The English Riots of 2011: A Summer of Discontent

435 Pages·2012·3.448 MB·English

by  Daniel Briggs

The English Riots of 2011

A Summer of Discontent

Edited by Daniel Briggs

WATERSIDE PRESS

The English Riots of 2011
A Summer of Discontent
Edited by Daniel Briggs
The English Riots of 2011
A Summer of Discontent
Edited by Daniel Briggs
Published 2012 by Telephone [phone]
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Copyright © 2012 This work is the copyright of Daniel Briggs. Individual chapters are the
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The English Riots of 2011
A Summer of Discontent
Edited by Daniel Briggs
WATERSIDE PRESS
The English Riots of 2011
ContentS
Acknowledgements vii
About the editor viii
1. Introduction 9
Daniel Briggs
2. Frustrations, Urban Relations and Temptations: 27
Contextualising the English Riots
Daniel Briggs
PaRT 1: RIoTIng In ConTexT ________________________________43
3. everything Changes, nothing Moves: 45
The Longue Durée of Social Anxieties about Youth Crime
Geoffrey Pearson
4. Riots in Retrospective: 65
Immigration and the Crisis of the ‘Other’
Steven Hirschler
5. With the Benefit of Hindsight: 91
The Disturbances of August 2011 in Historical Context
tim Bateman
6. Revisiting Brixton: 111
The War on Babylon 1981
Sheldon thomas
7. More Police, Less Safety? 127
Policing as a Causal Factor in the Outbreak of Riots and Public
Disturbances
Axel Klein
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Edited by Daniel Briggs
PaRT 2: WHo, HoW and WHy? ______________________________ 147
8. gone Shopping: 149
Inarticulate Politics in the English Riots of 2011
Simon Winlow and Steve Hall
9. Policing the Riots: 169
New Social Media as Recruitment, Resistance, and Surveillance
Stephanie Alice Baker
10. Street government: 193
The Role of the Urban Street Gang in the London Riots
Simon Harding
11. Reading the Riots Through gender: 215
A Feminist Reflection on England’s 2011 Riots
Liz Kelly and Aisha K. Gill
PaRT 3: THe aFTeRMaTH ___________________________________ 235
12. ‘There are none Sicker Than the edL’: 237
Narratives of Racialisation and Resentment from Whitehall and
Eltham, London
Joel Busher
13. From Words of action to the action of Words: 257
Politics, Post-riot Rhetoric and Contractual Governance
Vicky Heap and Hannah Smithson
14. Profiling the ‘Rioters’: 279
Findings from Manchester
Rebecca Clarke
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The English Riots of 2011
15. Rurality and the Riots: 303
From the Panel to the Village Pub
Steve Briggs
PaRT 4: THe WIdeR PICTURe: SoCIaL CHange and gLoBaL
dISConTenT _____________________________________ 327
16. State-Sponsored Riot: 329
Tales of Revolt and Crime in Egypt 2011
John Strawson
17. ‘If you Won’t Let Us dream, Then We Won’t Let you Sleep’: 347
Demarcation of Spaces and the Rise of the Spanish 15 M
Lorenzo navarréte-Moreno, Celia Díaz-Catalán and Ricardo Zúñiga
18. Post-Modern greek Tragedy: 361
Walking in the Steps of Thucydides in Athens
Daniel Briggs
19. Concluding Thoughts 381
Daniel Briggs
Index 403
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Edited by Daniel Briggs
ACKnoWLeDGeMentS
My first thanks go to David Cameron whose speech branding the rioters’
actions ‘criminality, pure and simple’ was the moment at which I decided
to pursue this area as a form of social inquiry. I then have to thank the riot-
ers who braved potential arrest to speak to me. Nadia Whitney and Jessica
Lartey helped me with access to these people and Joyann Bannon assisted
with interview transcriptions. Dan Hales of Barking and Dagenham Youth
Offending Service assisted with discussions as well as numerous other court,
probation and youth offending workers across London with whom I had
informal discussions. A paper based on this data was published for a special
issue of Safer Communities early in 2012 (see Vol 11(1)).
I was supported by Jo Sharrocks at Emerald Publishers and Professor
Chris Fox and Dr Tim Bateman. The book evolved from the special issue
and for that reason I extend immense gratitude to all the contributors for
working hard within the publishing timeframe to assemble this collection
within four months. Bryan Gibson, the Director of Waterside Press, was
immensely enthusiastic about this project and has provided immeasurable
support. Thanks to Dr. Joel Busher, Professor Simon Winlow and Dr. Steph-
anie Alice Baker for reading and commenting on several chapters and also
to my father for reviewing my work.
I am grateful for the collegial companionship of John Strawson, Barry
Heard, Dr. James Windle, Dr. John Morrison and Jennifer Schmidt-Petersen.
As always, appreciation and love go to those closest to me: they know
who they are and they know what they did.
Daniel Briggs
August 2012
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The English Riots of 2011
ABout tHe eDItoR
Dr Daniel Briggs is a Reader in Criminology and Criminal Justice at the
University of East London. He works with a range of social groups — from
the most vulnerable to the most dangerous to the most misunderstood. His
work takes him inside prisons, crack houses, mental health institutions,
asylum-seeker institutions, hostels, care homes and hospices, and homeless
services. His research interests include social exclusion, culture and deviance,
and postmodern identities but more broadly he tends to research any social
issues which are stigmatised, misunderstood and/or misrepresented. He has
recently undertaken work in Spain on gypsies, youth risk behaviours while
on holiday and the English riots of 2011. He is the author of Crack Cocaine
Users: High Society and Low Life in South London (Routledge, 2011).
Descriptions of the other contributors to this work appear at the start of
their individual chapters.
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