Abstract

In this workshop/presentation, we seek to achieve the following: first, through analyses of documentary evidence (e.g. media reports) and art and music produced by young people living in council estates (Tottenham, UK) or townships (Cape town, South Africa, Lavender Hill), we showcase the diverse ways in which young people who are targeted by police or have ‘done time’ respond to and navigate exclusions associated with the changing city under austerity agendas and heightened racial conflicts. We further explore how the embodiment of racial conflict and urban change are expressed through young people’s artistic and political lives as they confront social housing cuts and rising income disparities in comparative urban contexts. Finally, we make an argument for bridging some of the affective dimensions of living the city with earlier understandings of youth styles as revolt (Hebdige, 1979), and in particular the ‘status and meaning of revolt, the idea of style as a form of refusal as the elevation of crime into art’ (Hebdige, 1979).

The workshop will be broken down into two parts. The first will explore the research and findings of our comparative research and Professor Pullan will talk on her Divided Cities project. The second part will focus on examining forms of visual methodology and material remnants from past time (e.g., photos, film footage, archival documents, artifacts) as a way of expanding our understandings of comparative ethnographic research, and the use of visuals as major teaching tools.