In the last two decades, since Romania’s EU accession, Cortorari Roma from the South of Transylvania have been performing a new procurement activity, begging in the streets of Western Europe. During my PhD fieldwork I myself became an apprentice to a family bagging in Italy. This piece shows that contrary to wide spread conceptions of beggary as a non-lucrative activity, Cortorari experience it as a kind of work located in the flesh and the body. When they go begging, Cortorari renounce their colorful attire for the worn-out beggar’s garb which symbolically veils their ethnic identity. This article contends that begging was not a cultural given or an inherent trait of Roma culture.

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This piece draws on earlier publications of mine, one in Romanian, 2011 ““Țigan bun tradițional” in Romania, cerșetor de-etnicizat în st ...