The hidden morale of the 2005 French and 2011 English riots

Abstract

This essay reconstructs the normative core of the recent European riots, when young rebels reacted to the disregard for their civic claims to equal treatment. Referring to the available data and facts, the essay uses the example of the two biggest riots in contemporary French and British history to show that prevailing analyses only grasp certain aspects of these events: these riots were primarily neither ‘race riots’, ‘issueless riots’ nor ‘riots of defective consumers’. Nourished in particular by experiences with the police and the school system in the urban districts from which the rioters recruited, rage was directed against the symbols and embodiments of a state that has failed to live up to its promise of equality. It is the everyday undermining of the principle of their equality as citizens and the physically experienced violation of minimum constitutional standards that best explain the motivations of those participating in the riots.

Rethinking marketplace culture: Play and the context of context

“…The games of disorder discussed across the marketplace culture literature highlight underlying tensions of ideological oppression (Kozinets, 2002;Schouten and McAlexander, 1995) and desire for more agentic experiences within structured society (Anchor, 1978). Similar transgressive play behaviours reported across the cultural criminology and sociology literatures are discussed as outburst of resistance that signifies unstable times (Briggs, 2012;Moxon, 2011;Sutterlüty, 2014;Treadwell et al, 2013;Ž ižek and Fiennes, 2012). Burke (1971) claimed, 'what art, religion and philosophy are for the few, play is for the many: a free, intrinsically satisfying activity governed by rules of man's own making and giving rise to a finite, meaningful world that man can call his own'.…”

Rum, politik och ”meningslösa” upplopp. Ungdomsupplopp i Stockholm 1948–1965

“…Det går dessutom enkelt att dra historiska linjer både bakåt till 1800-talets 76. Sutterlüty 2014, s. 50-51. 77.…”

A People’s History of Riots, Protest and the Law

“…Th ese riots and the people who took part in them were political (Akram 2014 ;Platts-Fowler 2013 ;Sutterluty 2014, Slater 2015. Th is is evident from the above statements, although 'the casting of the 2011 riots as non-political was initially ubiquitous' ( Harvie and Milburn 2013 , 561); since then the voices claiming a political continuity between these events and others elsewhere or in history have grown stronger.…”