DOCSLIB.ORG

'Policing the Crisis'?

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text

Load more

Still ‘Policing the Crisis’? Black and mixed-‘race’ experiences of policing in West Yorkshire Lisa Jane Long Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds School of Sociology and Social Policy Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies (CERS) May, 2016 - ii - The candidate confirms that the work submitted is her own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. The right of Lisa Jane Long to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. © 2016 The University of Leeds and Lisa Jane Long - iii - Dedication For Christopher Alder. And My friend Janet Alder-his strong, determined, truth seeking sister and warrior for justice without whom my life would have taken a different path. I am humbled and inspired by her fighting spirit in the face of multiple injustices. No Justice-No Peace - iv - Acknowledgements I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my research participants. It was an honour and a privilege that they agreed to share their stories with me and I hope I have done them justice here. I acknowledge with thanks the University of Leeds for the Teaching and Research Scholarship which enabled me to complete this project. Also, I would like to thank Dr Paul Bagguley and Dr Yasmin Hussain for their supervision and feedback. I would also like to thank my examiners Professor Shirley Tate and Professor Colin Webster. Thanks also to Professor Paul Ward and Dr Jodie Matthews at University of Huddersfield who secured funding for my MA by Research and made me feel capable of attempting PhD study. Their encouragement and the fee waiver gave me an opportunity I would not have otherwise had and for that I will always be grateful. I am hugely grateful for the support of colleagues and friends. Thank you to Lewis Simpson for his help in developing the title at the start of the project; Still ‘Policing the Crisis’ has stuck, and seems more relevant than ever. Special thanks to Lynley Aldridge, Claudia Paraschivescu and Remi Salisbury for their support in developing my ideas and their honest, constructive and encouraging feedback; an additional thank you to Lynley for help with the arduous task of formatting the thesis. Thank you to my children Zachary and Jasmine for putting up with me not always being available. I am proud of your achievements and resilience. Thank you also to my beautiful granddaughter Rose who guaranteed weekend nana cuddles and smiles to keep me going towards the end of the PhD journey. To all friends and family whom I have neglected, particularly over the last year, I thank you for your patience and understanding. - v - Abstract Black people in Britain have historically been over policed and under protected. Legislative and policy intervention in the past three decades has not brought about any significant change and, as evidenced by the post-August 2011 riots research, those racialized as Black still have low levels of confidence in the police. Contemporarily, most of what is understood in the field has emerged from statistical analyses of survey and statistical data on stop and search. Qualitative understanding is limited to the experiences of young people across Black and other ethnic minority groups. Within the existing research there is scant attention given to the racializing processes which shape police encounters. This research, grounded in a Critical Race framework, seeks to prioritise the stories and counter- stories of those marginalised by racializing processes. Based on semi structured interviews with twenty individuals who identified as Black or Black and white mixed-‘race’ the emerging counter-stories enable an understanding of ‘race’ and processes of racialization in police/citizen contact. This thesis examines both police initiated and citizen initiated contact and analyses ‘race’ contextually as it intersects with class, gender and Black masculinities. It illuminates how the whiteness of the police institution and processes of institutional racialization and racism, evident within contemporary policing practices, shapes police encounters. Further, it proposes that an activist agenda which makes racism visible can contribute to disrupting power structures and surviving racist affects. - vi - Table of Contents Dedication .................................................................................................................iii Acknowledgements................................................................................................... iv Abstract...................................................................................................................... v Table of Contents ..................................................................................................... vi Terms of Reference ................................................................................................viii Chapter 1 Introduction............................................................................................. 1 1.1 The Race-Crime Nexus; defining and policing the ‘colour problem’.......... 3 1.2 Still ‘Policing the Crisis’? ............................................................................ 8 1.3 Resistance and Riots .................................................................................. 12 1.4 ‘Race’ and intersecting oppressions........................................................... 20 1.5 Structure of the thesis................................................................................. 25 1.6 Conclusion ................................................................................................. 27 Chapter 2 Policing the Racialized Other .............................................................. 29 2.1 Stop and Search.......................................................................................... 33 2.2 Force and Lethal force ............................................................................... 39 2.3 Institutional Racism ................................................................................... 43 2.4 Cop Culture and the Policing Diversity Agenda........................................ 46 2.5 Policing Black People ................................................................................ 50 2.6 Conclusion ................................................................................................. 54 Chapter 3 Methods.................................................................................................. 55 3.1 Critical Race-Grounded Theory: Black Ontology and Epistemologies of Ignorance ............................................................................................ 56 3.2 Reflexivity: Researcher positionality and white privilege......................... 61 3.3 The qualitative interview as a research tool............................................... 65 3.4 Sampling .................................................................................................... 67 3.5 Analysis...................................................................................................... 72 3.6 Ethics.......................................................................................................... 75 3.7 Conclusion ................................................................................................. 78 - vii - Chapter 4 ‘Babylon remove the chain, now they’re using the brain’: The pervasiveness of ‘race’ in the post-Macpherson police............................... 79 4.1 'Planting the seed of fear' ........................................................................... 80 4.2 Racialized policing: ‘It’s them against us’................................................. 83 4.3 Expectations and Perceptions..................................................................... 91 4.4 Altered Lives: Living with police presence ............................................... 97 4.5 Conclusion ............................................................................................... 104 Chapter 5 The Racialized Victim of Crime and the Police ............................... 107 5.1 Becoming/un-becoming the victim.......................................................... 109 5.2 Victimological othering and justice denied.............................................. 114 5.3 The racial affects of victimological othering ........................................... 123 5.4 Conclusions.............................................................................................. 129 Chapter 6 Gendered Experiences of Racialized Policing .................................. 131 6.1 The threat of the ‘big Black man’ ............................................................ 132 6.2 Hypo-masculinities and ‘race’ ................................................................. 137 6.3 Black women and the police .................................................................... 140 6.4 Transgressing white femininity................................................................ 146 6.5 Performing deservingness ........................................................................ 151 6.6 Conclusion ............................................................................................... 154 Chapter 7 ‘Race’, Class and Belonging..............................................................
Recommended publications
  • Investigating Fatal Police Shootings Using the Human Factors Analysis and Classification Framework (HFACS)

