The stigmatised and de-valued working class: the state of a

council estate

It is widely recognised that over the last thirty years in the

United Kingdom there has been a distinct movement towards neo-

liberal politics, public and social policy. The argument that

Britain has become a progressive one vision polity since 1979

with the election of Margaret Thatcher followed by 18 years of

conservative neo-liberalism, ensued by 13 years of Tony

Blair’s ‘Third Way New Labour’1 became more robust during the

general election result in May 2010. With what appeared to be

a further move to the right when the Conservative Party joined

with the Liberal Democrat Party to form a coalition government

after New Labour’s election defeat. Although 2010 is a clear

and distinctive point in mapping where the UK currently sits

socially, politically, and economically, the experiences of

suffering, disadvantage, and real hardships have always been a

significant part of the story for the British working class.

Inequalities and social class disadvantage are embedded in the

political and social history of Britain as demonstrated in the

works of Friedrich Engels, E. P Thomson, George Orwell,

Richard Hoggart, Richard Titmuss, and Peter Townsend to name

only a few of the social historians, political commentators

and sociologists who have been concerned about the condition

of the British working class over many generations.

This chapter focuses upon a community in Nottingham, St Anns,

a council estate housing 15,000 people, who rely upon social

housing and public services to as they say ‘keep their heads

above water’. The families who rely upon public services,

welfare benefits and social housing are the poorest and most

disadvantaged people in Britain, and are now being subject to

harsh cuts in their welfare benefits, and local services. They

are also the most vulnerable to unemployment caused by

shrinking the size of the public sector, as they were also the

most vulnerable to the loss of the manufacturing industries in

the early 1980’s under the Thatcher Government. This has lead

to a situation where there are families living on council

estates who have not known regular and stable paid work since

the loss of security that the manufacturing industries

provided within Britain for working class people. Consequently

there has been a significant change in representation, of how

council estates and working class people who live in them have

been negatively re-branded and stigmatised over the last 30

years with successive Conservative and New Labour

Governments2 .Being a resident of a council estate in the UK in

this century has a different meaning from being a resident of

a council estate in the last century when social housing was

connected to the employed working class, keeping extended

families close together, and allowing communities to grow

around work, and local services3. The working class residents

who live on council estates today are not a homogenous group

as they are often portrayed; they are also no longer employed

within similar and traditional occupations. The residents of

council estates in the UK are made up of those who work in

what is left of the traditional industries employing working

class people, factory work, warehouses, and low level

engineering, however there are new service industries which

have provided employment albeit low paid, and often part-time

in local authorities as teaching assistants, youth workers,

childcare assistants and also within the large chain operated

supermarkets. However because of the changes in social housing

policy4 there are a large and significant group who are not

employed either through sickness, disability or unemployment.

However there is a cultural element to being working class in

the UK, which is as significant to class inequality as the

economic material forces which produce it. Skeggs5 (2005)

argues that the consequences of stigmatisation, and re-

branding the working class as valueless, are central in

producing new ways of exploitation through the fields of

culture, and media, inventing new forms of class

differentiation which are being produced through processes of

symbolic violence6. The research I have undertaken over the

last 7 years in St Anns in Nottingham has allowed me to focus

upon a community through a time of adversity, when working

class people are suffering from the consequences of increasing

class inequality, class prejudiced, and the harshest of

austerity measures.

Although Engels in 18447 recognises that class inequality can

be linked to living space, but also how the restriction of

space can be responsible for poor working conditions, poor

health, and insanitary conditions. In 2012 we can add that

‘limited space’ is also social and linked to value, who has

the space to be valued, and become a person of value, and who

1 Savage S, Atkinson R (2001) Public Policy Under Blair p.5, London: Palgrave

is limited through class prejudice and class inequality and

consequently de-valued. It is a painful recognition that there

is still the need to highlight, critique, and argue that class

inequality is as relevant to British society, and British

identity in 2012 as it was in 1844 when Engels documented that

unfettered capitalism was responsible for ‘the brutal

indifference, the unfeeling isolation of each in his private

2 Skeggs B. (2005) ‘The Re-branding of class: Propertising culture’ in Devine F., Savage M., Scott J., Crompton R. (2005)Rethinking class, cultures, identities and lifestyle, Hampshire: Palgrave

Skeggs B. (2004) Class self and culture, London: Routledge

Haylett (2003) Culture, class and Urban Policy: Reconsidering Inequality, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing

Haylett C. (2001) 'Illegitimate Subjects? Abject Whites, Neo-Liberal Modernisation and Middle Class Multiculturalism', Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 19 (3) pp.351-370.

Haylett C. (2000) 'Modernisation, Welfare and 'Third Way' Politics: limits to theorising in 'thirds'?' Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 26: (1) p.43-56.

Lawler S. (2008) Identity; Sociological Perspectives, Cambridge: Polity

3 Welshman J. (2006) Underclass: a history of the excluded 1880-2000 London: Hambledon Continuum

4 Malpass P. Murie A. Pp. 82-86 (1999) Housing Policy and Practice Hampshire: Palgrave

5 Skeggs B. (2005) ‘The Re-branding of class: Propertising culture’ pp.48-50 in Devine F., Savage M., Scott J., CromptonR. (2005) Rethinking class, cultures, identities and lifestyle, Hampshire: Palgrave

6 Bourdieu, P. (1977) Outline of a theory of practice, p.192 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

interest’ noting that ‘space’ becomes limited, and the poor

are crowded together as they become more repellent and

offensive.

