The name is absent

Appendix 1

a small core of Romanes words, some communities mostly near Thrace speak Turkish
primarily, and a small number of Roma in the North of Greece speak Romanes. Almost
all Romani communities observe a core set of internal Romani customs including
marriage celebrations, coming-of-age rituals, and death ceremonies (see for example,
Daskalaki 2003), although the particulars of these customs range widely from group to
group.

Perhaps, the most visible Greek Romani characteristic, and the one most often
cited by non-Romani Greeks as definitive of Romani culture, is the style and preferred
arrangement of homes found in most Roma settlements across the country. Roma tend to
construct their homes in an urban wattle and daub manner, utilizing discarded building
supplies and other materials to cobble together semi-permanent homes (Karathanasi
2000). These homes are built within a space selected by the Roma, which can be referred
to as a compound given that it is both a safe, guarded space (outsiders typically avoid
Romani camps) and a space which they are forced to occupy (it is very difficult for Roma
to live apart from the collective). Within compounds, Roma organize themselves in what
may seem to an outsider to be a random manner, though upon closer examination, homes
and the items within and around them are arranged according to a particular experience of
space and relationship with material goods. Compounds are quite complex and dynamic
sites.

The Alpha compound, within which I carry out my research, is located in one of
the northeastern suburbs of Athens.⁵ It is situated centrally within the suburb, though
isolated from it by short tracts of unkempt land, refuse piles, and fence (Alexandrakis
2003). Within the compound live roughly fifty families, according to seasonal work
⁵ The name of the compound is a pseudonym.

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