    Investigating Fatal Police Shootings Using the Human Factors Analysis and Classification Framework (HFACS)

    Police Practice and Research An International Journal ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gppr20 Investigating fatal police shootings using the human factors analysis and classification framework (HFACS) Paul McFarlane & Amaria Amin To cite this article: Paul McFarlane & Amaria Amin (2021): Investigating fatal police shootings using the human factors analysis and classification framework (HFACS), Police Practice and Research, DOI: 10.1080/15614263.2021.1878893 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/15614263.2021.1878893 © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Published online: 01 Feb 2021. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 239 View related articles View Crossmark data Citing articles: 1 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=gppr20 POLICE PRACTICE AND RESEARCH https://doi.org/10.1080/15614263.2021.1878893 ARTICLE Investigating fatal police shootings using the human factors analysis and classification framework (HFACS) Paul McFarlane and Amaria Amin Department of Security and Crime Science, Institute For Global City Policing, University College London, London, UK ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY Fatal police shootings are highly contentious and troublesome for norma­ Received 4 February 2020 tive standards of police legitimacy. Fatal police shooting investigations are Accepted 9 January 2021 often criticised because they lack impartiality, transparency and rigour. To KEYWORDS assist policing practitioners and policymakers in the UK and beyond with Fatal police shootings; managing these issues, we present a new analytical framework for inves­ Human Factors Analysis and tigating fatal policing shootings.
  • The Performance of Intersectionality on the 21St Century Stand-Up

