Riotous assembly incites analysis
A conference aims to bring clarity to the motives for last year's civil unrest. Matthew Reisz writes
Glasgow gangs, the changing probation services, sexually explicit material exchanged over mobile phones and stereotypes of the "feral underclass" will all be up for debate at a conference this week looking at "the riots one year on".
The civil unrest that took place in some British cities in August 2011, said Yvette Taylor, head of the Weeks Centre for Social and Policy Research at London South Bank University, was "not an unthinking form of protest - many deep social divides were brought to our attention".
At the start of this year, Professor Taylor joined forces with Kim Allen, senior research fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Education at London Metropolitan University, to produce a "gendered analysis" of the riots for the British Sociological Association website.
They argued that while coverage of young women's participation in "'organised' protests such as the anti-tuition fees marches, the Occupy movement and 'slut walks' predominantly featured white and middle-class women", commentary on the "so-called 'greed-driven' rioting" focused on demonised working-class, and often black, "'troubled' mothers and 'failed' female rioters".
Dr Allen and Professor Taylor also pointed out that "in the absence of any public inquiry, academics have played an important role in bringing sociological perspectives to bear on the complex causes and consequences of the summer riots".
It was precisely in order to take the discussion forward that they organised the conference Collisions, Coalitions and Riotous Subjects: The Riots One Year On, which is being held at London South Bank University on 28 September.
Among the presentations, Jennie Bristow, an associate of the University of Kent's Centre for Parenting Culture Studies, will consider how the riots were seen as "a direct consequence of the cultural, moral and legislative changes associated with the permissive Sixties" - but also as "a youthful version of the accepted practices of bankers, business tycoons and governments".
Rebekah Diski and Kerris Cooper, researchers at the London School of Economics, will explore how many rioters described their behaviour "as a form of empowerment; as a short-lived victory over what they saw as 'the biggest gang'", whether or not they were involved in overtly anti-police action.
And Raymond Arthur, reader in social sciences and law at Teesside University, will claim that plans to penalise parents of truanting children "could conceivably lead to the complete disintegration of already fragile family units".
matthew.reisz@tsleducation.com.
Readers' comments (1)
29 Sep 2012 7:20pm
The conference team was drawn from the Weeks Centre for Social and Policy Research (at LSBU) and members of the Institute for Policy Studies in Education (at London Met.): Sumi Hollingworth, Ayo Mansaray and Kim Allen. What was evident before, during and after the conference was the real worth in cross-institutional responses, efforts and cares (see Affecting Academia & Collective Presences: http://weekscentreforsocialandpolicyresearch.wordpress.com/2012/07/16/affecting-academia-collective-presence/). The conference was planned over the last yr. in part inspired by a blog piece for the BSA Sociology & the Cuts blog as a call to focus on the gendered aspects of protest, (in)visibility and the (dis)location of trouble on (certain) women’s bodies (those who don’t care). But out conversations and planning have continued at a time of heightened cut-backs, in and beyond higher education, when certain individuals (certain institutions) are more vulnerable than others. We wanted to respond proactively to the British Sociological Association’s call to work collaboratively, rather than competitively, across institutions, for all our educational (& employment) futures, seeing that as also part of a public sociology which is accountable to a diverse body of students, where education isn’t owned by and done exclusively for white, middle-class institutions and audiences (and claimed by them as an enterprising diversity) (see http://weekscentreforsocialandpolicyresearch.wordpress.com/2012/08/17/degrees-of-diversity-in-gay-by-degree-index-please-count-us-present-if-not-correct/). Thanks to the diverse audiences, participants and listeners taking part - Les Back (Goldsmith), Lisa McKenzie (Nottingham) and Teddy Nygh (Film maker, Fully Focussed) were among the many reminding us of the need to keep listening and to incite attention, activism and analysis. 'The Riots' and their effects still reverberate and the conference allowed for a pausing on, with and through people and places, rather than a moving on to 'new data'. How to dwell in the locations that we inhabit – especially in a time of constrained (and constraining) spaces?
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