cook but you still live in your own
caravan and everything I know you’ve probably got a option of a house but
ask them if they’d live in where they’d want to put you I mean I have seen
photos of where the council have sent Travelling women on their own one
parent families genuine one parent families with children to houses and I’ve
seen the photos…you wouldn’t put a dog in em so I think it’s a way of life
what causes a lot of bad health with Travellers cause in a trailer you put your
fire on you’re warm when you go to bed you turn em off its freezing all night
until you get up the next morning…I mean a lot of em is more used to the
cold than they are the heat
Brigid: me first ever [episode of illness] that’s what ever caused it all being on
roadside but some people don’t understand how hard it is d’you know what I
mean I know it’s our choice I’m not saying that people say ‘ah it’s your own
choice’ but if it’s your choice know what I mean in a house I couldn’t live
because I’m used to having people around me it is our choice but it isn’t…it’s
a choice for the council to gives you somewhere to go know what I mean
that’s why it took me it took me five six years maybe more to get on [name of
site] and I had to squat to get on there (laughs) had a hard fight I fought them
I court for it didn’t I…but took me how all that times that’s what I mean that’s
why I never really noticed my health went downhill about that time that was
when I was thirty two… but Travellers don’t live a big age they don’t I think
that’s the lifestyle they live like towing trailers up and down cause I’m not
being rude people think you get everything free being a Traveller but you
don’t cause you get up in the morning and you gotta move then you gotta
move cans of water then you gotta go bottles of gas then you’ve got
generators it’s not easy like what like now don’t get me wrong [name of site]
is comfort you can’t beat it but I wouldn’t give me Travelling life I love it I love
it too much like I if it was up to me I wouldn’t be here I’d be on the roadside
today but that’s life as they say but your health goes very bad very very very
bad when you’re a road side Traveller…God help us they say Travellers had
they had a hard old life but it’s what can you do its their way of life innit
healthy but I think with like a a me- as me Mam said to me the other day you
can see the difference why some and I’m not being rude people in houses
lives longer than Travellers because they’ve good lifestyle like me Mammy
now she’s got her plot made into a house...they’ve put a extension bedroom
everything on it so she said she can understand how people can live now
they’re much comforts even that…cause don’t get me wrong its lovely them
trailers sometimes you think oh its lovely to pull out but it gets too hard
In the excerpts above, both participants introduce characters into their narrative
beyond the interview (council workers and generalised others) and position these
characters as lacking understanding of the hardship of living conditions for Traveller
Communities. In Patricia’s account, council workers are presented as overestimating
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the impact of improvements to the site. In the second, people generally are viewed
as not understanding how hard Travellers’ lives are, and a misconception is cited
that Travellers ‘get everything free’. Both narratives, albeit in different ways, appear
to respond to real or imagined arguments about the choice of Travellers over their
lifestyle, and which may position Gypsies and Travellers as responsible, in some
part, for their poorer health. Patricia’s response emphasises the lack of real choice
available, given the poor-quality housing that is offered as an alternative to living on
site. Brigid responds by celebrating the importance of the Travelling life (‘I wouldn’t
give me Travelling life I love it I love it too much’) and by emphasising the lack of
choice over the ethnicity into which you are born (‘they say Travellers had they had
a hard old life but it’s what can you do its their way of life innit’). She too highlights
the lack of support from the council for this aspect of Traveller culture when she sets
her own choice against the choice of the council to ‘give you somewhere to go’,
therefore balancing out responsibility for the living conditions of Travellers that give
rise to poorer health. Although talking more personally and not about the lower life
expectancy of Travellers overall, Charlotte similarly described the challenges of
living life on roadside as a child due to a lack of medical help and access to
amenities. At one point she describes the social isolation she experienced when
living in a house, and her decision to move back to roadside to receive support from
people within her own community:
Charlotte: I couldn’t live in the house I couldn’t cope…so we had to…leave

the house erm move into a trailer onto roadside camp because there was no
support in the house for me there was no I’d obviously me children help and
things like that but you feel like you’re putting upon them and the medical
care wasn’t great it really wasn’t erm and so I needed some people from my
own community just to even just to look out and…to feedback some
positivity…to make you feel like there’s some point
Following acknowledgement of the lower life expectancy of Traveller Communities,

Eleanor described aspects of Traveller lifestyle that were healthy. This included
eating boiled stews, as well as the benefits of living on roadside such as being out in
the fresh air, and away from central heating and electricity which she positioned as
harmful to health and affecting mood. However, Eleanor too, highlighted the
influence of transient compared to sedentary lifestyles on the health of Traveller
Communities:
Eleanor: settled people they do they have a routine where they’ll exercise
once a week they’ll go to the gym once a week see not many Travelling
people do that mainly if it is anyone in the family it’ll be the men that probably
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goes training but mainly the women don’t really train don’t do much exercise
that was back then but now nowadays like I said the Travelling life is
changing and everyone is different and become more settled and they’ve got
yards and they’ve got houses and the Travellers is a lot more settled these
days that what they used to be so when you get settled you you get familiar
with things around you and then you start doing other different things
whereas you wouldn’t do it when you were Travelling cause your times took
up cooking and cleaning and looking after the kids and the kids is with you
24 hours a day 24 hours a day whereas when you’re in a house your
children’s not with you your children ‘s in school you’ve got your time free
you can do what you want so you probably tend to go to the gym whate- do
whatever you wanna do
Settled life is described as enabling a ‘routine’ which facilitates healthy lifestyles.

The shift in Traveller lifestyles to become more settled is presented as enabling
greater familiarity with local facilities, and freedom to engage in activities to support
health and wellbeing since children are in school. The above extract also
demonstrates the web of influences and identity positions that intersect with living
arrangements to influence health. The impact of a Travelling lifestyle is differently
felt for men and women, with a transient lifestyle presented as less restrictive of men
engaging in exercise, and which may be attributable to division in domestic and
childrearing responsibilities. Elsewhere in her interview, Eleanor also described the
ways that Travelling impacted on education around health.
Narratives about the protection of children within Traveller Communities were one
further strategy through which participants could counteract potential judgement and
engage in the restor(y)ing of more positive health identities. This was most explicit in
Catherine’s account:
Catherine: the best thing about Travellers you would never ever ever see a
child in care you would never see a child getting abused you would never
see a child getting neglect you would never ever see nothing like that never
see nothing like that but in a different community it’s a completely different ()
thing
This tendency is also apparent in the account of Brigid however, who responded to
a health practitioner’s prejudice by saying ‘are my kids dirty? Is my kids molested?’,
thereby challenging discrimination and the associated shame with evidence that her
children are well looked after and healthy. Given that the importance of children is
stressed within Gypsy and Traveller accounts, stories about risks to child health
among these groups are likely to have a particularly damaging effect on identity for
community members.
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Discourses on the lower life expectancy of Traveller Communities also influenced
the identities that could be claimed by Gypsies and Travellers by limiting
expectations for future health. A difference was apparent in how the discourse on
the lower life expectancy of Traveller Communities was employed by Gypsies and
Travellers themselves, and by public health professionals. Life expectancy is used
within public health as measure applied across populations, taking into
consideration mortality rates across the life-course. This is reflected in the definition
of life expectancy by Hazel, a public health practitioner involved in the study:
Hazel: the whole thing about life expectancy it’s not the average age it’s if
everybody when they were born might be expected to live to say 70 and in
this group of people a third of them die before they’re twenty then the life
expectancy becomes 50 you know so it’s not, the ones that make it to 50 will
almost certainly live on and may live on just as long as the others but fewer
of them will ever even get there
By contrast, we see in the account of the following participant how discourses on

lower life expectancy were read much more personally by Traveller Community
members, with this in turn impacting on expectations and hopes expressed for future
health:
Bridget: like they say a life age of Travellers is only 50 anyway some some
might live not even past that I hope I live I hope I live past that time point I
hope I live past fifty odd to see me children grow up and get married and
have their own family then I don’t care
This is also reflected in Catherine’s earlier suggestion that ‘in Travelling Community
you die before 50’ and Kelly’s suggestion that ‘they all die young’. This
demonstrates how public health narratives may be transformed when taken up and
used by ‘lay’ sections of the population. As Novas and Rose (2000) remark with
respect to genetic tests; ‘information on risk will have consequences for individuals
who receive it.’ As Gypsies and Travellers in the study by Van Cleemput et al.
(2007) were not aware of how poorly their health compared to other groups, it is
unlikely that these discourses had contributed to articulations of low expectations for
health found in this earlier study. However, within the current research, this formal
discourse on the life expectancy of Traveller Communities was often accompanied
by anecdotal reports of others in the community dying at a young age. While the
discourse on Traveller Community life expectancy does not appear to be alone in
impacting on the health expectations and identities that Traveller Community
members can express, the narratives of those involved in this research demonstrate
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that this is likely to have some role in closing down other plotlines and entrenching
low expectations for health among Gypsies and Travellers.
6.3.2 Being fobbed-off and fighting for rights

Most participants highlighted how their position as Traveller Community members
meant that they often did not receive the medical help they needed. While the
degree to which accounts were politicised varied across participants, nearly all
participants (except for only Eleanor and Sophia) relayed stories of themselves or
others in the community having trouble getting access to services or being treated
differently by health service staff because of their ethnicity. Patricia suggested that
GPs ‘don’t want them [Travellers] in half of them’ meaning that Travellers were
forced to register with practices further from home. Kelly also described the
discrimination when attempting to register with GP practices:
Kelly: we’ve been refused millions of times as soon as like they hear
you talk they just put down the phone
Researcher: really? Do you think when they hear you talk they must think
K: they think you’re a Traveller straight away and just put down
the phone
Discussing this discrimination, Kelly later suggests that ‘before obviously it used to
bother us but now it don’t bother us cause we’re just used to it so now we just don’t
even let it upset us’. This conveys resignation over the inaccessibility of services
and the normalisation of these experiences. In addition to difficulty getting
registered, Brigid described the shame she experiences when attending health
services:
Brigid: some doctors you think oh they looks like you’ve 90 heads even in
hospital before I went to the [hospital] and they look at you like like up and
down you think shameful because you’re a Traveller
She described people looking at her like ‘they think you’re dirty’ and the differential
attitudes of staff to Traveller Communities, with the result that she feels ‘out of
place’, and ‘can’t wait to get out of’ the GP surgery. Charlotte also described being
made to feel different when registering with a GP practice:
Charlotte: when I went to register it was well yeah we take your kind on erm
and so you always felt like you wasn’t welcome there you di- me care really
suffered
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Stories of health information or treatment being withheld or being ‘fobbed off’ by
health practitioners were common in Traveller Community accounts. Charlotte felt
that during her childhood her family ‘slipped through the net’ of care when they were
living on roadside. She describes receiving little follow up after a serious accident,
and experiencing recurring tonsillitis that was left unresolved due to practitioner
negligence:
Charlotte: I had it [tonsillitis] all the tim- like just about all the time and the
GPs then in them days they just I think that they thought we was dirty it was
because I was we was a Gypsy and it was ‘oh it’s just a stomach bug’
because I’d go with a belly ache...we was with the same GP for years and
years and he di- he just kept saying no it’s it’s another stomach problem
Jane similarly described receiving a lack of support with longstanding mental health
issues, with her position as a Traveller presented as exacerbating this
inattentiveness:
Jane: I’ve suffered yeah about 8 about 8 years now an and its getting no
better and the doctors don’t give you no help and all that like that you get no
help especially when you’re a Traveller you get the best of nothing
Catherine summarised the withholding of information about health conditions as

follows:
Catherine: what I’d like for them to turn around and tell us our problems
straight away instead of waiting seven or eight month down the line and what
good is it then to us when we’re better
She imparted her frustration about the lack of health information received by
Travellers, both in general and in relation to the provision of full explanations for
health problems and symptoms. Catherine expressed her frustration that she hadn’t
received explanations for numerous miscarriages she’d experienced. She
articulated a need for greater explanation over the illnesses that MMR vaccines
protect against; greater care in describing the HPV vaccine to young Traveller
women; and more in-depth information about post-natal depression and available
support:
Catherine: they can pass me a box of tablets or take one of these a day
that’s the way they tell you but if that was anyone else from out of our
community they’d have to sit down and explain every single thing (Catherine)
Such poor communication was interpreted as stemming from an assumption that

Travellers were unable to engage with information offered:
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Catherine: people might think they’re thick because they can’t read and write
but we need () people with these posh words we don’t know them we need
someone to sit down to us and talk proper to us say well look this why you’ve
had lost this baby and that’s why you’ve lost that and this this and that but
they haven’t they haven’t they just think ‘ah Travellers put it in the bin they’re
alright’
Some participants described using strategies to test out whether services were
discriminating against Travellers. For instance, Bernadette described how after
being refused registration to a GP practice, she gave the address of a house
adjacent to the Traveller site to demonstrate that she should be in the GP boundary.
Recognition of, and possibilities for subverting discrimination often hinged on one’s
visibility as a Gypsy or Traveller. Participants described how markers of belonging to
a Traveller Community (including how you talk, an address known to be a Traveller
site, or physical appearance) often prompted a change in attitude or response
among staff.
In the context of combined discourses on the need for biomedical intervention to

detect illness, and the poorer health of Traveller Communities, the denial of health
screening, tests, examination and treatment intensified community members’
concerns that illness was going undiagnosed and treated:
Jane: this is what we get prescription with whatever fobbed off not caring
where one time really and truly we could be really sick and they’ll tell us no
Jane’s statement ‘this is what we get’ appears to explain this treatment by reference
to her position as a Traveller Community member. This concern that Traveller
Community members have illnesses that are untreated was communicated often in
Jane’s account. Catherine similarly suggested that the symptoms she reported were
not taken seriously by health practitioners and relayed her apprehension that herself
or others in the community may have health issues that are unrecognised. Catherine
describes how a family member died of cancer after having initially being diagnosed
with pneumonia and having experienced few symptoms:
Catherine: my sister had a cough and didn’t know what the cough was and
boom two years down the line well not even two years within six months she
was dead and buried come on because she had a cough and she had lung
cancer at the end of the day its told they told we they told we that its
pneumonia now from pneumonia from cancer was completely different kind
of thing and the only things she had was a cough and a pain in the back
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After witnessing the death of this family member, Catherine describes her anxiety
that she may experience a similar health complaint, describing how when she got a
chest infection it ‘kept on playing on me mind about cancer cancer cancer cancer’.
She describes her attempts to obtain health tests to gain reassurance about her
state of health. The doctor agreed to undertake blood tests and a chest x-ray in
recognition of her recent family experience and to provide peace of mind. This
initially counteracts Catherine’s worry that she had an underlying physical health
condition: ‘I felt better in meself because they’d done that for me I thought yeah
they’re helping me’. However, she goes on to describe how the situation continued
due to a failure to address underlying mental health issues giving rise to anxiety
over her physical health. Catherine’s account clearly illustrates the ways that access
(or lack of access) to biomedical processes of diagnosis, combined with awareness
of the risks to health in Traveller Communities (here signified by the early death of a
community member), exacerbates concerns about poor health, which in turn
manifests in further demand for screening or testing of health:
Catherine: he says to me ‘they is nothing wrong with you’ I said ‘I know

there’s nothing wrong with me cause I know that I’m fit and well but why am I
feeling like this please tell me why I am feeling like this’, ‘well I don’t know’ I
says ‘but you’re a doctor you should be sitting me down and taking bloods
out of me and doing this and doing that me iron’ I said ‘and me haemoglobin’
I said ‘just take anything what you can take off me to see why am I feeling
like this’ nothing no we’ve done what we can do
Indeed, other participants also communicated concerns that they could have serious
illnesses which may not be acted upon quickly enough without access to health
services:
Charlotte: I spent two weeks trying to get her a doctor’s appointment I don’t
know what’s wrong with her I don’t know how it I don’t know how urgent it is,
it might be routine…it could be anything I don’t know what could be wrong
with her but they didn’t know that and I didn’t and it took e- it took actually
four weeks to get in
Jane: like we could have toothache we could have pain in our head we could
have belly ache we could have anything water infection how do we know
people die every other day…when you ring up you doctor er ‘ah sorry no
appointments today’
Relatedly, participants often emphasised the potential seriousness of episodes of

illness, again supporting the importance of getting access to services urgently:
Brigid: I even have a friend she’s a diabetic doctor gave her insulin never telt
her what she had to eat she said she had to go back to him she said doctor
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am I allowed to eat ‘oh I forgot to tell you you’re not allowed to have certain
foods with it but that was stupid cause she could have killed herself couldn’t
she
Catherine: you could be dying on that floor, ‘no’ I went to a doctors before a
clinic and me I was pouring with blood me legs was pouring with blood they
wouldn’t even put a bandage on would not even put a bandage on and the
blood was trailing everywhere no wouldn’t put a bandage on me foot told me
to go to A&E I could of bled to death
This pattern of telling about being denied access to health services and the potential
for dire circumstances as a result is chosen as an alternative to other possible, more
uncertain, or less tragic results. This serves as a storytelling function which helps to
dramatise events and emphasise a position of Traveller Communities as vulnerable
and neglected. Put together with earlier discussion of the importance of health in
Traveller Community narratives, a binary is set up; health is ‘everything’, yet
Travellers ‘get nothing’. These narratives have potential to entrench a position of
opposition between Travellers and health services or practitioners; in the face of
concern that health issues are undetected or diagnosed, unyielding service
responses prompt narratives which emphasise the extreme consequences of this
behaviour, in turn feeding anxieties that health issues are going undetected.
The difficulty gaining access to health services and fear that health issues were
going undetected fed into narratives of Traveller Community as needing to fight for
their health care entitlements. When challenging discrimination and negotiating
access to treatments, Traveller Community members often drew on discourses
above around their own embodied expertise. Traveller Community members were
not, therefore, powerless within health encounters and the data was replete with
stories about participants having fought to attain their rights. These stories often
followed similar plots; of Traveller Community members triumphing over medical
practitioners to get access to required treatments. See for example the following
excerpt from Brigid’s narrative:
Brigid: I said doctor you’ve been ignorant since I come in here I know pain
I’m not stupid well I think he was trying to say I was making it up I said doctor
‘I know pain’ and when it all come out I had a a kidney infection and things
like that I said yo- ‘oh we- we- well we we we’re very sorry’ I said ‘it’s no
good being sorry about it’ I says
Here Brigid uses her experience and interpretation of pain to counter the Doctor’s
presumed interpretation that she was ‘making it up’ and to justify pushing to receive
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diagnosis and treatment. The story ends with the acknowledgement that she did in
fact have a kidney infection, and with the doctor apologising for the error. Similar
trends are apparent in the following excerpt from Patricia’s narrative in relation to an
ongoing health complaint:
Patricia: well lately on Friday when I went to the doctors I’ve I’m getting
this pain and I’ve had it for a week again and I don’t think this
is what’s frightening me I don’t think it is anything to do with
the arthritis what I’ve got because it’s in me side and me back
and it comes down me stomach I think it’s something to do
with me kidneys
Researcher: right
P: and I tried to ‘ah no just take your pain killers it’ll be from the
arthritis just take your pain killers I’ll give you ant-’ I said ‘I
can’t take anti-inflammatories’ I said ‘over me stomach’ ‘ah
just take these ones they don’t affect your stomach’ ‘right’ I
took they made me feel sick and ill so I won’t take em ‘well
we’re running out of options what to treat you wi-’ I said ‘well I
can’t help that’ I said if I can’t take em’ erm so on Friday I
have to do I’ve got an appointment with the nurse practitioner
because it’s a carers thing they send you an appointment out
for a full check-up and I’m gonna really persist on Friday over
this pain because I don’t think it’s anything to do with me
arthritis at all a few month ago I went with the same pain an
he said it was a kidney infection and give me the medication
and it still didn’t work but I don’t think it is ow- I don’t believe
its owt to do with me arthritis cause it’s a different pain what
I’m getting and I’ve had it for a long for a few month and its it
comes and goes constantly
R: and does the doctor think it’s to do with the arthritis
P: yeah but I don’t think it is because the last time I went with it I
had no pains with the arthritis I didn’t go over that he said it
was a kidney infection and he give me antibiotics for it and it
didn’t even ease it or clear it up so I’m gonna persist see if it is
owt I don’t I mean I think its sommat to do with me kidneys or
sommat
R: yeah yeah yeah so you’re gonna go back and ask him about it
and see what?
P: yes I’m gonna ask the- is there any tests you can do to see if
its anything to do with me kidneys for me or whatever
R: yeah what do you think’s making him stick with the arthritis
idea
P: because the specialist told me when I went to the hospital
when you get arthritis it’s in your bones the one I’ve got and it
does make your hands and that funny right now my hands
don’t look too bad but when they swell up me fingers look all
crooked and it affects you it’s your bones now I get a lot of
pains in me legs with it when it comes in me knees and me
ankles down at the bottom and he said it’s the pain off them
cause they get that inflamed it shoots up your legs and
whatever and your hip and from your hip it can cause pains
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around your stomach and round here the pains but I don’t
think this one is because the simple reasoning I haven’t got
the pain in me hip off the arthritis to be causing it d’ya know
what I mean?
R: ahha ahha
P: so god knows
Patricia’s story demonstrates how a combination of knowledge is drawn upon in
producing explanations for her symptoms. She opens the story by describing her
concern due to experiencing a pain which is dissimilar from her usual symptoms and
which therefore seems unrelated to her arthritis and instead potentially connected to
her kidneys. The statement ‘I don’t think it is anything to do with the arthritis’, or
similar, is repeated on a number of occasions throughout the above extract,
suggesting that the demonstration of this fact is an important function of the story.
The doctor is positioned as dismissive of Patricia’s perspectives, reiterating that the
pain likely results from her arthritis, and affording little concern to Patricia’s own
experiential knowledge about her body’s reaction to anti-inflammatories. The doctors
reported statement that they are running out of treatment options conveys a hint of
frustration and through this statement he positions himself as powerless to any
further action, shifting the responsibility back onto and even directing a degree of
blame at Patricia herself. This is reflected in Patricia’s reaction which reiterates that
this situation is beyond her control. Patricia’s reference to her embodied expertise
provides a means through which the explanation provided by the doctor can be
challenged and access to care negotiated. Patricia combines her knowledge of the
different types of pain she experiences with information gleaned by medical
practitioners about how arthritis affects the body. She cites the fact practitioner had
himself diagnosed this same pain as related to her kidneys on a previous occasion
as well as the fact that the pain does not fit with an explanation of a specialist (who’s
opinion, in accordance with earlier statements might be afforded greater plausibility
than the GP) on referred pain. The combination of this evidence appears to give this
person the ammunition required to ‘persist’ in gaining access to tests that could
determine other possible causes. However, the statement ‘God knows’ at the close
of this narrative also conveys some limits to her own knowledge and to her hope
that this issue will be resolved. While Jane’s story displays some differences to that
of Patricia, this too illustrates the ways that embodied knowledge was used when
negotiating access to treatment:
Jane: I think the law should be changed for the laws is of medical help in that
way when young children comes in I think they should give you the medical
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proper medical help and for young children especially more kids out there at
the minute you go in there even if your child’s got a rash you don’t know
what it is my sister went down with a full blown it was meningitis no one’ll tell
me different full blown rash from head to toe an r- black and blue bu- rash
yeah went to the [name of hospital] sees this doctor ‘oh yes got to take
bloods’ ‘what is is doctor?’ ‘don’t know got to take bloods wait 48 hours’ so I
said ‘you’re not gonna give him no medication?’ ‘oh no I can’t give him no m-’
now he could have been dead er not give him no medication for forty eight
hours so me sister she was crying ‘alright love’ she said so I said ‘no love I
says you’ll get those antibiotics now’ I said to him he says ‘no no no no ()’ I
said ‘if you don’t get the dose of antibiotics’ I gets him up by the neck and
shoved him against the wall I said ‘you get the antibiotics now’ I said ‘cause
in 48 hours this baby could be dead’ I said ‘oh’ so he comes back over to me
and he says ‘I’m very very sorry me don’t understand’ he was like one of ‘me
not understand me very very sorry you right me should give baby antibiotics
me not know sorry this could be meningi- this could be cocal meningitis’ they
never did know never did push to know exactly what was wrong with me
sisters child but clearly it was meningitis but he was gonna wait 48 hours that
child could have been dead
Jane’s opening to the story serves to highlight its purpose in demonstrating the
current inadequacies of medical support for Traveller Communities, and the law in
protecting the health care rights of these groups. Indeed, Jane’s account was highly
politicised, with the majority of discussion about her health oriented to highlighting
the inequalities experienced by Gypsies and Travellers. This is an extreme example
of a direct and aggressive challenge to a medical professional. Yet, the story follows
a similar plotline to those presented earlier; one of triumph over the GP who is either
negligent or unskilled, with Jane’s intervention presented as crucial in ensuring that
treatment in a situation of life or death was received. That the GP is also reported to
have apologised serves to support this claim. Jane oscillates during the narrative
between a need for medical opinion and her own ability to diagnose the child’s
illness. The statements ‘if your child’s got a rash you don’t know what it is’ and that
they ‘never did push to know exactly what was wrong with me sisters child’ convey
the need for medical diagnosis. However, suggestions such as ‘my sister went down
with a full blown it was meningitis no one’ll tell me different’ and ‘but clearly it was
meningitis’ position Jane as able to identify and counteract potential illnesses and
the consequences. This again illustrates the ways that biomedical and experiential
expertise sat alongside one another in Traveller Community members’ accounts.
Like in the account of Patricia, Jane describes the bodily signs of illness (a ‘full
blown rash’) to demonstrate a need for treatment to the listener. The following, more
general statement about the behaviour of Traveller Communities in health care
encounters with which Jane closes her narrative, and the interview itself provides
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insight into the moral of the story. Although Jane recognises her aggressive
behaviour as problematic, the difficulty getting access to services and treatment,
and the inability to have one’s voice heard and attended to, gives rise to this
behaviour:
Jane: when we go to the hospital we might be loud shout scream get barred
off the doctors they ban us cause we are arguing to be heard that’s all I have
nothing else to say now
The following extract taken from Charlotte’s interview follows an account of how an
illness she experienced during childhood was overlooked because of discrimination
by the GP. Charlotte’s narrative exhibits some differences in the pattern of telling to
those already presented, falling somewhere in between Jane’s highly politicised
account and the absence of any implication of discrimination in the specific instance
reported by Patricia above:
Charlotte: my [family member] erm when her first baby was born who’s the
same age as [name of her own child] when she was first born she was born
with erm whooping cough apparently babies can’t be born with whooping
cough I think it was whooping cough yeah I think and so she was born with it
and so she ca- at by 6 days the baby was really poorly cause of she was
born normally and so they got you get sent home the next day as you do with
a new baby and there’s nothing really wrong with her at that point erm and s-
s- s- like she was coughing and the so at first it’s well it might be something
in the air is mucus clear and all that by six days I re- she was really seriously
ill erm and me [family member] took her to the GP ah it’s just basically you’re
a first time Mum and you’re over reacting so he sent her away and she went
back again oh I think she went on the fifth day then she went back the next
day and she went look there’s something seriously wrong with this baby and
they’re like no there isn’t don’t be silly and I don’t know if she stopped
breathing or something she ended up getting sent to [name of hospital] in
[place name] and when she got there there was only ten percent she only
had erm she had 90% she wasn’t taking in 90% of the oxygen so she was
only taking in ten percent of what she needed erm and that’s when they
found out she had I think it was whooping cough and so that then possibly
they don’t but that could of been a one off but and a and me [family member]
was had made them aware that she’d been to somewhere where the
peop- ...so she’d said well we I’ve been to somewhere and they had I think
its whooping cough I do- it must be and so she’s like it affects her lungs it
affects and they said no couldn’t be because me [family member] never had
it and she’s well we’ve had our injections our so maybe well it it shows you
that you you do know your own baby and that you really do need to be
persistent sometimes erm
Charlotte’s story follows on from a discussion of discrimination based on ethnicity,

implying that this too is a narrative about discrimination preventing access to
services. Yet Charlotte’s reflection that this instance ‘could have been a one off’
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does indicate some reticence to treat this as evidence of more widespread
discrimination. This is in keeping with Charlotte’s narrative overall in which
references to discrimination are made infrequently and in which she often blames
herself for not pushing hard enough to get access to services or for the deterioration
of her health. However, like the other narratives reported, Charlotte’s excerpt tells of
an instance whereby a Traveller Community member has difficulty accessing the
required treatment and entails a struggle with respect to who has authority to assess
the state of the child’s health. Charlotte posits that it is not necessarily the case that
discrimination has lessened but rather that Mum’s have become more ‘persistent’ in
obtaining care for their children, with this providing the context for the telling of this
more concrete story. Her suggestion here ‘apparently babies can’t be born with
whooping cough’ again demonstrate that medical opinions are not received
uncritically. The GP is presented as dismissive of the mother’s assessment of the
health of her child, instead characterising this as over-worrying due to her status as
a first-time mother. The trajectory of the narrative is similar to those discussed
above; serving to demonstrate an incorrect assessment by a medical practitioner
and that things were in fact as the community member anticipated them to be. Yet,
like Patricia, Charlotte does not step outside of biomedical discourses here entirely,
with medical parameters in terms of the percentage of oxygen being cited to help
demonstrate that there was a problem which had been missed. The moral of the
story (‘it shows you’), as before, serves to highlight the role of the mother’s own
experiential knowledge as a form of evidence which can be drawn upon in health
interactions, and the need to persist in getting access to treatment.
The above examples have illustrated how introducing knowledge of one’s own body
or one’s children’s bodies appeared to assist Traveller Community members in re-
balancing potentially unequal power relations within health care encounters. These
illustrations vary in terms of the extent to which they suggest this re-balancing that
was achieved, with Jane’s example appearing to come close to a near reversal of
power relations. There were also some examples of Traveller Community members
challenging racism and discrimination more directly as seen in the following story
relayed by Brigid:
Brigid: some doctors can be funny you know some nurses can be funny with
being a Traveller before my o- my old my grandfather was in hospital the
doctor was that ignorant me mammy said ‘is he your patient?’ ‘yeah’ he
looked at him he he got his coat like this [demonstrates holding coat in a
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pinch as if not to want to touch it] mammy said excuse me (mate) he’s no
disease that’s a brand new coat’ ‘well I never said he had’ Mammy said ‘well
you wouldn’t pick another patient’s coat up like that would you?’ said he went
with his two fingers like that Mammy said ‘I I’m I’m a I’m a I I might be a
Traveller but I’m not dirty’ ‘Oh no no I didn’t mean that’
Likewise, Bernadette reports questioning a refusal to register her at a GP surgery as

follows:
Bernadette: I says top and bottom of it I says you’re racist I said I walked out
and I never went back
However, some Traveller Community members described limits in the extent to

which they were willing or able to challenge health staff and institutions. Brigid
describes a reluctance to take action that would lead to personal repercussions for a
health practitioner for example:
Brigid: Mammy reported him but he he was nearly struck off only for like for
being prejudiced but it was alright then Mammy said leave him cause we
wouldn’t like to let him lose his job but you can’t treat people like that know
what I mean
Jane, Lucy and Brigid conveyed a lack of confidence that efforts to question
discrimination would bring change, and therefore expressed disillusionment
regarding these efforts:
Lucy: so obviously like they have done wrong but there’s nothing you can do
Brigid: me Mam was gonna sue them and I said just let em on cause its not
worth suing them but you can’t fight win with people like that especially
Travellers don’t get no farther on know what I mean cause awful things often
happen to you by police and doctors but you just let it go because you think
you won’t get no farther on
Others adopted strategies to subvert discrimination. For instance, Lucy described

how her Grandmother was often sent home early from hospital when they found out
she was a Gypsy. As a result, Lucy’s Mother stopped extended family from visiting
her in hospital in order to disguise her identity as a Traveller for fear that she too
would receive the same treatment. While Gypsy and Traveller Community members
showed resourcefulness in negotiating access to services, these efforts could come
at a cost however, with Charlotte pointing to the fatigue which results from
continually pushing to access care:
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Charlotte: like it [deterioration in management of long-term condition] was
both my fault as well cause I should have been more pushy but I’d been ill
for so long I you kind of give up being pushy (laugh)
It is also important to highlight that negative experiences were not always

interpreted through the lens of discrimination. For instance, when discussing
reasons for a missed diagnosis of meningitis, Kelly suggested ‘after all the hospitals
is only human they’re not god they are only normal people and they do try and do
the best they can but I dunno’. In addition, most Gypsies and Travellers
acknowledged diversity in the attitudes and practices of individual health
professionals, applying the principle that there is ‘good and bad’ in every community
to their experiences and judgements of health practitioners.
Overall, an inability to get access to health services, diagnosis and treatment, in

conjunction with a discourse on the poor health of Travellers, together perpetuated a
sense of one’s health status as unknown and entrenched identities of Travellers as
‘vulnerable’ in relation to their health and ‘in need’ of health services. Indeed, this
was reflected in the accounts of some community members who presented
themselves as desperate for, but denied help by health providers and services:
Catherine: I was crying out for help but they wouldn’t give me no help
Indeed, this representation of Traveller Communities is also apparent in Catherine’s

description of the few occasions that practitioners visit the Traveller organisation or
site to provide health information:
Catherine: there’s that many around the table we can’t ask them questions
what we want to ask because there’s that many mouths going tell me this
love tell me that love tell me this tell me that because there’s that many
people wants to know things because we’re all like like we’re saying we’re all
Travellers and we want to know these type of things what’s happening then
they haven’t got time haven’t got time to think never mind anything else
6.4.1 Researcher privilege