The study

The St Anns estate is one of the poorest 10% of neighbourhoods

in the UK today8, and has a long history with social research,

and community studies. Ken Coates and Bill Silburn first

brought to light the poor conditions the people of St Anns

were living in, raising their children, and working in during

the study ‘Poverty: The Forgotten Englishmen’ which was

undertaken during the early 1960’s9. Ken Coates and Bill

Silburn conducted this study in response to a paper published

by Peter Townsend in the British Journal of Sociology in 1954

raising serious questions relating to government assurances

that poverty had been eliminated in the UK during the 1950’s

through social policy, full employment for men and the welfare

state. Townsend and Coates and Silburn argued that instead of

poverty being eliminated it was taking on new forms, through

the tensions between the new demands of the individual

consumer and the need for basic public amenities. Coates and

Silburn 10argued that must ‘the new society always be typified

7 Engels F. (1845/1987) The Condition of The Working Class in England London: Penguin

by private affluence and public squalor’, when in 1965 they

discovered that the consequences of poverty was still being

lived by many sections of the British working class, and

within St Anns in Nottingham.

Over decades, this neighbourhood has been subject to a number

of harsh social realities: loss of manufacturing jobs in the

city leading to unemployment and insecure low paid work, and

the lack of social goods such as decent housing and education

for a changing workforce. Locally, it has become stigmatised

with a reputation as a place to avoid, supposedly full of

crime and drugs, single mums, and benefit claimants. Through

media reporting relating to gun and gang related crime on the

estate in recent years, and the perception nationally that

council estates have become holding pens for the undeserving

poor11, St Anns in Nottingham has gained the reputation as a

place to avoid. The neighbourhood also has a long history as

the place where the poorest and migrant workers have resided

in Nottingham; people from Ireland, the West Indies, Italy,

8 Office for National Statistics (2010) The English Indices of Deprivation 2010, London: HMSO Communities and Local Government Publication

9 Coates, K. and Silburn, R. (1970) Poverty the Forgotten Englishmen,London: Penguin Books

10 Coates, K. and Silburn, R. (1970) Poverty the Forgotten Englishmen,London: Penguin Books (1970 pp25-28)

11 Rogaly, B. And Taylor, B. (2009) Moving Histories, of Class and CommunityLondon: Palgrave Macmillan

Poland, and South East Asia have been documented as living in

St Anns since the early 1950s12. The neighbourhood has always

been in flux, with people moving in and then, as they become

more financially secure, often moving out. However the West

Indian and especially Jamaican populations who arrived from

the 1950s have stayed constant, creating homes, families, and

communities, alongside a large population of migrant people

from Ireland, and the existing English working class

residents. Therefore the estate today is mostly made up of

families which have been St Anns residents for several

generations, with a high percentage of mixing from both white

and black families on the estate, which was the motivation for

this research 7 years ago13 .

The initial research in 2005 focused upon a group of 35 women

who are white and are mothers to mixed-race children living on

the estate. The study examined how this group of women find

value for themselves and their families when the place where

they live and they themselves are often represented as spaces12 Coates, K. and Silburn, R. (1970) Poverty the Forgotten Englishmen,London: Penguin Books (1970 pp25-28)

Solomos J. (2003) Race and Racism in Britain third edition, Hampshire: Palgrave,

Johns, R. (2002) St Anns: Inner City voices Warwick: Plowright Press

13 Mckenzie L. (2012), Finding Value on a council estate: Voices of white working class women in International Perspectives on Racial and Ethnic Mixedness and Mixing Edited by Edwards R. Ali S.Caballero C. Song M. London: Routledge

Caballero, C. and Edwards, R. (2010) Lone Mothers of Mixed Racial and Ethnic Children: Then and Now, London: Runnymede

and people of no or little value. The first four years of this

study was spent ethnographically mapping this group of 35

women, and their families, spending time with them on the

estate, in the local community centres and cafes. I

interviewed the women, in their family and friendship groups

but also one to one in their homes. I took part in local

community activities, and public meetings, as a community

member. I have lived on this estate for over twenty years, and

I am also a white mother with mixed-race children, therefore

my integration with the women was not difficult. There was

commonality between us, and we shared the same interests and

fears regarding the neighbourhood, all our children were

growing up in St Anns, and we all had stories about how we had

felt ‘looked down on’ because of our council estate status,

and that we were white mothers with mixed-race children.

Although the initial study focused upon women, the last two

years have concentrated upon men. They were absent from the

first four years of the ethnography, because they had little

involvement in the community activities and daily lives of the

women I was engaged with, and appeared to be ‘missing’. There

were many reasons for their absence some of which I knew at

the time, mostly the men did not live with the women they had

relationships with on a full time basis because it made no

economic sense to the family to have a man ‘officially’ living

at the address who was unemployed, or employed in very low

paid work. Sometimes the men were involved in the underground

criminal economy which thrives in this neighbourhood, handling

stolen goods, and drug dealing at various levels, therefore

having a man full time in your home often carried too much

risk, the women told me they did not want the police ‘kicking

down the door’ looking for whoever, or whatever, with the

added risk of losing your tenancy, in addition these men have

an occupational hazard of going to jail and were unreliable as

full time partners. Initially I was unsure as to where I might

find the ‘missing men’ I knew they were not in the same places

on the estate as the women, the community centres, and at

community projects such as youth clubs, community cafes, and

at the local schools.

