Alistair Fraser

Street habitus: gangs, territorialism and social change in Glasgow

The relationship between youth ‘gangs’ and territory – understood as a monopolistic control over geographical space, exercised for economic gain – is a longstanding focus of gang scholarship, and remains central to criminological definitions of youth ‘gangs’ to this day. In this article, I re-assess this relationship in the context of an ethnographic study of youth ‘gangs’ and territorial space in Glasgow. Employing Bourdieus concept of habitus in a spatial context, I argue that territorialism and gang behaviour should be understood as distinct – if linked – phenomenon, connected with the lived experiences of limited spatial autonomy in the post-industrial city. This analytical separation enables ‘gang’ behaviour to be understood beyond the traditional criminological gaze, incorporating sociological theories of space, class and identity.

Making Up Gangs: Looping, Labelling and the New Politics of Intelligence-led Policing

The 2011 ‘summer of violent disorder’ in England cast a spotlight on the often arbitrary and uneven process through which individuals become labelled as ‘gang-members’. Based on data from two separate but concurrently conducted qualitative studies in Glasgow, Scotland, this article draws on the critical vocabularies of Bourdieu and Hacking to conceptualize this new frontier in the politics of gang policing: analysing the distinctive ‘fields’ that street-based young people and police actors inhabit; uncovering the complex chain of interactions through which individuals become labelled as ‘gang-members’; and exploring the consequences of such labelling processes.

Ethnography at the periphery: Redrawing the borders of criminology’s world-map

In the current era of globalization, a paradox has developed in the field of criminology. In the context of the increasingly global nature of crime, there has been a firm recognition among criminologists of the need for comparative, transnational research; particularly that which moves beyond knowledge created in the global North. However, production of this knowledge remains clustered in a relatively narrow range of geographical sites—and understandings of crime and criminology in the South too often defined through the lens of the North. As processes of globalization confound and disrupt the traditional dualisms of East/West and North/South, there is a pressing need for an expansion of criminology’s world-map. This article explores the conceptual possibilities of one particular methodology—ethnography—as a means of explicating the deep-seated tensions, fragmented realities and hybridized identities that emerge from the margins of globalization. Drawing on cogent debates from the fields of sociology and anthropology, I argue that ethnographically informed ‘theory from the South’ can at once enrich the criminological imagination and provoke a more cosmopolitan global imaginary.

Gangs and a global sociological imagination

Across the globe, the phenomenon of youth gangs has become an important and sensitive public issue. In this context, an increasing level of research attention has focused on the development of universalized definitions of gangs in a global context. In this article, we argue that this search for similarity has resulted in a failure to recognize and understand difference. Drawing on an alternative methodology we call a ‘global exchange’, this article suggests three concepts—homologies of habitus, vectors of difference and transnational reflexivity—that seek to re-engage the sociological imagination in the study of gangs and globalization.

City as Lens: (Re)Imagining Youth in Glasgow and Hong Kong

In recent years, a paradox has emerged in the study of youth. On the one hand, in the context of the processes of globalization, neoliberalism and precarity, the patterning of leisure and work for young people is becoming increasingly convergent across time and space. On the other hand, it is clear that young people’s habits and dispositions remain deeply tied to local places, with global processes filtered and refracted through specific cultural contexts. Against this backdrop, drawing on an Economic and Social Research Council/Research Grants Council (ESRC/RGC)-funded study of contemporary youth in Glasgow and Hong Kong, this article seeks to explore the role of the city as a mediating lens between global forces and local impacts. Utilizing both historical and contemporary data, the article argues that despite parallels in the impact of global forces on the structure of everyday life and work, young people’s leisure habits remain rooted in the fates and fortunes of their respective cities.

Crime, Media, Culture: Asia-style

Two German graffiti artists are sentenced to caning in Singapore, as a group of prisoners dance to ‘Gangnam Style’ in the Philippines. Members of Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement create new DIY artworks as a form of grassroots resistance, as Taiwanese Sunflower protesters occupy the central parliament. Documentaries exposing corruption and state crime are suppressed in Cambodia and Indonesia, as Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei flits in and out of surveillance in China. Welcome to Crime, Media, and Culture: Asia-style. The twenty-first century has been termed the ‘Asian century’. Asia holds some four billion of the world’s population, and hosts four out of ten of the world’s largest economies – China, Japan, India and Russia – and a number of smaller nations with growing economic weight. The growth of China, in particular, has become a defining feature of the world’s political landscape. Images of Asia in Western popular culture tend to support this vision of progress and attainment – the futuristic cityscapes of Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo suffuse Hollywood, from Bladerunner to Ghost in the Shell. This outward projection of success, however, masks striking examples of inequality, exploitation and control. From the historical erasure of mass killings in Indonesia to the ‘bargained authoritarianism’ of political protest in China, Asia is littered with examples of suppression and control, bolstered by what are often state-controlled media outlets. It is within this space that the study of crime, media and culture can make a vital contribution. To date, however, Foucault’s depiction of criminology as an ‘elaborate alibi to justify the exercise of power’ (Cohen 1998: 5) is perhaps a more appropriate characterisation. As others have demonstrated (Lee and Laidler 2013), criminology in Asia is overwhelmingly administrative, concerned with the correct categorisation of crime and its response; often allied with the law, social work and administration of government rather than as an independent field of social science. As a result, the cultural, critical and sociological roots that animate much criminological scholarship in the United States and Europe have thus far struggled to find fertile soil. In this Special Issue we make the case for an alternative way of ‘doing criminology’ in Asia, as we showcase research studies within the strong critical tradition in media and cultural studies, sociology and film studies, that deal specifically with themes of power, politics, criminalisation and postcolonialism. While in recent years there has been a firm recognition among criminologists, sociologists and media scholars for the need to move beyond knowledge created in the global North, production of this apparently ‘global’ knowledge remains clustered in a relatively narrow range of geographical sites. In this Special Issue we contribute to a broader research agenda focused on ‘criminology of the periphery’ (Lee and Laidler 2013; Laidler and Lee 2016) and ‘Southern criminology’ (Carrington et al 2016) that seeks to challenge and disrupt these hierarchies of knowledge-production, unsettling both geographical and disciplinary boundaries. Featuring contributions from a range of scholars grounded in different geographical, disciplinary and cultural contexts – often outside of criminology but inside of Asia – this Special Issue seeks to construct a space for dialogue on the potentialities 718975 CMC0010.1177/1741659017718975Crime, Media, Culture: An International JournalFraser et al. research-article2017

