Riotous Citizens by Paul Bagguley and Yasmin Hussain

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In 2001, Britain saw another summer of rioting in its cities, with violent uprisings in Oldham, Burnley and Bradford. This book explores the reasons for those riots and explains why they mark a new departure in Britain's racial politics. Riots involving racial factors are nothing new in Britain. Historically violent uprisings could be blamed on heavy policing of predominantly minority communities, but the riots of 2001 were more complex. With elements of 1950s-style race riots and echoes of show more the 1980s riots which saw South Asians confronting the police as the adversary, the spread of unrest in 2001 was also clearly linked to poverty, unemployment and the involvement of the political far-right. Linking original empirical research conducted amongst the Pakistani community in Bradford with a sophisticated conceptual analysis, this book will be required reading for courses on race and ethnicity, social movements and policing public order. show less

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FiveBooks 431 reviews

"...Riotous Citizens is a case study by two colleagues at Leeds University. It is a study of the major riots of 2001 in Bradford, which became infamous in part because of the severe penalties meted out to the so-called rioters (unprecedentedly long sentences were handed out). This book gives a detailed inside story. From my point of view, as a theorist of policing of public disorder, it’s a very provocative book. Several of us over the years have been putting together a general theory of what we think is a good overall explanation of the policing of public disorder. Paul Bagguley and Yasmin Hussain reject this theory, saying that patterns in protests don’t exist – an assertion I refute entirely! I do nonetheless recommend that show more people read the book to look at the principles of effective policing nominated by the authors and see how they might relate to what the police did well or badly in relation to the Bradford riots...." (reviewed by David Waddington in FiveBooks).

The full interview is available here: http://fivebooks.com/interviews/david-waddington-on-policing-public-disorder show less

Jun 1, 2010

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