The men who were often the older sons, brothers, partners, and

baby fathers of the women I had previously engaged with were

rarely present in the spaces on the estate the women occupied,

often ‘passing by’. To ‘pass by’ is a term which is used by

men to describe their plans for the day and has its origins

within the Jamaican community, ‘pass-by’ meaning to visit,

however ‘passing by’ described a lifestyle, and a transient

identity on the estate for men. Searching for the missing men

was not as difficult as it might seem, they were never far

away and always on and around the estate, but in specific

spaces rarely frequented by women and children; I joined a

local boxing gym and started to train alongside the men, I

also spent many hours sitting in a barbers shop opposite the

gym. This is where I made contact with the missing St Anns

men, and where they spent most of their time during the day.

Being Valued and Being St Anns.

The women’s lives were full of risk management not only

through the dilemmas of what to about the ‘missing men’ but

also because they had an acute understanding of how they were

known and ‘looked down on’ more widely in society because they

lived on a council estate, or were single parents, often

living on welfare benefits. Bev Skeggs14 (1997) noted in her

study of women in the North West of England the specific

disadvantages regarding women and class, where she identified

that there was an understanding and general acceptance by the

women that ‘being respectable’ and adopting middle-class

values were important in working-class life if you were to

avoid being ‘looked down on’ and known as ‘rough’. The young

women in Skeggs’s study knew their valueless social position,

but were always trying to leave it by using culture, through

dis-identifying with being a working-class woman, disengaging

with what they thought was ‘common’, and engaging in the

‘respectable’ (1997 pp.81-94). However the women in St Anns

never denied where they thought they were positioned, often

saying we are ‘at the bottom’, or ‘lower class’ they

recognised their de-valued position because of where they

lived, and their constant interactions and associations with

the welfare system, and statutory services15. However instead

14 Skeggs B. (1997) Formations of Class and Gender, London: Sage

15 Gillies V. (2007) Marginalised Mothers: Exploring working class experiences of parenting, London: Routledge

Welshman J. (2006) Underclass: a history of the excluded 1880-2000 London: Hambledon Continuum

of looking for value in what Skeggs has described as ‘middle

class values’ the women in Nottingham found value for

themselves and their children from within the community, and

through engaging in a local culture they described as ‘being

St Anns’. This was a local identity which was valued and had

meaning for the women within the estate, but was often

ridiculed, demeaned and feared by those on the outside of the

estate.

Being a person of value is important here as it is in any

group within society, and there was an overall consensus

throughout the estate and particularly within those families

who had lived on council estates for several generations that

they were ‘looked down on’, and should feel ashamed of their

council estate resident status, or worse laughed at and

ridiculed. Mandy was a mother with 3 sons, and her family had

lived on the estate ‘a long time’ she described herself as

‘proper St Anns’, however she recounted on many occasions, how

she had experienced various forms of class prejudiced,

Mandy ‘it’s like people looking in I mean it’s when you’ve heard it on the telly about the gun crime and everything I mean my friend she actually made a complaint the other year cos she went to a pantomime at the Nottingham Ice Stadium and one of the people in the pantomime he turned round and said ‘oh I don’t want to go into St Anns cos we’ll get shot’ and they brought that into the pantomime and my friend actually made a complaint about it’

Lisa ‘so they actually made a joke and other local people in the audience could laugh at it’

Mandy ‘yeah but for us that’s not funny’.

As Mandy stated what was happening on the estate regarding

gang related crime was not funny for the residents especially

when your children are living, growing and playing in the

neighbourhood. Louise who was in her 40’s and lived with her

adult daughter, had been raised on the estate, her family had

been given a house immediately after the slum clearance

programme in 1970. Louise’s family was one of the Irish

families which came to St Anns in the 1950’s, and they were

extremely proud of their ‘new’ house when the council handed

the keys over in 1970. Louise told me how her mum had thought

that they were ‘posh’ in the brand new house, and tried to

keep it immaculate in spite of having 5 kids. However Louise

told me that since the 1980’s she had noticed that,

‘when you tell people where you come from yeah you feel like you know that

they class you like rough and ready’

She expanded on what this meant that not only were you

‘rough’ because of the notoriety of the estate; you were also

‘ready’ and as a woman living on a council estate, and

particularly with a mixed-race child ‘ready’ meant sexually

available, or as Louise said ‘council estate slag’. This

stigmatisation based upon local knowledge, but also wider

assumptions about council estates in the UK , was recounted

particularly by the women as the most distressing parts of

their lives, they talked about ‘never being good enough’,

‘being looked down on’ and ‘made to feel ashamed’.