    The Performance of Intersectionality on the 21St Century Stand-Up

    The Performance of Intersectionality on the 21st Century Stand-Up Comedy Stage © 2018 Rachel Eliza Blackburn M.F.A., Virginia Commonwealth University, 2013 B.A., Webster University Conservatory of Theatre Arts, 2005 Submitted to the graduate degree program in Theatre and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Chair: Dr. Nicole Hodges Persley Dr. Katie Batza Dr. Henry Bial Dr. Sherrie Tucker Dr. Peter Zazzali Date Defended: August 23, 2018 ii The dissertation committee for Rachel E. Blackburn certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: The Performance of Intersectionality on the 21st Century Stand-Up Comedy Stage Chair: Dr. Nicole Hodges Persley Date Approved: Aug. 23, 2018 iii Abstract In 2014, Black feminist scholar bell hooks called for humor to be utilized as political weaponry in the current, post-1990s wave of intersectional activism at the National Women’s Studies Association conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Her call continues to challenge current stand-up comics to acknowledge intersectionality, particularly the perspectives of women of color, and to encourage comics to actively intervene in unsettling the notion that our U.S. culture is “post-gendered” or “post-racial.” This dissertation examines ways in which comics are heeding bell hooks’s call to action, focusing on the work of stand-up artists who forge a bridge between comedy and political activism by performing intersectional perspectives that expand their work beyond the entertainment value of the stage. Though performers of color and white female performers have always been working to subvert the normalcy of white male-dominated, comic space simply by taking the stage, this dissertation focuses on comics who continue to embody and challenge the current wave of intersectional activism by pushing the socially constructed boundaries of race, gender, sexuality, class, and able-bodiedness.
  • Darcus Howe: a Political Biography

    Darcus Howe: a Political Biography

    Bunce, Robin, and Paul Field. "‘Dabbling with Revolution’: Black Power Comes to Britain." Darcus Howe: A Political Biography. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014. 27–42. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 1 Oct. 2021. <http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781472544407.ch-002>. Downloaded from Bloomsbury Collections, www.bloomsburycollections.com, 1 October 2021, 10:59 UTC. Copyright © Robin Bunce and Paul Field 2014. You may share this work for non-commercial purposes only, provided you give attribution to the copyright holder and the publisher, and provide a link to the Creative Commons licence. 2 ‘ Dabbling with Revolution ’ : Black Power Comes to Britain Th e Dialectics of Liberation conference of July 1967 brought the 1960s ’ counterculture to the heart of London. Th e 2-week conference, convened by R. D. Laing and leading fi gures in the anti-psychiatry movement, featured contributions from Beat Generation writers William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg; Emmett Grogan, founder of the San Francisco anarchist movement Th e Diggers; and the Frankfurt School neo-Marxist, Herbert Marcuse (Cooper 1968: 9). Th e conference practised the countercultural values that it preached, spontaneously transforming the Roundhouse and Camden ’ s pubs and bars into informal collegiums, the founding event of the anti-university of London (Ibid., 11). Black Power, a movement that had emerged at the cutting edge of the American Civil Rights struggle the year before, had several representatives at the conference. Th e headline black radical and the most controversial speaker by far was Howe ’ s fellow Trinidadian and childhood friend, Stokely Carmichael, now the harbinger of the Black Power revolution. Th e British press responded to his visit by branding him ‘ an evil campaigner of hate ’ and ‘ the most eff ective preacher of racial hatred at large today ’ (Humphry and Tindall 1977: 63).
  • Brixton 1982-2011: the Socioeconomic Background of Rioting and the Narratives Employed by the Media During the 2011 Riots

    Brixton 1982-2011: the Socioeconomic Background of Rioting and the Narratives Employed by the Media During the 2011 Riots