The position of Gypsies and Travellers as often unable to access required health
services and therefore as particularly vulnerable in regard to their health was
reflected in interpersonal interaction between myself and participants. Participants
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differentiated their own experiences with services from those that I could expect
personally as a member of the settled community:
Jane: we don’t have a doctor to check us like you might get a full do you
know an average person lives longer when they get a full health check
Catherine: But a doctors you know how you could ring a doctor yeah and
they could get if you were very sick and you could get a
doctor to come to your house we couldn’t get that
Bernadette: They won’t come out
Here the use of the pronoun you (‘like you might get’, ‘you could’) explicitly draws a
distinction between myself and participants. Indeed, participants sometimes implied
that I would have difficulty understanding the challenges they faced as Traveller
Community members, or may doubt the veracity of their accounts given such
differences in my own sphere of reference. During her interview Catherine pleaded
with me to believe how difficult life was as a Traveller, with this appeal repeated
using near identical terms on four occasions during the interview:
Catherine: it’s hard please believe me especially when you’re a Traveller

with the NHS and your health and things like that there very hard
Patricia’s use of ‘you see’ above when describing the different style of living of
Travellers also signifies a need to explain this lifestyle to the settled researcher.
Jane describes a lack of understanding among those who are not part of Traveller
Communities as follows:
Jane: Travellers gets treat you’ve gotta live there I know you obviously don’t
a lot of 100% of the world don’t understand about Travellers just cause I’m a
Traveller meself know what I mean (laughs)
Later on in her narrative Jane addresses the possible attitudes I myself hold toward
Travellers more directly:
Jane: I think if they [practitioners] understood more about Travellers

obviously but it’s like yourself if you thought Travellers were bad you work
with Travellers now so obviously you might understand a bit but before you
worked with them you probably heard all these bad things about d’you know
what I mean
This again points to the ways that I was positioned as potentially lacking an
appreciation of Traveller Community experiences, or even harbouring prejudiced
views prior to working with Traveller Communities. Smaller asides in the accounts of
other Traveller Community members also point to some tension in how participants
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are to position me when discussing discrimination. Brigid’s use of ‘I’m not being
rude’ before suggesting that people in houses live longer due to easier lifestyles, as
well as when discussing general perceptions that Travellers get everything for free,
suggests that she is conscious that these references to the settled community,
which I myself belong to, may cause me offence. Bernadette similarly prefaced her
statement about the lack of ‘well to do’ people dying with cancer with ‘I’m not being
ignorant’, and her comment that Travellers are pushed to one side just because of
who they are with ‘I’m not being funny’; a phrase used 'to downplay the effect of a
sensitive or non-politically correct comment' (Baxter and Wallace, 2009). This points
to a potential dilemma for participants when talking about racism to someone who,
while not racist themselves, nevertheless belongs to settled communities in which
racism often prevails.
At other points, Traveller Community members sought to align the researcher

alongside themselves when telling stories about health encounters. For example,
Brigid invites the researcher to make a judgement on the GP when she asks ‘I don’t
think you should be a doctor if you’re not going to look at a person proper do you?’
and ‘he shouldn’t be a doctor really should he?’. Some participants appeared to use
the researcher to validate their illness claims; demonstrating their bodily symptoms
in the interview. This was sometimes performed in conjunction with stories
highlighting the inadequacies of care, as in the case of Jane; ‘I went eight year ago
about me ankles look and they’re still swelled’. However, a physical demonstration
of health issues was not always put to this use, and sometimes, as in the case of
Sophia, this seemed simply to be performed as a way of corroborating the illness
claims made to the researcher.
6.5 Summary
In accord with previous research on lay presentations of health (McClean and Shaw,
2005), Traveller Community members drew on a combination of ‘lay’ definitions,
embodied knowledge and biomedical ideas when defining their health. Support was
also found within this study for the complicated nature of resistance to health advice
and professionals (Armstrong and Murphy, 2012). Gypsy and Traveller narratives
were not characterised by wholescale acceptance or rejection of biomedicine, and
participants appeared to simultaneously accept and reject medical authority.
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Traveller Community members sometimes sought to challenge medical authority not
by using an alternative source of knowledge (although this was sometimes the case
as exemplified above) but using the rules of its own game, claiming that practices
weren’t sufficiently invasive or medically rigorous. Traveller Community members
expressed faith in medicine but raised concerns about the fallibility of medical
practitioners and often, specifically, their willingness to apply the correct process.
The potential for people to hold and utilise contradictory ideas about health is
infrequently explored in the literature focused on Traveller Community health, which
has often presented Traveller Community members as being somehow beyond the
reach of health systems or as operating according to modes of thought contrary to
biomedicine. This research has illustrated some of the ways that Traveller
Community members were striving to reach into biomedical services and use
medical explanations to supplement knowledge about their health and bodies
accumulated through experience. It has also illustrated how the inability to get
access to medical services and treatment can impact on possibilities for the health
identities Traveller Community members can express. Knowledge of the poorer
health of Traveller Communities overall, combined with a lack of biomedical scrutiny
meant that Traveller Community members were often concerned that health issues
go undetected. This was further reinforced by the greater difficulty that Traveller
Community members relayed in getting access to services than other sections of the
population (including the researcher).
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CHAPTER 7 - ‘They really liked me’: how practitioners
sought to maintain their accepted status when
broaching lifestyle behaviours
7.1 Introduction
Previous findings chapters have explored the implications of discourses on Traveller
Community health needs or disadvantage for the identities claimed by practitioners
and community members. The remaining findings explore the extent to which
Traveller Communities were positioned/positioned themselves as accepting control
for their health, and how this affects conceptualisations of practitioner and Traveller
Community roles with regard to health promotion. Beginning again with practitioner
narratives, this chapter argues that, in the context of discourses which position
Traveller Community members as ‘hard to reach’, differently oriented to time, and
fatalistic, broaching health behaviour was viewed as potentially threatening to
practitioners’ preferred identities as liked and accepted by these groups. The
chapter illustrates the positioning strategies used by practitioners to manage this
dynamic and balance the introduction of behavioural advice with maintaining one’s
trusted status.
7.2.1 Gypsy and Traveller attitudes to time

When describing the health of Gypsies and Travellers, many practitioners’ imparted
ideas about Traveller Community members’ orientations to time. The concept of
time is integral to the discipline of public health, which is concerned with the
evaluation of current behaviour based on a concern for future health consequences.
Traveller Community members were presented as less time disciplined than the
majority population, described as living generally for the present and as planning
less for the future. The discussion of Traveller Community members’ attitudes
toward time was most explicit in Becky’s account, as seen in the following excerpt:
Becky: also the communities we serve don’t always live by the industrial
clock so consequently if there’s a party, a funeral, a wedding they need to go
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out and earn some money then the course you’re running will be pretty far
down the list
Reference to Traveller Communities as not living by the ‘industrial clock’ presents

these groups as somehow resistant to customs of time centred around employment.
Becky expands on the implications of such attitudes towards time for the design of
health promotion sessions later in the interview:
Becky: we try and do it so it’s not like a whole classroom day so its short and
sharp and its fun there’s no rules so we’ve had to try and change it cause
when you’re in the classroom you’ll have to say right mobile phones off you
know put your own rules together which we can do with the with the Traveller
Community but you can’t tie them up in like you can’t use that kind of
structure and framework for them because they love their lives in a different
way and they don’t live by the industrial clock or they don’t live like erm
perhaps the general population would
Gypsies and Travellers are presented as less tolerant of the imposition of structure
on how they use their time (as may be the case in a classroom), and there is a
sense of Traveller Communities as having less respect for rules. The suggestion
that Gypsies and Travellers ‘love their lives in a different way’ explicitly positions
Travellers as different from other sections of the population in this respect. The
phrases ‘you can’t tie them up’ and Becky’s suggestion later in the interview that it is
important that Traveller Community members ‘don’t feel constrained or constricted’
in sessions evoke romantic stereotypes of freedom associated with a nomadic
lifestyle. Engagement with those activities described above as competing with health
promotion sessions (e.g. funerals, weddings or work opportunities) might be read as
a contradiction in Becky’s narrative, since this demonstrates adherence to externally
defined timeframes and commitments. However, Becky appears to be suggesting
that these attitudes to time are particularly manifest in relation to enforced rules or
timescales. Both Becky and Sandra (perhaps unsurprisingly given that they work for
the same organisation) present Gypsies and Travellers as living a fast-paced life:
Sandra: when we do cookery the ladies work so fast erm you know they’re
like chopping ten to the dozen and then next next next and everything’s done
in like an hour whereas usually it might take two hours they just crack on with
it at super speed
Although left slightly ambiguous, Becky appears to attribute the fast-paced nature of
Traveller Community life to the potential of being moved on by authorities at short
notice when living on roadside: ‘they’re incredibly bright intelligent community
because they have to be in terms of survival and and eating so they’re they’re really
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fast cooks’. In addition to ensuring that health promotion sessions did not resemble
a classroom, this fast-paced nature of Traveller Community lifestyles was emulated
in the design of frenetic and high energy health education sessions, in an attempt to
maintain the interest of community members. The language Becky uses seems to
convey a sense of both Gypsies and Travellers, and health promotion sessions as
somehow unruly: Travellers ‘just hit the tables’; onions for cooking are not passed
out but ‘lobbed’; the practitioner adopts strategies to ‘get them [Traveller Community
members] going'; and reference is made to 'crowd control'. Although differences in
attitudes to time between Traveller Community members and other groups are not
described as starkly in the narratives of Karen, Louise, Nicola and Linda, they too
made smaller references to Traveller Community lifestyles as differently structured.
For instance, Karen presented Gypsies and Travellers as having a short attention
span in health promotion sessions and described Gypsies and Travellers as leading
‘sort of chaotic lives’. Louise similarly indicated an expectation that life on site would
be more chaotic than she found on first visiting. In addition, Nicola and Linda (as
well as Becky) pointed to missed health care appointments as an issue among
Traveller Communities. Practitioners’ presentations of Traveller Communities in
relation to time help to provide a context for the health beliefs they ascribed to
Traveller Communities, particularly in relation to fatalism and control over future
health, something that will now be discussed in more detail.
7.2.2 Traveller Communities as fatalistic

Many practitioners described Traveller Communities as adopting a fatalistic stance
towards health. This is perhaps unsurprising given that this is a narrative often found
in the literature on Traveller Community health:
Becky: they have a very kind of erm intoxicating philosophy of you only have
today you can’t control tomorrow which does make them kind of live life to
the full especially in terms of smoking and drinking (laughs) and erm eating
erm so I mean it obviously the general population might be thinking more in a
long-term view about pensions and about retirement and about settling down
I don’t think there’s that in their Traveller culture so that has its benefits
because yo- perhaps you have a shorter better quality of life (laughs) erm
but it has its health downsides because they’re not really preparing
themselves for old age because they don’t think they’re gonna be around for
old age and statistically a lot of them aren’t
Here, Travellers are explicitly presented as living for the day and as viewing the
future as something beyond control. These fatalistic attitudes are described as
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cultural and therefore something which may distinguish Travellers from other
groups, but also explained by low expectations for health. Such beliefs are
presented as problematic, encouraging engagement in ‘unhealthy’ behaviour and
discouraging preparation for retirement years. Yet, despite being presented as
problematic for health, Becky also appears to convey a degree of admiration for this
approach, with benefits cited in terms of quality of life, and the use of laughter
following this statement also positioning this behaviour as amusing. This hints at a
key tension between, on the one hand, discourses in society promoting discipline
and willpower with respect to the adoption of healthy behaviour, and on the other,
those that celebrate and glamorise resistance to these attempts at control.
Representations of Traveller Community members as fatalistic were also prominent
in Sandra’s account:
Sandra: some people will be a bit scared to tell the truth and some people
don’t want to hear the truth an we do find in this community they really really
do not want to hear the truth about things
Sandra positions Traveller Communities as preferring to remain ignorant of risk

factors for illness, with the use of ‘in this community’ cementing this as a cultural
attribute. Linda similarly contrasts Traveller Community attitudes of ‘it was meant to
be’ and ‘that’s life’ in relation to the death of a child, with her own beliefs about the
possibility of prevention:
Linda: more of the Travellers the kids do die of German measles or measles
and er so that can be a a not so good thing but then they take it on the chin
and say well it was meant to be which I find I find that hard it was meant to
be you know we did have seven children one died of measles that’s life that
[I] would say [is] a not so good one [aspect of Traveller Community life]
However, at times, practitioners softened suggestions of fatalism as a cultural

attribute of Traveller Communities. Sandra for example, suggests how a reluctance
to listen to health advice is not unique to these groups:
Sandra: but we find that with most communities you know you can keep
banging on about stuff but if they don’t wanna hear they don’t wanna hear
and its just people isn’t it
Moreover, fatalism was not always presented as a global attribute of Traveller

Communities. A fatalistic stance was sometimes presented as changing over time
and varying according to the health issue at stake or the perspectives of individuals.
For example, while Traveller Community fatalism regarding cancer prevention forms
an explicit discourse in both Becky and Sandra’s accounts, community members are
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not presented as wholly rejecting of attempts to broach this issue, but as more
willing to discuss cancer prevention on a one-to-one basis. This explanation does
not fit with the experience of Karen however, who was unsuccessful in broaching the
prevention of cancer with an individual community member, suggesting that
engagement with this advice is likely to be influenced by other contextual influences.
Presentations of fatalism were not straightforward in Linda’s account either. For
some health issues, such as use of contraception, Linda described a trend toward
increased agency taken by Traveller Community women:
Linda: the Traveller Community seems to be using contraception more once

upon a time they’d kind of leave it to God as they would say I think people
are taking control a bit more...so I’ve seen an increase in women ah I went to
see someone and it was she she’d only had the baby ten days before she
said yeah I’ve got me implant in I said ‘really?’ and she’d gone already off
her own back which I never used to see
In her response of ‘really?’, Linda indicates a degree of surprise that the Traveller
Community woman described had taken control over her contraception, suggesting
that she is still operating from expectations of fatalistic behaviour among Traveller
Communities. However, this extract does demonstrate recognition of the ways that
attitudes towards health may change over time. The following extract from Linda’s
account also highlights the potential for diversity among Gypsies and Travellers with
respect to the acceptance of intervention in the process of childbirth, specifically, the
uptake of a membrane sweep to induce labour:
Linda: you either find them saying yes because they wa- they want that [a
membrane sweep] or vehemently no because they almost wanna leave it to
God to see what happens and they just leave it natural and also sometimes I
think that the Travelling women aren’t as kind of open perhaps to that kind of
cause it is quite invasive we’ve gotta remember that just cause we’ve done
tens of thousands im- and some people you know you another midwife ‘d
just go yeah do it but it’s much more you know they keep the sexual things
under wraps erm you know so in them perhaps being virgins and stuff and
they don’t like talking about that things much and its quite an invasion of
privacy
That Linda also draws attention to cultural beliefs around protecting women’s
modesty highlights the ways that practitioners combine fatalism with other
explanations for Traveller Community members’ decisions surrounding uptake of
health services. In addition, practitioners appeared to form judgements about how
best to engage individuals, not only based on their ethnicity, but wider subject
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positions. In the below extract, Linda describes an individual’s approach to health as
the result of not only her identity as a Traveller, but also as a teenager:
Linda: yeah I think there’s times when you can say about smoking or drinking
this and it’s like they they’re still teenagers sometimes an they’re not
interested in listening not interested in changing they just wanna be one of
the crowd even if they’re pregnant
Existing literature points to the influence of witnessing illness and death among
friends and family on expressions of fatalism (Drew and Schoenberg, 2011). Loss of
family members was cited by practitioners as a key reason Traveller Community
members didn’t want to hear or talk about health issues, particularly among older
Gypsy and Traveller women:
Sandra: if they have had a few bereavements in their families and obviously
family’s the most important thing then they can actually be quite sensitive
and quite erm quite ignorant in that they really don’t wanna hear
Becky highlighted the dilemma this posed in that Traveller Community members do
not therefore receive important health information, but also suggested that
engagement with this subject is at odds with Gypsy and Traveller lifestyles,
reinforcing this as a cultural response. At times, the provision of health advice
seemed to interfere with the remembrance of friends or family members, as seen in
the account of Karen below:
Karen: I mean I don’t know whether it’s because actually her [family member
has] died now and there isn’t anybody else who’s gonna get cancer you
know thinking arou- you know in that that way or just not bothered not ah I
don’t know I don’t know she might do I mean it was only a very quick
conversation you know ten minutes around you know she was more
interested in her [family member] and the you know the star in the sky that
came up every night and that’s my [family member] and you know ver- quite
they’re quite religious people aren’t they you know so so you know you’ve
gotta respect that you can’t like I you know it’s like well actually if you don’t
wanna talk about it that’s you () its two years it’s you know erm but yeah she
was a bit like I don’t wanna don’t wanna know but then again that she’s only
one person
In Karen’s account, the community member concerned rejects attempts to discuss

the prevention of cancer in the community, preferring to engage at a more spiritual
level, in the memorialisation of her family member: ‘the star in the sky that came up
every night’. There is therefore some conflict apparent between this approach and
the more matter of fact approach of the practitioner, who is concerned with
delivering information to prevent cancer, and who seems to express some surprise
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that this community member is still unable to discuss the subject two years after the
death of her relative. Again however, the above excerpts, do not present Traveller
Community members as straightforwardly fatalistic, but demonstrate how a
discussion of cancer may be too painful to engage with in the context of recent
experiences of loss. Even where Traveller Community members view illness as
preventable, they may find it too difficult to hear information about the preventability
of illness.
Discourses of fatalism were less evident in the narratives of Nicola, Caroline and
Louise, with these practitioners offering more explicit challenges to notions of
Traveller Community members as unconcerned with their health or reluctant to
engage with health services. In general, Nicola presents Gypsy and Traveller
women as engaged with antenatal care for instance. She relayed examples of
interaction whereby individual Traveller Community women were very receptive to,
and acted on health advice received, although a broader culture of negative health
beliefs and behaviours within Traveller Communities is also described as prohibiting
individuals from adopting healthy behaviour:
Nicola: I suppose one of the things that I have struggled with with one
woman was around smoking cessation (laugh) and felt erm that if it’d just
been herself and myself or when it was just herself and myself I felt as if
some of the messages and the support I was trying to give regarding her
reducing the cigarette consumption with the aim of stopping during the
pregnancy and the benefits for her and the benefits for the baby when there
were just the two of us you could see the cogs turning and that sort of
apparent understanding and accepting but as soon as anybody else came
into the situation they had more influence than I did and I find that quite
difficult and quite challenging to know how to deal with really so that’s
somebody who I truly believe does understand and wishes to alter their
behaviour erm does not have the support within the community to do so and
I’m not quite sure where we go with that
That the Traveller Community member concerned is presented as absorbing and

accepting information provided and seems keen to alter her behaviour introduces a
counter narrative to one of fatalism in Traveller Communities. However, this
individual’s acceptance of the link between smoking and health is not described as
pre-dating the practitioner’s intervention, but as something that she had to work to
get the young woman to accept (represented in the use of ‘cogs turning’). This again
seems to support presentations of Traveller Communities as not particularly attuned
to the potential consequences of the adoption of unhealthy behaviour. As does
Nicola’s laughter following her statement that addressing smoking was a particular
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challenge which appears to signify that this is unsurprising. Nicola therefore still
positions herself as working against the tide of community health beliefs. Louise also
counters representations of fatalism Traveller Communities when she describes how
a community member was extremely engaged in discussions around how to
improve the health of residents on the site:
Louise: she was incredibly anxious and she em spoke to she spoke to us
about not being able to see a GP feeling constantly worried about her own
health that she didn’t want to die and leave three children that she didn’t feel
that she was getting advice off anyone about what she should be doing with
this baby about feeding about erm she found a lump on her breast which
was to do with breast you know erm having had a baby but she was who
does she speak to where does she go er she she was losing blood she
wasn’t sure if that was normal and all of those and she was just inc- hyper
anxious erm that she talked about seeing domestic violence on and around
the site and how could we manage that and she didn’t she seemed very erm
almost well informed in some ways about lots of health things to look out for
but not, but but then very anxious about not being able to then speak to
anyone or get the support she needed in order to address what she thought
she was finding
Louise portrays this Traveller Community member as extremely attuned with respect
to her health and as anxious to ensure she received access to appropriate
information to inform the management and promotion of her health. Louise’s use of
‘almost well informed’ does however suggest some limits in her presentation of this
individual’s health literacy, and again conveys a degree of surprise over this attitude.
Caroline articulated the most direct challenge to narratives about Gypsy and
Traveller disengagement with health and health services. Speaking of her
experience offering health checks for Traveller Community members on site, she
describes the receptivity of Traveller Community members:
Caroline: but I think if there is a reticence about services and health and all
the rest of it but um um we didn’t find that reticence that [day] we were there
we had over 60 people come for their blood pressure well women and a
couple of the lads but it was the same the second time round when we went
round the caravans not one women said to us no...people were very
welcoming very positive they spoke quite openly and you know just
addressed a number of health issues they had
While one negative experience was reported by Caroline whereby a Traveller

Community member had become aggressive in response to health workers asking
his relative questions about her life more generally, Caroline described this in
individual terms rather than treating this as indicative of the reactions of the
community as a whole.
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Cultural explanations of fatalism were combined or conflated with structural
explanations in the accounts of some health practitioners. This is perhaps
unsurprising given that fatalism is often associated with ‘disadvantaged’ groups
(Keeley, Lanelle and Condit, 2009). For example, reflecting on a presentation by a
colleague, Hazel suggests that those who are less educated and from lower classes
are less likely to act on invitation letters for mammography screening, with a blurring
of categories between these sections of society and Traveller Communities:
Hazel: it’s almost like the people who are most highly motivated are likely to
be well educated and relatively middle-class... but he [colleague] said it’s not
more in BME groups not coming its its people with a level of educational
attainment who they get the letter and they put it in the bin erm and then I
think that’s really interesting cause that would almost certainly be the same
for Gypsies and Travellers I would be erm surprised if if if they took up those
sorts of offers although we did ask whether people had had a letter for the n-
about the NHS health check and it was only something like 12 or 14 had and
about ten of those had gone and gone and had their NHS health check so
that seemed really good (laughs) so maybe a letter coming with their name
on it from their practice saying please phone us and make an appointment
for this maybe that is a good thing cause I was actually quite surprised and
pleased erm that people were going but yeah
The above narrative is one that is well rehearsed in public health discourse, in which
it is often stated that the ‘worried well’ are most likely to benefit from health
interventions on offer. The explanation for poor uptake of services here differs from
that presented earlier on in Hazel’s account, with low educational levels presented
as the predominant factor, over and above those associated with ethnicity. While
structural factors are recognised as influencing health and uptake of services, these
factors are still understood by reference to the behavioural factors that result from
them; these sections of society are more likely to be the type of person to put a
screening letter ‘in the bin’. Yet, a contradiction was evident here in that most
Traveller Community members were found to have taken up the offer of NHS health
checks. Hazel’s narrative highlights the ways that practitioners draw on conflicting
and competing narratives about Traveller Communities in relation to health.
However, her admission of surprise that Traveller Community members had taken
up health checks nevertheless points to the persistence of narratives about Traveller
Community members’ reticence to accept health interventions, even in the face of
conflicting evidence. Karen also combines different explanations when making
sense of her difficulty broaching prevention with a community member who had
recently lost a family member to cancer:
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Karen: it’s not on their priority list basically health at all they like to learn and
they like to you know cooking and all that but actually doing it in their home is
a totally different thing I think it’s erm health is the last thing on their agenda I
think surviving is th- the first thing (laughs) but
Health is presented as a low priority for Traveller Communities compared to

‘survival’ which she goes on to define in terms of financial income and basic needs
such as feeding children and heating homes. Whilst Traveller Communities are
presented as enjoying opportunities for learning available through healthy cooking
sessions, this is not deemed indicative of actual engagement in the promotion of
their health. Like Hazel, Karen draws similarities between Traveller Community
members’ and those who experience disadvantage more generally:
Karen: I think with the Travelling Community like I was saying health is the
last thing I mean I suppose in in a deprived area health is your last thing you
know you wanna survive so it’s almost like I don’t know I mean none I’ve
found you know I don’t think many of them smoke I don’t I didn’t see any of
the ladies smoking or anything like that but like you know I suppose if you’re
looking at a children’s centre in [place name] you know yeah I’ve got no
money but actually you know but you can buy your fags d’you know what I
mean its that its almost trying to re-prioritise things for them and say you
know like immunisation
Karen alternates between individual and structural explanations for Traveller

Community health throughout her account. The statement that there is a need to ‘re-
prioritise things’ for Traveller Communities (above) and her suggestions elsewhere
in her interview, that people need a 'kick start', and she’d like Traveller Communities
to ‘take responsibility for’ themselves sit alongside a recognition of material
constraints such as the inability to purchase fresh and healthy food. As for
references to screening letters being put in the bin in Hazel’s account, narratives of
a lack of prioritisation of health translate structural determinants back into the realm
of personal responsibility and control; the solution for improving health is presented
as lying not in the alleviation of the inequalities which hamper engagement with
health such as poverty and education, but in what community members need to do
themselves: re-prioritise their values and take more control over their health.
7.2.3 Traveller Communities as a ‘hard to reach’ group

Practitioners also drew on discourses of Traveller Communities as a ‘hard to reach’,
or ‘exclusive’ group who are unwilling to engage with, and even potentially hostile to,
outsiders. Becky for instance, describes Traveller Communities as potentially
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unaccepting of health workers, while Sandra relays her apprehension when
beginning to work with these groups:
Becky: I just thought it would be interesting work really and it was a bit of a
test to see if we erm if we could work with that community and if they will
accept us
Sandra: when it started like I say I was I was quite like ‘urr I’m really nervous
don’t know what to expect of these people’
Sandra’s suggestion that she ‘didn’t know what to expect of these people’ reinforces
a sense of Traveller Communities as a hidden group, with whom few people
knowingly come into contact. Elsewhere in the interview, Sandra conveyed an
expectation of feeling ‘intimidated’ and suggested she was ‘scared’ of working with
Traveller Communities, something Caroline also points to among health service
staff. Discourses of Traveller Communities as difficult to engage and of these groups
as potentially posing a risk to health workers are also evident in the accounts of
Karen and Nicola:
Nicola: with regard to the community as a whole I was really w- been really
warmly accepted and welcomed so whether that has been to do with the way
that I went about it in approaching [name of community organisation] and
other services to sort of help me in erm but I have never felt threatened or
urm I’ve never felt at risk when I’ve gone to either a roadside site or a or the
main site which was things that my colleagues were telling me that they had
experienced before or feelings that they they had felt before... so I I spose
that was the biggest thing that sort of fear of safety or vulnerability when
approaching the community and that I had to preconceptions about which I
have to say I’ve completely dismissed now
Karen: you have a perception don’t you of what they’re like really rough and
hard and then actually people aren’t you know you just got to treat everybody
the same you know as if they were just um you know an everyday p- which
they are so that was my first encounter
A discourse of Traveller Communities as unlikely to engage with complete outsiders

is evident in Nicola’s explanation that approaching Gypsies and Travellers through
trusted organisations contributed to her acceptance within the community. That
Nicola describes her preconceptions about risks to her personal safety as influenced
by discussion with colleagues points to cultural narratives of Traveller Community
members as potentially hostile. Likewise, Karen’s preconception that Traveller
Community members would be ‘rough’ and ‘hard’ reinforces notions of Traveller
Communities as potentially aggressive. Karen’s use of encounter (on two occasions
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in the interview) also appears loaded and suggestive of potential disagreement6 as
opposed to other more neutral terms that could have been employed such as met or
meet for instance. Nicola similarly suggested that prior to her work she had no
‘exposure’ to the Traveller Community. When Karen suggests treating Travellers ‘as
if’ they were an everyday person, before correcting this distinction, a struggle is
evident around whether engaging with Traveller Communities is viewed as similar or
different to engaging with other groups. This was also explicit in Sandra’s account
when she described Traveller Community members as different in that they are
more mistrustful, but similar in that they did not fit stereotypes that she had been led
to believe in. Indeed, practitioners often explicitly noted the role of wider social
stereotypes of Traveller Communities, such as those of criminality, in shaping
preconceptions about Traveller Communities:
Sandra: it wasn’t what I expected because I thought they’d be like a- maybe

they’d be horrible people from the way that stereotyped and you know are
they gonna pinch something out of my bag (laughs) I was like oh God really
worried about things like that but no not at all they were welcoming they were
nice erm
Caroline: I’d like to be able to say I didn’t have any expectations but I think
that probably wouldn’t be true what I was given was an overwhelmingly
negative perception by everyone
Many practitioners gave honest and reflexive accounts of these presumptions about
Traveller Community members prior to working with these groups and indicated
explicitly that any initial concerns about Traveller Community members being
rejecting of, or hostile to them had not been borne out in practice. Indeed, the
following practitioner made a very direct challenge to the idea that Traveller
Community members were necessarily mistrustful:
Louise: they mistrust authority and they don’t they don’t they don’t yeah they
don’t trust statutory services that wasn’t my view on that day it felt people
apart from that one woman it felt like it they all really wanted to engage and
make things better for themselves and their kids
While initially accepting the discourse that Traveller Community members are
mistrustful of authority, Louise draws on her experience of interacting with Traveller
Community members to suggest a counter discourse of Traveller Community
6
The word encounter originates from the Middle English ‘incounter’, meaning a meeting of
adversaries and in Latin literally translating to in (in) + against (counter)
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members as active in discussions to improve conditions for themselves and their
families.