This lead to an anger, and a defensiveness throughout the

estate, and the residents rejected these de-valued terms,

stating they were proud of ‘being St Anns’. They understood

this identity as being ‘able to tough it out’, they understood

‘being St Anns’ as having qualities that had worth and meaning

on the estate, and to them as a group. Thus compensating for

the exclusion, and disadvantage on offer to them on the

outside of the estate, by relying upon what is local,

available and, importantly demonstrable, what is proven and

what works for those who live within this neighbourhood. An

example of this is how education is viewed, and especially

higher education, there is a low level of educational

attainment within the resident population in St Anns, and

gaining entry to a University is not common, therefore the

merits of gaining a university education is unknown and

carries too much risk of being rejected, ridiculed and not

good enough. This fear of ‘being looked down on’ and knowing

you are de-valued as a person on the outside of your

neighbourhood, is not specific to this group of people in

Nottingham on this council estate, Diane Reay16, Bev Skeggs17

and Simon Duncan18 have all highlighted the sapping of self

confidence when a group is subject to stigmatisation, and

inequality of opportunities. Therefore local practices formed

16 Reay D. (2001) ‘Finding or losing yourself?: Working class relationships to education’ Journal of Education Policy Vol.16 no 4, pp.333-346

17 Skeggs B. (1997) Formations of Class and Gender, London: Sage Skeggs

18 Duncan S. (2007) Whats the problem with teenage parents? Andwhats the problem with policy? Critical Social Policy 2007 (27) p.307

an autonomous entity which was defined by a negative

polarisation to the norms of wider society and creates an

alternative value system. By creating an alternative value

system, those who are marginalised can create feelings of

worth, power and status on the inside of their neighbourhood

and amongst those who recognise and take part in that system19.

There have been attempts to develop General Strain Theory20

into a community model to explain how added stresses upon a

community can lead to higher local crime. Community strain can

occur when there is poverty in a neighbourhood,

discrimination, inequality and lack of social mobility, this

has been noted by criminologists as elements of community

characteristics which can lead to the likelihood of residents

experiencing negative emotions, producing a charged

environment contributing to crime, and inter-community

violence21. However by using Pierre Bourdieu’s22 system of

capital exchange and value, strain theory can also explain

what happens in a community or within a group when there is a

lack of status and respect, and community characteristics are

developed under strain by local communities in order to

compensate for the de-valuing of the neighbourhood and its

residents in the form of an alternative value system.

Due to the complex nature of the estate, the alternative value

system, and the elements which make up this system, is19 (Cohen 2002 p.28). Cohen, S. (2002) Folk Devils and Moral Panics: 30th Anniversary Edition: Creation of Mods and Rockers London: Routledge

20 Agnew (1999) A General Strain Theory of community differences in crime rates. Journal of Research in Crime and delinquency. (36) pp. 123-155

difficult to pin down, as the system takes different forms for

different groups within. For women, a high value is placed on

motherhood and therefore being a mother ranks highly on the

estate. Indeed, being a mother and coping with the

difficulties of living on the estate are often the only things

the women cite as being proud of in their lives, and being ‘a

mother’ and a ‘sufferer’ another Jamaican term which is widely

used on the estate to describe endured hardships, even though

being a ‘sufferer’ and enduring those hardships are always

listed as personal achievements. During a discussion about the

drug dealing on the estate with some of the men involved in

the research, the discussion turned to how difficult life was

for those who are part of the drug and gang culture on the

estate. Following is of a discussion between ‘Della’ a white

single mum of five children, ‘Dread’ her partner a black

African-Caribbean man in his 40’s who spent his time between

Della’s council house, and a flat he rented in the

neighbourhood and ‘Raphel’ ‘Della’s’ eldest son who was mixed-

race and 18 years old, who lived between his mums house and

his grandma’s house both on the estate.

21 Anderson E (1990) Streetwise, Race class and change in an urban community Chicago university of Chicago press

22 Bourdieu et al 2002 Weight of the World Bourdieu, P. Accardo, A. Balazs, G. Beaude, S. Bonvin, F. Bourdieu, E. Borgois, P. Brocolichi, S. Champagne, P. Christin, R. Faguer, J. Garcia, S. Lenoir, R. Euvrard, F. Pialoux, M. Pinto, L. Podalydes, D. Sayad, A. Soulie, C. Wacquant, L. (1999) The weight of the World; social suffering in contemporary society, Cambridge: PolityPress

Raphel ‘buoy its tough out there mans killing man, you have to be ready, its not easy to live in Notts especially when you are Stannz (St Anns) dem man out there wouldn’t survive in here’

Dread ‘yeah but..if you’re gonna die for Nottingham die for Nottingham not just NG3 die for NG that would make life a lot easier if that’s what you want just be NG there’s enough crackheads here for all of you to sell drugs to them let’s be honest about it here… there’s enough crackheads for all of you to make money rather than dying let’s be honest..killing each other doesn’t make sense lifes hard enough here, just do your business and done’

Della ‘Well I try not to beat myself up about it anymore I’m proud that my son breathes today that’s it the way heis he does things which aren’t legal but he makes money and he’s still alive for now’.

