Essay Question: “Rioting has become a term which simultaneously both connotes race and naturalizes the need for strengthened measures of social control for the contemporary British city”. Discuss.
Date: 27th March 2007
Rioting has played an important role in the debates surrounding ethnic minorities in Britain. While urban disturbances are interpreted in the context of political climate, also they bring new political discourses. This report, at first, will examine the history of the urban disturbances which has connoted race and raised the strengthened social control since the 1958 events. Then, using the example of the Handsworth riots in 1985 and the Lozells riots in 2005 as case studies, it will discuss how the riots are racialised and who plays a central part in the events. What are the differences in reactions towards the two disturbances which took place in the same place?
