Young people and violent territorial conflict: exclusion culture and the search for identity

Bannister, J., Pickering, J. and Kintrea, K. (2013) Young people and violent territorial conflict: exclusion culture and the search for identity. Journal of Youth Studies, 16(4), (doi: 10.1080/13676261.2012.725835)

Abstract

This paper strives to explain the enactment and persistence of violent territorial conflict between groups of young people (predominantly young men) from neighbourhoods of multiple disadvantage. Young people clearly recognise that participating in violent territorial conflict risks severe injury, restricted mobility and criminalisation. So what are these young people fighting for? Drawing on the findings of an empirical study of young people and territoriality in six locations across Britain, this paper explores the risks and rewards that young people attach to violent territorial conflict. It finds that the rewards of such behaviour are articulated by young people in terms of respect, protection and excitement. However, these accounts should not be accepted at face value. The enactment of violent territorial practices requires to be interpreted as being framed by the structural exclusions manifest, and the cultural responses embedded, in these neighbourhoods. Moreover, violent territorial conflict requires to be understood as a socio-spatial practice that serves to secure and fuse important aspects of individual, social and place-based identities.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Bannister, Mr Jonathan and Kintrea, Professor Keith and Pickering, Mr Jonathan
• Authors: Bannister, J., Pickering, J., and Kintrea, K.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Urban Studies
• Journal Name: Journal of Youth Studies
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis
• ISSN: 1367-6261
• ISSN (Online): 1469-9680
• Published Online: 03 October 2012