Insights from visual anthropology: A gypsy community living in Rajasthan

The main subject of this ethnographic study is my observation of a Gypsy/Roma community in the Rajasthan region of India, who have abandoned their nomadic lifestyle to settle near a city. This family makes their living by catching cobras in the wild, extracting their venom, training them, and performing snake charming using local instruments called 'Pungi'. I focused this research on how they have turned their cultural practices into a source of economic income. Using participant observation, I gathered all the information and data from living with this tent-dwelling community and structured it around three main theoretical frameworks. My findings indicated that the cultural elements people acquire and transmit while in flux, which are highlighted by ethnoscape, played a role in the dissemination of cultural codes that this Roma community learned and spread while migrating. I explained in my study that the way this community seeks economic prosperity by utilizing their culture corresponds to the concept of Orientalism, a perspective through which the West continually views this community as exotic. I completed the framework with Lacan's theory. Additionally, all research findings from the field were also addressed and discussed using visual anthropology methodology to analyze how the community's experiences and identities were shaped. This research provides a comparative ethnographic study by observing a community in Rajasthan, the historical starting point of the Gypsies, presenting the global cultural flows, the interconnectedness of Western perceptions and cultural structures, and the changes in the community's cultural dynamics.