This discussion went on to describe the difficulties that

Della, Dread, and Raphel had in maintaining a family

relationship amidst the problems on the estate. Della could

not afford Dread to live with her full time, but they wanted

to maintain a relationship, and Raphel struggled with his

mum’s relationship with Dread, there was also four other

children living at home and Della could not risk Raphel

permanently living at the address because of his involvement

with gang related drug dealing on the estate. However she was

proud of her son he was independent, he made money and helped

her out sometimes, and importantly he was valued on the

estate, and was respected.

There is a real and acknowledged value in engaging in the

local culture which has been heavily influenced by black

Jamaican culture, particularly for the mothers who have mixed-

race children. Being authentic to the neighbourhood, being

known and fitting in are other elements in becoming a person

of value on the estate, but also to whom and how you are

connected to the estate is equally important. In particular,

there has been an exchange of culture between residents,

noting that they are proud of their success in ‘mixing’, and

‘everyone getting on’. While this type of ‘cultural mixing’

has often been associated with ‘youth culture’, in St Anns it

is not limited to young people only; it has become a hybrid

and interchangeable culture that has grown throughout the

whole community over a fifty year period of the West Indian

and white working-class communities living side by side.

Particular ways of speaking ie: using words originating from

Jamaica, and in dressing, gold jewellery and expensive branded

sportswear are important, how you cook and eat is also

relevant to your value on the estate, rice and peas and

chicken is cooked and eaten by most families, these are

cultural signifiers and have all been noted as important to

what ‘being St Anns’ means, and who is valued on the estate.

Although the importance of ‘being St Anns’ came out of the

initial research with women, a far more comprehensive

understanding to what ‘being St Anns’ meant relating to ‘being

a person of value’ in the neighbourhood was reached when

focusing solely upon the men who live on the estate. During

the year prior to August 2011, which is a significant period

within the research, but also within the UK because of the

civil unrest, and rioting during this month in many English

Cities including Nottingham, I was engaged with a group of

men all living on the estate. It is hard to say how many

because of the transient and fragmented nature of their

relationships to the neighbourhood, and to the women they are

involved with and have family relationships with. There was a

core group of 15 men, however there were conversations and

informal meetings with many more, as they have ‘passed by’.

All of the men are black African-Caribbean, born in the UK or

in Jamaica, and mixed-race born in the UK, many of which were

the sons, partners, and brothers of the white women I had

previously been involved with, which means I have been able to

map the neighbourhood, and the relationships within it .

Consequences of unfair representation and stigmatisation

It had taken me many months to gain the trust of the women I

was first involved with, even though I lived on the estate and

we had very similar backgrounds, we usually knew some of the

same people, and found connections through friends and family,

this type of local knowledge always situated me as an insider,

and allowed the men and women to risk asses me through their

and my local connections. The ways in which working-class

people and neighbourhoods are represented is important within

this chapter as it is often through those negative,

stereotypical and patronising representations that the people

who live on the estate unfairly see themselves, and their

families ; the women in particular know they are ridiculed,

and ‘looked down on’, and ‘made to feel small’ because of

those representations, and because of this it was difficult

and hard work to win the trust of the women, they needed to be

sure that I would not represent them negatively. The women

were used to ‘the looks’, and the ‘snide comments’

particularly whenever they came into contact with what they

knew as ‘official services’. Gina who was 21 and pregnant and

lived alone with her six month and two years old sons, she

described as ‘quarter caste’ their father Jordan was mixed-

race and lived between the homes of his mum and Gina on the

estate. Gina told me how she felt an acute stigma particularly

whenever she went to any of the benefit agencies, although she

was studying at a local college she claimed income support and

housing benefit, and therefore was in constant contact with

‘officials’. Gina told me that every time she gave her address

to any of the ‘officials’ there was often a silence as they

mentally processed her single parent status, the ethnicity of

her children, and then her address in St Anns: ‘I know what they’re

thinking you can see it ticking over in their brain as you wait for them to think ‘oh its

one of them from there’.

The men at the gym and the barbers were far less suspicious of

me than the women had been, and appeared to be less aware of

others opinions of them, they talked openly about how they

made money, their time spent in jail, the problems they had

with the police in the neighbourhood and their relationships

with their girlfriends, and ‘baby-mothers’. This frankness was

surprising in contrast to the guardedness of the women,

particularly when the men talked about drug dealing, and

receiving and selling stolen goods. The women were constantly

involved in local schools, Sure Start centres, community

projects, housing officers, and benefit agencies they knew

they were scrutinised, and ‘looked down on’, in contrast the

men had very little engagement with anyone from outside of the

neighbourhood, and particularly with statutory services or

projects unless it was through the police and judicial system.

They had minimum interaction with benefit agencies, and

housing departments, which amounted to signing on every two

weeks in order to claim job seekers allowance, and some of the

men did not do this, simply because they did not want to be

connected to any address. They told me about the cat and mouse

games they played with the police, they knew ‘how to get

around things’: if you have no address the police can’t find

you, and they need substantial evidence to search an address

you do not live at. The men spent most of their time with each

other and had strong friendship, and family bonds often

introducing new friends to me as their ‘cus’ or their ‘fam’,

sometimes they were blood relatives, mostly the family

relationships were more complicated and interwoven within the

estate, it was one of those things that if you had to ask how

people were related you are definitely an outsider. The

networks, family ties, and your relationship to the estate was

very important for both men and women, ‘being St Anns’ was the

most likely way women would described themselves and their

families, whilst the men subscribed to the idea that ‘Stannz’

was territory and belonged to them. I have met very few people

who imagined themselves ‘being’ or living anywhere else,

moving out was not an ambition in this neighbourhood as a

method of acknowledging social mobility, and ‘getting on in

life’ as Coates and Silburn discussed in the original study23.

