All in all, the edited volume is a valuable contribution to Gypsy Studies and beyond, especially because the editors and the majority of contributors maintain awareness of the semantic emptiness of the term ethnic in reference to the Roma.
Journal of Gypsy Studies The publication of Gypsy Economy comes precisely at a time when both academics and the general public need cogent analyses of Roma... This edited volume, then, is a very welcome contribution to the crisis of anti-Gypsyism... [It] is a testament to the diversity and adaptability of Roma labor practices, many of which are traditionally in the nonwage sphere... Gypsy Economy is extremely valuable both to Roma ethnography and to economic anthropological theory.
American Ethnologist Gypsy Economy is undoubtedly a strong contribution to the anthropology of economy outside the formal sector. ... Based on extensive fieldwork each of the 11 chapters of the volume affords the reader an incisive analysis embedded in rich ethnographic details... a model for scholars eager to undertake comparative projects aligned with anthropology's aspiration to generalizations about the human condition. It will appeal to students of Romani Studies as well as to a broader readership interested in economic practices outside formal economies.
Analize: Journal of Gender and Feminist Studies ...there is an urgent need to promote this volume! Some of the findings - not least with regard to informal lending and 'fixing-up money' - should even find their echoes in policies that allow Roma to live their lives as they like. The volume definitely represents the kick-off of studies of whatever is meant by the 'Gypsy economy,' and no work that follows this topic - at least in the East European context - will be able to ignore this collection.
Intersections, East European Journal of Society and Politics This collection effectively captures the heterogeneity, dynamism, and humanity of Roma, their livelihoods, and their relationships within and outside their natal communities. Ethnographic fieldwork illuminates socioeconomic and moral particularities of each group, and the volume inspires a comparative analysis of economic practices as active responses to global systems of social exclusion...The book is also a long overdue, invaluable contribution to Romani studies in general, and to economic anthropology in particular.
Journal of Anthropological Research ...an interesting and valuable contribution to the anthropology of economy outside the 'white' economic sector. This book sheds new light on the relation between the ideology of 'reciprocal exchange' and that of the market.
Ada Engebrigtsen, Norwegian Social Research, NOVA This is a fine ethnographic collection describing a huge diversity of cultural (and by this economic) Romani universes so easily represented by media and policy as one homogenous group - 'the Roma' . . . This book deserves a broad readership beyond academia.
Elisabeth Tauber, Free University of Bolzano