This section moves on to explore the implications of the above discourses for the
identities of practitioners, their roles in working with Traveller Communities, and how
practitioners drew upon these discourses when positioning themselves in relation to
others.
7.3.1 Becoming accepted

In keeping with the discourse of Traveller Communities as an exclusive group,
practitioners often positioned themselves as being ‘weighed up’ or vetted by
Traveller Communities when beginning work with these groups:
Sandra: I’m not sure how accepting they were to start with because they take
you like that you know you don’t come in and be accepted straight away
they’ll suss you out so I think I was being sussed out for the first few weeks
(laughs)
Becky: they need to look at your faces and know who you are and they need
to trust you and they like familiar faces having said that they will accept new
faces but they weigh you up really quickly
Furthermore, in the context of the above discourse of Traveller Communities as

exclusive groups, practitioners presented their unique position of acceptance as an
important aspect of their preferred self and identity. For example, when asked about
her response to a successful health promotion session, Karen’s repeated use of
‘they really liked me’ prioritises consideration of how accepted she was as a person,
as opposed to other outcomes that may have been cited such as community
members listening or taking information on board:
Karen: they really liked me (laughs) they really liked me they were showing
you me the they were showing me their tits they must of liked me (laughs) no
it was quite funny it was I just thought it was you know that’s really nice that
they you know they accepted me they’d never met me before you know and
by the end of the session they were l- they were opening up... they do still
remember me you know this was five years ago and they s- you know when I
went round they wen oh I remember you from that thing you know I
remember you from the you know so which is nice really you know cause
they do- I think they’re very untrusting of people there’s not many people
that’ll trust and they like or they you know but obviously they do me
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Here, discourses that Traveller Communities are ‘untrusting’ are used to reinforce
practitioner status as occupying a privileged position of integration into the
community. The statement that Traveller Community members remembered Karen
from a previous session acts as further validation of her claims that she is liked and
accepted. That Traveller Community members were presented as particularly
candid about any feelings of dislike, conveyed a further risk that any lack of
acceptance is publicly displayed, and was also used by some practitioners as
confirmation that they were liked by community members:
Sandra: believe you me if they don’t like you if you don’t fit into their group
they will let you know in no uncertain terms they won’t do it behind your back
they’ll do it to your face so erm I feel like because that’s never happened to
me (laughs) they must like me yeah (laughing)
Nicola: they’re very articulate at expressing when the care they’ve received
has been good or not so good so they are very good at giving feedback if
you’re open to it
By describing herself as having been granted a ‘privileged window’ into the lives of
Traveller Communities, Becky reinforces the idea of Traveller Communities as an
exclusive group:
Becky: it gives us a window into we’re privileged window into a life that you
would only read about in in in in-a- a red top mag or the daily hate you know
about how horrible the community [is]
The use of the term window is interesting in portraying someone looking in as

opposed to a more active form of participation with the community. Sandra also
describes the privilege she felt in being able to share in some parts of Traveller
Community members’ lives such as viewing pictures of weddings once she had
become more accepted, and suggests she is ‘proud’ to work with Traveller
Community members. It was not only Gypsies and Travellers who were presented
as scrutinising practitioners when first approaching these communities, but also
organisations advocating for the rights of these groups. Traveller Community
organisations were presented as gatekeepers who are protective over Traveller
Communities and reluctant to allow others to access this group:
Karen: [name of Traveller organisation] tend to think they’re the only people
who can work with Gypsies and Travellers which actually it’s not true you
know and I think that’s what they’ve done they’ve they’ve just sort of alienat-
not alienated themselves they just work in silo basically
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Hazel: I think [Name of Traveller organisation] much more mature
organisation now but I think initially they hung onto their Gypsies and
Travellers a bit you know that that they were the people who really
understood the issues really understood the culture understood the
challenges and therefore they needed to be funded to meet those needs and
whilst that was true to some degree and I’m really really pleased to see that I
think that organisation’s moved on quite a lot in the last few years and much
more into a place where they’re saying we want to see every agency that’s
working around inequality or deprivation to be able to provide a good service
to Gypsies and Travellers
This was connected with issues of power by Hazel, who was critical of a tendency
among health service staff to rest their ‘sense of themselves as professionals’ on
knowledge about or ability to work with certain groups. Indeed, this connects with
arguments presented in Chapter 5 on the ways that this knowledge was employed in
practitioners’ identity claims. One practitioner mistakenly assumed that the individual
leading the Traveller rights organisation was a Traveller Community member
herself, and interpreted this individual as holding particular power in negotiating the
terms on which other community members could engage with ‘outside’ services:
Karen: she’s another top dog like [name] you know and it’s like you will do it
my way or no way and not it’s almost like seeing things in erm you know with
blinkers on isn’t it you know I’m the only one who can help them I’m the only
one who can understand them
Karen used phrases such as ‘top dog’ and ‘your ladies’ to suggest that some
members of the community have particular influence over others on a couple of
occasions during the interview. This is stated more explicitly still where Karen says
of one woman who is felt to have this influence, that ‘she’s the one that basically if
she’s interested in something she’ll get all the women to do it’.
Sandra explained her trusted position as resulting from community members

realising that she ‘wasn’t just going to throw the towel in’ and Nicola described
herself as more likely to be accepted by community members by virtue of her
professional role:
Nicola: as with most women midwives are accepted you know th- that we
we’re seen as a positive erm contribution to their wellbeing and not seen in
the same light as say social workers
Karen describes trying to be really nice and the fact that she is a friendly person
when making sense of her relationship with community members. Becky however
conveyed a sense of this accepted status as more fragile and open to change:
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Becky: luckily because of the community health educators and the way they
work and the kind of people they are erm touch wood it does work and it it’ll
continue to work really yeah
The use of the phrases ‘touch wood’ and ‘luckily’ position workers as having a
limited degree of agency over whether they will be trusted, and how long this
position will be maintained. Although identifying key and stable characteristics and
qualities of workers as influencing their acceptance, Becky simultaneously relayed a
sense of identity as more changeable, and described significant impression
management work during engagement with Traveller Communities:
Becky: sometimes it’s incredibly tiring because it’s like being in being in
character it’s like being on stage or being in on character for that period of
the healthy session so you have to be a certain kind of person and you have
to be tough relentless and happy and jolly and wisecracking all the time
This process of adopting, dropping and changing aspects of self-presentation in

response to the community one is working with is also suggested where Becky
likens her role to that of being in character, being on stage and elsewhere in the
interview, to a stand-up comedian. Becky described absorbing and recycling the
language and expressions used by the communities she works with by way of
easing integration. Here, the practitioner presents language as a kind of carrier, or to
borrow Goffman’s (1956) term, as a ‘sign vehicle’ of one’s familiarity with Traveller
Communities.
7.3.2 Downplaying ‘professional’ identity

In conjunction with the above noted tendency of practitioners to present themselves
as more ‘in tune’ with Traveller Community member lifestyles, some practitioners
sought to downplay any ‘professional’ associations when engaging with Traveller
Community members. Those working in community educator roles emphasised their
position as part of the communities they served while some with status as
‘professional’ health workers often adopted strategies to dissociate themselves from
this identity when providing health advice. This was connected with the avoidance of
‘preaching’ to community members, which may signal judgement over their health
behaviours. This distinction was also entangled with class by practitioners, some of
whom stressed their working-class identity as important in engaging with Traveller
Community members about health advice:
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Karen: I wasn’t anybody really posh or I wasn’t anybody who thought I was
better than them you know and I think you know that’s why they started
asking me questions so just made it really really simple
Karen suggested her acceptance by community members not only results from a
lack of judgement, but her class position (‘not being posh’) and went on to identify a
similarity between herself and Traveller Communities in terms of being ‘hands on
practical people’ as opposed to being academically educated. Becky and Sandra
similarly refer to class, identification with community members and the absence of a
professional agenda when articulating what works in engaging with Traveller
Community members:
Becky: a lot of the community health educators have a- are from er-
incredibly deprived sometimes brutalised backgrounds sometimes they’re
not it’s a really eclectic mix erm so they wear their history on their faces and
they can engage very quickly so you might have somebody who’s struggled
with alcohol dependency talking to a group of alcoholics this is the theory or
you might have an ex heroin addict talking about drugs cause it just lends a
bit more authenticity mixed in with a community member that’s not got an
health problems any issues at all but just wants to help the community but
they do tend to be gregarious and friendly and they’re not badged up with
any kind of authority so that informality and no agenda really they’re pretty
transparent
Sandra: I strongly believe in community health education because I don’t

think anyone from any community’s gonna listen to somebody in a white
jacket telling em what to do erm with a stethoscope round their neck and
coming out with language and long words that they really really don’t
understand erm I’m a [place] girl I live in [place] I work in [place] so I can
actually say to people I you know if I go deliver a four week cookery course
I’ll say I’ve just got all these ingredients from Morrisons at [place name]
round the corner so that they can’t say we’ll I was looking for whatever them
noodles or this so and so a piece of ginger I can’t get that round here you
know
The community health educators that work in the organisation are described as
coming from sometimes 'brutalised' backgrounds and this is presented as lending
them a degree of credibility and authenticity which leads them to be more readily
accepted. Like Traveller Community members, community health educators are
described as wearing their history on their faces. Elsewhere in the interview Becky
describes herself and her colleagues as ‘blue collar worker working class mentality’
and cites an example of a session by a ‘professional health worker’ which was less
successful as ‘it was too literate and it was too clasroomy’, with the result that
Traveller community members were ‘bored, disinterested disengaged’. Sandra too
suggests the lower likelihood that Traveller Communities, but also communities
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more generally (vaguely defined), will engage with information provided by those
with the markers of professionals: ‘a white jacket’, ‘stethoscope’ and ‘long words’.
Nicola and Linda, who themselves occupied professional roles described ways in
which they sought to downplay signifiers of this professional identity when engaging
with Traveller Communities. Both described presenting themselves as a guest when
visiting Traveller Community homes, with Nicola describing attempts to reverse
power relations between herself and community members by reading her notes
aloud to ensure openness. Linda described the body work that she undertook in
order to signal informality and distance herself from her ‘professional’ role, including
not wearing a uniform, taking her shoes off, sitting cross legged on the floor, and
using her first name as opposed to her professional title in order to avoid occupying
the role of an ‘expert’ or giving the impression that she is different from the
community. She also distanced herself from the more patronising approach she saw
exhibited by other midwives.
Practitioners also emphasised their personal as opposed to purely professional care

for Traveller Community members and their enjoyment of working and spending
time with community members:
Becky: we love them you know we love being with them the they’re a they’re
a not everyone does they’re a joy to be with I love those Travellers because
they’re so fast they’re so exciting its so intoxicating being with them they
really appreciate everything that you do for them
In suggesting that ‘not everyone’ enjoys being with Travellers, Becky distinguishes
herself from other practitioners and reinforces her status as among an exclusive
group of practitioners able to work with Travellers. Becky’s suggestions elsewhere in
the interview that she has ‘the best job in the world’ and that she is ‘not quite sure if
it’s a proper job’, also serve to reinforce her enjoyment of the work, as does her
statement about the benefits of the work for her own ‘mental and emotional health'.
Karen also tended to represent her relationship with Traveller communities in
personal terms e.g. ‘I think they’re a lovely bunch I get on really well with Gypsies
and Travellers’ and described a colleague who ‘loves’ working with Travellers.
Sandra’s later statement of ‘I get on really well with Gypsies and Travellers’ similarly
demonstrates a blurring of the personal and professional in interactions with
Traveller Communities. Likewise, Linda makes a claim to her particular connection
to, and proficiency and interest in working with Traveller Communities:
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Linda: I particularly probably above everybody apart from [colleague] that’s
my kind of little bag that I like looking I like dealing with the Travellers and
they’ve got to know me quite well
Here, the phrase ‘that’s my kind of little bag’ conveys a sense of ownership over this
area of work, with claims to this position not only underpinned by the endorsement
of Traveller Community members themselves, but a greater interest in work with
Traveller Communities than other practitioners. Hazel described how much she
enjoyed working with Traveller Community members, having met ‘absolutely lovely
people’ and suggested that she would ‘love’ to do more work with this group.
Louise’s earlier description of her ‘irrational’ urge to retrain in order to be able to fix
the issues that she saw when visiting the site herself also points to some tensions in
balancing these reactions and her more distanced ‘professional’ role.
Nicola described the personal impact of her work to a lesser degree than others
interviewed and articulated her relationship with the community in more distanced
terms than other practitioners. She does however describe herself as enjoying
working with ethnic minority groups and proud of the relationship she formed with a
young Traveller mother. Indeed, the tendency to present oneself as personally
connected to communities was most apparent in (but not exclusive to) the accounts
of practitioners who, by their own definition, worked in community as opposed to
more professionalised roles. This is perhaps unsurprising given attention to the
maintenance of boundaries between health practitioners and patients in professional
and ethical codes of conduct for nursing and midwifery for example. A counter story
to the importance of downplaying professional identity is also apparent in the
account of Caroline where she suggests that a worker was more accepted due to
her role as nurse and midwife (as well as her position as an older woman).
7.3.3 Difficulty broaching health behaviour

Discourses of Traveller Communities as fatalistic combined with those of Travellers
as ‘hard to reach’ to create a concern among practitioners about broaching health
behaviours. Given the potential judgement surrounding health behaviour, raising
these issues risked undermining the trust that practitioners had developed with
community members. Nicola for example describes the tension between maintaining
acceptance and the need to address health behaviours as part of her professional
role:
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Nicola: I found it very difficult to raise those [behavioural] issues because I
felt as if I was going into a community that I knew I needed to gain
acceptance within so I putty footed around I was trying to erm make
relationships and gain the confidence of the community and I know that I
wasn’t fulfilling my role in tackling some of those negative health behaviours
This tension was particularly felt where practitioners broached sensitive issues.
Sandra relayed a story of attempting to broach cancer prevention with a group of
Traveller Community women for example:
Sandra: I had another woman and she said in front of everyone she she held
her hands up and went [name] she says erm and I’ll never forget this she
went ‘don’t you believe what will be will be if you’re gonna get cancer you’re
gonna get cancer if you’re gonna have a heart attack you’re gonna have a
heart attack what will be will be’ and I’m said ‘no actually I don’t agree’ and
they all looked at me as if to say ‘oh my god you’re challenging one of the
most important women in the room’ because obviously the older community
members are really looked up to and respected and what they say is usually
what’s believed…I actually stood up and said ‘no I couldn’t couldn’t disagree
with you more’ erm whereas someone might be a bit intimidated and go oh
yeah and slink away I was like ‘no no you can stop yourself from getting
cancer if you eat healthily drink in moderation stop smoking exercise’ and
you know I said ‘I know it sounds boring but that’s the facts and I know not
everybody will do it but that’s the fact of life if you look after yourself of
course there will be the odd person who it’s in their genes and yeah they will
get cancer they’ve had a lif- healthy life and chances are they might get it
and they might die’ but you know we’ve explained to them if you do look after
yourself you’re less likely to get it and the more you mistreat your body the
higher up the scale you are more likely to get it and I don’t think they’d
actually I honestly genuinely believe they’d not thought about that
Sandra’s use of ‘I’ll never forget this’, and the similar narration of this event on
another occasion during the interview suggests that this story is a key and well-
rehearsed account of her work. Throughout the story, Sandra’s own convictions that
‘you can stop yourself from getting cancer’ and that ‘that’s the fact of life’ are
contrasted with the fatalistic view of the community member that ‘what will be will
be’. Challenging the community member’s view is presented as risky, as shown by
the reported responses of community members and Sandra’s later description in the
interview of these actions as ‘brave and bold’. Sandra also goes on to more explicitly
address the tension between a desire to befriend Traveller Communities and the
requirement to deliver health advice as part of her role:
Sandra: you can get a bit big headed and want everybody to like you
(laughs) and erm you know some some weeks you go fantastic and you
come out feeling really really good and thinking oh yeah everybody liked me
in there and erm but other other weeks like I say about the one with erm that
was the day with the skin cancer DVD when the woman said ‘oh don’t you
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believe that’ and I was like ‘well no’ but if I was trying to win friends I woulda
just put my head down and gone oh yeah yeah I believe that but I didn’t and
that’s not like me because I don’t usually I I can be quite quiet and I don’t
usually challenge people but I felt like even though she was kind of their
leader I had to make a stand and say I disagree with you... and that’s what
they’re that’s what the end of the day that’s what why we’re there we’re there
to try and encourage little lifestyle changes that in the end will make a
difference and will ultimately save the NHS money because that’s what we’re
all getting funded for at the end of the day that’s our job
Here, the requirements of Sandra’s role in encouraging lifestyle changes are

explicitly opposed to actions of trying to win friends. Again, the need to confront
community members’ fatalistic stance is presented as a difficult task, and one which
contrasts with Sandra’s usual character. At times, professional distance seemed to
be employed to guard against the sense of personal failing that might result from
being unable to broach health issues or sessions going less successfully. In the
above example, Sandra couches the need to challenge the behaviour of Traveller
Communities as part of her job role, as well as her desire to prevent poor health in
these groups. This tendency was also evident in the interview with Becky when she
tended to fall back on outlining a professional obligation to address sensitive issues
when describing a session that hadn’t gone well:
Becky: you feel very deflated really but you kinda know professionally that
you’ve tried
It is possible that this presentation of professional responsibility to address

behaviour acts as a mechanism to separate the person from the professional and
protect against personal rejection as a result of broaching more sensitive issues.
Practitioners also appeared to deal with this difficulty by limiting their expectations
for what can be achieved to simply having provided information about lifestyle
issues, after which community members can make a free and informed choice
regarding how they act on this information:
Karen: you just have to give them an informed choice you have to give them
the tools and then they have to make an informed choice
Sandra: we feel our job’s done if we’ve said it and we’ve given the facts and
the information’
This further highlights how practitioners reconcile personal and professional roles in
the context of their work with Traveller Community members. Some practitioners
appeared to present lifestyle issues as an intractable problem. For example, both
Louise and Caroline describe healthy lifestyles as a minor focus in their work even
189
though these issues were described as prevalent in Traveller Communities. These
issues were presented as best tackled by the Traveller organisation. This is possibly
the result of the trusted position of this organisation and in the case of Caroline,
since the small scale and time limited nature of her work with these groups was
unlikely to be sufficient to address health behaviour. Linda described limiting the
information she provided on contraception based on her perception of Traveller
Community members’ cultural beliefs. As such, practitioners themselves sometimes
appeared to express a degree of fatalism over the extent to which they could
engage Traveller Community members with respect to health behaviour.
7.3.4 Dressing up health information

Another strategy adopted by practitioners to manage the potential for health advice
to jeopardise trust was to dress up or market health promotion advice in ways that
were deemed more acceptable to community members. Traveller Community
members were presented as particularly concerned with their physical appearance,
with this sometimes hindering the uptake of healthy behaviours:
Linda: this woman told me this Traveller said its quite common now for a lot
of women…to have boob jobs and to not breastfeed because they don’t want
their tits to be saggy to cause they’d be proud of their tits if you notice a lot of
them you can see that cleavage
As such, practitioners often reported selling healthy behaviour in terms of its benefits
for promoting physical attractiveness:
Linda: her daughter says ‘oh I drink a lot of Coca-Cola’ I said ‘well maybe
consider not’ she said ‘I’ll go onto diet’ I said ‘they say diet ‘s no good you
know consider sparkly water’ she said ‘really?’ I said ‘yeah if you wanna do
good things for your teeth keep your teeth nice and white good for the baby’
Here Linda employs two mechanisms to frame health advice in a more acceptable
way. Firstly, she emphasises the benefits of drinking water not only for the health of
the mother and baby, but as keeping teeth white. Secondly, Linda’s use of ‘they say’
distances her from the advice being provided. Sandra also presented Traveller
Community members as concerned with their appearance, suggesting that having a
suntan is what young Traveller Community women ‘strive to achieve’ and going on
to describe framing the risks of skin cancer in terms of physical attractiveness as
opposed to health when discussing the use of sunbeds:
Sandra: we’re like well you do know that in the long run you’re probably
gonna damage your skin and you might end up getting cancer skin cancer
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which isn’t gon- really gonna make you look lovely if you’ve got a big
melanoma on your face (slight laugh) and erm you know explaining what that
isn’t very you know would need cutting away and that’s not gonna make you
look very pretty and it’s just like just something to think about girls you know
(laughs) no no don’t panic over it but just be aware that there is a direct link
Contradictions were apparent in Sandra’s narrative however, since elsewhere in the

interview she described not ‘sugar-coating’ information and suggested that this was
something that she had ‘wanted to bring up’. This points to some difference between
rehearsed descriptions of her approach and those illustrated through storytelling.
Becky also describes appealing to vanity when giving behavioural advice:
Becky: so you know for smoking you can say well you know if you carry on
smoking you might get a few lines you know erm or eat this they’re fantastic
for your complexion erm you know this’ll really stop you getting spots...if you
do a bit of exercise its you know you just look healthy you look fantastic erm
so yeah those things we realise work really well
This concern to hide health promotion within other agendas extended to the design
of health promotion sessions. Practitioners spoke often about ensuring that health
promotion was informal and about laughing and joking with community members.
Some practitioners described efforts to ensure that health sessions and advice were
delivered in an entertaining way to distract from the seriousness of health
messages:
Becky: obviously beneath all the jokey jokiness and humour erm we do have
you know we the the courses we’ve done we’ve we we have there are some
serious messages behind it
In Becky’s above quote, health advice is positioned as ‘beneath’ and ‘behind’ the
more overt emphasis on humour during the sessions. Indeed, Becky also describes
careful marketing of health sessions to provoke the interest of community members.
She describes producing ‘vibrant’ and ‘bright’ table displays with colourful and fresh
fruit, vegetables and herbs that are ‘exotic and exciting and a bit different’ for
community members, and which resemble ‘Ready Steady Cook’ or ‘Jamie Oliver’.
Caroline similarly argued that there was sometimes a need to avoid badging things
as health focused, since people can feel like they’re ‘getting a battering’ all the time.
Although articulating a philosophy of providing information to enable an informed but
free choice, some practitioners also appeared to adopt strategies to cajole Traveller
Community members’ participation in sessions. Sandra described the importance of
responding to Gypsy and Traveller community preferences for sessions and the
benefits of interaction in and of itself, but she also suggested that community
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members would inadvertently be absorbing health information whilst participating
socially, and described the strategic organisation of activities to maximise
engagement with health promotion advice:
Sandra: you know you create a buzz and an excitement about what you’re
doing and that hooks them in... we’ve got everything set out for cooking but
we we know that if they just came and did the cooking they’d then leave so
we have it all set up so they know what they’re gonna do but then we’ll do
something for maybe half an hour or an hour first and then do the cooking so
they know they’ve got to stay (laughs) it’s a bit sneaky
Karen also described the need to ‘package’ health promotion issues by

surreptitiously approaching these under the guise of alternative activities provided
for the community:
Karen: we need to sort of maybe set up a sewing group and start you know
talking to you know the women around you know again bringing the breast
and cervical cancer awareness theme immunisations for your children you
know all that sort of health stuff as a blanket or as a smoke screen almost
you know we’re doing this but we’re doing that as well
Again, at times this practitioner noted the need for freedom of choice, yet on other
occasions this person used language such as ‘oh you’ve caught them now’ implying
an attempt to get Traveller Community members on side. Traveller Community
members were presented as sometimes thwarting health advice, by smoking
cannabis, and going out and getting fish and chips straight after a health education
session for instance:
Karen: and then they all went out for fish and chips after there was
like loads of fruit and veg on there it’s like oh...
Researcher: (laughs)
K: fruit and veg and a joint and then they set the fire alarm off
and it was like oh my god (laughs)
While Karen described not wanting to force reading and writing skills onto Traveller
Communities and instead empower community members, on another occasion
during the interview, she suggests that she would have ‘made’ Traveller Community
members undertake a literacy course, even if this was in ‘disguise’. A further attempt
to enforce healthy behaviours was apparent in Becky’s description of restricting the
use of salt within sessions for instance:
Becky: they cook and they go ‘oh wow yeah fantastic how does it taste it
tastes shit or it tastes nice and you know what I mean so can I put a bit of
salt in no you can’t but what you do in your own house is up to you
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However, it is also important to note that one practitioner adopted a different
strategy, using her professional responsibilities to create in-roads to broaching
health behaviours:
Nicola: now that I feel that I have a more trusted relationship and role within
the community erm I can justify tackling those health behaviours that its part
of my role you’ve let me in as a midwife now and as a midwife I now have
responsibility to try and enable you to help you to develop more healthy
lifestyle
This illustrates the ways that professional identity might be used when broaching
lifestyle behaviour; namely by stressing that this is something that they must do in
their jobs. Other practitioners described dimensions of their own identity such as age
and experiences (e.g. such as motherhood) as influencing their ability to identify and
engage with Traveller Community members. Practitioners highlighted differences in
connections with Traveller Community members depending on age and shared
experiences for example:
Sandra: we had a student called [name] who again loved her work…she got
on really well with the particularly with the young girls cause she was only
about erm 20 so she had a really good rapport with them she had a lot in
common with them and erm tha- I feel like I’ve been erm probably taken on
more by the the Mums you know because I’m a Mum and we can share
experiences and stories so erm a- the they think its great that you’ve got a
child they wanna know all about your family (laughs)
Practitioners therefore described multiple and often contradictory strategies in their

narratives, both hiding health promotion within other agendas and providing
forthright accounts of the facts in relation to health behaviour. This illustrates how
practitioners drew on competing ideas when describing their work and roles. The
multiple dimensions of identity along which practitioners saw sources of potential
connection or dis-identification with Traveller Communities and which operate in
complex ways during health encounters have also been highlighted.
7.4.1 A privileged position of acceptance

