‘The best three days of my life’: Pleasure, power and alienation in the 2011 riots

Abstract

This article examines one of the less frequently considered elements of riots: the emotions to which they give rise. Based on testimony from interviews with people who took part in the 2011 England riots, it explores the curiosity which drew many onto the streets, the excitement and fear involved in such quickly unfolding and unpredictable events, the impunity that many felt being part of such large crowds, together with the sense of ‘empowerment’ many experienced as a consequence of their involvement. The article suggests that a number of concepts regularly deployed within cultural criminology – most obviously ‘carnival’ and ‘edgework’ – are useful in understanding elements of the emotional world of the riot. More fundamentally, however, it is argued that what the accounts describe more than anything else is a pervading sense of ‘alienation’ among many of those involved in the disorder.

A social identity model of riot diffusion: From injustice to empowerment in the 2011 London riots

“…We are by no means the first to highlight the experience of empowerment among participants in the 2011 riots. Newburn et al () have previously shown that empowerment among those who were anti‐police was prevalent and phenomenologically important. Stott et al () and Ball et al () showed that experiences of empowerment among participants in Tottenham led some to travel to new locations to spread the rioting.…”

The evolving normative dimensions of ‘riot’: Towards an elaborated social identity explanation

“…The largest and most extensive research study of the 2011 riots is the Guardian /LSE's ‘Reading the Riots’, based on 270 interviews with rioters carried out soon after the events (Lewis et al., ; see Newburn, 2016a, 2016b; Newburn, Diski, et al., ; Newburn, Lewis, Addley, & Taylor, ). This work has provided a rich analysis of the experiences of rioters, showing that, together with collective anger, empowerment and joy were evident in actions such as defeating the police (Newburn, Deacon, et al., ). Theoretically, ‘Reading the Riots’ researchers have sought to provide a general criminological analysis of cause and consequences in the 2011 English riots; in effect, they offer a ‘grand theory’ of riot (e.g.…”

The ‘Good,’ the ‘Bad’ and the ‘Useless’: Young People’s Political Action Repertoires in Quebec

“…Traditional representations of participation remain the social benchmark for assessing the political engagement of young people (Pickard, 2016). Therefore, some forms of political mobilisations tend to be systematically disregarded, criticised or even automatically associated with violence by both the media and public officials (Roudet, 2012;Muncie, 2009;Pickard, 2009;Newburn, et al, 2016). This rejection of their efforts to express a political message can be a source of cynicism (Cockburn and Cleaver, 2012;Roudet, 2012) or frustration (Boire, 2015;Benedicto and Luz Morán, 2016).…”

“…Indeed, young people's expression and action seem stronger when it takes other, less institutionalised forms (Loncle, et al, 2012;Gallant and Garneau, 2016), especially those that channel dissent (Roudet, 2012) and/or individuality (Pastinelli, 2013). These include innovative forms of demonstrations (such as flash mobs or the Occupy and Indignados movements), political citizenship expressed through cultural practices (Poirier, 2017), or even unplanned riots (Newburn, et al, 2016;Bertho, 2016). Young people's online participatory experience (Caron, 2014) also takes many shapes: the use of Facebook and other social media to organise various political action, political expression on blogs, Twitter and YouTube (Millette 2015;Caron, 2014;Jenkins and Carpentier, 2013).…”