    Brixton 1981-2011: rioting, newspaper narratives and the effects of a cultural vanguard Henri Kurttila Master’s thesis English philology University of Oulu 24 January 2014 Table of Contents 1. Introduction 1 2. Initial analysis: rioting in the context of Brixton 5 3. Overview of Brixton and the Brixton riots 9 4. The 2011 riots 15 4.1. Mark Duggan: media and the background of the riot 20 5. The golden hour: first days of rioting 26 5.1. The Guardian 28 5.2. The Telegraph 34 5.3. Daily Mail 37 6. After the riots: development of the narrative 42 6.1. The Guardian 42 6.2. The Telegraph 46 6.3. Daily Mail 49 7. Narrative conflict and the socioeconomic explanation 53 8. The cultural vanguard 58 9. Conclusion 71 References 76 1 1. Introduction Over the last three decades, the London district of Brixton has seen a total of five riots. Three of them were major and two of them were minor, but the 2011 riot was by far the largest in scale. The riot originally started in Tottenham and spread to a number of other boroughs in London over the next few days. Later on, unrest appeared in other major English cities as well. For these reasons, talking about the 2011 Brixton riot is somewhat misleading, even though it is a term which was used by various media outlets for a short period of time. At the moment, the two prevalent terms used with regard to the riots are the 2011 Tottenham riot and the 2011 England riots.
  • Riot”: Toward an Elaborated Social Identity Explanation

    Riot”: Toward an Elaborated Social Identity Explanation

    The evolving normative dimensions of ªriotº: toward an elaborated social identity explanation Article (Accepted Version) Stott, Clifford, Ball, Roger, Drury, John, Neville, Fergus, Reicher, Stephen, Boardman, Andrea and Choudhury, Sanjeedah (2018) The evolving normative dimensions of “riot”: toward an elaborated social identity explanation. European Journal of Social Psychology, 48 (6). pp. 834- 849. ISSN 0046-2772 This version is available from Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/73507/ This document is made available in accordance with publisher policies and may differ from the published version or from the version of record. If you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher’s version. Please see the URL above for details on accessing the published version. Copyright and reuse: Sussex Research Online is a digital repository of the research output of the University. Copyright and all moral rights to the version of the paper presented here belong to the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. To the extent reasonable and practicable, the material made available in SRO has been checked for eligibility before being made available. Copies of full text items generally can be reproduced, displayed or performed and given to third parties in any format or medium for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge, provided that the authors, title and full bibliographic details are credited, a hyperlink and/or URL is given for the original
  • Policing Large Scale Disorder: Lessons from the Disturbances of August 2011

    Policing Large Scale Disorder: Lessons from the Disturbances of August 2011

    House of Commons Home Affairs Committee Policing Large Scale Disorder: Lessons from the disturbances of August 2011 Sixteenth Report of Session 2010–12 Additional written evidence Ordered by the House of Commons to be published 22 December 2011 Published on 22 December 2011 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited The Home Affairs Committee The Home Affairs Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration, and policy of the Home Office and its associated public bodies. Current membership Rt Hon Keith Vaz MP (Labour, Leicester East) (Chair) Nicola Blackwood MP (Conservative, Oxford West and Abingdon) James Clappison MP (Conservative, Hertsmere) Michael Ellis MP (Conservative, Northampton North) Lorraine Fullbrook MP (Conservative, South Ribble) Dr Julian Huppert MP (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge) Steve McCabe MP (Labour, Birmingham Selly Oak) Rt Hon Alun Michael MP (Labour & Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth) Bridget Phillipson MP (Labour, Houghton and Sunderland South) Mark Reckless MP (Conservative, Rochester and Strood) Mr David Winnick MP (Labour, Walsall North) The following members were also members of the committee during the parliament. Mr Aidan Burley MP (Conservative, Cannock Chase) Mary Macleod MP (Conservative, Brentford and Isleworth) Powers The Committee is one of the departmental select committees, the powers of which are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No 152. These are available on the Internet via www.parliament.uk. Publication The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the Internet at www.parliament.uk/homeaffairscom.
  • Black Community Self-Narration, and Black Power for Children in the US and UK

