T Patel

The usefulness of oral life (hi)story to understand and empower: the case of trans-racial adoption

The article considers the usefulness of the oral life (hi)story approach, and in particular its qualitative method of interviewing, to researching social work issues such as trans-racial adoption. In providing clarification on the decision to use the term life (hi)story in the given (bracketed) way, a descriptive outline of the reported study’s research design into trans-racial adoption is provided. This is followed by a critically reflective assessment of the key methodological issues emanating from the study’s use of oral life (hi)story, highlighting not only its limitations but also offering guidance on its use. In doing so, it is argued that despite some discrepancies, oral life (hi)story offers access to a deeper level of understanding about adoptees’ lives. It also empowers adoptees by giving them the opportunity to speak for themselves about their own lives.

Black minority ethnic communities and levels of satisfaction with policing : findings from a study in the north of England

Using data from an original qualitative study carried out during 2009–10 with a sample located in the north of England (NES), this article considers the satisfaction levels of black minority ethnic (BME) groups with a north of England police force (NEPF). The study sought to examine existing levels (as well as improve) satisfaction with police responses among BME populations. This was done by asking local BME communities about their encounters with NEPF, including how they felt the police should respond when they are a victim of crime and more broadly how the police could better engage with BME populations. What emerged in the responses was not just practical ‘solutions’ for ‘better engagement’ but a series of narratives that placed the broader historical and contemporary complexities, and recent developments of BME relations with the police into focus. The article begins by exploring current literature and claims to knowledge in the areas of problematic police responses, especially with the use of ‘race’1 in stop and search, and developments in communicating police progress. The literature setting the context draws upon case studies from the north of England but also more generally from across the UK, using examples that while geographically located beyond the NES context have had significant impact more broadly. The findings section discusses the qualitative data from the study and explores the emerging themes of communication and the local community nexus, disconnections from young people and police (ab)use of stop and search powers. The article highlights how in addition to actually policing in a fair way, direct and indirect communication plays a key role in satisfaction levels with police services. Achieving effective communication between the police force and BME groups is a complex matter, although not impossible, mediated at times by local and historical precedents with different BME groups.

Theorising the racial identity development of transracial adoptees : a symbolic interactionist perspective

Tina Patel presents findings from an empirical study carried out in Britain in 2000–2003 into the racial identity development of a small sample of adults who were transracially adopted as children. A symbolic interactionist perspective is applied to the analysis of the ways in which, to varying degrees, the adoptees experienced a number of difficulties tied to racial differences from the adoptive family, the racialised questions and categorisations of others, and inclusion and exclusion issues with birth and adoptive heritages. The study also highlights the way in which adoptees had understood and negotiated these difficulties in order to develop a particular type of ethnic identity that incorporates both parts of their birth and adoptive heritages, best represents how the adoptees see themselves and facilitates the pursuit of a positive sense of self. Using these findings, a number of best practice recommendations are made.

RETRACTED: Visual Research Methods: Using Cameras to Empower Socially Excluded Black Youth:

RETRACTED

Hot Goods in Happy Hands: Occasional User Accounts and Motivations for Buying Stolen Goods

Using qualitative data collected from an empirical study that focused on theft-related activity in a U.K. high crime area, the motivations and purchase patterns of occasional buyers of stolen goods are considered. In doing so, it is argued that as an illegitimate activity, the stolen goods market not only survives, but actually thrives—even in the face of numerous attempts by legal officials to shut it down. Its success is largely due to unique pull factors, including offering items of need or desire at significantly low prices. However, this article argues that this type of illegal human behavior is varied in terms of offender profile, given that it is shaped by elements of the social, political, and economic environment and that crime reduction initiatives would do well to remember this. On this basis, a number of recommendations for crime reduction policy and practice are suggested.

‘We’ll go grafting, yeah?’ crime as a response to urban neglect

Urban redevelopment attempts to rebrand spaces. The intention is to make them appear attractive for inward financial investment; to make improvements for residents; and, to reduce crime. It is considered by some to be a problematic process that does not always achieve the desired outcomes. This is especially so during the gentrification-transition stage. This qualitative study looked at crime in a sample site that was in a gentrification-transition stage of urban redevelopment. Using data sourced from those directly involved in criminal activity, this study argues that crime reduction in gentrification-transition environments is especially difficult to achieve. This is because disorganization in the built environment and economic inequality intensifies in areas experiencing gentrification-transition. Coupled with consumer pressures of the modern era, the result is a space where particular types of crime occur, often in significantly higher volumes than was the case prior to redevelopment.

Identity, Race, Religion and Adoption: The Public and Legal View

The importance of the cultural identity of a child awaiting adoption, in terms of ‘race’, religion and ethnic background, is the subject of continuing debate and often controversial and heated discussion. Tina Patel, Catherine Williams and Peter Marsh seek to examine the public and legal perspectives of the debate and in particular the degrees to which the two positions correspond with each other. Over 1,200 questionnaires were used on a stratified sample of members of the general public throughout England and Wales to gather data about public perceptions of adoption. The questionnaires were then analysed to see whether certain characteristics, such as age, gender, religion, ethnic background and family environment, affected public views of the religious and cultural identity of a child in need of adoption. The data gathered from the questionnaires were also examined against the law on adoption, in order to ascertain whether there was any correspondence between the public and the legal views. The authors present the findings from the study, along with a discussion of the relationship between the public perceptions and legal positions on race, religion, identity and adoption.

Cultural Repertoires and Modern Menaces: The Media’s Racialised Coverage of Child Sexual Exploitation

This chapter will discuss the mass media’s coverage of child sexual exploitation (CSE) cases in Rochdale (Greater Manchester) and Rotherham (South Yorkshire). These cases gained prominent media attention in the period between 2010 and 2015. The cases involved male abusers of black and minority ethnic (BME) background, in particular of Pakistani heritage and of Muslim faith, who had been abusing young female victims. Although some of the victims were also of the same ethnic background as the abusers, media attention selectively focused on those victims who were of white ethnic background. The chapter argues that the cases were narrated entirely through a cultural repertoire and drew on older racialised panics about the brown menace and white victims. The problem here is that the crime of CSE in these locales (and others like it) became racialised—presented as a form of culturally specific deviance, rather than one about gender and power, this process of ‘browning’ not only created a newer category of the black folk devil, and thus ignored white perpetrators, but also served to marginalise all victims of such abuse. A comment on the media’s racialised (re)presentation of these CSE cases takes into account their relative power in modern society, as well as their status, along with other elites, as joint-producers of information about race and racism (van Dijk 2000: 36).