Slow rioting

Loic Wacquant24 (1994, 2008) has noted that the halt in social

mobility and the structures of ‘new poverty’ are far from

fully explained, but what is happening within poor

neighbourhoods and to working class people are easy to read,

long term joblessness, and the proliferation of low pay and

part time employment and the build up of multiple deprivations

within the same households and neighbourhoods. Which has meant

there have been difficulties, particularly throughout Europe,

and fear within the US that established programmes of welfare

has had in remedying hardship without causing welfare

dependency. There has also been a widening gap between rich

and poor, and dissatisfaction and disillusionment with

mainstream politics. This level of distrust and

disenfranchisement particularly within working class

neighbourhoods have lead to undermine the legitimacy of the

social order, and as Loic Wacquant (2008) and Philipe Bourgois

(2009)25 argue, that hostility is directed toward the state

23 Coates and Silburn (1970) pp. 105-130

organisation of power and repressiveness symbolised and

represented in local communities as the police.

There is anger bubbling under the surface within poor

communities, because of the disappointments and difficulties

working class family life endures. However over the last 6

years there has been a definite and progressive affection of

despair, which can explode instantly and without warning into

anger and situations of violence within the estate and between

residents. The hopelessness and the feelings of constant hard

work in order to get through any day has been recounted by

both men and women, the women describe their lives as

‘fighting brick walls’, no one listening or caring about any

of the problems they have. Della was having problems with her

eldest daughter who was 14 and was truanting from school,

although Della was trying to keep her daughter in school she

said she felt exhausted by what she described as the constant

process.

24 Wacquant L. (1994) The New Urban Colour Line: The state and fate of the ghetto in post-fordist America pp.232-234 in Social Theory and the Politics of Identity edited Calhoun C. Blackwell: Oxford

Wacquant L. (2008) pp. 30-33Urban Outcasts: A comparative Sociology of Advanced Marginality, Cambridge: Polity Press

25 Bourgois P. (2009) Recognizing Invisible Violence: A Thirty Year Ethnographic Retrospective pp 18-40 in Global Health and Violence Edited by Bauer B. Whiteford L, Farmer P. School of Advanced Research Press

‘it’s like fighting a brick wall; they hide behind policies like now if your child don’t go to school you get

a fine … I’ve had a fine for my daughter for not going to school even though she was made to go to

school every day. What she does, once she’s up there isn’t my fault so why should we get the fine?

The women are also disappointed by services coming in and

setting up projects offering ‘false hope’ of training and jobs

usually by offering voluntary work on the project, however

these projects often retreat as quickly as they entered the

community when funding runs out or when they realise the

promises they made cannot be realised. The men talk about the

hopelessness of ever getting a job that offers economic

stability, and respect amongst their friends and family, they

know that getting a low skilled, low paid job will not give

them a valued identity they need to live on this estate or

even the means to live as ‘a proper family’ which is usually

more of an aspiration for the future than a reality in the

present. When I spoke to Dread about working and getting a

job, his reaction was typical of many of the men on the

estate,

Dread There’s no jobs here for anyone, what can I do now, I used to work for the

council as a gardener I liked that but that’s gone now I’m not doing no gay job in a

call centre.

Macdonald26 et al (2005) have used the term ‘displaced

masculinities’ to describe the disengagement and difficulties

young working class men encounter in the transition from youth26 Macdonald R., Shildrick T., Webster C., Simpson D. (2005) Growing up in poor neighbourhoods: The Significance of class and place in the extended transitions of ‘socially excluded’ young adults,Sociology Vol.39 (5) December 2005 873-891London: Sage

to adulthood with the absence of ‘masculine employment’

offering status, and respect. In this neighbourhood status and

respect are important resources, and to look for employment

that may diminish local respect and status carries far too

much risk, and too much loss.

There is a dislike and distrust of anyone who does not live in

this neighbourhood, and the people of St Anns can spot a mile

off anyone who does not come from a similar background and

claims to, as many of the visiting service providers tend to.

There is an anger towards the police, even hatred, because

they are seen as policing the residents rather than the

neighbourhood, the women accuse the police of ‘doing fuck

all’, and the men recount stories of being harassed

particularly in their cars, and stopped and searched

constantly on the streets.

During the mid 2000’s it became clear that most families did

not consider that things might get better, ‘just managing’ was

ok as long as the neighbourhood provided friends, family, and

local value. However since the end of 2010 apathy has been

replaced by fear that things are getting worse, and that no

one cares, and it is state policy to purposefully decline

council estates, and their residents through death, prison or

both. The women attempt to work together for safety and

support, however the men are disconnected and further

disconnect through their belief that they are ‘on their ones’,

and making as much money as possible and by any means is their

only route away from their situation. I say away and not out,

because there is no appetite to ‘get out’ of the

neighbourhood: the goal is to stay within the neighbourhood

and be successful according to the rules of the local value

system, the logic being that being somebody on the estate is

always preferable to being nobody on the outside. As one of

the younger male respondents told me ‘its about money nothing else

matters, if you have got money no one cares who you are’ his Dad was ‘on

road’ (drug dealing) and this fourteen year old in St Anns knew

and recognised the respect and status that came with this

local position.