Practitioners’ preferred identities as occupying a unique position in being accepted
and able to work with Traveller Communities were reinforced in interpersonal
interaction between myself and participants and my more general engagement in
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the field. In informal conversation with Becky prior to undertaking the interview for
example, the privilege she described in gaining insight into Traveller Community
lives was extended to my own role as a researcher:
Becky added that it was also a privilege to get to know a community who we
often only get to know otherwise through TV programmes (Extract from field
notes)
Here, Becky draws a commonality between herself and me the researcher: we are
both outsiders, who have been given a rare opportunity to observe an otherwise
hidden community. Louise similarly appealed to the researcher as a fellow outsider
with an interest in the community, describing herself as ‘fascinated’ by Traveller
Community members’ shared history and inviting my agreement when stating ‘their
language is interesting isn’t it?’. These claims to a position as having gained access
to an exclusive community may reinforce notions of Traveller Communities as ‘hard
to reach’, further protecting the expertise of professionals in working with the
community. In offering such statements, practitioners exoticise Traveller Community
lifestyles, despite often explicitly criticising such representations in the media (such
as ‘Big Fat Gypsy Weddings’). Descriptions offered by Becky, that Traveller
Community members have a ‘lust for life’ or a ‘seductive culture’ and of time spent
with Gypsies and Travellers as ‘exciting’, ‘exhilarating’ and ‘intoxicating’ (the latter
used three times during the interview) romanticise Traveller Community life. Though
this was less evident in the accounts of other practitioners, confirmation of this issue
was also provided throughout my engagement in the field more generally. Members
of the Traveller organisation supporting the research conveyed their discomfort
where practitioners suggest they are motivated in their work by curiosity or
‘fascination’ with Traveller Communities since this communicates a voyeuristic
attitude. They also raised concerns where practitioners suggested that are ‘friends’
with Gypsies and Travellers or use phrases such as ‘I get on with the Travellers’.
This was due to the homogenising effect of these statements and as they were
viewed as an attempt by practitioners to position themselves as interesting because
of their work with Traveller Communities. Indeed, this research has shown that
these forms of positioning seem to play a role in upholding the interests of
practitioners by supporting their preferred identities, as opposed to those of
community members necessarily.
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7.5 Summary
In the context of discourses that position Traveller Community members as less time
disciplined, fatalistic, and a community that is difficult to engage, providing advice
about health behaviour was presented by practitioners as a delicate subject which
threatened their status as liked and accepted within the community. The data
therefore provides support for previous findings in the area of social welfare, which
suggest that Gypsies and Travellers are not without power in interactions with
practitioners since they have the potential to reject the overtures of health
professionals or retreat from services (Vanderbeck, 2009). This study has
highlighted the strategies through which this power is negotiated by practitioners in
health encounters, namely by seeking to dress up health promotion in other
agendas, downplaying professional or middle-class identities and instead adopting a
more casual persona when engaging with community members. While Traveller
Community members were found (above) to express a desire for more health
information and greater medical scrutiny of their bodies to detect illness which may
be hidden, practitioners often directed their attention to more superficial levels of the
body when delivering health advice. This points to a potential mismatch in
expectations between Traveller Communities and health practitioners regarding
what constitutes health advice. Where advice is hidden in other agendas or couched
in terms of wider benefits for physical attractiveness, this may feed the anxieties of
Traveller Community members about the lack of health information received, and
further entrench their position of vulnerability. Having discussed the extent to which
practitioners seek to engage Traveller Communities in health messages, the
following chapter examines the extent to which Traveller Community members
themselves drew on fatalistic narratives and/or those of self-determination with
respect to their health.
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CHAPTER 8 - Touching wood and bucking up your
ideas: Fatalism and personal responsibility in
Traveller Community accounts
8.1 Introduction
This chapter details the ways in which discourses of fatalism, and that on the
imperative of health co-exist in the accounts of Traveller Community members.
Counter dominant presentations in existing literature, the chapter demonstrates that
Traveller Community participants were not beyond the reach of health promotion
doctrine and worked to construct identities as morally responsible health citizens. I
examine the ways that Gypsies and Travellers upheld this preferred identity position
through both the positioning of self and other actors in stories, and interaction with a
health(y) researcher.
8.2.1 Fatalism
Traveller Community members sometimes referenced discourses of luck, fate or the
role of higher powers such as God’s will in explaining health and illness. In doing so,
Gypsies and Travellers occasionally positioned themselves as having a lack of
control over their health, resonating with portrayals of Gypsies and Travellers as
fatalistic in existing literature. Numerous references to fate were evident in Brigid’s
narrative for example. When describing her present health as good, Brigid often
used the phrase ‘touch wood’, or literally touched or knocked on wood; a
superstitious practice used to avoid tempting fate after expressing positive
expectations for the future:
Brigid: but this last few days two days to tell the truth I have been like
everything’s been alright so so far so good so I’m alright, touch wood
Sophia too drew on discourses of God and religion or tempting fate in her
discussions of health or illness. Such references to fate were common in Brigid’s
account, indicating that this is a dominant discourse governing her explanations for
health and illness. This was consistent with her emphasis on changes to health and
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the body as mysterious and unpredictable, bolstered by stories about sudden
changes in the health of relatives or wider community members:
Brigid: look at [name] a young mother thirty-three-year-old lost her life to

cancer sometimes you think ‘why is life so tragic?’ it [name] was a fit person
she never had an ail never had a pain in her life and that happened to her
weird innit? Makes you think you know how life can go should be grateful
every day God gives you innit? But what can you do? But like it’s funny how
like you can be sick one day maybe be the best healthy person one day and
be next day...it shows you how your body can change don’t it like how you
can health how your body can go downhill up the hill
Brigid’s quote encapsulates a fatalistic philosophy, positioning health and the body
as beyond personal control. Her use of ‘weird’ and ‘funny’ position rapid changes to
health as incomprehensible, providing support for the function of fatalism in
managing uncertainty over future health articulated in existing literature (Keeley,
Lanelle and Condit, 2009). However, Brigid’s account also conveys some possible
limits to the role of fatalism in this respect, since this explanation did not remove
Brigid’s fear of potentially sudden health changes:
Brigid: weird innit like how your body goes it frightens you how your body
goes doesn’t it how how your body can be normal one day and brugh
(shudders)
Discourses of fatalism were also apparent in Patricia’s narrative which was

characterised by great struggle in living with a long-term health condition and little
hope of improved future health:
Patricia: a lot of Travelling people don’t go to doctors till they’re really really
really sick you see I’m not a big believer in taking medication I mean I’ve
suffered for years before I’ve gone over this till I I’ve gone because I can’t
stick the pain and I am glad to take the pain killers now I’m waiting for the
time to come and especially men and it aint always over bad experience it’s
just that they don’t go and some go when it’s too late when they’re poorly
there’s a lot of people with mental health issues in Travelling people and they
never go nowhere and they just take it as part of everyday life till some of em
can’t cope and they are hospitalised or sommat like that
Here Patricia describes how her own philosophy as reluctant to accept medication
resulted in her experiencing pain for a prolonged period. This is contextualised by
the suggestion that Traveller Community members in general have a fatalistic
attitude in that they are reluctant to take control and access services before health
issues reach a critical point. This outlook is attributed not only to negative
experiences with services, but a cultural attitude among Traveller Communities, and
particularly so in the case of men and mental health issues. Within the above
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excerpt, Patricia’s statement of ‘I’m waiting for the time to come’ is particularly bleak;
appearing to signal resignation to her situation and position herself as waiting for
death, as opposed to striving towards a fulfilling and healthy life.
Although Eleanor discussed her religious beliefs at length outside of the interview
and indicated her faith in God to help resolve difficulties in a family relationship,
there were surprisingly few references to fate or religion when giving an account of
her health. While Eleanor, for the most part, emphasised personal control and
influence over her health, like Patricia, she described a reluctance to seek help for
mental health problems:
Eleanor: because Travelling people don’t like to am- er admit they’re

mentally ill Travelling people don’t it’s like a private thing to them you know
and it was never something that…and it was never something that was
talked about I’ve never ever in me life grown up ever hearing my parents
talking about mental health issues or anything like that… so when I started
experiencing things like that meself I didn’t understand... I stuck it for a l- a
good few year without going to the doctor and telling the doctor so- I- f- but I
got that bad on me own and no-one knew about it I s- I said I’ll have to go to-
I said I’ll have to go I didn’t tell no-one about it
However, a reluctance to admit mental health issues among Traveller Community

members is one among several reasons Eleanor cited for her hesitancy to seek
help, with others including a lack of education around mental health conditions,
stigma surrounding these issues, and fear that identifying herself as experiencing
mental health problems would result in her children being removed. As such,
numerous factors were noted to influence her decision about the uptake of services
and a cultural reluctance to discuss and seek help for mental health conditions was
not alone in determining uptake of these services. In addition, Eleanor explains her
reluctance to take medication prescribed for depression by a desire to retain control,
thereby complicating the notion of fatalism:
Eleanor: I dunno if I was imagining it meself making meself think it over

taking taking the tablets cause I thought people that take tablets they’re
they’re out of their own control but it’s like I say Travelling people don’t like to
think that they’re not in control of things
Eleanor’s decision not to take up this treatment was not based on a reluctance to
take control over health, but paradoxically motivated by a desire to retain personal
control. As such, Eleanor’s reticence to take up services does not reflect a fatalistic
orientation but rather an agentic decision based on what she believed was best for
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her mental health. This supports the findings of wider research which points to the
potential for fatalism to co-exist with agency. Similarly to Eleanor, women from low
socio-economic and ethnic minority groups in a study by Bell and Hetterly (2014)
used fatalism to avoid medical intervention, connected with fear and mistrust as a
result of historical experiences. This helps to explain Eleanor’s narrative in which a
combination of fear of consequences of seeking medical intervention and a desire to
retain control inform her decision not to seek help. As such, it is important that
different forms of agency (i.e. seeking help from outside services as well as personal
control) are considered when making inferences of fatalism, or a lack of fatalism.
The accounts of some community members showed only traces of discourses of

fatalism. Charlotte, too, lives with a chronic condition which significantly limits her
ability to undertake everyday activities, yet fatalistic discourses around health were
rare within her account. A minor and implicit reference to fate did occur where
Charlotte described how her condition always seems to worsen after she makes any
commitment:
Charlotte: I can’t take permanent work on because I I know I’m not reliable
enough I might be OK for a week I might be OK for 6 months until I take
some responsibility on and its usually as soon as I take the responsibility on I
c- I get sick again and it come it can come on within hours I can be fine in a
morning and then in the afternoon I’m not or the other way around
Similar trends are evident here to those reported in Brigid’s narrative earlier.
Charlotte describes it as bad luck that her health typically worsens precisely when
she’s agreed to take on any responsibility, as if she has tempted fate by making this
commitment. In addition, her state of health is presented as unpredictable and liable
to change quickly, giving a sense of health as beyond control. At times, Charlotte
also presented her body as out of control:
Charlotte: it’s like I’ve put the wrong legs on like I woke up this morning and
put ones with the wrong shaped erm…there was one day walking around
[shop name] a couple of year ago I’d been fine for weeks been fine just went
for some not loads of shopping just a little bit for the tea or whatever and
when I got to the doors to come back to me car I couldn’t move me legs at all
they wouldn’t it it was like that was it they was like chair legs (smile) they just
didn’t they didn’t bend there was no pain I had to call for somebody to come
and get me (laughs) it didn’t hurt it just and I couldn’t push the trolley I could-
cause the legs wouldn’t go…they just decide they’re not doing it (laughs)
The language Charlotte employs above serves to dissociate those body parts
affected by illness from herself. By likening her legs to ‘chair legs’ and suggesting
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‘it’s like I’ve put the wrong legs on’, Charlotte describes her legs as if they were
external objects. The use of ‘the legs’ as opposed to ‘my legs’, and the suggestion
that ‘they just decide they’re not doing it’ have a similar function; presenting her legs
as having a mind of their own. At another point in the interview, Charlotte describes
how her mobility often worsens on arriving home as ‘your body just relaxes’, again
illustrating how the body can be deemed to be operating independently. Referring to
body parts in this way seems to introduce humour, which may also function to
distance self from illness and retain a sense of normality (something that appeared
very central within Charlotte’s narrative) as well as potentially reduce any burden for
the listener.
Fatalistic expressions were almost entirely absent in Lucy’s account of her health,
which instead stressed individual responsibility for health. While Lucy does
sometimes refer to God and luck (e.g. ‘thank God’ and ‘it’s a good job’) when
reporting her usual state of health, these phrases were used only in passing, and
mentioned infrequently, appearing as figures of speech as opposed to dominant
narratives for explaining health and illness. However, as in the case of practitioner
narratives, Lucy did refer to the potential difficulties prioritising health, considering
other concerns, when describing why other community members may have less
healthy lifestyles:
Lucy: well there could be all different reasons maybe they’re not getting
encouraged to do things or they’ve maybe got problems in their life where
they think oh we’ve got more problems than thinking about healthy lifestyles
or illnesses that seems to be like the main cause people can’t do it it’s not
that they don’t want to its they can’t
Elsewhere in the interview, Lucy suggested that for roadside Travellers, difficulty
finding appropriate accommodation may impact on the ability to make healthy
dietary choices. This again has some resonance with the suggestion by practitioners
in the study that Traveller Community members may find it difficult to prioritise
health when dealing with more pressing structural concerns. Indeed, narratives
about a lack of ability to prioritise health were also evident in the account of Brigid,
where she suggested that she hadn’t noticed her health deteriorating at a
particularly stressful time when she was experiencing difficulty finding
accommodation. Some similarity was also apparent between practitioner portrayals
and the presentations of self by Traveller Community members in respect to
Traveller attitudes to time. During a group discussion at a conference I attended,
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Traveller Community members suggested that they didn’t want their lives to be
interrupted repeatedly by researchers and were keen to move on with their lives
once they had participated in research. Yet, while some parallel is evident here with
the accounts of practitioners, it is notable that preferences articulated around
engagement with researchers may differ from preferences for receiving health
advice, especially considering community members’ concerns about the lack of
health information they received.
Hints at a fatalistic narrative were also apparent in Kelly’s account where she
describes her reactive approach to managing her health:
Researcher: you said that you don’t go to the doctors very often so that’s
Kelly: I dunno cause like I’d only go to the doctors if there was
something wrong with me I wouldn’t go for weekly check ups
erm I dunno
Kelly explained this by a combination of factors which included the distance of

accessible health services and her own lack of motivation to access them. However,
while embodying some elements of a fatalistic approach, she too more often relied
on discourses of personal determination over health, something that will now be
explored in more depth.
8.2.2 The imperative of health

Although there was evidence of Traveller Community members presenting health as
beyond their control, this was not the only discourse at work in governing Gypsy and
Traveller explanations for illness. Rather, Traveller Communities interviewed often
demonstrated awareness of public health advice, monitored their own behaviour in
accordance with such guidance, and emphasised personal responsibility for their
health. Discourses on the imperative of health are most strongly apparent in Lucy’s
account, which is saturated with the need to monitor and avoid potential health risks,
and with statements of self-determination in avoiding illness:
Lucy: I think it’s better to feel fit and health in yourself so no I won’t let meself
get that far that I feel unfit and healthy
The phrase ‘I won’t let meself’ (which also appears in a similar form elsewhere in
Lucy’s narrative), firmly situates health within the realm of personal control.
Throughout her narrative, Lucy presents a coherent identity as healthy, spanning
childhood through to imagined future selves. In the following excerpt, she lists those
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behaviours that make her lifestyle healthy, seeming to perform her awareness of
these to the listener:
Lucy: I think I’ve got quite a healthy lifestyle really erm I always go for a walk
every day when I go home because I I’m always stuck behind the desk
(laughs) while I’m at work erm I go swimming once a week always taking me
dog for a walk erm and like me diet kind of lifestyle its quite healthy because
I don’t like sweets I don’t like really I don’t like really like crisps I’m not very
keen on chocolate (laughs) cakes I don’t really like pop I’m not a sweet eater
at all I always have loads of fruit and veg erm so my lifestyle I think it’s alright
(laughs)
Lucy’s account was peppered with normative statements indicating what 'should' be
done in relation to one's health, and public health discourses were used in
conjunction not only with behaviour, but Lucy’s representation and treatment of the
body:
Lucy: when they’re smoking on the telly all that that they’re taking into their
bodies and how like people’s alcohol all that what they’re taking and drugs
and what I think is I’ve got a friend she’s about 27 or 8 but she works with
people that’s like bed ridden and people that is dying and things and I think
well how can you be like yeah I know sometimes some of them has
problems why they take drugs and alcohol and things but I think how can you
be taking that into your body you are like a healthy person what’s got maybe
like at least 40 year of your life still to live and people that doesn’t want to die
but they’ve seriously ill and dy- I don’t understand it I think how can you be
wanting to take all that into your body you know destroying your body and
things so yeah I think it’s like got a very big impact on people they should be
like (laughs) careful with what they take and what they have yeah and I think
all like seeing it all the time it makes you more aware and know how
important it is to keep like a healthy lifestyle and look after yourself
Lucy doesn’t present the body as something that was beyond control but argues for
the need to protect one’s body by adopting the appropriate behaviour. She
communicates a lack of understanding of why some people choose to pollute their
bodies with substances that cause harm. Far from illustrating a lack of concern for
future health, as was suggested by some practitioners in the study, Lucy’s narrative
makes a direct connection between current behaviour, future health and longevity of
life, translating this into the recommendation that people should therefore be ‘careful
with what they take’.
Kelly’s narrative was also almost entirely governed by a discourse of personal

responsibility and agency with respect to health and health behaviour. Kelly was
aware of public health messages such as those on the harms of smoking and
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assessed her own health and behaviour in accordance with these guidelines. Yet,
she differed from other participants in that she self-defined as unhealthy, and a lack
of engagement with recommended behaviours formed a core element of her overall
identity presentation:
Kelly: I wouldn’t say I’m very healthy I smoke twenty fags a day so
I’m not very healthy
Researcher: so you wouldn’t say you were
Kelly: no I’m far from healthy
Elsewhere in the interview, Kelly also illustrates her awareness of other behaviours
that are problematic for health, including drinking fizzy pop or red bull and eating
high fat food. Thus, it is not the case that Kelly is unaware of public health doctrine
on what constitutes healthy behaviour, but that despite this she exercises her choice
to engage in behaviour such as smoking. Discourses around behaviour change for
health promotion were also present in Eleanor’s account. Like Lucy, Eleanor did not
describe herself as having any current physical health conditions, and defined
periods of health and lack of health solely by reference to her lifestyle behaviour.
She too enacts her claim that she knows ‘how to be healthy’ to the listener by listing
behaviours that she understands to be healthy or unhealthy, and clearly evaluated
her own behaviour in accordance with public health doctrine:
Eleanor: I’m quite healthy nowadays erm compared what I used to be cause
I used to be cause I used to smoke I used to smoke so but obviously I’ve
give them up like a- a- lot of years ago now so but in the way of eating I’m
not a very healthy eater I do eat a lot of junk food
Other smaller asides further demonstrate the imperative of health in Eleanor’s

narrative, including reference to role of health education in informing people of ‘how
they are supposed to be’, as well as her use of public health or medicalised
language such as ‘binge drinking’ and ‘comfort eating’. The notion of a ‘clean
system’ and the ideas that unhealthy behaviour can be a ‘shock’ to the system also
introduces ideas around the polluting effects of unhealthy behaviour on the body,
mirroring Lucy’s narrative.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the imperative of health was less prominent in the accounts
of Brigid and Patricia, who were both living with long-term health conditions. This
was particularly so where the overall narrative plot was one of struggling to cope
with these conditions, as in the case for Patricia. However, even in these instances,
discourses of personal responsibility were not entirely absent. Although it was more
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difficult to get access to examples of Patricia’s engagement in activities to promote
her health, she was not unaffected by dominant health promotion discourses and
described compliance with behavioural recommendations for the management of a
family members’ diabetes for example:
Patricia: She [daughter] knows because now she has to get up and do
breakfast and things because he’s been diagnosed with diabetes as well so
he has to have things regular
When asked about advice she had received around how to improve her health,
Patricia described her attempts to lose weight through exercising and eating
healthily. Similarly, despite numerous references to fate in Brigid’s account, her use
of ‘I’ll get back to myself’ in the below quote conveys a sense of self-determination
with respect to her health:
Brigid: I was always fit I was never in hospital for anything weird innit like but
then this there this last few mon- this last two three years though is
everything’s gone phew but I’ll get back to meself
The discourse of individual responsibility for health is also communicated when

Brigid describes a need to resume exercise, and when discussing her dietary
behaviour:
Brigid: I used to eat a lot of fatty foods and I think I’ve gotta cut down
because it’s getting beyond a joke getting too fat I’ll have to cut down all
these bulges but no I do like I like fruit I eat a lot of fruit and vegetables...but
like I think these takeaways and things like that aren’t healthy are they the
rare time I get a takeaway but I do eat a lot of fatty foods but what can you
do life happens do you know what I mean I cannot eat at all wouldn’t I
Brigid here demonstrates self-surveillance around how she ‘should’ be behaving

with regard to her diet, as prescribed by dominant public health discourses.
Consideration is perhaps needed around whether Brigid’s account of her behaviour
is as much the result of discourses reinforcing normative ideals of body size and
shape as those on and promotion of health, given her remark that she needs ‘cut
down all these bulges’ and her suggestion elsewhere that sometimes she is
‘depressed’ at the size of her stomach. However, health promotion discourses are
themselves often entangled with those reproducing notions of idealised body image
(Carlisle Duncan, 1994), and Brigid’s use of the more medicalised term ‘obese’
(elsewhere in the interview) alongside everyday alternatives such as ‘fat’ confirm
inscription by public health discourses. Indeed, Brigid’s acceptance of personal
responsibility is also evident in her monitoring of other health risks, for example,
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when describing her hesitancy to bring her children into a GP surgery when they
have measles in order to avoid spreading infection. The statements at the end of the
above excerpt that ‘life happens’ and ‘I cannot eat at all wouldn’t I’ seek to make the
behaviour of eating unhealthily understandable by reference to the complexity of life
and do convey some limits to possibilities of personal control however.
It was not always the case that experience of living with a long-term condition
reduced the presence of health imperatives in the accounts of Traveller Community
members however. In Charlotte’s account, narratives about a lack of control over
health sat alongside the importance of willpower and self-determination in managing
a long-term condition. Throughout her narrative, Charlotte emphasises the
importance of maintaining a positive outlook and the power of the mind over the
body. These statements were supported with stories drawing on plotlines available
in wider discourses about the possibility of fighting or triumphing over illness and
defying illness trajectories:
Charlotte: because it I it’s it’s not helpful to just sit there erm they told me
when I gorit cause I’m nearly I’m forty this year so I’ve had it ten year they
said within ten year I’d be in a wheelchair which when I was at me half way
point when I was poorly all the winters and couldn’t stand up I thought it was
true that was what was happening which it very possibly was (laugh) but I
wa- I’d I’m more determined that I won’t let that happen and even if it hurts I’ll
get up and I’ll make meself do things erm
Within the above excerpt, the difference between actual and expected health status
is not presented as the product of an inaccurate assessment about the progression
of the illness. Charlotte describes how her health began to worsen and was
reversed due to her own refusal to succumb to the illness and determination to keep
going. This relates to Charlotte’s frequent presentations of herself as independent,
spanning back to, and bolstered by re-readings of events during childhood, and
which mean that rupture to this identity may be particularly problematic. As such,
Charlotte’s narrative challenges linear medical narratives offered by practitioners
which seek to quantify or label the degeneration of illness and reclaims control and
authority over her own body. Presenting oneself as triumphing over illness and
carrying on longer than had been expected, appears to help Charlotte to retain an
identity as independent. Charlotte also presents herself as attuned to advice for
promoting her health, ‘reading up’ and ‘finding out about’ information and as
evaluating and regulating her own behaviour in response:
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Charlotte: I I watch what I eat and I erm I very rarely sit down for a long time
(laughs) and I I just try and keep mobile I have apps on me phone what
tracks my activity levels or so that when it’s in your pocket yo- kn- its picking
up what you and when you don’t when you check on it you think oh I must
have been sat down a lot and you it I suppose it erm it gives you a cue to do
a bit more or to try at least and I have apps to what so you can log what you
eat and activities and things like that you do so you can kind of monitor your
calorie intake a little bit so I try to do that erm and I s- I suppose it’s just
about reading up and finding out about what’s what could be making things
worse I’ve had to change what I eat a little bit I used to use erm like
sunflower spreads and things like that which I thought was better cause in
my family I’ve got heart disease so I didn’t want to be eating erm animal fats
and things like that so I but I discovered that sunflower oil potatoes and
things like that make can make the arthritis in your hands and your fingers
worse so I changed them from me diet... so now I don’t eat as many
potatoes but I do eat butter (laughs)
Fatalistic expressions therefore sat alongside discourses of self-determination and

personal responsibility for health in the accounts of Traveller Community members.
This finding supports previous research with the wider population which indicates
that people tend to draw on a combination of fatalistic discourses and those on the
importance of behaviour as predictors of health (Bolam et al., 2003; Keeley, Lanelle
and Condit, 2009). A clear contrast is evident between the narratives of Traveller
Community members and the suggestions of some practitioners that Traveller
Community members are not oriented to their future health, with many examples
reported of community members moderating their current behaviour in order to
minimise risk factors for future illness.
8.3.1 Avoiding judgment and blame

Discourse on the imperative of health connected with the potential for blame in the
accounts of all Gypsies and Travellers, and particularly when describing
engagement in ‘unhealthy’ behaviour. The ways that Gypsies and Travellers
accounted for their health behaviour was therefore a key aspect in identity
presentation, and the extent to which status as a morally responsible and healthy
citizen could be claimed. For example, Brigid not only explicitly laid claim to a
healthy identity by repeatedly suggesting that she was ‘usually healthy’, ‘usually a
healthy fit person’ or similar, but also guarded against the potential health stigma
associated with being overweight or ‘obese’:
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Brigid: since I got the chronic fatigue syndrome though I put on a lot
of weight I noticed that me stomach I can’t get rid of it I does
exercise everything it’s like a football it’s that hard sometimes
you can’t weird but I went to the doctor at the hospital the
other day and they said it could be the fatigue ’s causing it
you know like to not go down because it’s your horm –mor-
horn- whatever you all them hormones (laughs) hormones
(laughs) but urh I mean like that’s what’s causing me stomach
so big cause some days some days it’s bigger than others
some days it’s out here some days it goes back in
Researcher: right
B: weird that innit [like?
R: yeah yeah
B: People says to me [name] first like you’re not an over obese
woman to have a stomach so big I’m not though cause like
even the doctor said to me he said ‘you’re not you’re legs is
not big how old are you [name]?’ I said ‘I’m forty-three’ he said
you ‘for a woman to have like your body’s not an over obese
to have a big belly’ I said ‘I know’, ‘do you drink?’ I said ‘no’
the odd time I drink on very rare an occasion maybe a funeral
or a wedding or something like that I drink but don’t go out like
drinking or anything so that’s they call that a beer belly mine’s
not a beer belly is it
Brigid’s statements that she is ‘not an over obese woman to have a stomach so big’
and the repetition of similarly worded phrases in the multiple occasions on which this
story is told serve to provide evidence that she is not simply overweight, but that her
enlarged stomach is the product of her health condition. In doing so, Brigid
recognises and strives to counteract any potential judgement. Brigid also uses her
account to discount lifestyle behaviours as potential explanations for her enlarged
stomach, describing how her stomach hasn’t changed despite exercise and ruling
out other causes such as drinking alcohol. Reported speech is used to provide more
‘objective’ evidence, or to distance the teller from the message through removing
their interpretation (Holt, 1996). By citing the voices of others, including that of a
doctor, Brigid therefore lends support to these claims. That this story was relayed in
a remarkably similar fashion both in conversation outside of the interview, and on
another occasion within the interview, suggests that this is a well-rehearsed aspect
of Brigid’s health identity. It may also indicate the strength with which potential moral
judgement over lifestyle behaviours permeates Brigid’s account of her health.
The moral status entangled with health was also clearly apparent in Lucy’s account,
which was filled with value laden judgements of health behaviours, as seen below
where she describes her plans for maintaining a healthy lifestyle:
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Lucy: keep as active as possible all me life (laughs) try to keep as much
active as I possibly can an try and keep like a healthy lifestyle always cause I
think if you let it slip that’ll just be it as you get older you think oh well get in
these bad habits and bad I don’t think that’s any good try to make sure that
you’re always having your 5 a day veg always have fruit drink as much water
as possible try to cut out on all the sugary fattening kind of foods all the time
maybe just have a takeaway once a week and even though that I drive I do- I
make sure that I’m always still walking about when I go home I always go for
walks cause otherwise I think you’re getting bad lazy habits (laughs) then
you won’t be able to get out and then when it won’t do any good for your
lifestyle at all yeah just try to keep active as possible all the time
The use of ‘if you let it slip’ communicates the need to keep one’s health under tight
control and as above, situates illness as a matter of personal responsibility, while
the phrases ‘bad habits’ and ‘bad lazy habits’ clearly illustrate normative judgement
operating around behaviours. Lucy’s laughter also suggests some concern with
impression management. Laughter has been noted to feature in interviews where
self-image is at stake (Soilevuo Grønnerød, 2004), and as a mechanism through
which participant’s deal with gaps between ideals and realities; here between the
reality of being ‘stuck behind a desk’ and the far-reaching ideal of staying ‘as active
as possible all me life’.
As in Brigid’s account, an awareness of potential judgement over her lifestyle

behaviour appeared to influence Patricia’s presentation of self:
Researcher: do they has the doctor ever said anything to you like that you
should do something the same or different have they ever like
said to you do this or that to improve health?
Patricia: just to lose weight which I’m trying to very very hard because
it () you know your bones which I know that meself cause but
it’s only this last few year couple of year that I have put weight
on and I think it’s put down to not being as active as I used to
be what I can’t d’ya know what I mean and I can’t exercise
like I used to do cause I used to walk a lot and I can’t do it
now…rain
R: I know its miserable today isn’t it? Erm I think that’s erm I
suppose it’s just about yeah have there been any other
people that have said to you to do different things or what’s
what else is helping you to do you know you said that they
said to lose weight and you’re trying to lose weight as well
what stops you from being able to do those things and what
helps you d’you know
P: well the food part I do cut down I do do it I do do the food part
but I cannot do the exercising sometimes I walk I went t’
[name of shopping centre] with me daughter on not this
weekend a couple of weekends before and we was gone for
about an hour and a half and I was in bed for two days after I
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could not move me legs cause I kept saying to her ‘hurry up
hurr-‘ ‘ah you’ll be alright mam’ she thinks I’ll get her out or
whatever but I was in bed for two days and couldn’t move I
couldn’t get up me legs were hurting me that much
Within the above extract, Patricia seems concerned that she may be judged for a
lack of engagement in behaviour to lose weight. Through her statement ‘I’m trying to
very very hard’ and the repetition of ‘I do’ when describing adapting her diet, Patricia
appears to be stressing to the listener that she is trying to act in the 'right' way with
respect to her health. The need to lose weight is presented as not only advised by
the doctor, but something Patricia recognises herself. Reference to diagnosed
illness appears to help guard against any potential judgement for not exercising
more; it is not a matter of choice, but of being prevented from exercising due to the
long-term condition. The flip into story mode to describe a concrete event supports
these claims by helping to bring the listener in and create a more vivid picture of the
difficulty Patricia experiences when attempting to exercise. Similar trends are
evident in Lucy’s account where she presents people as generally wanting to live a
healthy lifestyle but being prevented from doing so due to circumstances or health
condition:
Lucy: I suppose if you have health problems that’s something that you can’t
actually do owt about
The suggestion that ‘people can’t do it it’s not that they don’t want to’ again helps to
avoid individual blame. This connects with the face-saving and sense making
functions of fatalism identified in existing literature. The sense-making function of
fatalism has been described as rationalising a lack of engagement in health
behaviour on the grounds that the negative effects of previous behaviour are now
impossible to reverse (Keeley, Lanelle and Condit, 2009). Here, fatalism as sense
making seems to take a slightly different form however; the presence of a long-term
condition enables participants to present an understandable account for an inability
to lead a healthy lifestyle. A key difference is also evident here since those referred
to above are unable to enact this behaviour, as opposed to rationalising a choice not
to act based on the lack of impact this would have.
It was not only through claims of engaging in healthy behaviour that Gypsies and
Travellers sought to position themselves as responsible and healthy citizens
however. Another way through which Traveller Community members could
demonstrate their health consciousness was by ‘confessing’ their unhealthy
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behaviour and stating their intentions to be healthier within the interview itself.
Cycles of guilt and sin (Kristensen et al., 2010) in relation to health behaviour were
prominent in Eleanor’s account, with periods of engaging in an excess of unhealthy
behaviour followed by a wholescale transformation of lifestyle to be healthier:
Eleanor: when I’m eating healthy I eat healthy but when I eat bad I eat bad
so it’s like it’s like give and take sometimes I think right I’ve had enough of
this junk food I’m gonna start and I will start and buy a load like I’ve got a lot
of fruit in now but I always I’ll just eat fruit and I’ll eat all the healthy stuff I’ll
have a proper healthy diet but if I’m not bothering I can be very bad I can eat
like take outs one day after another you know I can be very very bad so I go
through phases for so many months I’ll I’ll I’ll I’ll be like a healt- health person
where’s I’ll drink water I’ll drink er herbal teas I’ll drink hot lemon and water
for a- for probably two months solid and I’ll nothing but healthy fish and
chicken and fruit and vegetables and I’ll eat no rubbish and bare skim of
butter on a bit of brown bread and boiled eggs you know all proper healthy
stuff what’s good for you but then I get sick after a while after two months I
phew I’ve had enough of all that and then I start eating rub- [rubbish] that is
the truth
The repetition of the statement ‘I can be very bad’ again illustrates how moral
imperatives of health permeate Traveller Community member’s accounts and the
ways that the interview acts as a forum in which individuals confess to their
‘unhealthy’ behaviour. Eleanor presented behaviours that are bad for your health as
desirable and difficult to resist, but the uptake of these behaviours as followed by
feelings of regret:
Eleanor: I mean fruit and vegetables is best thing you can eat to keep you
healthy we- like know that but it’s whatever it is we’re just we’re just get
dragged to the horrible things it’s like horrible things in the world is just so
you wanna do erm you know they’re bad for you but you still wanna do em
and you know if you do you’re not gonna be happy about but you still do it
anyways but you know the good things that is good for you and they will
benefit you you don’t wanna do (laughs)
Researcher: it’s true
The use of normative language here again illustrates the value laden nature of
health talk, with those behaviours that are bad for you described as ‘the horrible
things in the world’. Eleanor’s narrative reminds of a tension between pleasure and
discipline in relation to health behaviour. The following extract further illustrates the
ways that claims to health consciousness can be achieved through the role of
confession and statements of intended self-improvement:
Eleanor: I thought when I do start deciding to buck me ideas up (laugh)

