'One Eye in Toxteth, One Eye in Croxteth' – Examining Youth
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International Journal of Arts and Sciences 3(8): 496 - 519 (2010) CD-ROM. ISSN: 1944-6934 © InternationalJournal.org ‘One Eye in Toxteth, One Eye in Croxteth’ – Examining Youth Perspectives of Racist and Anti-Social Behaviour, Identity and the Value of Sport as an Integrative Enclave in Liverpool James Kenyon, Liverpool Hope University, UK Joel Rookwood, Liverpool Hope University, UK Abstract: Liverpool has a rich and complex social identity, infused by various cultural influences and evolving migration patterns. Its status was recognised with the 2008 award of European Capital of Culture, reflecting Liverpool’s architectural, musical and sporting heritage, together with recent regeneration. The recent re- developments are considered notable given the economic recession, increases in unemployment and hooliganism, and the racially-aggravated riots Merseyside experienced in the 1980s. Elements of Liverpool’s population have a long association with racist and violent identities and behaviours, and there is evidence that such characteristics continue to permeate the social fabric of the city. The murders of Anthony Walker and Rhys Jones in 2005 and 2007 respectively serve as contemporary examples. This paper will explore youth culture in two traditionally, currently and infamously troubled areas, namely Croxteth in the north of the city and Toxteth in the south. Drawing on observational data as well as interviews with teenage males, this research accesses opinion pertaining to the construction and expression of contemporary identity relative to community and ethnicity. It also examines youth engagement in racist and anti-social behaviour in both communities, and the extent to which sport serves as an integrative enclave in Liverpool. Keywords: UK, gangs, racism, community sport Introduction - Liverpool Founded by King John’s Royal Charter of 1207, the English coastal city of Liverpool was initially nothing more than a departure point for the armies of the King’s military exploits in Ireland and Wales (Belchem, 2006). From its early development up until the seventeenth century, Liverpool was considered as little more than an insignificant fishing village which conducted its trade in the Irish Sea (Hollinshead, 2008; Kermode, Hollinshead and Gratton, 2006). However, as trade between Europe and the ‘New World’ grew during the European Renaissance, the port proved ideally placed to take advantage of these new trade links, and the first recorded cargo that landed in Liverpool from the North Atlantic in 1648 would herald a period of almost constant economic growth that would continue until after the First World War (Belchem, 2006). Initially this economic growth was driven by the port’s prominent role in the eighteenth century transatlantic slave trade (Morgan, 2007; Richardson, Schwarz and Tibbles, 2007) which turned Liverpool into ‘one of the richest and most prosperous trading centres in the world’ (Muir, 1907 cited in Belchem, 2000: 9). Its continued (post-slavery) economic expansion was achieved by trading primarily in cotton, textiles, rum, tobacco and sugar and by exploiting an emerging global emigration 496 International Journal of Arts and Sciences 3(8): 496 - 519 (2010) CD-ROM. ISSN: 1944-6934 © InternationalJournal.org market (Belchem, 2006; Milne, 2006; Pooley, 2006; Russell, 2007; Speake and Fox, 2008). Economic growth persisted throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and during this time the city of Liverpool had more to offer the world than its dealings with slavery. As Grant and Gray confirm Liverpool was ‘a major centre of industry, ideas and culture, its influence [...] cannot be understated’ (2007: 1). Yet while business for Liverpool’s eighteenth and nineteenth century merchants and entrepreneurs was flourishing, most of city’s residents experienced a much more challenging existence; there was, according Harris, a ‘great deal of misery and degradation’ in the city (1968: xii). Throughout Liverpool’s economic ‘golden-age’ the majority of the population were located in low quality, overcrowded, unsanitary slums which dominated the dock and inner city areas (Harris, 1968; Power, 1992; Russell, 2007) and which is where they would remain until well into the 20th Century (Murden, 2006). Liverpool’s overcrowding problems worsened in the early 1920s when, after what as an almost completely uninterrupted period of economic growth lasting close to three centuries, the city’s economic fortunes began to change. Liverpool’s economic decline from ‘one of the richest and most prosperous trading centres in the world’ (Muir, 1907 cited in Belchem, 2000: 9) and the UK’s second most important port (Belchem, 2000, 2006; Parkinson, 1991) to its current status as