Reaching Working-class Youth Leaders

Ambivalent Relationships: London's Youth Culture and the Making of the Multi-Racial Society in the 1960s

Britain and the World ◽

10.3366/brw.2018.0285 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

pp. 4-26 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Felix Fuhg

Keyword(s):

Working Class ◽

Social Life ◽

Youth Culture ◽

Global Culture ◽

Local Conditions ◽

White Working Class ◽

Ambivalent Relationship ◽

Post War ◽

The 1960S ◽

Class Youth

The emergence and formation of British working-class youth cultures in the 1960s were characterized by an ambivalent relationship between British identity, global culture and the formation of a multicultural society in the post-war decades. While national and local newspapers mostly reported on racial tensions and racially-motivated violence, culminating in the Notting Hill riots of 1958, the relationship between London's white working-class youth and teenagers with migration backgrounds was also shaped by a reciprocal, direct and indirect, personal and cultural exchange based on social interaction and local conditions. Starting from the Notting Hill Riots 1958, the article reconstructs places and cultural spheres of interaction between white working-class youth and teenagers from Caribbean communities in London in the 1960s. Following debates and discussions on race relations and the participation of black youth in the social life of London in the 1960s, the article shows that British working-class youth culture was affected in various ways by the processes of migration. By dealing with the multicultural dimension of the post-war metropolis, white working-class teenagers negotiated socio-economic as well as political changes, contributing in the process to an emergent, new image of post-imperial Britain.

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Maximum Security

Freiburger Zeitschrift für GeschlechterStudien ◽

10.3224/fzg.v26i1.05 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 26 (1-2020) ◽

pp. 71-84

Author(s):

Margo Okazawa-Rey ◽

Gwyn Kirk

Keyword(s):

Working Class ◽

Air Force ◽

International Security ◽

Armed Forces ◽

Prison System ◽

Correctional Facilities ◽

Latina Women ◽

Physical Force ◽

Maximum Security ◽

Class Youth

Okazawa-Rey and Kirk argue that the term maximum security, used in the context of the prison system, is an oxymoron. Jails, prisons, and other ‘correctional’ facilities provide no real security for communities, guards and other prison officials, or inmates. Imprisoning two million people, building more prisons, identifying poor and working-class youth of colour as ‘gang members,’ and criminalizing poor Black and Latina women does not increase security. Rather, the idea of security must be redefined in sharp contrast to everyday notions of personal security that are based on the protection of material possessions by locks and physical force, as well as prevailing definitions of national and international security based on a militarization that includes the police, border patrols, and armed forces such as the Navy, Army, Marines, and Air Force. To achieve genuine security, we must address the major sources of insecurity: economic, social, and political inequalities among and within nations and communities. The continual objectification of ‘others’ is a central mechanism underlying systems of oppression—and insecurity—based on class, race, gender, nation, and other significant lines of difference.

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