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gang identity in the post-industrial city
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.
1. Shifting Definitions. Street to database; Subcultures to crime; Local to global; Ethnography to dataset; Continuity amid change -- 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; 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; 'Malling'; 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? Homologies of habitus; City as lens; A theory of gang persistence; Implications.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 223-253) and index.
Criminology, Penology & Juvenile Delinquency
Urban legends. Gang identity in the post-industrial city