    Black Community Self-Narration, and Black Power for Children in the US and UK

    Research on Diversity in Youth Literature Volume 3 Issue 1 Minstrelsy and Racist Appropriation Article 7 (3.1) and General Issue (3.2) April 2021 Power Primers: Black Community Self-Narration, and Black Power for Children in the US and UK Karen Sands-O'Connor Newcastle University Follow this and additional works at: https://sophia.stkate.edu/rdyl Part of the Literature in English, British Isles Commons, and the Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority Commons Recommended Citation Sands-O'Connor, Karen (2021) "Power Primers: Black Community Self-Narration, and Black Power for Children in the US and UK," Research on Diversity in Youth Literature: Vol. 3 : Iss. 1 , Article 7. Available at: https://sophia.stkate.edu/rdyl/vol3/iss1/7 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by SOPHIA. It has been accepted for inclusion in Research on Diversity in Youth Literature by an authorized editor of SOPHIA. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Sands-O'Connor: Power Primers: Black Community Self-Narration, and Black Power fo “We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present-day society. We believe in an educational system that will give to our people a knowledge of the self. If you do not have knowledge of yourself and your position in the society and in the world, then you will have little chance to know anything else” (Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, point 5). In 1966, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale created a ten-point program for their nascent Black Panther Party organization based in Oakland, California.
  • Black Oppressed People All Over the World Are One’: the British Black Panthers’ Grassroots Internationalism, 1969­1973

    Black Oppressed People All Over the World Are One’: the British Black Panthers’ Grassroots Internationalism, 1969­1973

    `Black oppressed people all over the world are one': the British Black Panthers' grassroots internationalism, 1969-1973 Article (Accepted Version) Angelo, Anne-Marie (2018) ‘Black oppressed people all over the world are one’: the British Black Panthers’ grassroots internationalism, 1969-1973. Journal of Civil and Human Rights, 4 (1). pp. 64-97. ISSN 2378-4245 This version is available from Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/65918/ This document is made available in accordance with publisher policies and may differ from the published version or from the version of record. If you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher’s version. Please see the URL above for details on accessing the published version. Copyright and reuse: Sussex Research Online is a digital repository of the research output of the University. Copyright and all moral rights to the version of the paper presented here belong to the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. To the extent reasonable and practicable, the material made available in SRO has been checked for eligibility before being made available. Copies of full text items generally can be reproduced, displayed or performed and given to third parties in any format or medium for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge, provided that the authors, title and full bibliographic details are credited, a hyperlink and/or URL is given for the original metadata page and the content is not changed in any way. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk ‘Black Oppressed People All Over the World Are One’: The British Black Panthers’ Grassroots Internationalism, 1969-1973 Anne-Marie Angelo University of Sussex Under review with The Journal of Civil and Human Rights August 2016 On March 21, 1971, over 4,500 people opposing a proposed UK government Immigration Bill marched from Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park, London to Whitehall.
  • British Black Power: the Anti-Imperialism of Political Blackness and the Problem of Nativist Socialism

    British Black Power: the Anti-Imperialism of Political Blackness and the Problem of Nativist Socialism

    King’s Research Portal DOI: 10.1177/0038026119845550 Document Version Peer reviewed version Link to publication record in King's Research Portal Citation for published version (APA): Narayan, J. (2019). British Black Power: The anti-imperialism of political blackness and the problem of nativist socialism . SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW, 67(5), 845-967. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038026119845550 Citing this paper Please note that where the full-text provided on King's Research Portal is the Author Accepted Manuscript or Post-Print version this may differ from the final Published version. If citing, it is advised that you check and use the publisher's definitive version for pagination, volume/issue, and date of publication details. And where the final published version is provided on the Research Portal, if citing you are again advised to check the publisher's website for any subsequent corrections. General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the Research Portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognize and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. •Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the Research Portal for the purpose of private study or research. •You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain •You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the Research Portal Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim.
  • An Interview with Ansel Wong

    An Interview with Ansel Wong

    Student politics, teaching politics, black politics: an interview with Ansel Wong Article (Accepted Version) Waters, Rob (2016) Student politics, teaching politics, black politics: an interview with Ansel Wong. Race and Class, 58 (1). pp. 17-33. ISSN 0306-3968 This version is available from Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/66411/ This document is made available in accordance with publisher policies and may differ from the published version or from the version of record. If you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher’s version. Please see the URL above for details on accessing the published version. Copyright and reuse: Sussex Research Online is a digital repository of the research output of the University. Copyright and all moral rights to the version of the paper presented here belong to the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. To the extent reasonable and practicable, the material made available in SRO has been checked for eligibility before being made available. Copies of full text items generally can be reproduced, displayed or performed and given to third parties in any format or medium for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge, provided that the authors, title and full bibliographic details are credited, a hyperlink and/or URL is given for the original metadata page and the content is not changed in any way. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk Student Politics, Teaching Politics, Black Politics: An Interview with Ansel Wong By Rob Waters Ansel Wong is the quiet man of British black politics, rarely in the limelight and never seeking political office.
  • Unsettling Whiteness

