https://doi.org/10.67147/literariness.v1i3.075
Archiving the Outcast: Memory Activism in Mikey Walsh’s Gypsy Boy
PRIYANKA PRASANNAN
Research Scholar
Department of English
The Zamorin’s Guruvayurappan College, Calicut
Affiliated to the University of Calicut
DR. ARYA GOPI
HOD & Associate Professor
Department of English
The Zamorin’s Guruvayurappan College, Calicut
Affiliated to the University of Calicut
Abstract: In traditional societies, identity provides a fundamental sense of continuity and belonging, but this stability is profoundly unsettled when individual experiences of queerness contest prevailing cultural norms. Mikey Walsh’s autobiographies, Gypsy Boy and Gypsy Boy on the Run, document the agonising tension between his emerging queer identity and the rigid, hypermasculine expectations of his Romanichal community. Drawing on Diana Taylor’s framework of performance studies and Ann Cvetkovich’s queer trauma theory, this article explores the intersection of ethnicity, sexuality and communal exile. Based on Taylor’s theory, the paper argues that Romani belonging is enforced not through official written histories, but through a cultural “repertoire”, an embodied memory transmitted via live, physical action and a patriarchal “scenario” centred on bare-knuckle boxing. Because Walsh’s fragile, queer embodiment fundamentally clashes with this violent norm, it generates an irreconcilable “friction” that leads to his severe social exclusion and erasure from the community’s repertoire. To analyse the emotional reality of this exile, the paper incorporates Cvetkovich’s concept of “insidious” trauma, which illuminates the chronic, everyday suffering and systemic homophobia Walsh endures. Suffering from a “double marginalisation” ignored by mainstream British society and exiled by his own people, Walsh turns to life writing as a crucial form of memory activism. By documenting his hidden emotional realities, private shame and alternative queer kinship, Walsh consciously constructs a written “archive of feelings”. This counter-archive preserves the ephemeral, traumatic experiences of queer Romani life, ultimately subverting the physical repertoire that attempted to silence him. His narrative stands as a powerful testament to the resilience of marginalised individuals who utilise the written archive to reclaim authority over their precarious identities and demand historical visibility.
Keywords: Archive of Feelings, Repertoire, Insidious Trauma, Scenario, Memory Activism, Double Marginalisation
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