Fiddler on the Street: How Roma Refugees Enact Host Cultural Images of Nostalgic Otherness

Gabriela’s reflexive remark illustrates the important institutional influence of local stereotypes and attitudes about ethnic minorities on the lived experiences of migrant consumers. The Canadian host culture commonly defines “Gypsy” as either a lifestyle or a distinct nomadic ethnicity existing predominantly in Europe (Lee 1998a). More specifically, overview studies (e.g., Csepeli and Simon 2003; Liégeois 1994; Rehfisch 1975) consistently distinguish between two main market-mediated myths of the Roma ethnicity that dominate popular opinion: one characterizing these individuals as passionate, mysterious, and talented “Gypsy” artisans and the other typecasting them as thieving, lazy, and dirty “Gypsies.” Previous consumer acculturation research has explored in detail the processes and agents through which migrant individuals socialized into a different (minority) culture adapt to a new (dominant) consumer culture (e.g., Askegaard, Arnould, and Kjeldgaard 2005; Chytkova 2011; Dion, Sitz, and Remy 2011; Fernandez, Veer, and Lastovicka 2011; Luedicke 2011; Oswald 1999; Peñaloza 1994; Üstüner and Holt 2007; Vihalemm and Keller 2011).