Human Nature as an Ideological Fiction and a Reference for Otherization: The Case of Romanis in Bartın

“Human nature” has been under questioning by different disciplines for thousands of years. But an anthropologist should connect these inquiries with life and direct them to this relationship. We should question how the concept of “human nature” works in daily life. Every argument about human nature becomes the essence of a particular social regulation. For example, it is accepted that it is natural (also it is necessary) for a human to be “competitive”, to have an instinct for saving, in capitalist societies. Whereas there have been different types of societies, which were based on different human natures, since the beginning of humanity. But once there is a definition for ‘normal’ or ‘natural’, then many people find themselves in behaviors called ‘abnormal’, ‘immoral’, ‘unsuitable’. But the truth is, it is these behaviors that remind people the possibility of another lifestyle that challenges their own fiction of reality, which always needs to be confirmed. That’s the reason why they are perceived as threat, why hunter-gatherer people are called “primitive”, although they still struggle to maintain their lifestyles. When the ruling narrative is teaching us how the contemporary life, jobs, wearing, houses, and the rules should be, the concept of “human nature” keeps feeding it. People like Gypsies, who do not fit in this pattern, have been pushed out of this “human nature” concept. In this study, based on a field research in Bartın between 2013-2014, the stories and ideas told by non-Romanis about Romanis were picked to clarify the problem above. Differences are dehumanized because they reveal the rips of the fiction of truth of our society