Men, Masculinities and Violence

An ethnographic study

Anthony Ellis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781138819092
• eBook ISBN: 9781317593270
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

The BSC Critical Criminology Network's Book of the Year 2016

Why do some men use physical violence against others? How do some men come to value physical violence as a resource? Drawing on in-depth ethnographic research conducted with men involved in serious violence and crime over a period of two years in the North of England, Anthony Ellis addresses these questions and the complex relationship between these men and their use of physical violence against others.

Using detailed life-history interviews and extended periods of observation with these men, Men, Masculinities and Violence describes their 'inner' subjective lives and experiences, exploring how they came to value violence, why they are willing to use it against others and risk serious harm to themselves in the process. Over the course of the book a picture emerges of a group of men that have experienced and perpetrated serious violence throughout their lives. This book advances a critical psychosocial understanding of such violence by situating these masculine biographies within their immediate contexts of de-industrialisation, fracturing working class community and culture, and broader shifts within the political economy of liberal capitalism.

With its synthesis of rich ethnographic material and new developments in criminological theory, this book is essential reading for students and academics interested in issues of gender and violence.

1 Let's get ready to rumble

DOI: 10.4324/9781315744827-1

One morning, a few months into 2014, I was driving to the supermarket. The route I had chosen was a familiar one, taking me through a community that I know fairly well. The secondary school that I attended many years ago is located about half a mile away, and for a period of several years I had lived on a housing estate that is only physically separated from this community by a large and very busy dual carriageway. It is a community that has suffered considerably during the past several decades. At the end of the 1980s, two large coal mines located in nearby villages were closed – two mines that had historically provided generations of local people, men in particular, with abundant and stable employment. In the 1990s a nearby river flooded, forcing many local families out of their homes. Despite calls in the aftermath to improve flood defences, the river flooded for a second time several years later. Once again, many families were forced into temporary accommodation, in some cases for several months while their homes were made habitable again.

As I headed towards the supermarket I drove down the main high street where the few businesses still operating in the area are located, having to stop at the traffic lights as they turned from green to red. This street is the main road which runs through the heart of the community, connecting it to adjacent areas and the nearby motorway network. At the height of the flooding, most of the street had been under several feet of water and you can still see water marks almost four feet high on some of the walls of the buildings that line the street. The main street itself contains a pub, where on particularly warm days large groups of men and a few women will congregate on the pavement outside, drinking and smoking. A little further up the road from the pub is a fast-food takeaway, which never seems to have anyone in it but, I have been told, does an excellent curry. While a little further down the road from the pub a newsagent has recently opened in what had been, prior to its opening, a dour derelict building bearing all the classic physical features of community decline.

As I waited at the traffic lights, trying to remember what I needed to buy from the supermarket, I noticed in the periphery of my vision sudden frantic movement; the kind of movement that immediately draws your gaze because you sense potential threat in it. As I turned my head to look out of my window, I was confronted with two adult men fighting in a bus shelter located at the side of the road. As is most ‘real’ violence it was a desperate, painfully unskilled contest. One of the men was dressed in a t-shirt, jeans and boots, and had a shaven head; I estimated his age at around early 40s. His opponent was shorter in height, looked slightly younger and was probably aged early to mid-30s. He had short dark hair, and was dressed in jeans, a hoodie and trainers. The two were swinging punches wildly at each other, with most of their punches failing to properly connect. The older fighter then threw a punch which landed on his younger opponent's chin. The impact of the blow forced his opponent to stagger backwards into the shelter, leaving him momentarily slumped on the bench inside. The landing of the crucial blow brought the wild flailing of arms to an abrupt halt. The slumped male attempted to stand up, but his legs seemed to give way slightly as he fell back onto the bench. As the lights shifted to green and I began to move forward slowly, still transfixed on the two individuals, I faintly heard an exchange of words between them, with the older, victorious male shouting something to the effect of ‘Shouldn't have fucking started should you?’

This book provides an account of an ethnographic research project that explored the lives of men who use interpersonal violence against others. This incident happened after I had completed my research, so some time had elapsed since my immersion in the lives of the men who had participated and I had finally been able to begin focusing my thoughts on things other than violence and masculinity. The ethnographic research that informs this book and supports the theoretical arguments it advances, was carried out over a prolonged period with a group of men who had grown up, and continued to reside, in what had been staunchly working-class communities in northern England. Like the place I found myself in that morning as I made my way to the supermarket, these are com munities that have been devastated by the collapse of heavy industry and its allied socialist politics following de-industrialisation. As I unexpectedly bore witness to this incident, it was like the sudden abrupt and unannounced return of the repressed, which had slowly begun to drift from my thoughts. It was a stark reminder, not that I needed it, that there are still many individuals, particularly men, whose lives are affected by the use of interpersonal violence. This is a book about the lives of men like this, the violence they perpetrate against others, and why they do this. To begin, I feel it is necessary to provide a rationale for the importance and significance of a book that addresses these issues in the contemporary context.

