Compared to many marginalised communities, Gypsies and Travellers are relatively well researched. Indeed, the core inequalities facing the cluster of communities which fall under the wider grouping of ‘Gypsy, Roma and Traveller’ have been reprised at length in many publications with a lamentable (and reprehensible) lack of progress.

The field of accommodation in particular is already a crowded one, and to the general observer might appear to have been comprehensively covered by now. However, academic studies, policy documents and indeed popular attention have overwhelmingly concentrated on the issues surrounding the provision of caravan sites and their ‘unauthorised’ counterparts (Dale Farm being only the latest prominent example). The visibility (literally) of this issue as something uniquely linked to Travellers since 1945 has meant that analysis and comment have largely ignored the fact that the majority of Gypsies and Travellers now reside in ‘bricks and mortar’ housing – despite clear evidence that the egregious shortfall in pitches and sites must inevitably have the effect of pushing the community into fixed dwellings. As a result, housed Travellers remain largely unrecognised and unstudied. It is this notable gap that the authors have sought to fill.

Both Margaret Greenfields and David Smith have an extensive body of publications in this field to their names. As well as being the first to comprehensively document housed Gypsies and Travellers, this new study has a particular number of strengths. Its vivid exploration of the long-standing, often symbiotic socio-cultural and geographic relationships between Gypsies, Travellers and ‘Gorjes’ (the Romani word for non-Gypsies) contains absorbing historical detail about the myriad of small-scale neighbourhood networks and interactions. As the authors rightly state, our understanding of the shared histories of Travellers and non-Travellers at the micro-level of street, neighbourhood or country parish remains a prominent gap in the research, and the fieldwork which makes up the second part of the book is an attempt to address that omission.

The study is at its best when describing the realities of life in housing in all its nuanced aspects and contextualising it in an informed narrative, often to powerful effect. I was absorbed by the narrative about the causes and role of aggressive masculinity and the on-going evolution of young Travellers’ identity in response to the modern world.

This is perhaps the most valuable contribution of this study – that Travellers’ relationships to housing have always been complex, and the dichotomy of caravan versus house has never been a zero-sum choice. This is highlighted superbly in the fieldwork data about how families in particular estates replicate the congregating of caravans by buying, renting or even swapping with houses in close proximity to kin or other Travellers– a feature many people (including housing officers) see every day without realising its significance.

The supporting narrative implies that modernism in its various hydra like forms (capitalist, statist) has pursued an agenda of ever-greater physical, social and personal control which has engendered a rapid deterioration of spatial freedoms previously enjoyed by Gypsies and Travellers (and by extension other marginalised groups). In parallel to this, groups which fail to accede to this agenda face ever-greater exclusion. The major manifestation of this for Gypsies and Travellers over the past seventy-five years is the denial of adequate sites for caravans, including temporary stopping places, and the largely involuntary movement off the road and into permanent housing.

The sense of outrage and injustice is palpable. There is no doubt which ‘side’ the authors are on, and at times this lack of distance and objectivity does hinder the ability to articulate a rounded perspective.

The lengthy exploration into sociological theory can at times feel heavy going, especially at the start. Overall, the book would benefit from a reduction in the avalanche of references contained within the text, which can feel overpowering for the reader, and leaves one unsure as to where to start further reading – the twenty-four pages of references at the end is a testament to that. A more nimble discussion of the relevant viewpoints would have been preferable as well as concise footnotes advising on further reading.

The theoretical framework occasionally leads the narrative into unwarranted generalisations. One example of this is the emphasis on the homogeneity of state and its various manifestations, which is rendered somewhat simplistically. For example, we are told Gypsies and Travellers have the capacity ‘to thwart the dictates of local government bureaucrats’ (p. 203). This perspective ignores the complex and at times antipathetic relationship between central and local government agencies, and even between different parts of the same authorities. Likewise, while plenty of prejudice against Travellers of all shades remains among the public sector (although less than in the wider population, I would argue), there are many who work tirelessly to promote inclusion in a culturally sensitive manner, particularly in education, providing support with the clear motive of enabling Travellers to negotiate effectively from an increased position of personal and community power. Within the limits of their work, they defy the negative intent of other agencies, and are not the unwitting tools of a controlling and assimilatory state.

One conspicuous gap in the wealth of research on Travellers in general (and other marginalised communities for that matter) is detailed analysis of the perceptions, motives and institutional drivers for public workers. Whatever the rights and wrongs of mainstream attitudes and objectives, a task remains to accurately capture detailed narrative(s) which recounts the complexities, and contradictions, of views, assumptions and conceptions among health, justice, housing and education service workers towards Travellers. That this is lacking perhaps reflects more about academic interests in communities themselves and the search for theoretical frameworks in general.

To be fair to the authors, Greenfields and Smith conclude by acknowledging that a key project for the future is to gather alternative perspectives. This omission should not detract from what is otherwise a ground-breaking investigation of the dynamic social, cultural and political forces which have impacted on the vast majority of indigenous Gypsies and Travellers in the UK in modern times. Although outside the scope of this study, it is also a reminder that discernible patterns and choices in housing are already emerging and evolving among migrant Roma now resident in the UK, the exploration of which would be a fascinating counterpart to the present work.

This text is also a reminder of the nuanced exchange of ideas, language and behaviours that have always taken place between different communities. It brings to mind Howard Jacobson's semi-autobiographical account of the subtle but recognisable influence of Jewish market traders on the life of fifties shoppers in Manchester and elsewhere – how many of us know the roots of the Yiddish terms and Polari idiom we continue to use daily alongside the Romani pal, mush, cushti and wonga/vonga. And that question has powerful implications on who has a stake in what it means to be British.