I’ll go and see them [nutritionist]
Researcher: yeah so you’re gonna go and see them are you [yeah
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Eleanor: I am yeah] definitely when I decide to when I decide to start
eating but I have I have been I’ve been eating healthy you
know but I can be healthier than what I can really you know
but like I said it’s just temptation is a very bad thing (laughs)
Reference to ‘temptation’ denotes issues of sin, as does the phrase ‘buck me ideas
up’. As for Lucy earlier, humour is employed in light of a ‘problem revelation’
statement, which indicates a gap between the presentation of ‘real’ and ‘ideal’
images (Soilevuo Grønnerød, 2004); Eleanor laughs when describing how she is not
living up to ideal standards of health behaviour. The use of humour in these
scenarios arguably helps people to minimise problems and demonstrate capacity to
overcome them (Soilevuo Grønnerød, 2004), fitting the explicit narrative plot of
reformation. Given the potential for moral judgement in the interview, participants
appeared to use humour for impression management, to reduce the impact of
statements deemed to be unacceptable (in this case statements contravening health
advice) by demonstrating that they themselves recognised them as such (Soilevuo
Grønnerød, 2004).
Examples of confession to unhealthy behaviour were found across participants. This

is seen earlier where Brigid is careful to correct the potential misinterpretation that
her lifestyle is completely healthy when she says ‘don’t get me wrong...I do eat a lot
of fatty foods’. The acceptance of personal blame for health is also displayed where,
rather than attributing her tiredness to her long-term condition, Brigid suggests she
has become ‘lazy’ now that she has stopped living on roadside and has settled on
an authorised site. Issues of confession were also evident in the ways that Charlotte
positioned herself:
Charlotte: I’ve not been going to the gym cause I’ve been in pain all the time
and probably what I really need so is if I’m going to the gym somebody to go
right why haven’t you been d’you know like to put some responsibility on it
rather than just leaving it on me going well go if you can well no I can’t
actually (laughs) so I know like none of it I can’t do really if it’s just do what
you can I can’t actually do mo- most of it
Although the pain caused by Charlotte’s condition is often prohibitive of engagement

in physical activity, self-determination is again emphasised, with the solution cited as
having someone to hold her to greater account for not exercising. Charlotte laughs
when suggesting that if she was accountable to herself alone she wouldn’t push
herself to go to the gym and would decide ‘well no I can’t actually’ with humour
again used when positioning oneself in relation to an unmet ideal. Like in the
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accounts of earlier participants, Charlotte therefore accepts a level of blame for not
engaging more in exercise, confessing that she could do more to the listener.
Indeed, the acceptance of blame occurs often in Charlotte’s account when
discussing a deterioration in her health and condition:
Charlotte: I didn’t think I had measles but I did but I wait was at the same
time I was on [medication] and I just thought I was ill with it being winter erm
and so I wasn’t really going to the GP that much apart from to get
prescriptions an’ and so I i- I kind of I suppose I let meself get into situations
with my health because of me arthritis erm that maybe other people would
probably go to the GP straightaway with
In using the statement ‘I let meself get into situations’, Charlotte positions herself as
culpable for her ill health. Elsewhere in her narrative, Charlotte also explicitly
describes herself as at ‘fault’ for forgetting to take her medication, and for not
pushing more to get access to health services. Thus, even where participants
reported disengagement in behaviour to promote their health, by showing
recognition of this and stating one’s intention to be healthier in future, they sought to
demonstrate self-surveillance and retain some semblance of identity as ‘responsible’
with regard to their health.
While demonstrating compliance, or at least intended compliance with health advice

was one route through which Traveller Community members could cultivate positive
health identities, Traveller Community members also took care to avoid positioning
themselves as overly concerned with their health. Lucy fitted the caricature of the
‘worried well’ in that she constantly monitored and responded to potential health
threats, clearly taking up those responsibilities prescribed by public health
discourses. Lucy’s commitment to living a healthy lifestyle therefore meant that she
was less vulnerable to potential judgement with respect to her behaviour than was
demonstrated earlier for some participants. However, Lucy’s conscientiousness with
respect to her health also opened up the possibility for judgement. Within this
extract, Lucy presents herself as soaking up health information at any given
opportunity, both for herself and family members or other sections of the community.
However, her suggestion that she may be a hypochondriac points to some tension
in relation to the presentation of oneself as health concerned:
Researcher: where are the main sources of information about health for
you?
Lucy: from the doctors or even like if you go to hospitals they always
have like big posters and leaflets up don’t they all about
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health and things or like I’ll even I’ll google it (laughs) you
know find out all the different problems or just talking to
people like they’ll tell you and things you get like leaflets sent
out and things to you so yeah yeah I get loads of information
(laughs) oh sometimes I think I’m a hypochondriac (laughs)
ooh that might be wrong with me do you know when you’re
reading it all yeah I get loads of access and loads of
information but I think it’s good to be informed ()yeah and now
me [family member] well she works in a nursery so she has
loads and loads of books on from like infant to about 9 and 10
year old you know telling you about all the health problems
and things so I know all that for like with small children
(laughs) and when I go to doctors and things and listening I
know for the older ones as well yeah so I do get loads of
information
Being a hypochondriac is something which has a negative status attached to it in

society, and Lucy appears attuned to the risk that she is viewed as too focused on
her health. The use of ‘you’ where Lucy says ‘do you know when you’re reading it
all’ helps to avoid this judgement, presenting the tendency to self-diagnose or over
worry about health issues after looking online as something that I would also
recognise. The statement ‘I think it’s good to be informed’ also helps to avoid any
potential criticism by reframing this tendency more positively. Smaller asides in
Lucy’s narrative also hint at possible judgement attached to being too healthy. For
instance, her laughter following her earlier suggestions that she doesn’t like sweets,
crisps and chocolate, foods commonly seen as ‘treats’ in society suggests some
self-consciousness around her rejection of these. In addition, the laughter which
follows Lucy’s labelling of some behaviours as ‘bad lazy habits’ in her earlier extract
also seems to indicate some discomfort in criticising these behaviours. Brigid’s
description of her sister as a ‘fitness fanatic’, as well as the presentation of healthy
behaviours as ‘boring’ by Eleanor (and the health practitioner Sandra) further point
to the potential undesirability of identity as someone that has become too absorbed
with their health. This aspect of the narratives resonates with the tension between
enjoyment and longevity of life identified by Becky (a health practitioner in the study)
and help to contextualise the more general concern of practitioners with making
health advice more interesting to community members. However, it is important to
note that this concern formed only a small part of the narratives of Gypsies and
Travellers, with a desire to present as healthy forming a much more prominent
identity position for Traveller Community members involved in the study.
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Kelly’s account provides a useful counter example to those of other Gypsy and
Traveller Community members presented so far, in that she appeared to be more
resistant to the moral pressures surrounding health. As for others, discourses of
personal responsibility were evident in Kelly’s account, and there is also evidence of
the moral evaluation of behaviour when Kelly describes herself as ‘very bad’ for
engaging in behaviour such as the consumption of energy drinks and greasy food,
that is harmful to health. However, she did not strive to present a positive health
identity in the same way as other participants, and was more outwardly rejecting of,
and resistant to health messages. For example, despite recognising that smoking is
bad for her health, Kelly explicitly states that she has no intention of quitting:
Kelly: it’s not very good for you is it smoking twenty fags a day can’t
be good for you really
Researcher: and what what do you think about what do you feel about that
do you worry about it or do you does it cross your mind very
often or not?
K: no not at all I have no plans on giving up so no
Kelly described her decision to stop drinking fizzy pop as driven by necessity (‘I had
to’) due to becoming unwell, and therefore as a reactive rather than preventative
choice. She presents herself as having a high degree of agency with respect to
choices over her health behaviour, describing her resistance to attempts by family
members to influence her smoking behaviour:
Researcher: and what do they [relatives] say about your smoking do they
give you advice about that or?
Kelly: no cause they smoke too like me Mummy tells me to give up
all the time but
R: does she when she says that you’re to give up what why does
she say that she wants you to give up like what reason does
Kelly: cause obviously she knows it’s bad for you ()
R: and what do you say when she says that?
Kelly: I just tell her to shut up (laughs)
Resistance to health advice forms a consistent thread throughout Kelly’s

presentation of her health identity both within and outside of the interview. While on
one occasion in the interview she appears to make more of a claim to be healthy,
the conversation then shifts back toward her lack of engagement with behaviour to
promote her health:
Researcher: would you say that you’ve been quite healthy in the past or?
Kelly: I dunno like I wouldn’t say unhealthy person but I dunno
R: what kind of things do you do that mean you’re not unhealthy?
K: what do you mean
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R: like what things do you do in life like to try and stay healthy?
K: what do you mean like?
R: like some people might do I dunno they might eat certain
things they might drink certain things
K: no I just eat whatever I want
The statement ‘I wouldn’t say unhealthy person’ appears to imply the presence of a
healthier identity. However, Kelly’s later comment that ‘I just eat whatever I want’
continues to point to an overall absence of health consequences in guiding her
behaviour. On reflection, my phrasing of the question ‘what kind of things do you do
that mean you’re not unhealthy’ in the quote above may have closed off the potential
for Kelly to stipulate alternative ‘healthier’ selves by presuming a behavioural
explanation and shifting the discussion into the present and away from the time
point at which Kelly described herself as not unhealthy. A better question may have
been ‘what makes you describe yourself as not unhealthy then?’ However, as Kelly
presents herself as unhealthy consistently throughout the interview and in response
to more open questions, it is unlikely that this presentation of self is the result of the
phrasing of the question alone.
8.4.1. Confession and resistance to a health(y) researcher

Interviews and wider interaction with Traveller Community members during fieldwork
acted as a microcosm of the discursive conditions discussed above and provided
occasions on which the performance of preferred health identities played out.
Radley and Billig (1996) describe how the accounts of people experiencing illness
might be influenced by the fact that they are narrating this to a ‘healthy researcher’.
It is possible that, as someone researching health, I was also viewed as advocating
healthy behaviour and as judging participants for their own approach to health. The
preferred identities of Traveller Community members were often echoed in my
interactions with them outside of interviews. For example, both immediately before
and after the interview (as shown in the below extract), Kelly made me aware that
she was going for a cigarette:
Researcher: I think that’s all the questions I’ve got to ask you but erm is
there anything else you think I haven’t covered or like you
wanna say about health that I haven’t asked about or thought
about
216
Kelly: I can’t think of nothing anyways
R: no that’s really useful to speak to you really helpful thank you
K: you’re alright that’s grand I need a (smoke)
Such demonstrations of engagement in ‘unhealthy’ behaviour to the researcher may

function as a form of enacted resistance to health doctrines about smoking
perceived to be upheld by the researcher, in keeping with Kelly’s explicit identity
presentation as unconcerned about her health. On another occasion when I was
giving Kelly a lift back to the Traveller site during fieldwork, I realised as we were
arriving on site that she was not wearing a seatbelt. This came to my attention when
a police car passed by and Kelly reached for and pulled the seatbelt across her to
give the illusion that this was fastened. At this point I expressed my surprise, asking
if she hadn’t had this on during the trip and she replied that she hadn’t. I was
shocked and said that she should wear a seatbelt. On reflection, I noted that
dictating how I thought someone should behave is usually something that I would
avoid when engaging with research participants. That I did so on this occasion was
perhaps the result of the interaction taking place in my car (which can be conceived
of as an extension of my own personal space) and my surprise that Kelly was not
wearing a seatbelt (which I had viewed as a taken for granted practice). This
demonstrates how Kelly’s overt identity claims as resisting health discourses were
recreated in the interaction between Kelly and myself as health researcher. Other
instances during interaction with community members also reflect this dynamic, for
example when I was unsure whether to accept a can of Red Bull that had been
bought for me by a community member. An interaction in which a young Traveller
told the rest of the group that I had brought a salad for my lunch highlighted the
potential that community members were projecting a healthy identity onto me.
Reported motivations for adopting certain lifestyle behaviour also hints at the ways
that a health researcher may be positioned by participants as someone upholding
ideas about what people should or shouldn’t do in relation to health. For example,
Eleanor used the honesty statement ‘to be truthful with you’ for example when
describing how she had quit smoking to prevent this forming a barrier between her
and her children, as well as due to financial motivation, as opposed to reasons
strictly related to health. In doing so, Eleanor appeared to be ‘owning up’ to the
researcher for not quitting smoking for ‘right’ reasons. These examples illustrate how
my own position as a health(y) researcher appeared to contribute to interviews and
outside interactions taking on the quality of a ‘confessional’, through which power
217
relations associated with public health doctrine continue to be exercised in the
interaction between the researcher and participants.
Connected with this apparent concern with being judged by the researcher, I
experienced a similar tension to that identified by practitioners around maintaining
acceptance while asking about health behaviour. I often found it difficult to introduce
questions about what people did to maintain their health, for fear that I would be
seen as judgmental. On occasion, this resulted in my unintentional reinforcement of
fatalistic discourses. This was most apparent in my interaction with Patricia, whose
discomfort discussing health behaviour was evident in the interview. During this
exchange, Patricia diverted conversation away from health behaviour, shifting the
focus to acknowledge the weather. When trying to draw the conversation back to the
topic of weight loss my own uneasiness is evident in my muddled phrasing of
questions, as I search for a way to ask about this in a non-judgemental and
acceptable manner. See for example the following excerpt:
Researcher: erm have there been any times where you’ve you’ve maybe
done something to try and be like to try and improve your
health or whether yeah like if there’s been any times where
you’ve done anything to try and obviously there’s some things
you can’t change but can you think of any times where
Patricia: no not really, no not as I can think of no I’ve just got on with
things and done whatever I’ve had to do
My question is jumbled and tentative, as indicated in the use of ‘maybe’ and the
stop-starting and trailing off of my phrasing. When listening to Patricia’s struggle to
live with a debilitating long-term condition, and her lack of hope for improved health,
asking about things she did to improve her health seemed insensitive. My statement
of ‘obviously there’s some things you can’t change’ actually proposes a fatalistic
perspective to Patricia. This dynamic was also present in other interviews. In Brigid’s
interview for instance, she often appeared to solicit my agreement with her
viewpoints around the mysterious nature of illness, for instance, when she says,
'weird that innit?' and ‘it frightens you doesn’t it’ and assumes commonality in our
perspectives. During the interview and when Brigid touched wood to avoid tempting
fate, I often felt compelled to join her in doing so, as if to communicate that I too
hoped that Brigid’s current state of health would continue. This demonstrates some
convergence in narratives of health between myself and Brigid, but as for Patricia,
again illustrates the ways that I may have reinforced narratives of fatalism. Similar
trends were apparent in my interview with Eleanor, when I strived to avoid any
218
sense of judgement and offer understanding for her actions by suggesting that it is
indeed difficult to sustain healthy behaviour, and when I confirm her feelings around
the gratification gained from unhealthy food by suggesting ‘it’s true’. Again, hyper-
sensitive to the risk of that Traveller Community members feel they are being placed
under scrutiny, I seek to make understandable the difficulties Eleanor reports in
adhering to lifestyle advice by suggesting that her difficulties are mirrored in my own
experiences. Reflections on my interpersonal interaction with participants lends
support to the idea that fatalistic statements are entangled with potential blame and
‘face saving’ which has been suggested in previous literature (Bolam et al., 2003).
Here we see this from a different direction however, as I as the researcher sought to
ensure that participants were not blamed for a lack of engagement in healthy activity
by pre-empting a fatalistic response.
8.5 Summary
While a degree of overlap in Traveller Community and practitioner narratives was
evident with respect to Traveller orientations to time, the overt and bold nature of
practitioner claims in this regard were not matched within Traveller Community
accounts. There was some evidence of fatalistic narratives within Gypsy and
Traveller Community accounts, for instance in the use of discourses of luck, fate or
the role of higher powers such as God’s will when explaining illness. However, these
were not the only discourses at work in governing Traveller Communities
explanations for illness. Seminal work which put the case forward for fatalism in
Traveller Communities was based on qualitative research with Traveller Community
members who were living with illness (Van Cleemput et al., 2007). The present
research, which involves Gypsies and Travellers experiencing a wider range of
circumstances has highlighted much evidence for alternative or at least additional
stories to those of fatalism in Gypsy and Traveller Community accounts of their
health. Counter to representations within existing literature and in practitioner
narratives, Traveller Community members did not appear to be beyond the reach of
public health discourses on the imperative of health. Furthermore, Gypsy and
Traveller Community members do not utilise fatalism as a ‘global outlook’ when
describing their health, and discourses of fatalism intersected with those on the
moral imperative of health. This supports findings from previous research with
parallel groups that suggest fatalistic explanations tend to be combined with
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behavioural explanations for health (Bolam et al., 2003; Keeley, Lanelle and Condit,
2009). In contrast with practitioner presentations of Traveller Community members
in relation to time, there were also examples whereby Traveller Community
members bought into linear notions of time advocated by public health, and the idea
that action now can prolong or improve one’s health later. In addition, while Traveller
Community members sometimes presented fatalistic attitudes as generalisable to
Traveller Communities as a whole, there were also examples whereby individual
Gypsies and Travellers interviewed distanced themselves from those beliefs
presented as held by the wider Traveller Community members. This was evident in
the language used, with shifts in the use of ‘I’/‘we’/‘they’ when discussing
approaches to health and uptake of services. This is not to say that discourses on
the imperative of health were uncritically accepted, and as Kelly’s account shows,
some individuals may use their agency to resist or reject health promotion
discourse. However, as we also see from Kelly’s narrative, a lack of adherence to
healthy behaviour was not always underpinned by arguments about a lack of control
over health, but a more explicit rejection of health advice. This demonstrates the
potential danger of inferring that Traveller Community members’ health practices
necessarily result from fatalistic beliefs.
Where fatalistic narratives were used, this chapter has helped to understand the
possible functions this has for the expression of health identities by Gypsy and
Traveller Community members. Support was found for the function of fatalism in
managing uncertainty around illness (best exemplified by Brigid’s account) (Keeley,
Lanelle and Condit, 2009). There appeared to be very little in the accounts of
Traveller Communities to suggest that Traveller Community members used fatalism
as a form of stress relief. Some Traveller Community members described their fear
of the potential for health to change. This perhaps relates to the anxiety described
by Traveller Community members in Chapter 6 with respect to the potential for
illness to go undetected. While fatalism may absolve some worry and stress about
how to promote or maintain one’s health, there still appears to be a level of general
worry about how quickly health can change. There were some examples of fatalism
being used in a sense-making capacity, to help explain the impossibility of engaging
in healthy behaviour when living with a chronic illness. While the potential role of
fatalism in saving face has been pointed to in existing literature, methodologies and
forms of analysis which focus purely on explicit expressions of fatalism have meant
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that this is not always shown. The use of a narrative approach, which considers not
only what Gypsies and Travellers say, but how they construct health identities
through the positioning of actors in the stories told, and their interaction with the
researcher, has given further insight into the potential role of fatalism in face saving.
As interviews have shown, this was a two-way process in which I, the researcher
sometimes proposed a fatalistic orientation to participants to try to avoid being seen
as judgemental. While fatalism was sometimes used by Traveller Community
members to save face with respect to their poorer health, this was not the only way
in which they did so. In fact, it often seemed that Traveller Community members
avoided potential judgement by identifying where their behaviour needed to improve
or by stating their intentions to make changes to their current lifestyle. In this way,
the interview itself seemed to take on some of the qualities of a confessional in
which Traveller Community members demonstrated self-surveillance of their
behaviour, and compliance with health advice.
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CHAPTER 9 - Discussion
9.1 Introduction
This chapter draws together the accounts of practitioners and Traveller Community
members which have previously been presented separately. It highlights areas of
congruence and dissonance between them and considers the relationship of
findings to existing literature and theory. The chapter is structured in three sections.
The first centres around the embodied nature of claims to evidence and authority
surrounding the health status of Traveller Community members and work with these
groups. Applying sociological theory on ‘body work’ (McDowell and Court, 1994) and
emotional labour (Hochschild, 1983), this section discusses the key tension between
practitioners’ attempts, through the management of their own bodies, to moderate
the professional gaze, and Traveller Community members’ demand for greater
levels of scrutiny of their health and bodies. The second section considers the
discrepancy between practitioner and Traveller Community accounts regarding the
extent to which Gypsies and Travellers were seen to accept personal responsibility
for health and comply with behavioural advice. Narratives of differential time
preferences are argued to be central to this issue and utilising poststructuralist
theory, this section demonstrates the significance of time and space in how relations
of power and resistance ‘play out’ between Gypsies, Travellers and health
practitioners. The final section of the chapter returns to the concepts of ‘race’ and
‘whiteness’, positioning Gypsy and Traveller health inequalities as a racialised but
also classed and gendered issue. It revisits the dialectic identified in the literature
around whether Traveller Community health is to be categorised as a cultural or
structural problem and finishes with a critical reflection on the potential for narratives
to entrench binary subject positions of Travellers as needy victims and practitioners
as white saviours.
9.2 Body work in interaction between practitioners and Traveller

Community members
While work on the sociology of the body has long shown that bodily presentation can
be integral to one’s occupation, the embodied nature of trust between clinicians and
patients is a more recent research endeavour and has tended to focus on clinical
settings (Brown et al., 2011). While building and maintaining trust between Traveller
Community members and health practitioners is emphasised in the literature
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(Lhussier, Carr and Forster, 2016; Mcfadden et al., 2016), this discussion has
remained largely disembodied. Throughout this thesis, body work was identified as
significant in the development of relationships between Traveller Community
members and health practitioners, and in the constitution of their identity positions.
This study thereby contributes an understanding of the embodied nature of trust with
a different group of health professionals: those working in a public health capacity
within community, clinical and local authority settings.
The literature on body work has been divided into a number of areas, including: 1)
the impression management work individuals undertake on their own body; 2) the
management and display of one’s own emotions and the emotions of others; 3)
direct and physical work on the bodies of others, as in caring occupations or the
beauty industry for instance; and 4) the material effect of work on the bodies of
employees (Gimlin, 2007). Most practitioners in the current study had limited if any
involvement in health work performed directly on the body, instead being
responsible for providing health advice, or working in a more strategic, public health
capacity. Midwives involved in the study whose roles do involve more direct and
intimate body work on others did not largely reflect on this aspect of body work,
likely due to the focus of the research on their public health work with Traveller
Community members. It is the first two aspects of body work that emerged as most
important in this study and which will now be discussed further: 1) work by
practitioners on their own bodies; and 2) the management and display of emotions.
Practitioners’ representations of Traveller Community members’ attitudes to their
own bodies also emerged as important from the data and are explored throughout.
9.2.1 Performing identities as ‘in touch’ with the community

Findings chapters suggested that an ability to win the trust of, be liked by, or
knowledgeable about Traveller Communities was one way through which
practitioners could lay claim to specialist expertise about these groups and carve out
positive identities for themselves in their talk. As was the ‘othering’ of middle-class
colleagues who were presented as less attuned to the lives of disadvantaged
groups. Discourses on the health of Traveller Community members as having to be
seen to be believed, and of Gypsies and Travellers as unlikely to trust ‘outsiders’
underpinned practitioner claims to this expert and privileged position.
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Practitioners’ preferred identities as privileged in their relative closeness to, and
expertise in engaging with marginalised groups such as Traveller Communities was
reflected in their reported body management practices. Practitioners described
undertaking body work to downplay any ‘professional’ status and communicate a
working class, down-to-earth identity, which they identified as important in
establishing relationships with community members. This was evident for instance,
where Sandra refers to an absence of body markers that signify professional status,
such as a ‘white jacket’ or ‘stethoscope’, as important in facilitating engagement with
Traveller Community members. It is also apparent in Linda’s reference to not
wearing a uniform, taking off her shoes, and adopting body language which signified
informality such as sitting cross legged on the floor when working with Traveller
Communities. In adopting these techniques, Linda, Sandra and other practitioners
may gain an ability to more readily identify with community members, but with this
comes the potential loss of other identity positions, such as their ability as women to
claim identity as a ‘professional’. It is unlikely that other professionals (GPs or
surgeons for instance) would be expected to cast off their professional identity in this
way, therefore highlighting the differential demands placed on various sets of
practitioners. Body appearance is also referenced by Becky who makes explicit
claims about body erosion and marking when she suggests that peer educators
more readily establish rapport with Gypsies and Travellers as they ‘wear their history
on their faces’, with history here referring to their ‘deprived’ or ‘brutalised’
backgrounds. Body conduct was also important in communicating respect for
Traveller Community culture during health encounters, and in attempts to re-balance
power in health interactions, with both Nicola and Linda describing their work to
convey, through their presentation of self, the more everyday identity position as a
‘guest’ when visiting community members’ homes.
In some cases, practitioners described themselves as emphasising an identity

position which was stable and pre-determined, as was the case where Becky
suggests that she and most other workers in the organisation were from ‘white collar
backgrounds’. However, some aspects of practitioners’ presentations of self
appeared to be more contingent or unstable. Becky for instance, draws explicitly on
the metaphor of performance when describing her role as ‘like a stand up’, ‘like
being on stage’, and ‘like being in character’. Indeed, Becky explicitly draws
attention to the capricious and evolutionary nature of her self-image when describing
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her need to adapt and change her use of language to match that of the specific
group, and when she suggests that ‘you’re a bit like a creature...you know you
develop a tough skin for when it’s really hot’. These expressions chime with those of
‘adopting a different sense of myself’ and ‘building up a shell’ used by women
working in merchant banks in the study by McDowell and Court (1994). Gregson
and Rose (2000) note the different analytical perspectives from which performance
has been approached; those based on the work of Goffman on the one hand which
presume an agentic performance of a pre-existing identity position, and that
informed by the work of Butler, which views subjectivities as performed into being,
within a given discursive field and set of power relations. In keeping with the latter
perspective, it is here suggested that practitioners were not intentionally performing
a pre-decided identity in order to engage with Traveller Community members.
Rather, body work undertaken by practitioners to downplay any professional
associations must be understood to be both an enactment of discourses which
present Traveller Community members as unlikely to be accepting of practitioners
as well as constitutive of these discourses and their associated identity positions.
Comparing the accounts of practitioners and Traveller Community members

suggests important differences in representations of Gypsy and Traveller bodies and
the level of medical scrutiny of the body which is seen as appropriate. Existing
literature on body work focuses on a) work undertaken by employees to manage
their own body appearance or emotions, b) the work they perform on the bodies of
others, and c) the legacy work leaves on the material bodies of employees. This
study illustrates the usefulness of also considering the ways practitioners represent
the bodies of those they work with in their talk. Practitioners often reported
promoting advice based on its benefits for physical appearance rather than for
health improvement. Indeed, some appeared to suggest that Gypsies and Travellers
would be more concerned with physical attractiveness than other sections of the
population and therefore more likely to respond to this strategy of delivering advice.
This connects with broader portrayals of Traveller Communities as materialistic and
concerned with image in popular media, as seen in the Big Fat Gypsy Weddings
programmes for instance. The accounts of Traveller Community members provided
no evidence however, that concerns about physical appearance were prioritised
over concerns about health. Rather, Gypsies and Travellers often articulated a
desire for greater medical scrutiny of their bodies. This included a preference by
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participants for being physically examined during GP appointments, as has been
noted by Van Cleemput et al. (2004), but also greater access to other forms of
medical screening, testing or classification of their bodies. Likewise, community
members often stressed the importance of receiving health information and
communicated their frustration where this was not provided. Findings therefore point
to a potential lacuna between, on the one hand, the expressed wishes of Traveller
Communities to receive professional and thorough medical investigation, and on the
other, the body work undertaken by many health practitioners to downplay their
‘professional identity’ due to concerns that they may be seen as ‘over-professional’.
The tendency to direct health promotion advice at superficial levels of the body, by
emphasising the benefits for physical appearance may also exacerbate community
members’ concerns that they are not receiving sufficient health information and that
health issues are undetected, particularly since Gypsies and Travellers were aware
of their lower than average life expectancy as a group.
9.2.2 Emotional labour

The management of emotion emerged as another core element of body work
undertaken by health practitioners working with Traveller Communities in the current
study. Returning to Hochschild’s (1983) distinction, practitioners sometimes
described engaging in surface acting, suggesting that they worked to portray a
different emotional state to community members than that they actually experienced.
Sandra described the requirement in her role to challenge Traveller Community
members as contrasting with her innate personality of shying away from conflict for
instance. This is also implied in Becky’s statement of the need to develop ‘a tough
skin’ which implies a guard to protect one’s underlying feelings. Aspects of surface
level acting were also seen in Karen and Sandra’s descriptions of the importance of
disguising any shock at the circumstances of ‘disadvantaged’ groups that threatened
to show through facial expression, in order to gain the trust of community members.
Aspects of deep acting were also evident in accounts, whereby practitioners
rationalised instances of aggression from Traveller Community members when
accessing or receiving services by reference to barriers to in accessing care such as
discrimination, or personal trauma, that generate this behaviour. Here they report
engaging in deep acting since they alter any potential judgement toward community
members for their behaviour through making this understandable.
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However, like the responses of social workers in the study by Winter et al. (2018),
on many occasions practitioners did not suggest that they were involved in surface
or deep acting with regard to their emotions, but stressed that their care for
community members was authentic. Though the language used to describe
practitioner relationships with Traveller Community members varied from that
conveying strong personal feelings such as ‘love’, to less intense expressions of
‘enjoyment’ of working with these groups, many practitioners did not characterise
their relationships with community members as ones that are emotionally detached.
Indeed, some work in this area has challenged the idea that emotions are
commodified in nursing and healthcare professions, suggesting that this overlooks
the satisfaction that practitioners take in the provision of care and their ability to offer
emotional support as a gift to patients rather than this being forced upon staff by
institutions (Bolton, 2000). Personal and emotional connections with health
practitioners were also valued by Traveller Community members. Kelly commented
positively on a service in which they had got to know the individuals delivering the
service over time for instance. Likewise, Patricia stressed the importance of
practitioners taking the time to sit, chat and have a cup of tea with community
members. In addition, practitioners who were valued by community members were
often referred to by personal descriptors such as ‘lovely’ or ‘nice’. This thereby
illustrates some cross-over between practitioner and Traveller Community accounts
regarding the importance of emotional connection in building trust and ensuring
satisfaction with health services.
9.2.3 The institutional, classed and gendered nature of body work

