Riot: Race and Politics in the 2011 Disorders

Abstract

The 2011 riots have already been the most commented upon riots of recent decades. Casting some doubt about generalised and holistic explanations and responses, we seek to locate the events in a matrix of race, policing and politics. This approach enables us to identify shifts in political discourse around the riots from the simple to the complex, as well as significant changes between how the events of 2011 and earlier riots have been ‘read’. We seek to unravel some of these strands, to show how race, place and political discourse have been located in the reaction to the riots. In drawing attention to important unevenness, we argue that sociologists need to focus on both continuities and changes since the 1980s.

Supervising Rioters: The Role of Probation

“…Any critical focus, indeed the obligation on government to do anything, was effectively dissipated by the anodyne conclusion that ‘there was no single cause of the riots and there is no single solution’ (Singh , p.7). The reports differed from the 2001 sermons on community cohesion in that concerns about ethnic segregation of communities were largely absent for the simple reason that the riots had been a multi‐ethnic affair and, apart from the initial disturbance in Tottenham, had become effectively deracialised (Murji and Neal ). The focus here was not on communities being too exclusive and segregated but rather on the breakdown of community to which a neoliberal response was articulated through notions of ‘character building’ and ‘resilience’.…”

“I found the truth in Foot Locker”: London 2011, Urban Culture, and the Post‐Political City

“…According to Murji and Neal () riots tend to make relatively easy sense. The “meaning” of 2011's disturbances, however, is not so easily decipherable; its hermeneutics appear as fragmented as the millions of text messages that young protestors zapped across the city in order to communicate with one another.…”

“…As the Home Affairs Committee (:31) states, “unlike some events in the past … there does not seem to be any clear narrative, nor a clear element of protest or clear political objectives”. Both “race” and class have been raised, dismissed and raised again in attempts to identify a political meaning for the uprising (Murji and Neal ; Scambler and Scambler ; Solomos ). The general tone among commentators and academics has been that the riots were disappointingly apolitical.…”

Zygmunt Bauman: An Adorno for ‘Liquid Modern’ Times?

“…57–59). There is clearly an important truth here, but Bauman ignores the fact that for many of the black young men involved in the riots, resentment of the police and their heavy‐handed stop and search methods played a significant role (Murji and Neal, ; Briggs, ). Bauman's failure to grasp the racialized character of the disorders is in keeping with his general neglect of racism against British ethnic minorities, as I argue in my forthcoming book.…”