The ‘peaks and troughs’ of societal violence: Revisiting the actions of Turkish and Kurdish shopkeepers during the 2011 London riots
Article
Dona, G. and Taylor, Helen 2015. The ‘peaks and troughs’ of societal violence: Revisiting the actions of Turkish and Kurdish shopkeepers during the 2011 London riots. Sociological Research Online. 20 (1).
Authors | Dona, G. and Taylor, Helen |
---|---|
Abstract | This article examines an instance of contained violence during the 2011 riots in London, when Turkish and Kurdish ‘shopkeepers’ in Dalston, East London prevented rioters from entering the area. Introducing a ‘peaks’ and ‘troughs’ approach to the sociological study of violence, the article argues that we need to look at the troughs of non-violence in order to understand the peaks of violence and vice-versa. Based on a small-scale empirical study, this article also shows that contrary to the dominant representation of social actors playing fixed roles during social unrest, we found shifting positions and blurred boundaries in the drama of the 2011 riots. The paper demonstrates that the instance of contained violence in Dalston was informed by three types of reverberations. Firstly, we identified anticipatory reverberations, as the shopkeepers were aware of concurrent events elsewhere in London and, as a result, anticipated rioting in Dalston. Secondly, we saw experiential reverberations, as they used their own experience of unrest in Turkey to inform their behaviour. Finally, the representation of the action of the shopkeepers in traditional and social media may have contributed to the containment of violence elsewhere in England, suggesting representational reverberations. |
Journal | Sociological Research Online |
Journal citation | 20 (1) |
ISSN | 1360-7804 |
Year | 2015 |
Publisher | SAGE Publications |
Accepted author manuscript | License CC BY-NC |
Web address (URL) | http://www.socresonline.org.uk/20/1/4.html |
Publication dates | |
27 Feb 2015 | |
Publication process dates | |
Deposited | 07 Jul 2016 |
Copyright information | © 2015 The author |
https://repository.uel.ac.uk/item/85716
Download files
185
total views345
total downloads0
views this month0
downloads this month