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Reframing Urban Street Culture Towards a Dynamic and Heuristic See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325725270 Reframing urban street culture: Towards a dynamic and heuristic process model Article · June 2018 DOI: 10.1016/j.ccs.2018.05.003 CITATIONS READS 4 84 1 author: Jeffrey Ian Ross University of Baltimore 149 PUBLICATIONS 1,296 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: Understanding Street Culture View project The Popular Culture of Corrections View project All content following this page was uploaded by Jeffrey Ian Ross on 31 July 2019. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. City, Culture and Society 15 (2018) 7–13 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect City, Culture and Society journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ccs Reframing urban street culture: Towards a dynamic and heuristic process model T ∗ Jeffrey Ian Rossa,b, a School of Criminal Justice, University of Baltimore, 1420 North Charles St., Baltimore, MD, United States b Visiting Professor, Kriminologie, Kriminalpolitik, Polizeiwissenschaft, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany ABSTRACT The fields of criminology/criminal justice have periodically used the term and concept of urban street culture to explain selected types of street crime and gang behavior. This article argues that this characterization of street culture is too narrow, and that the concept has wider applicability to urban processes, including urban studies, urban anthropology, and urban geography. In so doing, this article briefly reviews the concept of street culture, including relevant research on this topic, argues that a dynamic process model is necessary, and then proposes one that is heuristic and dynamic in nature. The model consists of five major components that explain street culture, including street capital, competing cultural influences, mass media/cultural industries, social media, and street crime. These elements account for the complexity of street culture, and are assembled in a manner that allows for future hypothesis testing and theory building. 1. Introduction1 interact with this built environment. This requires adaptations that people and organizations make to deal with the challenges of this en- The streets of our inner cities are deceptively complex places. Some vironment. Streets can be understood on different levels. They can be are primarily located in residential areas, others have businesses lo- interpreted from geospatial, economic (e.g., business), usability, and cated along them, and many others run through mixed-use neighbor- also cultural approaches.2 It is important to understand that the street is hoods. In order to get from one place to another, people use the streets not just the barrio, ghetto, hood, inner city, slums, or disadvantaged or to drive on, the sidewalks adjoining them to walk on, and the back impoverished areas of big cities.3 Streets are part of every big city alleys to gain access to the structures that exist on the streets (e.g., where residents work, live, and conduct commerce. Goffman, 1956). But what I have described here is a structural and Interactions on the street are mediated by a number of important functional arrangement. factors (Goffman, 1967). One of the most critical components is the Ever since humans decided to live and work in cities, streets have physical place/urban space. Knowledge regarding this context is typi- increasingly become the setting for numerous activities (e.g., trans- cally embedded in the subjects and fields of architecture, and urban portation, commerce, socialization, etc.), including acting as a source of planning and theory (Campbell & Fainstein, 2011; Fainstein & inspiration for many different expressions of culture. Culture consists of Campbell, 2011). Although these broad perspectives are important, both visible components, like behaviors and clothing, and less notice- they are relatively silent on the meaning and effects of the street. Short able aspects, like language and attitudes. Part of this dynamic are of the obvious observations, such as streets being dominant venues for people's (both participants and observers) unique interactions in urban transportation, we need to look to other kinds of explanations and contexts (Abrahamson, 1974; Goffman, 1967; Jacobs, 1961; Wirth, contextual factors, such as culture. One of the most important aspects is 1938), including but not limited to their relationship with the street. the culture that emanates from the street, or more specifically urban Throughout the 24 hour lifecycle of the street, numerous individuals street culture,orstreet culture for short.4 ∗ School of Criminal Justice, University of Baltimore, 1420 North Charles St., Baltimore, MD, United States. E-mail address: [email protected]. 1 An earlier version of this paper was delivered at Institut für interdisziplinäre Konflikt- und Gewaltforschung (IKG), University of Bielefeld, June 20, 2017. 2 See, for example, Matthews (2003), who discusses the street as a transitional space for children. 3 For an early discussion that attempts to distinguish between the ghetto and slum, see for example, Lind (1930). See also Lewis (1968) for a depiction of “the slum.” And Wirth (1928/ 1997) for a description of “the ghetto.” 4 The terms urban street culture and street culture are used interchangeably throughout this paper. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccs.2018.05.003 Received 2 August 2017; Received in revised form 26 March 2018; Accepted 15 May 2018 Available online 12 June 2018 1877-9166/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. J.I. Ross City, Culture and Society 15 (2018) 7–13 Before continuing, however, it might be helpful to define the term. culture: Achieving a consistent definition of street culture is difficult.5 One of A. Is alluded to in many classic studies of urban gangs and juvenile the reasons for this state of affairs is the frequent reliance in con- delinquency, staples of the fields of criminology, criminal justice, and temporary popular culture on the phrase street culture.6 sociology. Embedded in this literature is a respectable body of scholarly A handful of scholars have attempted to create a definition. work which mentions, either in passing or in greater detail, the street Anderson (1999/2000), for example, defines street culture as “a set of culture concept. informal rules governing interpersonal public behavior, particularly B. Impacts a large percentage of the population of most countries. violence… [which provide] a rationale allowing those who are inclined Since World War Two, if not earlier, the greatest concentrations of to aggression to precipitate violent encounters in an approved way” (p. populations in most countries throughout the world have been in urban 33). Anderson privileges the notion of violence and behavior in his cities. This is as true for the United States as it is for the People's definition of street culture.7 Alternatively, Bourgois (2003) argues that Republic of China. street culture “is a complex and conflictual web of beliefs, symbols, C. Influences art, graffiti/street art (Ferrell, 1996; Ross, 2016), modes of interaction, values and ideologies that have emerged in the clothing/fashion (Polhemus, 2010), lifestyles, and elements of popular opposition to exclusion from mainstream society” (p. 8).8 Bourgois culture,12 more specifically being a source of ideas for cultural com- emphasizes the oppositional nature of the street culture concept. Fi- modities that are bought, sold, listened to, viewed, etc. (e.g., music, nally, Ilan (2015) defines street culture as the “values, dispositions food, dance, music, literature, etc.).13 The themes of the street and the practices and styles associated with particular sections of disadvantaged cultures that embody it are readily visible in numerous aspect of mer- urban populations” (p. 8; p. 169). In terms of its causation, Ilan states chandise that is offered for sale. Otherwise, street culture is con- that street culture is a “product of social, economic and cultural ex- veniently used as part of the visual and sensory backdrop in the mes- clusion …. a process of attempts to remain viable, thriving and include sages used to sell many of the products that citizens consume. within a specific street milieu” (p. 3). This definition implies that street D. Contributes to street crime. A number of studies that this paper culture is primarily a behavior of poor and marginalized people. touches on include the possibility that street culture is a causal factor in Although these definitions are an important start to understanding the commission of street crime; and, finally. street culture, they are relatively narrow. I prefer a definition that E. Affects the commission of street violence. When we examine the builds on Anderson, Bourgois, and Ilan. Thus, I define street culture as connection between street crime and street culture, a disproportionate the beliefs, dispositions, ideologies, informal rules, practices, styles, symbols, amount of it appears to violent crime. and values associated with, adopted by, and engaged in by individuals and organizations that spend a disproportionate amount of time on the streets of 3. Literature review/previous attempts to explain street culture large urban centers.9 In many respects street culture embodies Bourdieu's notion of habitus (1977), which explains how people perceive the world Over time, due to a constellation of factors, each human entity in around them and how they react, including their body postures.10 the world develops
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