This paper explores the extent to which rural beggars' status as 'insiders' or 'outsiders' impacted on local responses to them. By asking this question, the paper hopes to contribute to the broader questions raised by this panel, about the ways in which we can understand constructions of the local and community belonging and identity in rural contexts. Begging as a practice was usually transient because it usually involved beggars moving around either within a village, or across districts, or in the case of pilgrims and brodiagi, across sometimes massive distances. Begging was also a transient occupation, in that beggars often relied on a repertoire of different occupations and practices, of which begging was a part. This paper interrogates the relationship between transient begging and perceptions of threat and menace.
