Customary Strangers: New Perspectives on Peripatetic Peoples in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia

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Social scientists have generally remained impervious to a major economic and cultural adaptationnamely, the peripatetic lifestylealthough this adaptation has been an integral part of developments within the socioeconomic and cultural networks that social scientists study. This lack of interest derives perhaps from the ambiguous integration of peripatetics into these networks as well as the often negatively charged constructs -Gypsies, outsiders, or marginal othersimposed on peripatetics by dominant cultures. As peddlers of the strange to borrow a phrase from Clifford Geertz, peripatetics are situated at the fringes of their host societies and many students of the social ecological and behavioral sciences still continue to overlook the roles of peripatetic peoples. This collection presents the latest in cross-cultural comparative research on the nature of peripatetic peoples. Contributors examine the place of peripatetic peoples in the everyday lives and diverse cognitive maps of client communities. Relying on Georg Simmel's construct of The Stranger, the contributors to this volume suggest that peripatetic peoples are simultaneously outsiders and insiders, but most important, they are entrepreneurial middlemen traders par excellence. All told, the essays provoke vital reassessments of the anthropological focus on the role and status of cultural brokers and go-betweens in political, economic, and social interactions.

Reviews

We recommend this volume highly to all who wish to learn more about the gamut of societies sharing peripatetic adaptations that formerly characterized all Gypsy groups and gave rise to analogous Traveler groups. The ethnographic descriptions of many of the articles are rich and nuanced and will provide much food for thought to all who care to contemplate the larger picture of peripatetic adaptations.-Romani Studies
"We recommend this volume highly to all who wish to learn more about the gamut of societies sharing peripatetic adaptations that formerly characterized all Gypsy groups and gave rise to analogous Traveler groups. The ethnographic descriptions of many of the articles are rich and nuanced and will provide much food for thought to all who care to contemplate the larger picture of peripatetic adaptations."-Romani Studies

Author Bio

JOSEPH C. BERLAND has lived and traveled with peripatetic communities in Southwest Asia for 25% years. He is the author of No Five Fingers Are Alike and is co-editor with Matt T. Salo of a special issue of the journal Nomadic Peoples devoted to peripatetic peoples. Formerly at Northwestern and Oxford Universities, he is now Adjunct Professor of Social Anthropology at Qaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan. He is retired from pedagogical activities and pursues full-time research. APARNA RAO is Professor at the Institute fur Volkerkunde, Universitat zu Koln, Germany.