Urban legends : gang identity in the post-industrial city / Alistair Fraser.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fraser, Alistair, 1982-

Series:

Clarendon studies in criminology

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Gangs--Scotland--Glasgow--Case studies.

Gangs.

Organized crime.

Juvenile delinquency.

Human territoriality.

Urban youth.

Glasgow (Scotland)--Social conditions.

Glasgow (Scotland).

Urban youth--Scotland--Glasgow.

Human territoriality--Scotland--Glasgow.

Juvenile delinquency--Scotland--Glasgow.

Organized crime--Scotland--Glasgow.

Scotland--Glasgow.

Genre:

Case studies.

Physical Description:

xxx, 270 pages ; 23 cm.

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford, United Kingdom : Oxford University Press, 2015.

Summary:

As the youth gang phenomenon becomes an important and sensitive public issue, communities from Los Angeles to Rio, Cape Town to London are facing the reality of what such violent groups mean for their children and young people. Complex dangers and instabilities, as well as high levels of public fear and anger, fuel an amplification of anxious public and political rhetoric in relation to gangs, in which the stereotype of the American street-gang - a ruthless, hierarchical, street-based criminal organisation capable of corrupting youth and fracturing communities - looms large. Set against this backdrop, 'Urban legends: Gang identity in the post-industrial city' tells a unique and powerful story of young people, gang identity, and social change in post-industrial Glasgow, challenging the perceptions of gangs as a novel, universal, or pathological phenomenon. Though territorial gangs have been reported in Glasgow for over a century, with striking continuities over this time, there are similarities with street-based groups elsewhere. Using this similarity as the foundation, the book goes on to argue that Glaswegian gangs have a specific historical trajectory that is particular to the city. Drawing on four years of varied ethnographic fieldwork in Langview, a deindustrialised working-class community, the book spotlights the everyday experiences and understandings of gangs for young people growing up in the area, reasoning that - for some - gang identification represents a root of identity and a route to masculinity, in a post-industrial city that has little space for them.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: 1.Shifting Definitions

Street to database

Subcultures to crime

Local to global

Ethnography to dataset

Continuity amid change

Conclusion

2.A Global Sociological Imagination

Theorizing absence

History and social change

Diversity and difference

Structure and agency

Reconceptualizing gangs

Street habitus

The post-industrial city

Gang identification

3.No Mean City

Soft city, hard city

Persistent inequality

Territorial identity

Violent masculinities

Economies of crime and justice

Neighbourhood nationalism

A genealogy of gangs in Glasgow

1880s: Gangs and early industrialism

1920s

30s: Gangs and the Depression

1960

70s: The `New Wave' of Glasgow gangs

4.The Best Laid Schemes

Langview

Entering Fleetland

The Langview Boys

The school-leavers

Intermezzo: Mediating Metropolis

5.Street Habitus

Street habituation

Note continued: Insiders and outsiders

Learning street habitus

Neoliberalizing the street

Tyrannical spaces

6.`Learning to Leisure'

Fir the Buzz: Leisure and the Langview Boys

Hanging about

Football

Fighting

`Mailing'

Cinema

Gaming

Youth, work, and leisure in the `new Glasgow'

`Learning to leisure'

7.Damaged Hardmen

Locating street masculinities

Being a `gemmie'

Taking a slagging

Being `the best at stuff'

Being `in the know'

Being `wan ae the boays'

The hardman in the call centre

Gang identity and post-industrial masculinities

Masculinities and social change

8.Generations of Gangs

Gang identity and social reproduction

Growing into gangs

Growing out of gangs

Trapped in a legend

Generations of gang identity

Theorizing persistence

Continuity and change

Gangs in post-industrial Glasgow

9.Come On, Die Young?

Note continued: Homologies of habitus

City as lens

A theory of gang persistence

Implications.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 223-253) and index.

ISBN:

9780198728610

0198728611

OCLC:

894201825