This book provides empirical and theoretical explorations of, and insights into, the disturbances that took place in a number of English cities in 2011. The dispassionate dissection of, and balanced commentary on, those events is a very welcome riposte to the hysterical cacophony of voices that emanated from politicians, journalists, media commentators and others in the aftermath of the disturbances. The book is divided into four sections: the first places the events of 2011 in historical perspective; the second examines who took part and why; the third considers the aftermath of the disturbances while the fourth locates the events that occurred in the UK in the context of wider (global) social change and against social protest movements in Egypt, Spain and Greece. In some places the inclusion of some chapters in one section of the book rather than another appears rather arbitrary: for example, some of the questions about who took part and why (addressed in section two) are also addressed – although perhaps in a slightly different way – in some of the contributions to section one. However, given that this book was developed from a special edition of Safer Communities and was produced in four months, I think this is forgivable.
The analyses presented by contributors to this book suggest that to dismiss the events of 2011 as “criminality, pure and simple” as David Cameron attempted to do in the aftermath of the disturbances was misguided – pure and simple. The evidence presented in these chapters and the theoretical perspectives developed to understand these events demonstrate that the disturbances of 2011 are open to a variety of interpretations. There is no single reason for, or explanation of, the events that took place: similarly, those who participated in them were motivated by different things and the disturbances were triggered by a complex mix of factors. There is almost unanimous agreement, however, that the events of 2011 were not all about “race” despite their discursive framing as such by sections of the media.
I have so far avoided labelling these events as “riots”: this is because I was persuaded by the argument developed by Bateman (Chapter 5) that suggests a need to distinguish between the actions of “the mob” (reactionary and without political meaning) and the actions of the “the crowd” (a mechanism for the expression of political dissent). Bateman argues that the events of August 2011 cannot be obviously located as either the former or the latter but argues that while the actions of participants were political the decline of the organised Left and the black solidarity movement meant that the underlying grievances of those who took part were not given political expression (p. 105).
Other chapters in this volume would seem to support this assertion while others tend to undermine it. In Chapter 2, for example, Briggs presents evidence from interviews with those who participated in the events to suggest that some people who participated did so because they were expressing anger at disadvantage, unemployment and hostile social policies; others took part “just because they could” and yet others were involved because they were settling “beefs”. Some contributors suggest that the disturbances were political; others suggest they were apolitical while in Chapter 8 Winlow and Hall suggest they were both political and apolitical. For these authors the looting that accompanied the disturbances represented the “total dominance of consumer capitalism” (p. 162). In this analysis the events of August 2011 did not necessarily represent a recognition of the inequities and exploitative relations of late capitalism: rather those who took part in the disturbances wanted what late capitalism denies them – namely consumer goods that represent symbols of “belonging” or participation in market society. In Chapter 11 Gill and Kelly's discussion of gender and the riots offers critical insights into the role of consumerism in these events. They suggest that females who participated in the events of August 2011 were more inclined to engage in looting than violent victimisation but the everyday character of the goods they took (nappies, rice) suggests many of them “did not feel they were entitled to help themselves to high-value consumer items” (p. 222). This, the authors suggests raises important questions about the relationship between consumerism and masculinity that have not been addressed.
In Chapter 10 Simon Harding offers a persuasive and convincing analysis of the role of gangs in the events of 2011 suggesting that in London, at least, the riots had their genesis in the urban street gang and arguing that for those who participated the police are viewed as a “rival gang”. In Chapter 9 Alice Baker provides an alternative view of social media to that proposed by journalistic and media accounts that followed the disturbances. Rather than focusing on the role of social media in orchestrating the riots she explores how those who chose not to participate in the disturbances employed social media to orchestrate responses to the events. Other chapters in this volume (e.g. Pearson, Chapter 3; Hirschler, Chapter 4) point to the “othering” of those who took part in the events of 2011 (either as “feral” youth stalking the inner cities or as alien “others” posing a threat to “our” “traditional” culture) and consider the particular political interests that are served by these constructions.
The final section of the book places the events that occurred in England in 2011 in a wider global, political and economic context. The uprising in Egypt is discussed in Chapter 16, the Spanish 15M protest movement in Chapter 17 and the contemporary social, political and economic crisis in Chapter 18. These contributions provide a useful counterpoint to considering the English “riots”.
All in all the contributions in this book provide a variety of critical perspectives for reflecting on the events of August 2011 and for trying to make sense of them. All the chapters are written in a very accessible style and this book represents a useful resource for students (particularly of politics, economics, sociology, criminology and cultural/media studies), researchers and those with an interest in understanding social and political protest movements or social unrest. It is clear from the contributions in this volume that the events of 2011 require much greater, and more careful, consideration than they were afforded by politicians and social commentators at the time. Simplistic explanations that attempted to attribute the events solely to “criminality, pure and simple” are demonstrated by this collection to be inadequate to understanding what happened or why.