(Re)Politicising Young People: From Scotland’s Indyref to Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement

In 2014, two independence movements involving young people emerged in two very different settings. In Scotland, the Referendum on Independence from the United Kingdom extended the franchise to allow 16 and 17-year-olds to vote for the very first time. In Hong Kong, the Umbrella Movement engaged young people in direct action to secure universal suffrage. Drawing on a wider study of young people and social change, this chapter explores the rise of nationalist politics and independence in times of crisis, highlighting similarities and differences in young people’s political participation in these two distinctive contexts.

‘It Wasnae Just Easterhouse’: The Politics of Representation in the Glasgow Gang Phenomenon, c. 1965–1975

In this chapter, we revisit the politics of representation in the Glasgow gang phenomenon, c. 1965–1975, as a means of drawing attention to the historical antecedents to these recent debates. In so doing we seek to draw attention to the variability in gang research – according to methodological approach, epistemological underpinning and geographical context – and the frequent lack of reflexivity in debate. Like the parable of the blind men and the elephant, where each felt a different part and thought they had discovered its true essence, these debates are too often partial and blinkered. Here we re-examine the work of James Patrick, Gail Armstrong and Mary Wilson, discussing the valuable distinctions between them, and reflecting on their significance for understanding the gang phenomenon in Glasgow (and elsewhere). We also explore not just what they can tell us about young people’s identities, but also about the role of the researchers themselves in shaping and constructing understandings of youth subcultures.

Street Art, Public City: Law, Crime and the Urban Imagination, by Alison Young

One of the first things you notice about Alison Young’s new volume is the cheeky back-cover quotation from street-artist Banksy: “My favourite criminologist in the world.” You can see why. The book documents, through a combination of serious scholarship and empathetic commentary, the contours of street art around the world. Young plays both urban and urbane sociologist as chapters take an esoteric series of journeys through the city that mimic the unpredictable experience of discovering street art; drawing the reader into this hidden yet visible world while mapping the social and economic universe in which it is situated. Like the “Manhattan Tag” described in chapter one – in which an apparently aimless path of paint-drippings is revealed as text when viewed from above – Young composes a portrait of street art from both above and below. Banksy’s favor is clearly reciprocated. There have been a small number of high-quality studies on the subject of graffiti and street art in recent years, each with a quite unique perspective. Jeff Ferrell’s Crimes of Style (1996) took the reader inside the immediacy of graffiti’s illicit streetworld, documenting the thrill and danger involved in collective creative practice. Greg Snyder’s Graffiti Lives (2009) took a longer-run view of the graffiti careers of prolific taggers, as they shifted between street culture and the licit – and lucrative – world of art galleries and mainstream street art. Though Young’s book certainly stands alongside these contributions in quality and rigor, it would not necessarily be shelved beside them. Like Ferrell and Snyder, Young draws from the field of cultural criminology but also taps into traditions of critical legal theory, sociology, philosophy, and literature. This omnivorous yet discerning approach is a real strength. There is engagement with both the vagaries of legal bureaucracy and the communicative, emotional and “affective” register of artistic practice and response. Through introduction of the notion of “the commons,” there is also a serious alternative legal framing of street art. In this sense the book is as much a contribution to critical legal studies and urban scholarship as it is to criminology. A further distinction lies in choice of fieldsite. Where Ferrell and Snyder’s contributions are rooted in American urban contexts, Street Art, Public City is ambitiously transnational in scope. Young traveled to a range of metropolitan centers

The second life of Kowloon Walled City: Crime, media and cultural memory

Kowloon Walled City (hereafter KWC or Walled City), Hong Kong has been described as ‘one of history’s great anomalies’. The territory remained under Chinese rule throughout the period of British colonialism, with neither jurisdiction wishing to take active responsibility for its administration. In the postwar period, the area became notorious for vice, drugs and unsanitary living conditions, yet also attracted the attention of artists, photographers and writers, who viewed it as an instance of anarchic urbanism. Despite its demolition in 1993, KWC has continued to capture the imaginations of successive generations across Asia. Drawing on data from an oral and visual history project on the enclave, alongside images, interviews and observations regarding the ‘second life’ of KWC, this article will trace the unique flow of meanings and reimaginings that KWC has inspired. The article will locate the peculiar collisions of crime and consumerism prompted by KWC within the broader contexts in which they are embedded, seeking out a new interdisciplinary perspective that attends to the internecine spaces of crime, media and culture in contemporary Asian societies.