 | Irish Travellers: The Unsettled Life Subjects: Irish Travellers (Nomadic people); Irish Travellers (Nomadic people) -- Pictorial works; Irish Travellers (Nomadic people) -- Social conditions; Ireland -- Ethnic relations; Anthropologists George and Sharon Gmelch have been studying the quasi-nomadic people known as Travellers since their fieldwork in the early 1970s, when they lived among Travellers and went on the road in their own horse-drawn wagon. In 2011 they returned to seek out families they had known decades before--shadowed by a film crew and taking with them hundreds of old photographs showing the Travellers' former way of life. Many of these images are included in this book, alongside more recent photos and compelling personal narratives that reveal how Traveller lives have changed now that they have left nomadism behind. Sharon Bohn Gmelch is Professor of Anthropology at the University of San Francisco and Roger Thayer Stone Professor of Anthropology at Union College. Her books include Nan: The Life of an Irish Travelling Woman; Tinkers and Travellers: Ireland's Nomads; The Tlingit Encounter with Photography; and, with George Gmelch, Tasting the Good Life: Wine Tourism in the Napa Valley (IUP, 2011). George Gmelch is Professor of Anthropology at the University of San Francisco and Union College. His books include The Irish Tinkers: The Urbanization of an Itinerant People and Behind the Smile: The Working Lives of Caribbean Tourism (IUP, 2012). |