Applying existing theory on body work helps place that reported by health
practitioners in the wider organisational and social context within which they work.
As has been found in other employment sectors (Hochschild, 1983; McDowell and
Court, 1994), and parallel health professions (Brown et al., 2011; Riley and Weiss,
2016), practitioners in the current study identified aspects of bodily performance and
emotion management as forming an integral part of the service they provide, and
their role in engaging with ‘disadvantaged’ groups in particular. Previous literature
highlights the differential involvement of professionals in body work according to
status, with male staff in senior roles less often involved in direct labour on the
bodies of others (Twigg, 2000). While practitioners in the current study were not, for
the most part, involved in physical work on the bodies of others, this distinction is
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nonetheless conceptually useful in understanding practitioner techniques to
downplay a ‘professional’ identity and their emphasis on the ability to closely
observe Traveller Community bodies. Those practitioners who had moved into more
strategic roles that involved less direct or hands-on work with communities often
lamented their distance from community members. This is apparent in the
suggestion by both Louise and Karen that public health is seen as where individuals
go to settle down and is therefore viewed with some distain. This highlights the
significance of closeness to, or distance from the community for how health
practitioners articulate and differentiate between professional identities, and its role
in the status of practitioners. We see here a reversal of the relationship between
status and distance from body work previously articulated in existing literature; a
position as close to the bodies of disadvantaged communities enabled claims to a
different type of status, as ‘street smart’ and in touch with Traveller Community
members and other disadvantaged groups. As seen in the account of a midwife
involved in the study, body work was not straightforwardly associated with
professional role, and through the management of one’s appearance, practitioners
could cast off signifiers that betray one’s ‘professional’ identity.
Practitioners did not explicitly describe body rules stipulated by their employers or
formalised in guidelines for practice. However, in cases where practitioners from the
same organisation were interviewed, it was clear that the relative merits of these
practices had been deliberated between colleagues. Hochschild’s (1983) concept of
‘feeling rules’ assists in understanding the connections between emotional
performance and institutional and social structures. This points to the potential costs
associated with an inability to express one’s emotions, or the requirement to alter
emotions in accordance with institutional expectations for their management. This
PhD research contributes greater understanding of the ‘feeling rules’ that operate in
different types of health institutions, looking at the emotion work undertaken not only
by those in clinical, professional occupations such as midwifery, but those in public
health and community roles. The research has shown the different ‘feeling rules’ that
appeared to be operating depending on the different sectors that practitioners
belonged to. Those working in community sectors appeared less regulated in regard
to their expression of personal emotions toward Traveller Community members and
their work with these groups. By contrast, practitioners in more professionalised
roles and working at a greater distance from the community less often couched their
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relationship to Traveller Community members in such strong terms. Louise,
exemplifying the latter category for example, described her sadness at the unmet
needs among Gypsies and Travellers and in response, a desire to re-train in a role
in which she could herself work more pragmatically and directly with the community
and just get on with addressing the issues she saw. It is perhaps significant that
Louise ties this to her background as a nurse, a profession which centres around
hands-on care. That she corrects this initial response, describing this as irrational
however, suggests that she is concerned she has allowed her emotion to
temporarily get the better of her professional and objective judgement. Nicola also
appeared to relinquish her professional role to a lesser extent, and on one occasion
during her interview amends her initial selection of the term ‘fears’ to instead use
‘anxieties’ when describing her concern about working with a teenage Gypsy
Traveller woman; the former term appearing to convey a strength of emotion that
might be deemed to be at odds with the detachment required in her professional
role. The emphasis on neutrality, objectivity and the upholding of boundaries
between practitioners and clients in professional codes of conduct appear to prevent
those working in more formalised professional roles from the performance of
emotion. Indeed, it has been argued that capacity for emotional expression has
been depleted as a result of a more general trend toward the increasing
bureaucracy and rationality of organisations which has seen greater divisions
between public and private spheres and an emphasis on efficiency and adherence
to rules rather than social relationships (Gimlin, 2007; Hingley Jones and Ruch,
2016; Winter et al., 2018). While there is now a move towards greater
personalisation and individualisation in health services (Bennett, 2014), this too is at
odds with some of the approaches articulated by practitioners, since the rationale for
personalised working with Traveller Communities was often articulated on the basis
of assumptions about Gypsy and Traveller group identity.
This study points to narratives among practitioners that, by definition, civil society7
employees should shoulder a greater amount of the emotional burden of working
with people who are characterised as ‘vulnerable’ or ‘disadvantaged’ than those in
clinical NHS roles for example. While recognising the specific contribution of civil
society organisations, this claim is troubling in its positioning of this sector as solely
7
A term used to refer to organisations who operate separately from government (e.g. public sector)
and for-profit sectors
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(or at least) predominantly responsible for those experiencing the greatest inequity
or particularly challenging circumstances, thereby taking the focus away from the
duties of statutory forms of support. In assuming that civil society organisations and
staff are, by definition, more able to tolerate emotional distress associated with this
work, this risks a lack of understanding and appropriate resourcing of the work that
employees in these sectors perform. It may also prevent the implementation of rules
that afford the same protections to workers as staff in other sectors and generate
inequality in working conditions. This research therefore points to the
commodification of emotion work in not only clinical health care settings, but also
within the civil society sector, and perhaps to an even greater extent given
suggestions that workers in this sector should be particularly responsive to and
understanding of the ‘problematic’ behaviour of ‘troubled’ groups.
Findings also suggest that class intersects with notions of professional distance and
closeness to the community in informing emotion management. Sandra suggests
that those who are ‘middle-class’ are less accustomed to the lives lived by
disadvantaged groups, and more likely to show shock or disgust to community
members. This points to the role of emotion work in again enabling practitioners to
project an identity as working-class, and non-judgemental of disadvantage, helping
to establish trust with Traveller Communities.
Previous work on emotional labour points to the differential emotion work carried out
in male dominated occupations, such as paramedics, in which the suppression of
emotion is encouraged (Williams, 2013). Hochschild (1983) suggests that men and
women are called upon to perform different types of emotion work. Women are more
likely to work on the frontline, directly interacting with and dealing with people’s
emotions, while men are suggested as more often employed in middle and upper
social work roles, at a distance from community members and therefore less likely to
express emotions such as ‘love’ (Winter et al., 2018). Findings from the present
study contrast with those of previous studies in regard to the influence of masculinity
on emotion work undertaken by practitioners. Indeed, the strongest expression of
strong personal connection to Traveller Communities was that expressed by the one
male participant in the study. This is perhaps explained by this individual’s position
in working directly with community members. While the distancing undertaken by
medical practitioners is often connected with gender norms in professions (Williams,
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2013; Riley and Weiss, 2016), this study suggests that there is a need for caution in
assuming that engagement in emotion work is prescribed by one’s gender alone.
Rather, closeness to the community appeared to interact with and potentially even
supersede gender in generating rules of emotional labour. Support was therefore
found for Schilling’s (1993: 122) point that differences in the forms of emotion work
undertaken by men and women may not be an absolute split, and that they may
perform similar emotion work where in similar roles. In addition, practitioners do not
perform emotions in isolation, but rather, in response to the emotional field they are
presented with, here referring to work with Traveller Communities. As such
discourses in operation with respect to the propensity of Traveller Communities to
accept or reject health workers may also have influenced the emotional
performances of practitioners.
9.3 Un-disciplined bodies?

The degree to which Traveller Community members are presented as culturally
compliant or resistant to health promotion advice is a fundamental tension which
underpins narratives of Gypsy and Traveller health generated in this study, and
indeed, the wider literature in this area. Although varying in its overtness, a
discourse of Gypsies and Travellers as differently oriented to space and time is key
to understanding this tension in the accounts of practitioners in the study. This
included representations of Traveller Community members as less time-disciplined,
chaotic, disorderly, and less tolerant of structure or environments resembling a
classroom. These portrayals are in keeping with representations of Gypsy and
Traveller relationships to time in existing literature, which point to potential
incongruity between highly structured, rule-governed cultures of educational and
health service provision, and the greater spatial and temporal freedom associated
with Traveller Community life (Peck, 1983; McCann, 1987; Lehti and Mattson, 2001;
Levinson, 2005, 2008; Dion, 2008; Bhopal, 2011). Depictions of Traveller
Communities as lacking boundaries, or as somehow operating outside the rules or
conventions of majority society, echo broader discourses which construct the
nomadism of Traveller Communities as a threat to geographical, spatial, and social
order (Bancroft 2000; Clark & Campbell 2000; Halfacree 1996; Morris 2000;
Richardson 2006; Turner 2000). These narratives also chime with romantic ideas
about the freedom provided by a nomadic lifestyle, and nostalgia directed at
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‘traditional’ or ‘simple’ modes of living that are associated with images of Gypsy and
Traveller Communities in society (Holloway, 2005). Pragmatic implications that
follow from this discourse, such that Traveller Community members are often
described as unlikely to respect the fixed times of health care appointments (Lawrie,
1983; Raper, 1986; McCann, 1987; Feder, Salkind and Sweeney, 1989; Goward et
al., 2006), were also found in the narratives of some practitioners in the present
study.
Traveller Community members were not only treated as undisciplined with respect
to their conduct in health promotion sessions, but as present rather than future
oriented, and as therefore affording little priority to the prevention of future ill health.
Explanations for this attitude were varied, sometimes appearing to suggest that this
was a collective outlook or philosophy among Gypsies and Travellers and at other
times connected with structural constraints such as level of education or inability to
afford to adopt healthy lifestyles. One practitioner (Becky) suggested that Traveller
Community members’ expectations regarding their lower life expectancy fostered an
attitude of enjoying the present rather than planning for the future. Again, these
representations of Traveller Community members echo existing suggestions that
Traveller Communities are fatalistic (Van Cleemput et al., 2007; Dion, 2008), and
lacking self-regulation with respect to health behaviour (Dion, 2008). The present
study therefore shows that previous assertions of Traveller Community members as
less time disciplined persist in health practitioner narratives. However, findings from
this work provide greater detail on how practitioners report managing this supposed
tension around time in their work with Traveller Community members, and in health
settings specifically. Applying Foucault’s theory of disciplinary power and Deleuze’s
concepts of smooth versus striated space, this section of the chapter further
interrogates the significance of time and space in constructions of Traveller
Communities regarding health, and the operation of power and resistance in health
interaction between practitioners and Traveller Community members. It does so by
looking specifically at two areas: 1) the temporal and spatial organisation of health
advice and sessions, and 2) the future-oriented principles of public health.
9.3.1 The temporal and spatial organisation of health advice

In the transition traced by Foucault (1977) from crude and absolute forms of power
(exemplified by public displays of punishment performed directly onto the body), to
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disciplinary forms of power (which operate through the habitual training of the body),
time and space take on particular significance. Indeed, for Foucault, ‘power is
articulated directly onto time; it assumes its control and guarantees its use’ (1977:
160). It is noteworthy for the present study that the shift to a disciplinary society is
attributed by Foucault to demographic changes in the eighteenth century that saw
an increase in the ‘floating population’, and that ‘one of the primary objects of
discipline is to fix; it is an anti-nomadic technique’ (1977: 218). Thus, we see in
Foucault’s work the clear suggestion that nomadism poses a threat to power, and
that disciplinary regimes of power arose in part due to their increased capacity to
manage this threat:
That is why discipline fixes; it arrests or regulates movements; it clears up

confusion; it dissipates compact groupings of individuals wandering about
the country in unpredictable ways; it establishes calculated distributions. It
must also master all the forces that are formed from the very constitution of
an organised multiplicity; it must neutralize the effects of counter-power that
spring from them and which form resistance to the power that wishes to
dominate it: agitations, revolts, spontaneous organisations, coalitions –
anything that may establish horizontal conjunctions (Foucault, 1977: 219)
This focus on the disciplining of individuals in time and space, particularly by way of
managing the potential threat to social order posed by nomadism has clear
application to findings from the present study, which pointed to orientations to time
and space as a potential source of conflict between practitioners and Traveller
Community members. Applying Hall’s (1994) distinction, Gypsies and Travellers
were characterised by practitioners (though not explicitly) as adhering to polychronic
or process-driven orientations to time. Such orientations to time counter the highly
structured monochronic systems guiding health promotion sessions as usual, as
well as the requirement to exercise restraint and self-control in order to resist
‘unhealthy’ behaviours, or at least limit these to “relatively safe, approved, ritualistic
expressions of release in socially designated times and places” (Crawford, 1994, p.
1359). It is, in part, through the meticulous arrangement of bodies in space that
discipline is achieved. This includes techniques not only of enclosure or
confinement, but the segmentation and assignment of specific spaces to individuals.
In doing so, this creates a space that is functional, insofar as it enables individuals to
be monitored:
One must eliminate the effects of imprecise distributions, the uncontrolled

disappearance of individuals, their diffuse circulation, their unusable and
dangerous coagulation; it was a tactic of anti-desertion, anti-vagabondage,
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anti-concentration. Its aim was to establish presences and absences, to
know where and how to locate individuals, to set up useful communications,
to interrupt others, to be able at each moment to supervise the conduct of
each individual, to assess it, to judge it, to calculate its qualities or merits. It
was a procedure, therefore, aimed at knowing, mastering and using.
Discipline organises an analytical space (Foucault, 1977: 143)
Discipline is also argued by Foucault to be accomplished by controlling activity

through timetables that allow the partitioning of time into ever smaller units,
supervision, and the removal of distractions and which maximise the productivity of
time. Power is exercised through the prescription of movements, their pervasiveness
and regularity leading to internalised habits and the ‘correction’ of individuals. In
Foucault’s terms, this form of power enables:
a hold over others’ bodies, not only so that they may do what one wishes,
but so that they may operate as one wishes, with the techniques, the speed
and the efficiency that one determines. Thus discipline produces subjected
and practised bodies, ‘docile’ bodies (Foucault, 1977: 138)
There was some evidence in practitioner accounts of attempts at such spatial and
temporal regulation of Traveller Community members. When suggesting that the
use of salt on food was allowed in one’s own home, but not within the confines of
health sessions, Becky attempts to create an enclosed health promotion space, with
a line drawn between behaviour that is acceptable within sessions, and that which, if
one chooses to engage in it, should be performed away from the gaze of the health
practitioner. Likewise, instances of community members displaying ‘unhealthy’
behaviours in close proximity to or within health sessions were met with a degree of
dissatisfaction by practitioners, as was the case where Karen remarked that
Traveller Community members kept ‘nipping out for joints’ during the session and
described how after the session: ‘there was fruit and veg there and they went out for
fish and chips’. This demonstrates at least an attempt to ensure some enclosure of
health promotion sessions.
However, for the most part, findings from the current study highlight a relaxation of
the rules, structure and formality of health promotion when working with Traveller
Communities, to mirror the polychronic and process driven approaches to time that
practitioners perceived these groups as adopting. This is illustrated by Becky’s
extended account of the chaotic nature of health sessions for example, in which
multiple activities can be undertaken at once (e.g. participants are not asked to turn
their phones off), interruptions to the core business of health promotion are
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accommodated (e.g. for participants to ‘go and see their kids’), activities are
undertaken when the time feels appropriate, rather than according to pre-set
timetables (e.g. ‘they can have a sandwich when they want’) and at a speed that is
dictated by Traveller Community members themselves. Practitioners distinguished
their own approaches from those adopted by authoritarian figures such as ‘teacher’
(Sandra), ‘preacher’ (Sandra, Becky) or ‘judge’ (Karen, Caroline, Becky, Linda) and
their associated spaces of the ‘pulpit’ (Linda) or the ‘classroom’ (Becky). The efforts
of many practitioners to dissociate health education from modes of education
associated with a classroom, reflect narratives of structured learning environments
as ill-adapted to Traveller Community culture, or vice versa, and for preferences of
Traveller Community members for real-life learning and freedom to pick things up at
your own pace (Levinson, 2005). Indeed, not all health promotion spaces could
accommodate this unstructured approach, with Becky also highlighting challenges
where venues were un-used to Traveller culture and orientations to time and space,
suggesting that Travellers ‘can be incredibly messy like a lot of the communities we
work with’ and that ‘we always had something that had gone wrong you know the
kids were running around or the somebody in the centre had complained’.
Aside from the examples noted, of attempts to create enclosed health promotion
spaces, hallmarks of disciplinary regimes of power which strive for the avoidance of
‘uncontrolled disappearance’, ‘diffuse circulation’ and the precise location of
individuals in space (Foucault, 1977), were curiously absent from these interactions.
Indeed, Becky’s suggestion that ‘if they don’t wanna listen they just walk walk out’
even positions Traveller Community participants as able to avoid health promotion
completely if they wish to. The simultaneous relaxation of the rules within health
sessions and of some attempted sanction over Traveller Community members’
behaviour therefore suggests a combined approach of control and leniency in regard
to health behaviour and conduct within health promotion encounters.
Previous research has highlighted the significance of temporal structure in the
exercise of power in the colonialisation of Aboriginal Communities (Nanni, 2011).
Within the present research, time took on a similarly important role in the
signification and operation of power and resistance. Like Aboriginal Communities,
Traveller Community members were characterised as resistant to attempts to
control their conduct (here in relation to health advice and sessions) by definition of
their attitudes to time and space. However, in contrast to the efficacious use of time
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as an apparatus of control in colonisation (Nanni, 2011), the narratives of
practitioners in the study are those of having had to relinquish forms of temporal and
spatial regulation commonly employed in health promotion when working with Gypsy
and Traveller Communities. Thus, practitioners in the study articulated little support
for a view that they occupied positions of power in relation to Traveller Community
members.
9.3.2 Future-oriented principles of public health

Traveller Community members were not only seen by practitioners as contravening
the monochronic ordering of everyday health promotion interactions and sessions,
but also the future-oriented principles of public health advice. The discipline of public
health is premised on principles of causality that are underpinned by linear and
monochronic notions of time, operating on the understanding that it is possible to
influence the future (at least in part), through our past and present action. In keeping
with the commodification of time in society, whereby ‘one block of time may be
traded for another which is seen as more valuable’ (Fox, 1999: 1317), individuals
are expected to spend time in the present engaging in healthy lifestyle behaviours,
in order to ‘buy’ future time by preventing poor health and ultimately prolonging life.
As has been argued for social work (Juhila, Gunther and Raitakari, 2015), public
health also embodies a linear approach to time in its emphasis on positive change,
and progressive journeys of self-improvement. This approach to time forms a further
device for the operation of power. In disciplinary power, the fixed position of
individuals in space is less important than the rank or position they occupy in
relation to others (Foucault, 1977). It is therefore not only through the physical
arrangement of spaces that power proceeds, but through processes of assessment
and ordering of individuals in hierarchies. It is through this technique that power
succeeds in simultaneously governing both the group or population and the
individual. Disciplinary time is linear time; it divides up time into a series of
consecutive periods, following which individuals can be assessed, and arranges
these time slots into an overall course. In its orientation of individuals towards an
ultimate goal, this system ensures the endurance of systems of power, since
subjects are ensnared in an extended sequence of categorisation in relation to
others, a given trajectory and to regular intervention. Through their suggestions that
Traveller Community members are oriented to the present and fatalistic regarding
their future health, practitioners positioned Gypsies and Travellers as having
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attitudes to time that stand in contrast with the linear view of time advanced by
public health, and as therefore potentially resistant to attempts to control individuals
by mapping their progress against such linear milestones. Practitioners relayed
stories of Traveller Community members resisting their attempts to draw them into
‘future talk’ regarding their health. Some reportedly did so by refuting suggestions
that current action could guarantee future health, as seen in Sandra’s story of
encountering attitudes of ‘what will be will be’. In some cases, Traveller Community
members were noted to shift discussion to the past, as in Karen’s story of a
community member who avoided engaging with a discussion about cancer
prevention and instead focused on memorialising the death of a family member, ‘the
star in the sky’. While these narratives sometimes sat alongside counter examples,
and were not articulated by all practitioners, the fixation of Traveller Community
members in the present or the past nevertheless formed a strong narrative in
practitioner accounts. Although communicating respect for the choice of community
members regarding how far they engage with advice about promoting their future
health, practitioners also appeared to express some frustration where these
messages were not engaged with, or at the very least communicated the sense of
challenge they experienced in trying to get these messages heard. Karen for
instance, communicates her surprise at the reluctance of this community member to
discuss cancer despite two years having passed since the death of her relative from
the disease. The ambiguity and sense of tension regarding whether to accept or
strive to change the supposed orientations of Traveller Community members in
relation to time and health is also encapsulated in Becky’s statement of ‘oh I don’t
really want to you don’t really wanna change it but they have a very kind of erm
intoxicating philosophy of you only have today you can’t control tomorrow’. A
reluctance to shift into future talk therefore appeared to be experienced by
practitioners as a form of resistance to their attempts to broach behavioural advice
and was presented as a potential source of conflict during health communication.
Practitioners experienced a challenge therefore in balancing what they identified as

community priorities with the need to address health behaviours as part of their
professional role, or personal values. It is puzzling that despite practitioner
suggestions that Traveller Community members were less oriented to the future,
health advice was often delivered with the suggestion that this would improve
physical appearance, since this would involve the same trade off in terms of present
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and future time. The priority that practitioners judged Traveller Community members
as affording physical attractiveness appeared to offset the belief that Traveller
Communities were less able to delay gratification in this way. This points to the
interaction of discourses on time orientation with those on Traveller Community
members’ greater concern with their appearance in informing the ways that
practitioners broached behavioural issues.
Narratives reported in the literature on the fatalism and different time perspectives of
Gypsy and Traveller Communities (Van Cleemput et al., 2007; Dion, 2008) were
reflected in the accounts of practitioners in the current study. What this study adds
however is insight into the ways practitioners report traversing the intersections of
these competing discourses in their everyday practice. Representations of Gypsies
and Travellers as giving less priority to their future health have been shown through
the study to lead to a tendency to reduce the intensity of intervention around health
behaviour and in some cases a reticence to address these issues. This was
reflected in findings which illustrate the adoption by practitioners of a less formal or
less prescriptive approach to working with Traveller Communities compared to work
with other groups. Sandra’s description of not delving in detail around what changes
Traveller Community members had made to their health behaviour, but to keep this
more ‘casual’ is illustrative of this approach for example. Another illustration is
provided by Becky’s suggestion that structured tools for goal-setting and monitoring
behaviour change (such as reflective logs, defined outcomes, and use of metrics
such as BMI, weight, lung capacity, and lung age), as well as accreditation for the
completion of community health education courses were not employed in work with
Traveller Communities. The various efforts of practitioners to create a ‘smoke
screen’ (Karen) to disguise or entice participation with more serious health
promotion messages, or avoid participants feeling like ‘they’re getting a battering all
the time’ (Caroline) also hints at the efforts of practitioners to, at least partially,
provide a forum in which participants experience ‘fun’ and some freedom from life’s
pressures. As for the temporal and spatial organisation of health sessions discussed
above, there appeared therefore to be a relaxation of usual techniques of power and
surveillance such as the identification of health promotion goals and the assessment
of individuals against the incremental steps for achieving these. This is despite
practitioners having identified health behaviours as particular issues among Gypsy
and Traveller communities.
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9.3.3 Smoothing out spaces of health promotion
Foucault’s (1977) theory of disciplinary power does not apply straightforwardly to
reported interactions between practitioners and Traveller Community members. The
accounts of practitioners suggest Traveller Community members were in fact
subject to very little attempts at discipline, though there were a few instances of
more forceful attempts cited to control Traveller Community behaviour reported
earlier. The refusal to monitor and document the health of Traveller Community
members within routine monitoring systems, as well as a reticence to apply more
individualised forms of health assessment shown through the present study, points
to the absence of instruments of power such as ‘the examination’, which ‘places
individuals in a field of surveillance and situates them in a network of writing; it
engages them in a whole mass of documents that fix and capture them’ (Foucault,
1977: 189). Tactics evident in study findings are more reminiscent of negative and
repressive forms of power, of ‘projects of exclusion’ (ibid: 199) which function
through the ‘binary division between one set of people and another’ rather than via
‘multiple separations and individualizing distributions’ (ibid: 198). Foucault (1977)
suggests that these two forms of power combine; the binary categorisation of groups
as normal/abnormal enables them to be singled out for individualising techniques of
surveillance and correction, which in turn, support the categorisation and exclusion
of groups. However, such techniques of power were, for the most part, not
discernible in the accounts of practitioners in the study. It is possible that this is
indicative of a subtle and hidden form of power which Foucault acknowledges is key
to modern forms of power.
The work of Deleuze and Guattari, in particular their concepts of smooth versus
striated space (Deleuze and Guattari, 1986) assists in understanding why
practitioners interpret Traveller Community orientations to time (at least as
practitioners perceive them), as strategies of resistance to the delivery of health
advice, as well as the potentially hidden functioning of power in interactions between
practitioners and Traveller Community members. Striated space is associated with
the apparatus of the State, which divides and draws boundaries in space through
techniques of measurement and quantification. It is space that is characterised by
hierarchy, order, stasis and homogeneity, and which is oriented towards occupation
and sedentarism. Smooth space on the other hand is an open space (symbolised by
the desert or the steppe) which is free from the lines and codes imposed upon state
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space. Smooth space is facilitative of a freedom of movement, and associated with
the nomad, who does not occupy a fixed and bounded territory, but flows across this
smooth and open space. The relationship of Nomads to the state symbolised
resistance for Deleuze and Guattari (1986). They conceived of a nomadic war
machine which through perpetual movement and resistance to becoming fixed, can
escape capture or codification by the State. Read through this lens, practitioner
perceptions of the unpredictability of movement of Traveller Community members in
relation to time and space is akin to a nomadic war machine operating in a smooth
space and is interpreted as a form of resistance to the striated spaces of health
promotion. While in striated space ‘all movement is subordinated to points or
positionings; beginnings and ends; states of being’ (Malins, 2004: 486), movement
within smooth spaces follows no set patterns and runs in many different directions
rather than toward fixed points or destinations (Malins, 2004). This helps to explain
practitioner stories whereby Traveller Community members were presented as
having resisted attempts to shift discussion to the future, to plot out and work toward
fixed destinations in terms of future health outcomes, and the preference to avoid
being fixed in space within health promotion sessions.
Deleuze and Guattari (1986) also describe the potential for smooth space, and the
State to appropriate the nomad war machine for its own ends, using nomadic
pathways or routes as a method of communication. Faced with an expectation of
resistance to their attempts to broach health behaviours, practitioners sought to
appropriate the characteristics of smooth space in health promotion settings (e.g.
enabling freedom of movement in sessions, avoiding attempts to fix the focus only
on health promotion, and facilitating autonomous learning, which enables Traveller
Community members to pick things up on their own pace), co-opting and
reproducing Traveller styles of interaction and communication for the delivery of
health advice. Some practitioners’ attempts at control within sessions, e.g.
capitalising on people’s reluctance to refuse a blood pressure test during
opportunistic health interventions and punctuating other ‘fun’ activities with health
messages, reflect tactics of surprise or unpredictability that characterise the nomad
war machine. However, these sat alongside attempts at regulation through a more
absolute or fixed manipulation of space, suggesting that a combination of
techniques of power were in operation during health promotion with Traveller
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Communities. This helps to unmask the forms of power, and conceptualisations of
resistance that were in operation in health promotion sessions.
9.3.4 The contrasting stories of Traveller Community members

