Bouncers Violence and Governance in the Night-time Economy

by Hobbs, Dick; Hadfield, Philip; Lister, Stuart; Winlow, Simon

• ISBN13: 9780199252244
• ISBN10: 0199252246
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-05-29
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This book is the first attempt to understand Britain's night-time economy, the violence that pervades it, and the bouncers whose job it is to prevent it. Using ethnography, participant observation and extensive interviews with all the main players, this controversial book charts the emergence of the bouncer as one of the most graphic symbols in the iconography of post-industrial Britain.

Author Biography

Dick Hobbs is Professor of Sociology at the University of Durham. He has published widely on various aspects of criminal cultures, policing, research methods, professional and organised crime, and the night-time economy. He has published edited collections of papers on ethnographic research, and professional crime, and his two single authored books (both published with OUP) are Doing the Business (1988) which won the Abrams Prize, and Bad Business (1995). He was, with Steve Hall, the co-grant holder for the ESRC "Bouncers" project Philip Hadfield is currently an ESRC funded postgraduate student at the University of Durham. He recently graduated from the Universities of Keele and Cambridge, has published widely on regulatory and licensing aspects of the night-time economy and works part time as a DJ. Stuart Lister is a Research Fellow at the University of Leeds. He is a member of the Home office Alcohol and Crime Steering Group, and has published on various aspects of the night-time economy with particular reference to policing, regulation, and training. Simon Winlow is Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Teesside. He gained his Ph.D. from Durham University in 1999 and has published on crime, masculinities, research methods and various aspects of the night-time economy. His first book, Badfellas,(Berg 2001)an ethnography based upon his Ph.D.

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(12)
Let the Good Times Roll: Liminality and the Night-time Economy	13	(40)
`Let's go get stoned'	13	(2)
Ray Charles
Crawling from the wreckage: cultural industries and urban regeneration	15	(4)
The business of pleasure: communities of consumption in every-night-life	19	(4)
Good time working	23	(2)
The night-time economy	25	(3)
Regulation of the night-time economy	28	(4)
The new urban governance	32	(4)
Booze, the urban night, and the human ecology of violence	36	(7)
Public police: the night-time omission	43	(1)
Receiving shadows	44	(5)
And one more for the road	49	(2)
A Case Study of Manchester	51	(2)
After-dark `Fun' and its Control in the Industrial City	53	(18)
The industrial city	53	(2)
Leisure in the industrial city	55	(7)
The `dance craze'	62	(9)
Post-industrial Manchester: From Cotton to Carlsberg	71	(38)
The phoenix and the night-owl	71	(5)
Madchester	76	(5)
Urban `exotica'	81	(1)
Gaychester	82	(6)
The number of licensed premises	85	(1)
The number of consumers	86	(1)
The economic value of the night-time economy	87	(1)
A new urbanity?	87	(1)
Dodgin' the rain and bullets	88	(1)
Gangchester	89	(2)
Gunchester	91	(8)
Street violence, alcohol, and young men: an old problem for the `new' city	99	(7)
The Manchester Citycentresafe Initiative	106	(1)
Conclusion	107	(2)
Tommy Smith's Story: Four Decades On The Door	109	(10)
A Word At The Door: Bouncers On Their Work	119	(46)
Access denied	120	(3)
The barred	123	(4)
Local knowledge	127	(5)
Other difficulties: disorderly women	132	(4)
Different doors	136	(2)
Dealing with trouble: talking nicely	138	(4)
Dealing with trouble: looking the part	142	(3)
Local bodies	145	(2)
Dealing with trouble: rough and tumble	147	(4)
Dealing with trouble: fighting	151	(2)
The night-time excuse me	153	(4)
Violent night	157	(5)
The moral mandate of bouncing	162	(3)
Manners Maketh the Man: Licensing `Door Supervisors' and the Discourses of Professionalism and Safety	165	(46)
Introduction	165	(2)
Context: situating the registration agenda	167	(2)
Registration as a regulatory mechanism	169	(5)
Legal powers to regulate and the coverage shortfall	174	(3)
The vetting requirement	177	(5)
The training requirement	182	(14)
Training in the ways of the law: `justice', culture, and commercial confidences	187	(5)
Let's get physical: training to be (like) Steven Seagal	192	(4)
Watching the watchers: enforcement, revocation, and accountability	196	(7)
Market development, market diversification, and the division of labour	203	(4)
Licensing badges: symbols of safety, symptoms of threat	207	(4)
Market Force: Class, Violence, and Liminal Business on the Night-time Frontier	211	(34)
Class, commerce, and violent competence	211	(1)
Pauline's story: where security meets protection	212	(7)
The muscle market	219	(3)
Bouncing as class work	222	(3)
Market force	225	(6)
Bouncing as police work	231	(3)
The monopoly of muscle	234	(3)
Frontier business	237	(3)
Door war	240	(2)
Conclusion: class, capital, and trajectories of force	242	(3)
Night Futures: The Marketization of License and Control	245	(24)
Development, diversification, and homogeneity	246	(2)
Contemporary controls	248	(5)
So, you think you're tough?	253	(5)
Going with the flow	258	(3)
(De)regulating the night-time city	261	(8)
Big People, Dirty Work: A Conclusion	269	(12)
Win or lose we are on the booze: a moral contradiction	270	(6)
Night moves	276	(1)
The queue for the last kebab	277	(4)
References	281	(34)
Index	315