the UK’s most deprived local authority (Social Disadvantage Research Centre, 2008) occurred much more quickly than that of its economic expansion. Following the First World War, military demobilization, the 1929 Wall Street Crash and consequent Great Depression, Liverpool’s unemployment problems were exacerbated to such a degree that close half of city’s population were living in poverty (Belchem and Murden, 2006). Liverpool’s socio-economic difficulties were further aggravated during the Second World War when German bombing raids obliterated most of the city (Murden, 2006) with only London suffering more damage in England (Martínez-Martín, 2005) and consequently meant that ‘for much of the next thirty-five years Liverpool would be engaged in an attempt to rebuild itself’ (Murden, 2006: 393). This city-wide reconstruction included a number of industrial and council estates that were built on the periphery of the city in an attempt to decentralise part of the city’s economy away from the overcrowded docks (Speake and Fox, 2008). In post–war Liverpool, however, despite the thousands of factory-based jobs that had been created, a re- emergence in global trade meant that it was still the docks that were the city’s largest employer (Murden, 2006). What the increase in factory-based employment, the re- emergence of world trade and the relocation of thousands from the inner city slums to the newly built council estates did ensure, nonetheless, was that Liverpool was able experience a mini-revival in economic growth throughout the 1950s and most of the 1960s. In the 1970’s however, the city was hit by a severe recession. Liverpool’s geographical location in the northwest of England was now proving to be a disadvantage as Europe became the UK’s favoured trading partner after joining the European Economic Community in 1973. The resultant implosion of the city’s maritime industries were exacerbated as the recently established manufacturing industry also began to deteriorate in the late 1970’s which resulted in tens of thousands of city-wide redundancies (Belchem, 2006; Murden, 2006; Speake and 497 International Journal of Arts and Sciences 3(8): 496 - 519 (2010) CD-ROM. ISSN: 1944-6934 © InternationalJournal.org Fox, 2008; Uduku, 1999). By 1981, more than one-in-five people in Liverpool were unemployed, a statistic which was nearly four times that of the national average at the time (Liverpool City Council, 1993). In the early 1980s Liverpool’s already-vulnerable communities were further affected by the restructuring of the wider UK economy by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government. De-industrialisation, cutbacks in the government’s fiscal responsibilities in social services and an increase in income tax during a recession, in addition to Liverpool’s growing unemployment numbers engendered ‘ghettoisation’, economic marginalisation and social deprivation in sizeable sections of the city (Pitts, 2007; Speake and Fox, 2008; Uduku, 1999). Despite ‘militant’ determination to overcome these trends through local-government-backed urban regeneration schemes, Liverpool throughout the 1980s was defined by high levels of unemployment and poverty (Belchem, 2006; Murden, 2006; Speake and Fox, 2008; Taffe and Mulherne, 1988). As multiple deprivation patterns continued into the 1990s, Liverpool became eligible for European Union Objective 1 Structural Funds in 1993; grants which are aimed at improving the most destitute parts of the European Union (Murden, 2006: 475). However, it was the city-centre that would benefit from most early-to-mid 1990s city funding initiatives, rather than Liverpool’s numerous marginalised and in-need communities. Not until after the election of ‘New’ Labour in 1997 would these communities begin to benefit from targeted grants (Belchem, 2006; Murden, 2006) which would in turn lead Jones and Wilks Heeg to observe that after ‘30 years of unabated economic decline’ (2004: 345), Liverpool’s fortunes were beginning to change. Further progress was achieved in 2003 when the title of European Capital of Culture for 2008 was awarded to Liverpool, which according to Rookwood and Millward (2010) was bestowed largely in recognition of Liverpool’s extensive architectural heritage and international exposure to its popular music and sporting icons. Additionally, Bunnell indicates that ‘the [Liverpool] bid’s proponents were following in the footsteps of other cities [like Glasgow] where ‘culture’ has been mobilised for urban regeneration and re-imaging’ (2008: 251). With this in mind, since the title of European Capital of Culture for 2008 was announced, stimulated by substantial remarketing and continual urban regeneration (Jones and Wilks-Heeg, 2004), private sector development and tourism have provided the most significant functions in improving Liverpool’s revitalised