Discourses found in existing literature, of Traveller Community members as fatalistic
and less time disciplined with respect to their health (Van Cleemput et al., 2007;
Dion, 2008), were also reflected in the narratives of health practitioners in this study.
These representations potentially reinforce images of Gypsies and Travellers as
groups who reject the preventative foundations public health and the moral
responsibility to promote one’s health. A key and novel finding of the current study
has, however, been the demonstration that Traveller Community members do not
position themselves as wholly fatalistic or beyond the reach of public health doctrine
and associated technologies. While at times discourses of fatalism featured in the
accounts of Traveller Community members, they co-existed with narratives of
personal responsibility and control over health in Gypsy and Traveller accounts.
Indeed, for the most part, Gypsies and Travellers were clearly striving to construct
preferred identity positions as responsible health citizens. In the one narrative
account in which a Traveller Community member displays a high degree of
resistance to health promotion advice (Kelly), this orientation was underpinned not
by a discourse of fatalism, or the rejection of an ability to influence future health, but
one of personal responsibility. Kelly accepted the premise of lifestyle behaviour as a
cause of illness but stressed her agentic and decisive decision not to adopt this
behaviour which she knew to be beneficial to her future health.
Findings also highlight an important discrepancy between Traveller Community and

practitioner narratives around the nature of Traveller Community members’ attitudes
to time. Previous research on Traveller Community member orientations to time and
space appears to accept a degree of cultural difference in this regard (Levinson,
2005, 2008; Bhopal, 2011), with this suggested as underpinning the maintenance of
distinct identities and reinforcing boundaries between Traveller and settled society.
By these readings, the outsider status of Gypsies and Travellers results from the
fact that this diversity is not recognised or valued. Similar interpretations of Traveller
Community attitudes to time were evident in the accounts of health practitioners
involved in the study. Practitioners suggested that Traveller Community members’
awareness of their shorter life span, and fatalistic beliefs resulted in their greater
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orientation to the present and reduced focus on future consequences. However,
when talking about their health, Gypsies and Travellers participating in the study
often shifted into a future ‘time tense’ (Roberts, 2004) and articulated an acceptance
of linear notions of time advanced by public health. As such, the notion that Traveller
Communities are less future oriented in regard to their health seems to have
become an engrained truth that does not reflect the range of storylines available in
the talk of Gypsies and Travellers themselves.
Findings from the current study show a strength of personal responsibility for health
in Traveller Community narratives that has not been displayed in previous literature.
This finding is likely explained by the different approach taken in the present study.
Many studies of Gypsy and Traveller health start from the position that essential
cultural differences underpin the differential health status of these groups. That
studies starting from this premise produce findings on the distinctiveness of
Traveller Community health beliefs and behaviours is unsurprising. By contrast, the
adoption of a poststructuralist informed narrative approach enabled such dominant,
taken for granted discourses to be exposed as only one among many possible
constructions of Traveller Communities. This approach has allowed more marginal
discourses to be brought to the fore, illustrating that the health identities of Gypsies
and Travellers are more complex than previously assumed, highlighting oscillation
between identities as engaged with and resistant to health advice. This is consistent
with recent theoretical work that cautions against a view of resistance to health
advice as characterised by wholescale rejection of services or behaviours and which
points to the more subtle and nuanced nature of resistance (Armstrong and Murphy,
2012). The potentially complex permutations of resistance were also indicated in the
ways that Traveller Community members’ challenge of medical practitioners was
rationalised not on their rejection of medical authority but rather on the basis that the
treatment was not performed with what they understood to be the appropriate level
of medical or scientific rigour.
It is important to consider why such strong and persistent claims about the different
orientations of Traveller Community members to time and health are found in
practitioner accounts, even despite evidence of counter narratives in the accounts of
Traveller Communities with whom these practitioners worked. It is possible that
Traveller Community members were more inclined to express identities as morally
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responsible health citizens in interviews with a health(y) researcher than in
interactions with practitioners. However, similar concerns with impression
management are likely to operate in communication between Traveller Community
members and health practitioners, potentially to an even greater degree given
practitioners’ explicit remit of improving health.
While the above discussion of practitioner approaches illustrates the relaxation of

power within health sessions, in the form of temporal and spatial control in health
interactions with practitioners, Traveller Community members were clearly subject to
public health techniques of normative judgement, surveillance and risk
categorisation which operate at the broader population level to produce self-
regulating and docile bodies. This thereby creates a paradox whereby a broad
awareness of the need to regulate one’s behaviour in response to dominant
discourses on moral responsibility for health was not always reflected in the support
that Traveller Communities suggested they received, nor the approach of
practitioners, who described a reluctance to broach health behaviour directly for fear
that this would alienate Gypsies and Travellers. This tension is amplified for Gypsies
and Travellers given the combined effect of discourses on the imperative of heath
and those which position Traveller Communities as a group who is particularly ‘at
risk’ regarding health. Structural difficulties in access and narratives of being fobbed
off when accessing services further compound this scenario. Calkins’ (1970) classic
study on the different values attached to time, depending on people’s
circumstances, help in understanding this dynamic. For instance, an overabundance
of time may lead to approaches to using time such as ‘passing time’, ‘waiting’, ‘doing
time’, ‘making time’, ‘filling time’, or ‘killing time’ for example (Calkins, 1970).
Understood in this way, an awareness of the lower life expectancy of Traveller
Communities overall, and difficulty getting access to health services required to
detect illness, could be considered as giving rise to the experience of time-pressure
rather than an abundance of time. Yet, counter to suggestions in the literature and in
practitioner narratives, this sense that time is short or that one is living on borrowed
time did not translate into narratives about living for the day, but rather gave rise to
anxiety that health issues were present but going undiagnosed. This study therefore
highlights the discourses underpinning the urgency with which Travellers may
approach health services (Lehti and Mattson, 2001). Indeed, narratives about the
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requirement to be ‘pushy’ to get access to services and of treatment having been
received ‘in the nick of time’ were common in Traveller Community accounts.
9.4 Race, culture and structure in narratives of Traveller Community

health
The introduction to this thesis highlighted a dearth of attention to the racialisation of
Gypsies and Travellers, owing to their position as white minority ethnic groups
(Bhopal, 2011; Goodman and Rowe, 2014; Rowe and Goodman, 2014; Garner,
2017). A small body of work explicitly applies the concepts of racism and
racialisation to Traveller Communities, focusing on the media (Morris, 2000),
education (Bhopal 2011), and place, space and the planning system (Holloway,
2003; Garner, 2017). However, very little consideration has been given to the
racialisation of Gypsies and Travellers in the arena of health, with the literature in
this area more often employing the concepts of ethnicity and culture. Given Garner’s
(2017) observation that the category of ‘race’ is ‘immediately more conflictual’ than
ethnicity, a neglect of the concepts of race and racialisation in research on Gypsy
and Traveller health may form an important blockage to recognising and de-
normalising the inequities and discrimination experienced by these groups. This
PhD research did not ask about race or racism directly, but allowed Gypsies,
Travellers and health practitioners to draw on frames such as race, class and
gender as they saw fit, when narrating their experiences. This approach provides an
opportunity to comment on the extent to which the concept of race was used overtly
by participants when discussing Gypsy and Traveller health, as well as attending to
more subtle processes of racialisation, including cultural racism. Indeed, a key
motivation for undertaking this thesis was to critically interrogate the dominant, taken
for granted and benign status that has often been afforded to cultural explanations
for Gypsy and Traveller health inequalities. By speaking to both health practitioners
and Traveller Community members themselves, the work adds understanding not
only of the ways practitioners racialise Gypsies and Travellers by attributing certain
characteristics to these groups, but also attempts at ‘reflective racialisation’ (Garner,
2017) by Gypsies and Travellers themselves. That is, the ways that these groups
may emphasise shared group characteristics to facilitate solidarity and counter
stereotypes imposed upon them by those from outside the community.
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Mirroring literature on Gypsy and Traveller health, explicit references to race or
racism were rare in the accounts of both practitioners and Traveller Community
members when making sense of health inequalities experienced. Of the
practitioners interviewed, only Linda referenced racism directly. When describing
differences in the experiences of Roma and Romany Gypsies or Irish Travellers,
Linda initially appeared uncertain regarding whether the concept of racism was
relevant to the latter two communities, substituting the term racism for assumptions
and stereotypes and indicating that stigma was more of a problem for Roma
communities than other Traveller Community groups. Linda later acknowledges the
racism experienced by Traveller Community members when discussing policing, but
still appears unsure over the use of this term when she comments: ‘I think there’s
probably I don’t know I might be wrong I think there’s probably a bit of racism as in
racism because they’re a different ethnicity’. Likewise, most Gypsies and Travellers
described their differential access to and experiences of health services because of
their ethnicity. Yet, community members rarely labelled these experiences as racism
(with only Catherine and Bernadette using this term). Both practitioners and
Traveller Community members more commonly referred to prejudice, or to
assumptions or stereotypes made about Traveller Communities. This points to
similar ambiguities regarding the extent to which Gypsies and Travellers can lay
claim to experiences of racism in relation to health to those found in parallel areas
(Bhopal, 2011; Rowe and Goodman, 2014). A hierarchy of racial inequality was,
however, implied in accounts. Caroline, another practitioner in the study described
differences in terms of the acceptability of prejudice toward Traveller Community
members compared with other ethnic groups, directly attributing this to their
whiteness:
you wouldn’t do that to somebody black they’re [colleagues] not racist but
because Gypsies are White suddenly you know it’s open season
Indeed, some Traveller Community members described their comparatively poorer

treatment relative to other minority groups, echoing the oft-cited Traveller rights
mantra that prejudice toward Gypsies and Travellers constitutes the ‘last
respectable form of racism’ (BBC, 2004). While this narrative seemingly assists in
drawing attention to the stark and often unquestioned prejudice that Traveller
Community members experience, it may also undermine possibilities for solidarity to
challenge racism in all its guises and reinforce division by pitting minority groups
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against one another. While the Whiteness of Traveller Communities could potentially
disguise racism against these groups, in some cases it appeared to facilitate
Traveller Community members in aligning themselves with a white majority, as seen
in the cases of Catherine, Bernadette and Brigid who drew on their British nationality
when articulating their entitlements to services. This again reinforced notions of
hierarchy however, positioning those who have migrated to the UK as less
deserving of services than others.
Perhaps unsurprisingly given that race was a relatively unspoken issue in relation to
Traveller Community health, processes of racialisation which draw on biological
attributes were relatively absent in participant accounts. Exceptions were, however,
apparent in Linda’s suggestion that Gypsy and Traveller women have shorter
gestational periods than other women, and in Hazel’s description (and albeit
dismissal of) a colleague’s Lamarckian belief that the poor hearing of previous
generations of Travellers (caused by the noise of caravan wheels on roads) has
subsequently become a genetically inherited trait. Claims to fundamental biological
or genetic differences of Traveller Communities were not drawn upon and used by
community members in the current study however.
While the racialisation of Gypsies and Travellers was not accomplished though
emphasis on the biological characteristics of Traveller Communities, it was apparent
in processes of cultural racism. Practitioners were clearly assigning cultural
characteristics to Traveller Community members that were not always matched in
the narratives of community members themselves (such as the different orientations
to the body and to time discussed above). Though not biological, some reference
was made to visible and embodied characteristics of Traveller Communities, as
seen in practitioners’ presentations of Traveller Community members as particularly
concerned with their appearance. One Traveller Community member involved in the
study suggested bodily markers of physical appearance were used by settled
community members to distinguish Gypsies and Travellers, with those individuals
who were identifiable as belonging to these groups particularly vulnerable to
discrimination. This is also suggested in Kelly’s account where a voice which is
recognisable as belonging to a Traveller Community member leads some GP
receptionists to disconnect phone calls. Traveller Community members also showed
an awareness of their racialisation as groups who are disengaged from their health.
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This is reflected in comments by Patricia and Catherine that practitioners assume
Traveller Community members are less intelligent and therefore withhold
information.
For the most part, there was little evidence of a coherent and distinct cultural outlook
of Traveller Community members around health and health behaviour. Gypsies and
Travellers did not present themselves as any less concerned about or engaged with
their health than other groups. There was variation in the preferred health identities
that Traveller Community members in the study claimed for themselves, from active
health citizens to conscious resistors, with competing and shifting outlooks also
demonstrated in the accounts of individual Traveller Community members. Spivak
(1990) coined the term ‘strategic essentialism’ to refer to the ways that minority
groups may present unified identities to facilitate collective mobilisation for one’s
rights. There were some instances of self-racialisation and strategic essentialism by
Gypsies and Travellers in the data, with this assisting community members in
reclaiming more positive identities for themselves. A clear example of this was
where Gypsies and Travellers members stressed the emphasis on caring for
children within their communities. Catherine’s suggestion that child abuse and the
placement of children into care does not happen in Traveller Communities forms an
extreme illustration of strategic essentialism. While not fitting the definition of self-
racialisation or strategic essentialism, there were also some examples of
approximation of these techniques in the accounts of practitioners, who sometimes
imparted positive generalisations of Traveller Community members as ‘lovely’ or
‘intelligent’ and who appeared to feel less need to qualify blanket statements where
these were positive. This study has pointed to the complicated operation of race as
a category when making sense of Gypsy and Traveller health entitlements and
identities, with the concept of race appearing to be used both to promote and
obfuscate Gypsy and Traveller rights to health and access to services.
The literature review highlighted a tension between cultural and structural

explanations for the health of Traveller Community members. Reflecting existing
literature, strong claims about the distinctive culture and lifestyles of Traveller
Communities were exemplified in the accounts of practitioners in the study.
However, discourses around culture were often cited alongside structural
explanations for Gypsy and Traveller health inequalities, such as poverty or
248
discrimination. In some cases, these explanations were presented as superseding
cultural influences and at other times, as interacting, for example where poverty was
suggested as giving rise to fatalism, or a low prioritisation of health. Class appeared
to be operating as strongly as race in practitioner accounts, both in explanations for
the health of Traveller Community members, and as a factor affecting practitioners’
interaction with these groups. When describing their work with Traveller
Communities, practitioners often aligned Traveller Community members with the
broader subject position of disadvantage as opposed to identity as a Traveller
Community member. One-dimensional portrayals of Traveller Communities as
disadvantaged or excluded, along with claims to specialist expertise in working with
such groups, were used as a form of currency or means of attaining status by some
practitioners. This outlook echoes the wider media genre of ‘poverty porn’ (Lissner,
1981) and the dominant cultural narrative of the ‘White saviour’, which depict those
who are ‘in need’ according to shallow victim stereotypes, and give the impression
that they are wholly dependent on Western intervention. Indeed, Karen used
language that explicitly mirrors the common charitable trope when suggesting that
she was motivated to work with Gypsies and Travellers due to a desire to help those
that were ‘less fortunate than’ herself. She also draws a comparison to charitable
work undertaken overseas when describing the need to enable Traveller Community
members to help themselves rather than rely on external support. The visit and tour
of the Traveller site by health practitioners so that they could see the conditions on
the site for themselves is also reminiscent of a ‘poverty porn’ approach. The phrase
‘White saviour’ may be misleading in this context, as I am referring to White health
practitioners helping a White ethnic group, and since practitioners often positioned
themselves alongside rather than at a distance from the community. However, this
concept nevertheless captures the construction of Traveller Community members as
‘in need’ of intervention, as well as helping us to consider the interests certain group
representations serve not only for communities, but for practitioners and
organisations working with these groups.
Portrayals of Traveller Community members as disadvantaged by definition, and

suggestions that such circumstances can only truly be understood by health
practitioners with the right aptitude are perhaps driven by a desire to ensure work is
undertaken with the required sensitivity. Practitioners described working-class
identities or their familiarity with the complexity of circumstances experienced by
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‘vulnerable’ community members as important in finding a point of connection with
community members. While assisting practitioners in identifying with Gypsies and
Travellers, this representation itself points to assumptions that Traveller Community
members are inherently disadvantaged and always from working class
backgrounds, thereby overlooking the social stratification of these groups. This
demonstrates how practitioners may reinforce popular discourses depicting Traveller
Community members as ‘other’, even while working toward their inclusion. It is also
important to note that gender appeared to form an additional dimension in the
operation of a White Saviour complex, with female practitioners particularly
concerned to assist Traveller Community women, who they judged to be potentially
oppressed, isolated and as having low ‘aspirations’, with this sometimes suggested
as tied to practitioners’ own cited values regarding female empowerment. Although
prejudice experienced due to one’s position of belonging to a Traveller Community
formed a dominant narrative in making sense of experiences, some Gypsies and
Travellers also drew on wider identity positions in their talk, referring to the influence
of poverty/wealth on the health services received. This is illustrated in the
connection Bernadette makes between high rates of cancer in Traveller
Communities, and the low incidence of cancer in those that are ‘well to do’, or ‘rich’.
These findings connect with discussion in previous literature around the potentially
stigmatising effects of discourses on the structural influences on health. In the
current study, the reconciliation of competing discourses which on the one hand
advocate the imperative of health and on the other describe Traveller Communities
as unhealthy by definition, appeared to pose a key identity tension for participants
which needed to be accounted for in interviews. To the best of my knowledge, this is
the first such study to have highlighted the influence of this dynamic on the identities
expressed by Gypsy and Traveller Communities. Findings contrast with those of
Hodgins (2006) which suggest Traveller Communities are more willing to
acknowledge the structural determinants they experience than other groups
(Cornwell, 1984; Blaxter, 1997) and are less concerned that doing so would ‘devalue
their identity’ (Hodgins, Millar and Barry, 2006). Hodgins et al. (2006) interpret these
findings as stemming from differences in the articulation of class and ethnic
inequality, suggesting that the heightened attention to the health of Gypsies and
Travellers means these groups are more willing to:
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see themselves as needy, requiring intervention and assistance rather than
looking to themselves and within their own community for strength to
surmount difficulty (2006: 1988)
Some convergence in findings is evident in findings reported here and those of

Hodgins et al. (2006), in that Traveller Community members involved in the present
study did draw readily on structural and material explanations for their poorer health
status. However, while this was the case, findings of the present study do not
support the acceptance of an identity position as ‘needy’ by community members
and in fact, highlight the potentially stigmatising effects of such discourses. Traveller
Community members in the current study were obviously aware of the potential
moral judgement that was attached to their poorer health and lower life expectancy
and there was evidence of associated attempts at impression management within
interviews. Indeed, drawing attention to the experience of structural inequality was
connected with this potential blame and was one way through which community
members could mitigate this. Unlike in the study by Hodgins et al. (2006), in which
Traveller Community members rejected behavioural explanations for health, in
favour of structural or material determinants, Gypsies and Travellers in the current
study positioned themselves as personally responsible for, and active in promoting
their health. The difference in findings reported here, and those of Hodgins et al.
(2006) is likely to be explained in part by the contrast in study methods. The use of
vignettes by Hodgins et al. (2006) introduces a degree of distance between
participants, the study topic and the researcher. On the other hand, the use of
narrative interviews to discuss people’s personal health experiences in the current
study is likely to have created a greater requirement for participants to account for
their position to a health(y) researcher. Findings reported in this thesis suggest that
the acknowledgement of health inequalities does not necessarily equate with the
acceptance of a ‘needy’ or stigmatised identity. They point to the potentially
damaging effects of narratives which position these groups as passive victims, given
that Travellers too are subject to broader discourses on the imperative of health.
Likewise, it identifies a need to avoid assumptions of a lack of personal
responsibility for health among Traveller Community members. The emphasis of
practice expertise in working with ‘vulnerable’ or ‘disadvantaged’ groups has been
shown here as potentially stigmatising to community members and suggests the
need to balance presentations of need with recognition of the healthy aspects of
self-presented by Traveller Communities.
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9.5 Summary
This chapter has brought together the narratives of practitioners and Traveller
Community members around three key areas: 1) body work and emotional labour;
2) the role of time and space in positioning Traveller Community members as
disciplined by or resistant to health promotion; and 3) the use of race, culture and
structure in understanding Gypsy and Traveller health. Throughout these
discussions, consideration has been given to the identity positions of practitioners
and Traveller Communities which are circumscribed and enabled, along with
associated implications for how Traveller Community health is broached. This
chapter has added to understanding not only around the narrative accomplishment
of Traveller Community members’ and health practitioners’ preferred identities, but
the embodied nature of these identity positions, and the operation of trust and
relationships between these actors which have been hitherto unexplored. It has
been argued that, in response to discourses that position Traveller Communities as
an excluded and disadvantaged group, the body and emotional work of practitioners
was reportedly key to the establishment of trust and the ability to engage this group.
It has drawn attention to the different rules governing how practitioners present and
conduct themselves depending on the sector in which they work and connected with
class. Specifically, it has argued that civil society organisations and practitioners
working in community roles are expected to engage to a greater extent in managing
the emotions of those who are ‘vulnerable’.
Representations of Traveller Community members as having a distinct sense of

time, and as more focused on the present than the future have been shown as a
further way through which the health ‘otherness’ of Traveller Communities is
established. Drawing on poststructuralist theory, the chapter has argued that
orientations to time and place are key mechanisms for understanding attempts at
controlling the health behaviour of Traveller Community members, as well as
interpretations of resistance. Somewhat surprisingly, practitioners appeared to be
relinquishing many strategies of temporal and spatial discipline in health interactions
with Traveller Communities. Instead, it was argued that practitioners approached
health education by mimicking and co-opting what they deemed to be usual
channels and styles of communication used by Traveller Communities. That health
education is largely hidden was suggested to create a paradox given that Traveller
Communities do not position themselves as present rather than future focused, but
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as receiving a lack of health information or advice to support them towards these
aims. A cycle therefore seemed to be apparent whereby discourses on the moral
imperative of health, combined with awareness that Traveller Communities as a
group have poorer health than others then intensifies concern that health needs are
going unmet and entrenches identities of Traveller Community members as ‘in need’
and vulnerable.
The chapter finally reflected on the use of race, culture and structure in narratives
about Traveller Community health. While participants rarely used the concepts of
race and racism, it was argued that health is a further arena for the racialisation of
Gypsies and Travellers. This was accomplished through depictions of Traveller
Community members as less concerned with their health (connected with the
positioning of Traveller Communities as more concerned with superficial aspects of
their bodies, or as having different time preferences). Examples of self-racialisation
of Traveller Community members were also apparent, notably, by drawing attention
to the greater protection of children in Traveller communities and which helped
these groups generate more positive representations of their culture. Processes of
racialisation intersected with notions of disadvantage, class and gender in accounts,
with class forming a key frame used by practitioners when discussing their ability or
lack of ability to engage with Traveller Communities. Together, these discourses
could lead to concrete effects. Reinforcement of practitioner identities as specialist
in working with Traveller Communities may potentially lock out Gypsies and
Travellers from some forms of health advice or from interacting with a wider range of
health practitioners.
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CHAPTER 10 - Conclusion
10.1 Introduction
This thesis responded to what was identified as a contested territory surrounding the
‘problem’ of Gypsy and Traveller Community health. Various narratives, often
advanced by those outside of Gypsy and Traveller Communities, compete to define
how these groups are in relation to their health and explain the inequalities they
experience. Rather than using data collected from Traveller Communities to support
interpretations about these groups, I have tried to create a space within this
research whereby community members and health practitioners can give accounts
of themselves and each other, and to bring these accounts into dialogue.
Specifically, the thesis examined how Gypsies and Travellers are constructed as
groups in relation to health, and how health is constructed in relation to Traveller
Communities. It also addressed questions around the preferred identities claimed by
Traveller Community members and health practitioners, where these identity
positions collide and coalesce, and the associated implications for approaches to
improve Gypsy and Traveller health.
This chapter first reflects on the methodological approach taken for the study. I here
assess the value of poststructuralist informed narrative inquiry in meeting the
research aims and set out the limitations of the current study. The second section
reflects on the extent to which I, as a settled researcher, can hope to redress
unequal power relations and achieve change through the research. It distils the
implications of the findings for future research and practice in the area of Gypsy and
Traveller health and outlines my (modest) plans to maximise the impact of this work.
10.2 The research story: methodological reflections
10.2.1 Contribution of a poststructural narrative approach

The use of poststructuralist narrative inquiry provided a number of benefits for this
research. The commitment within poststructuralism to avoiding producing essential
representations of groups helped avoid, as far as possible, an approach of
reproducing further global definitions of Traveller Communities and their health
beliefs and practices. By adopting this approach, the focus of inquiry could instead
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be shifted onto the discourses in circulation about Traveller Communities and health
practitioners, and their constitutive role in shaping practice and health interactions.
The poststructuralist emphasis on identity as multiple and fluid, along with the
commitment in narrative inquiry to individuals’ biographies, over time and context,
helped avoid the privileging of ethnicity in participant accounts. This helped examine
how wider identity positions such as those of healthy citizens, nationhood,
motherhood, class or disadvantage could be drawn on alongside or intersect with
those of race or ethnicity in participant accounts.
The adoption of this theoretical and methodological approach in the current study
has brought voices and plotlines into the fold that have hitherto been marginalised
by the predominance of cultural explanations in the field. Key here was the
demonstration of the co-existence of healthy and unhealthy selves, fatalism and
agency, and compliance and resistance to health promotion ideals, both across and
within the accounts of Traveller Community members in the study. It also highlighted
the role of these competing discourses on the identities claimed by Traveller
Community members, with discourses that position Travellers as having poor health
on the one hand, and which advocate the imperative of health on the other,
combining to stigmatise these groups. While previous criticisms of cultural
explanations have countered this argument by emphasising structural influences,
this too may risk entrenching a narrative of the powerlessness of Traveller
Communities and downplay the agency of Gypsies and Travellers. The approach
taken in the current study examines the ways that Travellers may be trapped in
regimes of power and limited by the discourses to which they are subject, but also
how they can enact resistance in relation to the discourses to which they are
subject, thereby capturing such moments of struggle. Likewise, the work also
enabled attention to the ways that narratives about the ‘vulnerability’ of Traveller
Communities were instrumental in the identities produced for health practitioners,
their claims to expertise and the ways they practice with these groups. These
practices in turn, often reinforced a position of Traveller Communities as ‘other’ and
disadvantaged. The joint focus on the constructions of both practitioners and
Traveller community members forms a key strength of this study, helping work
towards a scenario whereby the preferred identities of practitioners and Traveller
Communities complement one another.
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10.2.2 Study limitations
While the methodological approach adopted has been shown to be of value in
generating a novel perspective on the topic area, it is also important to highlight the
limitations of the research.
10.2.2.1 Study sample

Limitations stem first and foremost from the sample of participants involved in the
study. Participants were recruited from one geographical location and drawn from a
network of community members and practitioners who were, predominantly, known
to each other. In keeping with the poststructuralist underpinning of the study, I do
not aim to produce universal truths. It is nevertheless important to note the
potentially contextually specific nature of the discourses drawn upon within the
current study and acknowledge the possibility that other modes of talking about
Traveller Community health may be drawn upon in alternative areas. The presence
of an organisation working for Gypsy and Traveller rights in the area, therefore
ensuring at least some representation of these groups in public health provision, is
one factor that may have influenced the discourses in circulation, for instance. This
may also have contributed to the finding that, in comparison to prior studies (Van
Cleemput et al., 2007), Traveller Community members cited their low average life
expectancy relative to other groups. That said, reflections from broader engagement
in the field, including involvement in conferences, other events and conversation in
the areas of both public health and Traveller Community rights indicate that many of
the discourses articulated within the current study are also expressed outside the
study area.
It is also important to stress the relatively homogeneous sample of Traveller

Community members involved in the study. Of the diversity of groups encompassed
under the category of ‘Traveller Communities’, this study involved only Romany
Gypsies and Irish Travellers. In addition, given the crucial role of the local Traveller
Community organisation in providing support to community members in the area, it
proved difficult to locate community members who were not known to the
organisation. The study sample included Gypsies and Travellers who live in housing
and those living on a local authority site and did not include representation from
community members currently living on roadside or private sites. Finally, as
described earlier, while I had aimed to recruit Traveller Community men to the study,
I was not successful in doing so. However, given that health practitioners and
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initiatives encompassed in the study focused almost exclusively on Traveller
women, this facilitated the comparison of practitioner and Traveller accounts by
enabling the collation of different narratives about events or interactions held in
common. Overall, while the relative lack of diversity among the Traveller Community
sample therefore placed limits on understanding the variety of identity positions that
connect with those of ethnicity and health, this brought benefits in enabling attention
to nuances in how overarching discourses are taken up and used, and potential
variation in representations of self in response to similar events and experiences.
There were a limited number of health practitioners in the area working in a public
health capacity with Traveller Communities, and the research was successful in
recruiting most of those who did so to the study. One weakness of the practitioner
sample however, was the omission of GPs from the study. A decision was made to
avoid recruiting GPs, since their roles have been traditionally weighted toward
clinical rather than public health work, and as including GPs was deemed as likely to
sway the focus more towards issues around service accessibility and provision for
Gypsies and Travellers, something that is already very well documented in the
literature. However, as might be expected given the challenges that Gypsies and
Travellers face in this area, access (or lack of access) to GP practices and other
health services were discussed frequently in Traveller Community accounts, as was
the treatment received through these services. Indeed, given the limited amount of
preventative health advice received by Gypsies and Travellers in the area, it would
have been very difficult to focus only on those instances of health interaction in
interviews. It is important to acknowledge therefore that Traveller Community
accounts of accessing care, when referring to GP services, are not always
compared with accounts from practitioners in the corresponding profession, and this
is something that has been born in mind during the analysis process. This did not,
however, impact on the ability to explore similarities or differences in the preferred
identities expressed between practitioners, and where referring more generally to
health promotion advice, to compare corresponding accounts from Traveller
Communities and health practitioners.
10.2.2.2 Stories and their limits

The focus on generating stories through the research was appealing for its ability to
encompass the breadth and complexity inherent in participants’ lives, and the ways
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that participants positioned themselves in relation to others. This was also beneficial
due to pragmatic and ethical considerations. Traveller Community members are
suggested to have a rich tradition of storytelling (French, 2014), and this method
shifts the balance of control for constructing accounts about one’s experiences to
the participant and away from the researcher. It was thereby judged as a useful way
of rebalancing potentially un-equal power relations within the research. However, I
experienced several challenges in the application of this approach. Firstly, this
method did not shift the balance of power in interviews with Traveller Community
members as far as I had anticipated. Traveller Community members often deferred
to me to check that their responses were in keeping with the type of information
required for the research and slipped out of storytelling mode to ask what else I
wanted to know. This is potentially related to the difficulty in narrating instances of
health as opposed to illness, or other significant events. It was often when
recounting encounters with health practitioners that had been unsatisfactory in some
way that Traveller Community members gave accounts that most closely match
typical story structures (Labov, 1982). Likewise, I found variation in the extent to
which practitioners engaged with telling stories during interviews, with most seeming
more comfortable talking in generalised and abstract terms about their work with
Traveller Community members. This gave rise to considerable anxiety throughout
the research in terms of whether I was generating the form of data that was required
for narrative analysis, since participant accounts combined general insights and the
use of bounded stories in support of their claims. However, this form of data is
accommodated in the small story approach to narrative adopted in the study which
analyses all aspects of participant accounts rather than limiting analysis to
circumscribed stories in the data. As a result, this restricted insights into potential
patterns in the structuring of stories about Traveller Community health. Another
limitation stems from the limited actual interaction of the narrative voices of Traveller
Community members and practitioners throughout the research. I considered
presenting example statements from each party to one another, to generate cross-
fertilisation of narratives. However, this approach was rejected due to the potential
harm this may cause to established relationships in the field, and as this would
conflict with the aim of the research to allow participants to construct their identities
as they saw fit. As such it must be acknowledged that it is the researcher’s process
of translation and interpretation (albeit informed by engagement and observation of
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the field) that allows narratives from the different ‘sides’ to speak to one another,
and potential implications to be drawn for health communication.
10.2.2.3 Broad and exploratory approach

Given the exploratory nature of the current study, a decision was made to focus on
health in a broad sense, rather than examine the identity presentations of
participants surrounding a particular health promotion issue (such as immunisation,
cervical screening or breastfeeding). This brought advantages in ensuring that
sufficient practitioners could be recruited to the research, and in allowing open-
ended exploration of the construction of health by participants. It also prevented
Gypsies and Travellers from being defined or self-defining in relation to a single
issue, allowing participants to define as both healthy and unhealthy. I believe this
work has been useful in demonstrating that portrayals of Traveller Community
members as disengaged with preventive health or fatalistic do not reflect all aspects
of Gypsies and Travellers’ self-presentations. However, it is possible that
presentations of self in relation to health generally may differ from those articulated
in relation to specific health issues, services or interventions.
10.2.2.4 Embodying health identities

A third issue, connected with the nature of stories and the broad research focus,
concerns the distinction between talk and practices. This research focused
predominantly on the ways participants constructed identities through talk. The
research did involve some informal observation during visits to the organisation,
including participation in health sessions being delivered with Traveller Community
members. However, this was undertaken primarily with the aim of understanding the
extent to which stories and identity presentations may vary or be held constant
outside of interviews, as well as to inform reflections on how participants may be
positioning me. Although I have incorporated some reflections on how my own and
participants’ bodies were implicated in identity relations, I gave greater attention to
talk than bodily conduct in these interactions. Similarly, findings about the
significance of the body and the temporal organisation of health sessions were not
anticipated at the outset of the research but emerged through the data generated.
As such, greater orientation during the research to the embodied and spatial nature
of interactions during observation of health sessions would have improved the depth
of insights provided on this issue.
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10.3 A (provisional) ending: distilling the moral of the stories
In this final section of the thesis, I reflect on the extent to which I can effect change
through the study, in light of my position as a settled researcher. The need to
consider this issue was reinforced when I discovered the following comment, made
in response to a blog post analysing the limited success of the Decade of Roma
Inclusion, and which gives a scathing analysis of the contribution of academics from
outside of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Communities:
The main reason the decade led to little improvement for the Roma is that
although inclusion was the manifest aim the latent purpose of this initiative
(just like all of them) is that it was about creating a lot of nice jobs for middle
class gadje bureaucrats, policy wonks and academics/ researchers to cry
false tears over the Roma while securing their own cushy jobs and good
salaries. So long as the Roma have these parasites riding on their backs
they will never achieve inclusion because the parasites need them to be
excluded and marginalised to justify their own careers (Dave, 2015)
While perhaps indicating an extreme stance, the above comment relates to

longstanding debates in the field around whether research focusing on the
processes through which groups are excluded simply reinforces the status quo
(Sibley, 1998). This statement also connects to concerns that presenting groups as
‘in need’ fosters dependency on external sources of support and perpetuates the
requirement for external services and interventions (McKnight, 1995). Indeed, this
chimes to a degree with arguments I have myself made in this thesis around the
potential othering of Traveller Communities where practitioners make claims to
expertise based on an understanding of, and ability to engage with disadvantaged
groups. Given that such criticisms may also be directed at researchers who
articulate an interest in groups who tend to be overlooked within mainstream
services, it is appropriate to consider my own stance on this issue.
On first reading the above quote I felt profound guilt that I might be reproducing or
even personally benefiting from the inequity experienced by others. On reflection
however, I feel that both ‘gadje’ and Roma, Gypsy and Traveller people need to
work together to secure inclusion and that change would be difficult to achieve
where members of ‘majority’ populations don’t also work towards this end. As has
been argued by Bignall (2008), a refusal to speak for others may result the
continued silencing of groups who, historically, have not had their voices heard.
While I do not see my role as one of speaking for Traveller Community members
(and practitioners), I aim to use my positionality (for instance, as a researcher, as
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someone involved in public health lecturing in higher education, and as a settled
community member) and the opportunities these various positions afford, to provide
a channel for the narratives of Gypsy and Traveller Community members.
Throughout the research, I have taken a number of steps to manage the power
dynamic inherent in the risk of capitalising on the circumstances of community
members for personal ends. I have remained alert to any potential to reinforce the
otherness of Traveller Community members through the research and have actively
tried to destabilise stereotypes of Traveller Community members as exotic or hidden
which might otherwise be employed to give greater appeal to my research (Forster
and Jones, 2018). The close relationship with and backing received from the
Traveller organisation supporting the research has also helped to ensure the
relevance and utility of this work to existing practice in the field.
Poststructuralist approaches often shy away from offering concrete truth claims or
recommendations, since to do so would simply re-establish an alternative relation of
knowledge/power. However, in the interests of ensuring that the research not only
describes but also attempts to challenge existing narratives and question existing
structures of power where possible, I here depart slightly from poststructuralist
tradition, to consider the implications of findings. Following the distinction drawn by
Bauman (1987), I understand my role not as that of a ‘legislator’ who offers definitive
judgements about the ‘correct’ course of action, but one of a ‘moral interpreter’,
acting in a translational role to facilitate exchange between different standpoints, in
this case between Traveller Community and health practitioners. Based on the
insights gained by placing Traveller Community members’ and health practitioners’
narratives alongside one another within the current study, a series of suggestions for
practice and further research are now outlined. This is with the aim of identifying
shared stories that can guide efforts to improve health and reduce health
inequalities among Gypsy and Traveller Communities.
10.3.1 Implications for practice

