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The embodiment of marime: Living Romany Gypsy pollution taboo
Abstract
This dissertation examines the ways that pollution taboo affects the life experience of Romany Gypsy women. A cultural analysis is made upon ethnographic data gathered from the Romany Gypsy community in Boston, Massachusetts, combining theories of embodiment with the Scheper-Hughes and Lock (1987) "three bodies" critical-interpretive model. Marime, as this taboo is known locally, is experienced as fear, shame and disgust and conceptualized in terms of top/bottom or inside/outside body symbolism which categorizes by analogy the sacred from profane, e.g., Gypsy and Gajo or non-Gypsy. This understanding leads to social praxis which is shown to affect the quality of Gypsy women's lives in personal, social and political domains. Since marime is a bodily experence which is predicated upon pre-existing cultural discourses and results in social action this analysis supports the theoretical view that the body is the ground of culture. ^
Subject Area
Anthropology, Cultural|Women's Studies|Sociology, Ethnic and Racial Studies|Sociology, Social Structure and Development
Recommended Citation
Janet Larkin,
"The embodiment of marime: Living Romany Gypsy pollution taboo"
(January 1, 1998).
Electronic Doctoral Dissertations for UMass Amherst.
Paper AAI9909179.
http://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9909179