In this vacuum created by the lack of political connections

and the absence of communication between a marginalised and

excluded group of people and a society which they feel cast

out, it is no wonder that relations with the police and other

officials representing the state have become both important

and confrontational. The council, the social, and social

workers, have always been mistrusted; however when these state

representatives are moving out of working in poorer

neighbourhoods either through centralisation of bureaucracy,

or through redundancy, and increasingly as services close down

through current austerity measures and cuts it is the

repressive force of the police that becomes the sole

representative of the state.

I am not arguing that there is no reason for the police to

have such a high presence in this neighbourhood: there are

crack houses on the estate which are impossible to live close

to for other residents, there is prostitution and drug dealing

and there have been incidents of stabbings and shootings

linked to gang violence. Ann Curtis (1985)27 introduced the

concept of slow rioting in the 1980’s to explain the rise in

violent crime within urban areas of the USA and especially

when violent crime is committed by the local community onto

the local community, in the USA this was particularly

discussed relating to black on black crime. Slow rioting is

what happens in a neighbourhood when there is internal and

internalised social decay leading to mass school rejection

compensated by street knowledge, and unemployment leading to

street work, when a community or group are rejected by the

wider population, and become a de-valued people their source

of pride and success becomes local and relies upon the local

value system. Crime, drug dealing, and teenage pregnancy,

become accepted and provable ways in becoming successful, and

there has been a return to the imagery of the ‘underclass’,

with council estates representing a modern version of

Hogarth’s Gin Lane, with the two main characters the dangerous

and violent gang member and the welfare absorbing single

mother. The discourse of the underclass and their lack of

common societal values and morality, and their wilful self

destruction, and self destructive behaviour begins to

represent a real threat to British values and national life,

curbed only through punitive measures. Consequently it can be

argued that street crime28 is in many ways a form of slow

rioting: by committing crime on your own streets you are less

vulnerable to the police than a group of looters, and it is

possible that some crime became the safer and private

expression of protest against an individual’s social position,

powerlessness and location (Curtis 1985 p.8).

August 2011

August 2011 was significant in this neighbourhood but also for

the research, I had been involved with a group of men on the

estate for almost a year, and was winding up the ethnographic

study. I was focusing upon how disconnected this group of men

were from what we might consider everyday society. Employment,

and work featured little in these men’s lives, however making

money, and having money was all encompassing in their

practices, and discussions with each other. Premiership

footballers and what they owned, was a constant source for

discussion especially those who had come from Nottingham and

had similar backgrounds to the men. The rules of boxing and

cage fighting, and always football filled up the men’s days,

along with substantial and heated discussions with me

regarding conspiracy theories usually relating to the

relationship between the Freemasons, racism, and rap music,

they had watched on YouTube and believed explained their

situation of ‘being kept down’, and not allowed to prosper.

The discussion content was usually around the right to carry

weapons, and protect their territory, grow weed in their

‘yards’ and not pay taxes to a corrupt and racist elite. Some

of these ideas had come from a movement called ‘Freeman’ which

appears to be in line with American survivalist ways of

thinking. There was also a strong and anti-Semitic thread to

27 Curtis L A. (1985) American Violence and Public Policy Yale University Press New Haven and London.

28 Wacquant L. (2008) Urban Outcasts: A comparative Sociology of Advanced Marginality, Cambridge: Polity Press

these discussions whereby the men believed that it was

predominantly the Jews who were to blame for their

powerlessness as black men; some of this belief had come

through their time spent in jail, but most from the internet.

This is when I began to understand just how disconnected these

men were, and their inability to situate themselves in society

in both real and conceptual terms, they were frustrated, and

angry, and the concept of slow rioting featured in my analysis

.

In the first week of August 2011 a 29 year old man, Mark

Duggan was shot and killed by a police officer in Tottenham,

north London; the police had been attempting to carry out an

arrest under the Trident operational command unit, which deals

with gun crime in the black community29. Following the shooting

there was a demonstration and march against the police in

London which resulted in almost a week of civil unrest,

looting and rioting in London, but which also spread across

many inner city neighborhoods in England. For two days 8th and

9th of August 2011 there was disorder and rioting within the

inner city of Nottingham, unlike other cities who was

experiencing similar disorder the focus of the anger in

Nottingham was the police, several inner city police stations

were fire bombed, and police cars were attacked as they drove29 The August riots in England understanding the involvement ofyoung people Morrell G, Scott S, Mcneish D, Webster S. Oct 2011 Nat Cen for social research