First of all, it is in no way contentious to claim that men commit the majority of recorded and unrecorded interpersonal violent crime (DeKeseredy and Schwartz, 2005; Wykes and Welsh, 2009). And second to this, neither is it ‘contentious to claim that the majority of these men come from working-class, marginalised or excluded social locations’ (Winlow, 2012, p. 203). The validity of these two statements is borne out by a large amount of empirical evidence: men are far more likely than women to commit violence (Wykes and Welsh, 2009) with the evidence indicating strongly that young, economically marginalised men, are the most likely perpetrators (Hall, 2002; Ray, 2011; Zedner, 2002). Though paradoxically, these trends are mirrored when one looks at violent victimisation, as socio-economically marginalised men are more likely to be victims of violence, particularly in public settings (Wykes and Welsh, 2009).

Some recent data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW; formerly British Crime Survey) supports these aforementioned trends. The risk of being a victim of violent crime¹ was highest for young men aged 16–24 and the same group were found to be most likely to commit violence (Office for National Statistics, 2013). These patterns of victimisation and offending are consistent with those uncovered in previous measurement periods (see Hall and Innes, 2010; Roe et al., 2009), with the 2008/2009 sweep indicating that the risks of violent victimisation are highest for those experiencing a variety of indicators of deprivation: including living in social-rented housing, in communities with high levels of poverty, and not being in employment (Roe et al., 2009).

There are of course methodological issues associated with the data sources cited here and their potential to accurately measure various violent crimes (see Ray, 2011; Walby and Myhill, 2001; Wykes and Welsh, 2009). Yet, the overwhelming involvement of men in violent crime has become something of a criminological truism and ‘possibly the nearest that Criminology has come to producing an indisputable fact’ (Hall, 2002, p. 36). These patterns of men's violence are neither specific to the contemporary period nor only to England and Wales. Men's use of interpersonal violence is a global issue (Hautzinger, 2003), transcending both cultural contexts and historical epochs (Emsley, 2005a, 2005b; Eisner, 2011; Nivette, 2011; Spierenburg, 1998, 2008; Wykes and Welsh, 2009). However, available historical evidence points strongly towards a gradual shift in the socio-economic composition of men using physical forms of violence. Regular physical confrontations and highly ritualised duels once common among groups of socially elite men became increasingly less prevalent from the seventeenth century onwards, as Spierenburg (2008, p. 66) explains:

Dueling did not stay fashionable enough to prevent the gradual pacification of the upper and middle classes . . . Many lower-class men, on the other hand . . . stood ready to attack those who insulted or hindered them.

Despite a strong evidence base linking men to the use of interpersonal violence, criminology has been slow to explore the nature of these links. Masculinity, and its relationship to offending, has remained marginalised within criminological thinking, despite its obvious salience within patterns of offending and victimisation. This is not to deny the recent, though long overdue, advancements that have been made in the study of men, masculinities and crime since the early 1990s, which has generated a substantial body of literature and empirically-based research that will be examined in Chapter 2. However, even within sections of the more recent violence literature, the pressing necessity for a critical engagement with questions of masculine subjectivity in the perpetration of violence have often been sidelined and obfuscated at the expense of other variables/issues that were granted greater explanatory credence, such as youth, race, ‘gangs’, and troublingly, victim/women blaming (Howe, 2008; Wykes and Welsh, 2009). And so, questions of gender within criminology have often continued to be associated with what women do, rather than with what men do, think and feel (Collier, 1998).

Like gender though, social class is also a marginalised discourse within criminology, although this has not always been the case. Once a fulcrum of criminological and sociological theorising, academic interest in social class has slowly dissipated amid the growing hegemony of postmodernist theories across the social sciences. The transition in Western societies into a ‘postmodern’ epoch has contributed greatly to the effective marginalisation of discourses around social class within political and everyday rhetoric more generally (see Charlesworth, 2000; Hall, 2012a). Changing patterns of consumption, demographics, and alterations to traditional labour markets, have led some commentators and scholars to suggest that classificatory mechanisms and analytical frameworks based around social class are no longer useful or relevant. This has been extremely damaging for criminological theory and its ability to adequately grasp the subjective motivations that underpin criminality (Hall, 2012a), particularly crimes involving violence, given the aforementioned socio-economic backgrounds of most persistently violent offenders.

Despite some progression, then, in the study of men, masculinities and violence, there remains much more to be said and understood about this complex relationship. Making a contribution towards exploring these issues is a primary aim of this book. Before discussing the book's content, and the ethnographic research upon which it is based, in more detail, I will briefly outline the contemporary scholarly and socio-economic political contexts that frame what is discussed here, as these have been significant in determining the book's focus and theoretical orientation.

