Social Exclusions Experienced By Traveler Communities Essay Example
Pavee Lackeen is a film that narrates the tale of Winnie Maughan, a ten-year-old traveler girl. Throughout the movie, Winnie is shown scavenging for scraps at school, living in a rundown caravan with her ill mother on the outskirts of Dublin in a desolate area, and visiting her incarcerated brother. The only moments of freedom she experiences are when she spends time in town, engaging in activities such as inhaling the scent of old petrol, riding her bicycle around the town, hanging out with her friends, and shoplifting.
At the beginning, Winnie consults a palm reader who informs her that she is facing a crucial decision in her life. The palm reader advises her to think logically rather than emotionally. This prediction proves to be accurate as Winnie faces numerous challenges, particularly after being expelled from school along with her friends (Frederic &
...amp; Brussat, 2015). While Winnie roams the streets of the city, her family receives visits from various social workers, government officials, and activist groups who sympathize with them. The traveler family grapples with poverty, bureaucratic red tape, and prejudice. The focus of the film centers on the life of the young traveler girl and illustrates how young traveler children resort to criminal activities for a sense of fulfillment.
The main aim of the essay is to analyze the social disadvantages faced by travelling communities within educational, health, and social institutions, with a focus on the film Pavee Lackeen. It explores the idea of avoiding confrontations between travelling communities and settled people, highlighting how Winnie, a ten-year-old girl, is treated as an equal when she goes to local shops. However, the film also raises awareness o
how travelling communities are often treated as foreigners in their own community, and the essay will discuss the challenges and confrontations that arise between these communities and settled folks.
The struggles faced by Winnie and her family include discrimination, poverty, prejudice, bureaucracy, and neglect. Discrimination among different ethnic groups is a significant issue that will be analyzed based on the experiences of travelers in the film Pavee Lackeen. Winnie's day-to-day activities reveal the struggles faced by the Maughan family, including the imprisonment of Winnie's brother, living without food, and neglect from their settled community. Despite being part of the Irish people, they were treated as different and outsiders because they were travelers. Their distinct ethnic group was not recognized.
This led to a lack of respect and an increase in confrontations between the settled folk and the travelling community. Since the travelers were not given a special status as a distinct ethnic group, they became frustrated, which made their stay in the outskirts of Dublin very difficult. Winnie, along with her mother and ten siblings, faced neglect from the settled people in the community simply because they were a travelling family. The only activity Winnie can do to pass time is wander in town and inhale petrol fumes, which reveals the rise in crime resulting from the neglect of the travelling communities.
The lack of food and poverty affect the family, showing how settled people in the community neglected Maughan's family and left them to suffer. The state bureaucracy also offered little support to the traveling community and sometimes manipulated Winnie, her family, and the whole traveling community to avoid their responsibilities. An example of this is when
the local council pressured them to move from their caravan's location by the busy road. The council used force and made promises of improving their current living conditions. Eventually, they moved under the threat of legal action, but none of the promised improvements like running water and sanitation were ever fulfilled.
Instead of receiving the improved conditions they were promised, the council's true plan was revealed, moving them to non-council land. This was done so that the council would no longer be responsible for them (Crosson, 2006). This highlights the community's irresponsible state of bureaucracy. In addition to facing challenges and confrontations with local people, the traveling community also had to deal with difficulties and manipulation from the community council.
Instead of helping the traveling community, the community council only makes their situation worse. The members of the traveling community face neglect and are denied opportunities in schools for settled children. The schools refuse to admit them and do not allow settled children to attend the same schools as traveler children, displaying a high level of neglect. Winnie, who is eager to attend a school for settled children, experiences frustration as the schools resist the admission of Traveler children. Despite her desire for education, Winnie's search for a school for settled children remains unfulfilled as the schools deny the admission of traveler children (Villar-Argaiz, 2014).
The film demonstrates the genuine innocence and curiosity of a ten-year-old girl, highlighting her extraordinary presence throughout. Another social disadvantage faced by traveling communities is the parallel relationships between immigrant communities and travelers in Dublin. For example, when Winnie gets suspended from school due to a fight, she navigates the streets of Dublin
where she encounters various individuals representing different major immigrant groups in Ireland. Furthermore, while visiting a video store, she discovers that only Russian titles are available, and learns this from a Russian woman employed at the store.
The protagonist observes a lack of diversity in various places she visits. At an arcade, she only sees people of Asian origin. At a hairdresser, she is surprised to find that all the staff are women from Africa. When she goes to a petrol station with her sister Rosie, they are served by a Chinese man. In the film, the only Irish people portrayed are council officials and social workers. This lack of representation suggests that the Irish society does not treat their own indigenous minorities with respect and is unlikely to embrace the growing number of diverse immigrant groups in the country (Whelan, 2012; Felperin, 2005).
This highlights the parallel connection between the traveling communities and immigrant communities in Dublin. Ultimately, the Irish Travelers are indigenous minority groups who have been integrated into society for many centuries. Scholars may have varying theories about their origin, but they undeniably possess a distinct value system, customs, language, and traditions. As a result, they are easily recognized both by others and within their own community. The exclusion and discrimination experienced by Winnie and her family mirror the hardships faced by Irish Travelers and the Roman people.
They must resist assimilation policies and retain their ethnic identity, despite facing exclusions such as being denied opportunities in settled children's schools, imprisonment of family members, neglect, and poverty. Anti-traveler racism has pushed travelers to the fringes of Irish society. For centuries, the Irish Travelers have been
marginalized and rejected in Irish society, creating a prevailing climate that continues to affect them. Winnie and her family exemplify the multiple social disadvantages faced by traveling communities at the hands of settled society.
The film portrays how the Irish community considers the travelers as outsiders, thus denying them their rights and social status. It also highlights the lack of assistance provided by the community council, who instead make the travelers' stay in Irish land more challenging.
References
- Crosson, S. (2006). Pavee Lackeen. Estudios Irlandeses-Journal of Irish Studies, (1), 185.
- Felperin, L. (2005). Pavee Lackeen: The Traveller Girl. Variety, (11).
61.
The article "Irish Studies Review" can be accessed online through Academic Search Premier in Ipswich, MA. It was published in November 2014 and has a volume number of 22 and issue number of 4. The page range of the article is from 466 to 486. Additionally, a book called "World film locations" by C. Whelan and C. Whelan was published in 2012.
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