    Unsettling Whiteness

    Unsettling Whiteness Critical Issues Series Editors Dr Robert Fisher Lisa Howard Dr Ken Monteith Advisory Board Karl Spracklen Simon Bacon Katarzyna Bronk Stephen Morris Jo Chipperfield John Parry Ann-Marie Cook Ana Borlescu Peter Mario Kreuter Peter Twohig S Ram Vemuri Kenneth Wilson John Hochheimer A Critical Issues research and publications project. http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/critical-issues/ The Ethos Hub ‘Images of Whiteness’ 2014 Unsettling Whiteness Edited by Lucy Michael and Samantha Schulz Inter-Disciplinary Press Oxford, United Kingdom © Inter-Disciplinary Press 2014 http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/publishing/id-press/ The Inter-Disciplinary Press is part of Inter-Disciplinary.Net – a global network for research and publishing. The Inter-Disciplinary Press aims to promote and encourage the kind of work which is collaborative, innovative, imaginative, and which provides an exemplar for inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission of Inter-Disciplinary Press. Inter-Disciplinary Press, Priory House, 149B Wroslyn Road, Freeland, Oxfordshire. OX29 8HR, United Kingdom. +44 (0)1993 882087 ISBN: 978-1-84888-282-9 First published in the United Kingdom in eBook format in 2014. First Edition. Table of Contents Introduction Unsettling Whiteness: Disruptions and (Re)Locations vii Lucy Michael and Samantha Schulz Part 1 Unsettling Histories The Whitened Face as a Visual Gap: Thoughts and Methods 3 Wiebke Leister The Appropriation of the Scottish ‘Other’ as a Race within White Culture in Anthropology 11 Sawsan Samara Images of White Womanhood in Contemporary Narratives of Middle Eastern Captivity 23 Youssef Boutahar The White Women Abroad: Complicity or Resistance 33 Carol L.
  • Fairies, Feminists & Queer Anarchists: Geographies of Squatting In

    Fairies, Feminists & Queer Anarchists: Geographies of Squatting In

    FAIRIES, FEMINISTS & QUEER ANARCHISTS: Geographies of squatting in Brixton, south London Milo Bettocchi Thesis submitted to the University of Nottingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Geography 7 January 2021 Approx. 87,000 words Abstract This thesis assembles cultural, historical, political, affective and infrastructural geographies of squatting in Brixton, south London. It does so to spatialise the complex material and affective processes through which identities, collectivities and political projects are assembled, negotiated and navigated; to document vital spaces, histories, dynamics, political lineages and struggles which the literature on squatting in England has overlooked; and to critically interrogate and expand how squatting in England has been conceptualised. In pursuing these aims, this thesis insists on and demonstrates the co-constitution of the spatial and the political. Where work on squatting in England has largely concentrated on a narrow range of collectives, spaces and time periods and has neglected how squatting has intersected with anti-racist, decolonial, feminist and LGBTQ struggles and politics, this thesis responds to these gaps. Chapters focus on what became known in the 1970s as the Brixton Gay Community, an experiment in communal living and revolutionary politics by gay men; on the Brixton Black Women’s Group, a socialist, anti-imperialist feminist organisation active in the 1970s and 1980s; on Queeruption, an anarchist queer festival organised out of a squat in the late 1990s; and on the House of Brag, a queer squatting collective active between 2012 and 2014. I argue that thinking squatting through these can profoundly reframe our understandings of squatting. To this end, I have drawn on 24 original interviews as well as on a broad range of archival material.