Ending Gang and Youth Violence; A cross government report including further evidence and good practice case studies HomeOffice 2011

through the estates. Some of the men I had been involved with

I found out the next day in the gym had been caught up in the

disturbances and arrested, they have been remanded in jail for

the last 8 months awaiting trial. They have not yet been

convicted by the court, although they have been judged by most

of the English media, and by almost all of our mainstream

politicians and the general public as morally bankrupt, feral

and, as Max Hastings in the Daily Mail put it: ‘Their

behavior on the streets resembled that of the polar bear which

attacked a Norwegian tourist camp last week. They were doing

what came naturally and, unlike the bear, no one even shot

them for it30’. The Prime Minister David Cameron argued in his

speech following the riots a week later that ‘The riots were not

about race, government cuts or poverty. They were about behaviour’ and

although England had seen some ‘sickening acts’ the big

society was working through the ‘Best of British’ with the

cleanup operation in Tottenham where the local community came

out and cleared the streets with their own brooms31. These

comments from media and political discourse are neither

surprising nor shocking, neither was the levels of crime,

anger and violence on the streets during that first week in

August 2011. There has been a gradual exclusion, de-valuing

and stigmatisation of sections of the British working class

for several generations, I have noted over 7 years through the

narratives of those who live in St Anns the feelings of

30 Hastings M. (2011) Years of liberal dogma have spawned a generation of amoral, un-educated, welfare dependent, brutalised youngsters in Daily Mail 12th August 201131 David Cameron Speech 15th August BBC News.

powerlessness and the rage which comes out of this level of

despair, consequently the community turns in on itself. The

residents of poor communities are looking inwards for

sanctuary; they find it locally, with the unintended

consequences of causing damage to themselves, and their

communities.

Conclusion

This chapter has attempted to highlight the lives of working

class people living through a period of adversity in one

council estate, due to the consequences of thirty years of

neo-liberal policy on family life. Unemployment,

stigmatisation, and anger, feelings of utter powerlessness,

and a strong sense of identity and community are some of the

outcomes. Over several generations there have been some well-

intentioned politicians, and some not so well-intentioned who

have treated the disadvantages, and inequalities found within

council estates as a matter of morality, blaming the practices

of the poor for their poverty, and inflicting terrible levels

of symbolic violence on poor neighbourhoods, and people who

are already suffering from economic disadvantages. For several

generations in the UK there have been boundaries drawn around

certain territories: places where the poor live, places one

should avoid going if at all possible not because of the

poverty in that particular place but because of the behaviour

of those who live there. The boundaries drawn around council

estates have lead to limited space for those who live there,

space can be actual, and also social, linked to value, who has

the space to be valued, and become a person of value, and who

is limited through class prejudice and class inequality.

Consequently, for this section of the working class those who

are the least skilled, least educated, and to some extent

unlucky their lives are very much centred upon where they

live, and their family and local networks become important,

they become recognised and recognisable, and have been re-

branded from working class to underclass. They are living

through a period in history which is extremely unstable, they

are vulnerable to the market, and rely upon welfare benefits

and the state to keep ‘their heads just above water’. Although

they been de-valued as useful members of society they find

value for themselves locally, and from their adversity they

find an identity which is meaningful to them. This structural

instability has had massive consequences on family life, men

and women find it difficult to be a ‘proper family’ because it

made no economic sense to the family to have a man

‘officially’ living at the address who was unemployed, or

employed in very low paid work. The underground criminal

economy thrives in this neighbourhood, as it does in all

neighbourhoods, where there is a lack of employment linked to

financial autonomy and self respect. Long term joblessness

and the proliferation of low pay and part time employment, the

widening gap between rich and poor, and dissatisfaction and

disillusionment with mainstream politics has meant a build up

of internal and internalised social decay. Wacquant (1994,

2008) and Curtis (1985) have argued that the concept of slow

rioting in the USA seems an appropriate explanation for the

anger and apathy, violence and passivity of a group who has

been rejected by the wider population, and being somebody

within is always valued above being no one, or less than no

one on the outside.

Slow rioting in August 2011 gave way to actual rioting: an

opportunity had arisen for this marginalised group in the UK

to display their frustration, and anger with the state

represented by the police. For almost a week in England people

from these marginalised communities attacked, looted, and fire

bombed places that symbolised their powerlessness. There was

also destruction of property, and looting from people within

their own neighbourhoods which seemed unfathomable to the

media, and to wider society. It would have also been to me if

I had not spent a year with a group of men whom I learned was

so disconnected to society, and their existences were so

fragmented and fragile that employment and stable family life

was beyond their expectations and became aspirations for the

future, and their value, self respect and dignity came from a

local value system born out of stigmatisation, joblessness,

and the lack of space and mobility.

It seems that David Cameron’s vision of the big society is a

flawed concept it appeals to social cohesion, and localism,

the people who live in St Anns in Nottingham would agree with

this concept, and argue that there is a community spirit, and

a clear value system in operation already, however they argue

that it is lack of opportunities, paid work which enables

people to have respect for themselves by offering a living

wage, allowing families to live together. Offering hope in a

place where people fear what will happen to them next. This

puts the coalition government in a tight spot. Will they

invest in employment, a living wage, and security for those

who live within council estates, or will they continue the

rhetoric of the big society, expecting the least powerful in

our society, and the most disadvantaged, to create social

enterprises and get themselves out of a situation in which

they have no power to do.