Counter to many of the existing narratives about Traveller Community health, this
work demonstrates that Gypsies and Travellers are not ‘beyond the reach’ of
dominant health promotion discourse on the moral imperative of health, and that
these groups draw on remarkably similar definitions of health to those found in wider
populations. The research also questions global attributions of fatalism directed at
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Traveller Communities, instead highlighting the co-existence of fatalistic and agentic
health discourses in Gypsy and Traveller accounts. Findings therefore highlight the
importance that practice does not operate from the assumption that Gypsies and
Travellers are, by definition, ‘disengaged’ in, or unable to prioritise their health. Such
assumptions were shown to have concrete effects on practice, closing off dialogue
about aspects of health. A reluctance to broach health behaviour, strategies of
disguising behavioural advice by instead focusing on its benefits for physical
attractiveness, or dissociating oneself from formal health professional roles through
bodily representation helped practitioners negate the potential risk to trust of
appearing judgemental. However, findings also show that this strategy is likely to
have unintended consequences in exacerbating Traveller Community concerns
about the lack of advice and information they receive about how to promote their
health. The diversity evident across Gypsy and Traveller Community accounts
highlights the importance of attending to individual differences in outlook with
respect to health.
Existing recommendations in this area tend to offer pragmatic solutions for

alleviating structural barriers to service access, or focus on bridging difficulties in
health provision arising from a lack of awareness of Gypsy and Traveller culture.
Indeed, cultural awareness training for health care professionals is often a core
strategy for increasing the accessibility of health services to Traveller Community
members. While both of these perspectives are undoubtedly useful, the former may
not provide insight into the narratives that underpin structural barriers and the latter
may risk reinforcing notions that Traveller Communities are different from other
groups and promote the need for specialist knowledge. This thesis demonstrates
that, in addition to recommendations in these areas, attention should be paid to the
ways that communication between practitioners and Traveller Community members
may breakdown as a result of discrepancies in the preferred identities that these
actors claim, as well as those that they cast for each other.
Findings from this study suggest that Traveller Community members experience
their poorer health status as stigmatising and are concerned to uphold identities as
morally responsible, healthy citizens. Potential for conflict was identified between
these identities, and practitioner representations of Traveller Community members
as differently oriented to future health, and articulations of their own identities as
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expert in working with ‘disadvantaged’ or ‘excluded’ groups. The pursuit of such
‘white saviour’ identity positions potentially works to preserve the structural inequity
experienced by such groups, for instance, by reinforcing the notion that health
provision for Traveller Communities is the preserve of only ‘specialist’ services or
individuals. This work lends support to the potential usefulness of approaches that
recognise the strengths or assets of community members and which offer some
challenge to the assignment of a ‘victim’ role to Gypsies and Travellers. In addition, I
suggest that education for health practitioners might usefully focus not only on the
culture of Traveller Communities, but also question common taken for granted
narratives about these groups in relation to health. Training is required which
prompts self-reflection around how we understand ourselves in relation to our work
with Traveller Communities, the potential interests served by these understandings
and presentations, and the potential effects these give rise to.
The research has given insight not only into how health practitioners position
themselves in relation to Traveller Community members, but also how they do so in
relation to other health practitioners. This highlights the different expectations for
emotional work depending on employment sector and practitioner role. Those
working in civil society organisations and interacting closely with Traveller
Communities were expected to engage in emotional labour to a greater degree.
Systems for commissioning health services for socially excluded groups have been
recognised as providing very little attention to relational aspects of delivery, such as
trust (Wemyss, Matthews and Jones, 2015). This work underscores the need for
recognition of the varied forms of work undertaken by different types of
organisations and workers, as well as greater consideration of the expectations of
staff regarding emotional labour and how these are best supported and resourced.
10.3.2 Recommendations for further research

This exploratory study has suggested a number of avenues for further research.
Having examined the preferred identity positions of Romany Gypsy and Irish
Traveller Community women with regard to their health, further research could
usefully be undertaken to explore whether Traveller Community members in a more
diverse range of positions (e.g. according to Traveller Community sub-group,
gender, sexuality, accommodation type) draw upon similar or different narratives. In
addition, further work should unpick how Traveller Community members and health
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practitioners may present themselves differently in response to specific health
issues and services.
Traveller Community members in the current study were clearly concerned about
and accepted the moral responsibility to promote their health. However, they often
described themselves as lacking access to the appropriate tools (in terms of
information and services) to be able to fulfil these aims. Further research is needed
which examines more precisely community members’ preferences in terms of the
forms of information desired and most appropriate methods of delivering this
information. Research in this area could use participatory methods to work with
community members to design and implement health promotion materials.
This work has pointed to the significance of the body and space in health
interactions between Traveller Community members and health practitioners.
Further work that looked specifically and in more depth at the embodied nature of
building and managing trust and relationships with Traveller Community members
would be beneficial. This could include the use of an ethnographic approach to
explore how Traveller Community members and practitioners conduct themselves
within different health spaces. This would help to understand how identities and
health communication between these actors are shaped not only in talk, but also in
interaction with objects and places.
Discussions of the emotional labour undertaken by health practitioners was an

unanticipated finding of the research. At present, the emotional work of health
practitioners has been undertaken in relation to a limited range of occupations, less
often encompassing those in community and civil society roles. This study has
hinted at the potentially differing feeling rules that operate for those in these sectors,
connected with dimensions of identity such as proximity to the community, class and
disadvantage. This indicates the potential of further research in this area for
enriching analysis of the differential social requirements for the performance and
management of emotions in a range of health institutions or settings, and the
possibilities and limits these create for relationships, identities and practices.
Lastly, I earlier noted a need for education and rights awareness training initiatives
targeted at practitioners to encourage reflection on the different interests and
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motivations which underpin this work, and the representations of communities that
they themselves advance. This is particularly in regard to the potential entrenchment
of the disadvantaged position of Gypsies and Travellers, and the ways that work
with these communities may be used as a form of currency to establish one’s own
expertise. Research is needed which explores the methods through which this form
of reflection might be encouraged.
10.3.3 The next chapter

In this final section of the thesis, I detail plans for taking the research forward, with
the aim that findings are made available for wide use (beyond only academia) and
may foster (modest) change that contributes to improving conditions for Traveller
Community members. As discussed earlier, the comparative approach adopted in
this research presents opportunities to inform communication between Traveller
Community members and practitioners. In seeking to maximise the impact of the
research in this regard, I am inspired by examples which use creative arts such as
graphic novels and forum theatre to challenge the stereotypes of Gypsy and
Traveller Communities that impede their access to services. The Minority Ethnic
Carers of People Project (2014) book ‘Two Sides of the Same Story’, provides a
particularly instructive example of an approach to challenging narratives commonly
heard among service providers that create barriers in access to support services
among Gypsy and Traveller people. I also take inspiration from the recent ‘We Are
All So Many Things’ campaign, which embodies an intersectional approach to
counter Gypsy and Traveller Community members being viewed only through the
lens of their ethnicity. Following in the footsteps of these examples, and based on
the findings of this thesis, I aim to develop, in collaboration with community
members, a graphic novel or alternative form of creative engagement to prompt
reflection among those who work with or may work with Gypsies and Travellers. The
narrative nature of the data adopted through the research lends itself well to these
aims. Although the precise format for sharing findings will be decided in conjunction
with community members, this is potentially envisioned as presenting Gypsy and
Traveller, and practitioner narratives about health, alongside one another, making
clear where divergence or convergence in these narratives may impede or facilitate
communication. It could also involve, in the spirit of the Traveller movement
campaign (London Gypsies and Travellers, 2017), showing the many aspects of
health as they interact with wider roles for fictionalised case studies of Gypsies and
Travellers based on research findings. More ambitiously, it could involve the
266
generation of short theatre performances depicting common health scenarios. That
the vehicle for communicating findings is developed in collaboration with Gypsies
and Travellers themselves is essential, providing a way of sharing research findings
back with participants, and ensuring that community members have a say in how
these findings are taken forward and used. In doing so, and to borrow from Terry
Pratchett (2011), I aim to finish the research by returning the rights of Traveller
Community members to author their own lives, as opposed to simply becoming ‘a
part of someone else’s story’.
267
268
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Appendices
Appendix 1: Interview guide for Traveller Community members
Icebreaking questions
How long have you lived here? How often do you travel/have you travelled in the
past? Do you have any family who live nearby?
Stories of health
In terms of health, how would you describe yourself at the moment?
Follow up:
- What makes you describe yourself/health in that way? What else?
- When did you first realise that your health is that way? / When during the
daily life do you notice most/least that your health is that way?
- What is going on in your life that stops you from/helps you to be healthy?
Which of these are most/least important?
- How does attention to your health fit in with other parts of everyday life
(things like to do, responsibilities etc.)
- How healthy are you compared to other people you know?
- Who is the most/least likely to have the same view about your health at the
moment as you do? Follow up on time when you saw that most clearly
- Who has been helping you with your health, or who has hindered you with
respect to health?
Can you tell me about a time in your life which stood out when you’ve felt more
healthy (even if it was just for a very short window/no matter how long ago)?
Follow up (as above)
Or time when you felt like you were nearly there/on the right track towards
becoming healthy?
Time when you felt like you were less healthy?
Is your health better when you’re in some places than others?
- Can you tell me about a time that displays that at its most clearest?
- What was it about being there then that meant you felt particularly healthy?
295
Can you tell me about a time when you did something to improve your health?
- What led to that?
- What thoughts were going through your mind when you did that?
- How did you go about doing that?
- Was there anything else going on for you at the time that influenced you
making that change? Which of these were most/least significant?
- Who helped you to make a change to your health, or who hindered you?
- Did anyone notice the change? What did they say about it?
- What happened after that? What impact did that have on you?
Have you got any hopes/plans for the future in relation to your health?
Stories about experiences with health service/professionals

Can you think of a time when you were on the receiving end of someone giving you
health advice that was a good experience?
- What happened first? What happened next?
- Who was there? What did they do/say?
- What were your reactions? What thoughts did you have/what sense did you
make of that?
- Did you talk to anyone else about it at the time?
- How did it turn out?
- What happened afterwards? What impact did that have on you?
- Why might other people have behaved in the way they did?
Can you tell me about a time when you had a particularly bad experience?
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Appendix 2: Interview guide for health practitioners
Stories about work with Traveller Communities

Could you tell me your story about how you first came to be working with Traveller
Communities and the work you’ve been involved in over that time?
- What happened first? What happened next?
- Who were you working alongside?
- What motivated you to work with Traveller Communities?
- What were your expectations for the work? How did your expectations turn
out?...How did your views about the work change if at all?
- Who have you worked alongside? Who has the most/least similar views of
Traveller health to you?
- Have you found yourself working differently at different times throughout your
work/as you work in different settings? – Examples
- Are there any differences in the way you work with Traveller Communities
compared to how you work with other groups? If so, how?
- Is there anything about you personally or your role that influences the work
you do with Travellers? Follow up for specific times.
Can you tell me about a time in your practice with Traveller Community which you
think went particularly well?
- What happened leading up to this? What happened first? What happened
next?
- Did you have an idea of what you wanted to achieve? How did you introduce
that?
- When did you first think to yourself that it was going well?
- What were your feelings about what was happening? What sense did you
make of it?
- Who else was there/involved? What did they say/do?
- Did you talk to anyone else about what was going on? What were other
people’s reactions to that?
- How did it all end?
- What impact did that have for you? Did anything change for you in your work
after that?
- What else was going on for you at the time that might have contributed to the
encounter going well?
- What made you choose that particular time?
- How would other people involved describe it?
Can you tell me about a time in your practice with Traveller Community when you
got stuck?
297
Can you tell me about a time which was significant in changing your approach to
working with Travellers?
- How did that start? When did you first realise that you wanted to change your
practice? What was going through your head at the time?
- What happened next?
- Who else was there/involved? What did they say/do?
- Did you talk to anyone else about what was going on? What were other
people’s reactions?
- What else was going on for you at the time that might have influenced you in
making this change?
- How did it all end? What impact did that have for you in your work? What
changed for you after that happened?
- What made you choose that time in particular?
298
Appendix 3: Observation record for Traveller Community members and
practitioners
Participant ID:
Date of interview/conversation:
Duration of the interview/conversation:
Participant’s gender:
Age:
Notes on who referred to study by and relationship to person who made the
referral (if relevant):
Notes on researchers’ knowledge about/expectations/preconceptions of

participant prior to interview, preparation for interview, how the interview
came about, and what prior knowledge participants had of the researcher:
Notes on initial contact/conversations with participant, first impressions,

possible motivations for/concerns expressed about participating in the
project, questions about the research/researcher, indications of
differences/similarities drawn with the researcher:
Notes on context of interview – where were initial conversations/interviews

held, was anyone else around at the time of the interview, were there any
other events going on for the participants/community at the time:
What reactions were evoked in me as a researcher by the stories told at

different points during the interview:
Notes on conversation after the interview – did the participant express new or
different views once the tape recorder had been switched off:
299
Suggestions for other potential participants and their relationship to the
person interviewed:
Any other comments:
300
Appendix 4: Analytical framework to guide narrative analysis
Interpersonal level
 What interaction occurred prior to making contact with participants, e.g. how
did the researcher imagine the participants, prepare for interviews, work
through potential interview scenarios? What preconceptions of interview
participants did the researcher have? How did the particular interview come
about? What happened before and after the interview? What prior
knowledge did participants and interviewers have about one another?
 What happened between first contact with a participant and the actual
interview episode? E.g. what first impressions may have been formed? What
hidden goals or imagined future roles in the project may have been
operating?
 How might the person have expressed particular identities in response to
perceptions of the researcher? What similarities and differences were there
between researcher and participant and how might this have influenced the
stories told? How did the participant relate to the researcher? Were there
any explicit descriptions of, or overtures to the researcher by participants?
 In what ways do participants present themselves as having sufficient
credibility to talk about the topic? What does this tell us about assumptions
made about the researcher?
 Did participants make a distinction between talk within the interview and
more informal communication e.g. expressing different viewpoints after the
recorder was switched off, or asking the researcher for personal advice?
 How did the context, historical experiences and beliefs of the researcher
affect the responses to the stories told? How might this in turn have shaped
the participant’s narrative? E.g. was there anything the researcher felt
uncomfortable asking, or was drawn to ask? What verbal and non-verbal
cues might the researcher have given the participant about their reactions to
the story?
 How might the participant be directing their stories to imagined audiences
(which may be entangled with the imagined position of the researcher or
against which the researcher may be enlisted against alongside the
narrator?) And how does the participant position the audience?
301
 What seems to remain unsaid? How might the stories have been told
differently to a different audience?
 How might stories have been influenced by the social spaces in which they
were told?
 What assumptions do I make? How do I position people through the
questions I ask?
Positional level
 How does the person position themselves within particular instances of
social interaction?
 Were different identity positions employed throughout the interview or
depending on the social situation described? Did participants relate to others
differently at different points in the story?
 What might participants’ positioning of others (through explicit descriptions,
engineering particular plots, drawing on readily recognisable characters)
imply about the participants themselves? How might participants use others
in the story to express versions of themselves? E.g. do participants compare
self with others, or have others comment on themselves or their actions?
 Do participants describe their current self by evaluating their former selves?
 What conversations occur between ‘different voices’, such as between the
voices of Travellers and health professionals?
 What can be learned from examples of reported speech with others?
 Is there any use of dramatization or mimicry of other voices?
 How do people position different characters in relation to one another and
self?
 Pay attention to use of verbs that may frame action as voluntary rather than
compulsory and or grammatical forms that intensify vulnerability – e.g.
victims of one circumstance or another. Who do they give the power to
initiate action? Do people position themselves as having agentic control over
some events/actions or suggest having purposefully initiated and caused
actions in some circumstances and not others?
302
Discursive level:
 Are there examples of key stories throughout a narrative or narratives which

appear fluent and well-rehearsed which provide insight into more static
identities and dominant discourses that inscribe participants?
 Alternatively, are there moments when participants demonstrate greater
effort to explain or present an account or contradictions in accounts indicate
stories which are told less often or have not been expressed previously, and
which might act as transformative or self-reflective moments which disrupt or
contest the relations that constitute identity?
 What is taken for granted, privileged or treated as common sense in
narratives?
 How do participants draw on dominant discourses, policies, social
conventions?
 Are there any examples of participants challenging particular discourses or
adhering to discourses that are alternative to those that are dominant?
 How do participants draw on notions of class, gender, age or ethnicity or
other social categorisations in their accounts?
 What is the cultural context driving examination of narrative or what are the
problems solved by a narrative or the problems it creates?
303
Appendix 5: Participant information sheet for Traveller community
members
Research project exploring Gypsy and Traveller health stories

Information sheet for Gypsies and Travellers
You are being invited to take part in a research project that I am doing as part of my
study at the University of Edinburgh. Before you decide whether or not to take part,
it is important that you understand why the study is being carried out and what
taking part will involve. Reading or talking through this leaflet with me, and
discussing it with others will help you to decide whether or not to take part in the
study. Please contact me or my supervisor if you would like to ask any questions or
find out more information about the study and take time to make a decision.
Thank you for sparing the time to consider joining the study.
What are the aims of the study?

The study aims to find out how Gypsies and Travellers tell stories about or describe
themselves in relation to health and accessing health services. It will look at how
Gypsies and Travellers’ descriptions of themselves and their own health may
compare with health professionals’ descriptions of Gypsy and Traveller health to find
out what might lead communication about health to go well, or to breakdown, and
how it might be improved.
Why have I been chosen as someone who might take part?

Your views and experiences about health are important and can help us to learn
more about how to improve communication between health practitioners and
Gypsies and Travellers. The research wants to involve Gypsies and Travellers who
have and who have not had experience with health services and to include Gypsy
and Traveller men and women who live in different kinds of accommodation.
Do I have to take part?

No. It is up to you whether or not you would like to take part. If you decide to take
part in the study, you may stop being involved at any time up until 31st Dec 2015
without giving a reason. If you decide to stop your involvement, all information that
you have provided will be destroyed and removed from project materials. Deciding
not to take part in the study will not affect the quality of services that you receive in
any way.
What will participation involve?

If you take part you will be given a CD recording of this information and/or a copy of
this information sheet to keep and will be asked to sign a consent form, or give
verbal consent that you agree to take part in the study. You will be asked to take
part in 2 or 3 interviews about how your health is at the moment, other times in your
life when you have felt healthy and unhealthy, times when you have done something
to improve your health, times when you have received health services, and how you
304
imagine your health will be in the future. It is expected that each interview will last
between 1 and 2 hours. The interviews would be organised at a date and time
convenient to you and can be split across different days or times if you prefer. You
are free to stop the interviews at any time point and you do not have to answer any
questions that you do not wish to. With your permission, the interviews will be audio
recorded and the researcher will also make some notes during the interviews and
about conversations before and after the interviews. This is to ensure that your
views can be represented as accurately as possible and also so I can examine my
own performance as a researcher.
Will my taking part in the study be kept confidential?

Yes. The recordings of the taped discussions and a typed up version of these
discussions will only be viewed by myself and my supervisors and will be kept in
locked storage and destroyed 3 years after the study is complete. As part of the
presentation of results from the study, small quotes of your own words may be used
in written form in reports or presentations. Your name will be removed from the
information presented and any information that could lead to you being identified will
not be included. However, if you were to share any information that suggests you or
others are at risk of harm I may need to tell somebody else in order to keep you
safe.
What are the benefits of taking part in the study?

You may not benefit directly from taking part in the study. However, your views will
help understand more about how Gypsies and Travellers and practitioners talk
about Traveller health in order to learn how communication may be improved. Some
people find talking about their experiences a useful process it itself.
What are the disadvantages of taking part in the study?

You will be asked to give up some of your time to take part in the interviews. You do
not have to talk about anything you do not wish to and are able to withdraw from
taking part in the research, without giving a reason, at any point prior to the 31st Dec
2015.
What will happen to the results of the study?

The research findings will be shared with Gypsies, Travellers and practitioners who
took part in the study. Publications developed from the research findings will also be
shared with other practitioners, Gypsy and Traveller organisations and researchers
in order to inform their future practice.
Who has reviewed this study?

Before this study was carried out, permission had to be granted from the University
of Edinburgh Research Ethics Committee. They reviewed the plans for how the
study would be carried out in order to protect your interests.
Thanks very much,

Natalie
305
Contact for further information:
Natalie Forster (researcher) Angus Bancroft (supervisor)

Northumbria University University of Edinburgh,
H010 Coach Lane Campus East 6.23 Chrystal Macmillan Building,
Coach Lane 15a George Square, Edinburgh,
Benton, NE7 7XA EH8 9LD
Email: S1053508@sms.ed.ac.uk Email: Angus.Bancroft@ed.ac.uk
Tel: 07773247966 Tel: 0131 650 6642 (office hours
Wednesdays 11am-1pm)
306
Appendix 6: Participant information sheet for health practitioners
Research project exploring stories about Gypsy and Traveller health

Information sheet for health professionals
You are being invited to take part in a research project that I am undertaking as part
of my study at the University of Edinburgh. Before you decide whether or not to take
part, it is important that you understand why the study is being carried out and what
taking part will involve. Reading or talking through this leaflet with me, and
discussing it with others will help you to decide whether or not you take part in the
study. Please contact me or my supervisor if you would like to ask any questions or
find out more information about the study and take time to make a decision.
Thank you for sparing the time to read and consider taking part in the study.
What are the aims of the study?

The study aims to find out how health professionals describe the health of Gypsies
and Travellers and how they describe themselves in relation to the work they do with
Gypsies and Travellers. It aims to compare the accounts of Traveller health offered
by health professionals and Gypsies and Travellers in order to find out what might
lead communication about health to go well, or to breakdown, and how it might be
improved.
Why have I been chosen as someone who might take part?

As professionals working with Gypsy and Traveller Communities, your experiences
are really important in helping us learn more about how to improve communication
between health practitioners and Gypsies and Travellers. The research aims to
involve health public health professionals working with a public health remit and who
have a range of experience of working with Traveller Communities.
Do I have to take part?

No. It is up to you whether or not you would like to take part. If you decide to take
part in the study, you may stop being involved at any time up until 31st December
2015 without giving a reason. If you decide to stop your involvement, all data that
you have provided will be destroyed and removed from project materials.
What will participation involve?

If you take part you will be given a copy of this information sheet to keep and will be
asked to sign a consent form. You will be asked to take part in between 1 and 3
interviews about how you came to be working with Gypsy or Traveller Communities;
what health means in the context of your work with Traveller Communities; times in
your practice that a) you felt went particularly well or; b) when you might have felt
stuck; and about times that were significant in changing your approach to working
with Traveller Communities. It is expected that each interview will last around 1
hour. The interviews would be organised at a date and time convenient to you and
can be split across different days or times if you prefer. You are free to stop the
307
interviews at any time point and you do not have to answer any questions that you
do not wish to. With your permission, the interviews will be audio recorded and the
researcher will also make some notes during the interviews and about conversations
before and after the interviews. This is to ensure that your views can be represented
as accurately as possible, and also so that I can examine my own performance as a
researcher.
Will my taking part in the study be kept confidential?

Yes. The recording of the taped discussions and transcription of these discussions
will only be viewed by those directly involved in the research and will be kept in
locked storage and destroyed 3 years after the study is complete. As part of the
presentation of results from the study, small quotes of your own words may be used
in written form in reports or presentations. Your name will be removed from the
information presented and any information that could lead to you being identified will
not be included. However, any information that you were to share that suggests that
you or others are at risk of harm may have to be disclosed.
What are the benefits of taking part in the study?

You may not benefit directly from taking part in the study. However, your views will
help in understanding more about how Gypsies and Travellers and practitioners talk
about Traveller Community health in order to learn how communication may be
improved. Some people find talking about their experiences a useful process it itself.
What are the disadvantages of taking part in the study?

You will be asked to give up some of your time to take part in the interviews. You do
not have to talk about anything you do not wish to and are able to withdraw from
taking part in the research, without giving a reason, at any time prior to the 31st
December 2015.
What will happen to the results of the study?

The research findings will be shared with Gypsies, Travellers and practitioners who
took part in the study. Publications developed from the research findings will also be
shared with other practitioners, Gypsy and Traveller organisations and researchers
in order to inform their practice.
Who has reviewed this study?

Before this study was carried out, permission had to be granted from the University
of Edinburgh Research Ethics Committee. They reviewed the plans for how the
study would be carried out in order to protect your interests.
Thanks very much,

Natalie Forster
308
Contact for further information:
Natalie Forster (researcher) Angus Bancroft (supervisor)

Northumbria University University of Edinburgh,
H010 Coach Lane Campus East 6.23 Chrystal Macmillan Building,
Coach Lane 15a George Square, Edinburgh,
Benton, NE7 7XA EH8 9LD
Email: S1053508@sms.ed.ac.uk Email: Angus.Bancroft@ed.ac.uk
Tel: 07773247966 Tel: 0131 650 6642 (office hours
Wednesdays 11am-1pm)
309
Appendix 7: Participant consent form
Research project exploring stories of Gypsy and Traveller health

Participant consent form
Participant Please tick boxes
I confirm that I have read and/or discussed and

understood the information sheet for the above study and
have been given the opportunity to ask any further
questions about the research.
I understand that participation in the study is voluntary

and that I am free to withdraw from the study at any point
before 31st Dec 2015 without giving a reason.
I agree to take part in the study.
I agree to my interviews being audio recorded.
I agree to the use of anonymised quotations in

publications developed from the research.
Researcher:
I agree to keep all information provided by participants
confidential, with the exception of information that
suggests that participants themselves or others are at
risk of harm.
I agree to remove any details from publications of the

study which could lead to participants being identifiable
as individuals.
I agree to keep the transcripts and recordings of

participants in locked storage and to destroy them 3
years after the study.
___________________ ____________________ ____________________

Name of participant Date Signed
___________________ ____________________ ____________________

Name of researcher Date Signed
Contact details for the researcher:

Natalie Forster
Northumbria University, H010 Coach Lane Campus East, Coach Lane,
Benton, NE7 7XA
Email: S1053508@sms.ed.ac.uk Tel: 07773247966
310

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This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree

Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD in Sociology

This thesis sought to contribute to understanding of these areas. It examined the

An analysis of participant narratives reveals two overarching areas of potential

The research reported on here aimed to accommodate variety and complexity in

I express my deepest appreciation to the Gypsies, Travellers and health

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about

1.1 Definition of terms

It is recognised that I have drawn an artificial distinction between Traveller

1.2 Traveller Community rights in public, political and health spheres

In popular understandings of racism in Britain there is a blind spot in relation

Responding to the scarcity of material explicitly employing the concept of race to

It could be argued that there is a culture/structure divide in explanations offered for

Awareness of Traveller Community culture and its potential impact on health

The literature to date has tended to present a homogeneous picture of Traveller

1.3.1 Overarching research aim

1.3.2 Specific research questions:

1.4 Theoretical approach

1.4.1 Foucault on discourse, power and subjectivities

1.4.2 Expanding resistance with Deleuze and Guattari

1.4.3 Is poststructuralism a just approach?

A further criticism directed at work in a poststructuralist vein focuses on the refusal

1.5 The research(er) story – locating myself in the research

Chapter two provides an overview of prevailing and unfolding storylines on research

To avoid clouding the narratives of participants, an analysis of how empirical

2.2 The social construction of ‘health’ and public health ‘problems’

If health is to be understood as a social construct, it follows that those issues taken

Early indications of the health inequalities experienced by UK Gypsies and

Alongside the emergence of these accounts were some notable attempts to

While evidence underlining the health ‘needs’ of Traveller Communities is now

2.4.1.1 Definitions of health

2.4.1.2 Hygiene and modesty

2.4.1.3 Traveller Communities as ‘closed-off’ groups

2.4.1.5 The Travelling lifestyle and attitudes to time

2.4.2 Critiquing the cultural storyline

2.4.2.1 Cultural assets

2.4.3 The structural storyline

2.4.4 Critiquing the structural storyline

2.5 Unfolding storylines – Traveller identity as hybrid and contingent

2.5.1 Health beliefs as complex and varied

While fatalism is therefore a concept which is being subject to increasing

2.5.2 The discursive production of identity

The relative absence of a discursive lens in the literature on Traveller Community

Negatively framing fatalism and then constructing it as a belief among

Critique of dominant representations of Traveller Community members in relation to

2.6 Health practitioner identities

It is important to acknowledge that counter narratives to those of discrimination are

Given the recognition of racism and discrimination towards Traveller Communities,

First, they require face-to-face or voice-to-voice contact with the public.

By this definition, health practitioners involved in the present research can be

Despite the likely involvement of emotional labour in a range of healthcare settings,

3.2 Research aims

3.3 Narrative inquiry

3.3.1 Big or small stories

3.3.2 Raising subjugated voices

3.4.1 Sampling and recruitment

3.4.1.1 Site selection

3.4.1.2 Traveller Community sample

Traveller Community participants were initially identified through engagement in