Violent times? Post-crash crime and criminology

The research for, and the writing of, this book took place at a time when overall recorded crime rates were reported to be falling in the UK and across the globe. Predictably, some politicians have spoken proudly of the success of their law and order mandates in reducing crime rates, while some criminologists have been quick to start considering the reasons behind the ‘drop’; particularly as these trends have continued in the midst of one of the worst economic recessions of recent times, when it was anticipated that crime rates would actually increase. It is not my intention here to engage in a lengthy critical debate about the validity of the ‘crime drop’ discourse and the methodological rigour of the survey data that is being used to support it. However, a brief cursory discussion of some important issues in relation to this is worthwhile to help formulate the context for this book and the arguments I will make in it.

Significantly, rates of interpersonal violence were reported to have followed this broader trend of decline. Commenting on findings from the UK Peace Index showing declining rates of violent crime, the BBC's Home Affairs Editor Mark Easton has suggested recently that the findings might indicate the emergence of a growing peacefulness and potentially a new morality that is increasingly repugnant towards violence (BBC, 2013). This certainly is an interesting set of trends, but caution is required, as overall rates of violence and criminality when measured nationally/internationally mask concentrations of crime within particular localities and spaces. Research indicates that the majority of violent crime tends to occur in highly specific geographical spaces and communities (see Ray, 2011). The findings acknowledge the places in the UK with the highest concentrations of recorded violence, those being several highly deprived urban areas experiencing multiple disadvantages. Yet, quite contradictorily, the report then seemingly rejects evidence that inequality is a predictor of violence. Moreover, disappointingly, there was no further discussion of the conditions and issues impacting those deprived and marginalised communities that continue to experience frequent violence and criminality. One must ask, is regular exposure to violence not an inequality in itself? And is this not an issue worthy of consideration for its potential impact upon those who routinely experience violence and intimidation? The report also seemed to quite conveniently circumvent the weight of evidence that indicates violence often takes place within familial and social/ communal networks of individuals known to each other (see Stanko, 1990; Wykes and Welsh, 2009). These relationships and contexts within which inter personal violence most frequently take place, actually constrain attempts to uncover the extent of it, while at the same time providing victims with little incentive to come forward and report the violence they are experiencing.

Regardless of any reported statistical declines in criminality, the inescapable reality is that for the individuals who occupy communities where violence and crime are regular features, like the men involved in this study, evidence of a crime drop is distinctly absent. For men like those who you will meet in the following pages, they are unlikely to report instances of crime or violence. As data presented in the later chapters of this book will indicate, violence and the threat of it (however real or imagined), has remained an enduring feature of these men's biographies. Violence is not ‘alien’ to these men, but is more akin to a structuring force that is negotiated routinely (see Stanko, 1990). The genuine possibility of encountering violence is something that they attempt to face stoically, with their own personal resources. The men involved in this study, and those communities where crime and violence are visibly present, are the largely forgotten and neglected groups of much recent criminological theorising and research (Hall, 2012a). Unfortunately, the ‘crime drop’ discourse appears to be in danger of further glossing over the realities and disadvantages of everyday life for marginalised populations. Although we may be witnessing a genuine fall in overall crime rates, this should not be taken as an opportunity to celebrate victory in what has been a lengthy ‘war on crime’. Early in 2014 police recorded crime figures, for many years deemed a fairly reliable indicator of crime rates when combined with national victim survey data, lost the approval of the UK Statistics Authority amid concerns of unreliability (Casciani, 2014). Despite the evident need to err on the side of caution when interpreting these figures, we have instead already seen subtle attempts by political elites to seize upon these trends in order to give further justification for certain agendas (primarily austerity measures) with the former Home Office Minister Norman Baker suggesting recently that now ‘there is less for police to do’ (BBC, 2014).

Further to this, when one takes into account the West's current socio-economic and political context that constitutes the backdrop to these discussions, the whole notion of a ‘crime drop’ is perplexing. Quite unbelievably, few criminologists, with the exception of a small contingent of critical scholars (see Burdis and Tombs, 2012; Hall, 2012a), have had anything to say about the various harmful (criminal?) practices that actually plunged the economy into recession, and the various ‘harms’ that have resulted from this incredibly deep and complex global economic decline; unemployment and austerity are just two examples. Yet still, debate about a miraculous ‘crime drop’ has continued during the post-crash period when widespread and multifarious harms² and crimes continue to take place globally, and are being uncovered, reported on, and which have emerged from economic and political systems, and from the actions of individuals; for instance: the ‘expenses’ scandal within British Parliament; the transatlantic banking crisis and the uncompromising levels of corporate dishonesty and recklessness that contributed to this; the ‘phone hacking’ scandal involving several high-profile tabloid newspapers and journalists; the routine sexual abuse of children and young people, some involving high profile public figures, that have highlighted systemic failures on the part of police and social services to properly investigate, prosecute offenders and protect victims; ongoing political in...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Glossary of terms
• 1 Let’s get ready to rumble
• 2 Theorising masculinities and violence: a review
• 3 Top lad: a violent biography
• 4 Born to fight
• 5 Handy lads
• 6 It’s ‘not me’ … it’s ‘them’: violent reflections
• 7 Shadow world
• 8 Rolling with the punches
• References
• Index