Urban exploration: From subterranea to spectacle

Recreational trespass or ‘urban exploration’ (UE) is the practice of researching, gaining access to and documenting forbidden, forgotten or otherwise off-limits places, including abandoned buildings, construction sites and infrastructure systems. Over the past two decades, a global subculture has coalesced around this activity. More recently, however, the practice has begun to transform along divergent lines. The aims of the present article are three-fold: first, to bring UE and its emergent variants to the attention of a criminological audience; second, to interrogate increasingly spectacular visual representations of UE and attendant processes of commodification; and third, to introduce the rhizome as a way of thinking about urban social formations, their development and appropriation

Bomb alert: Graffiti writing and urban space in London

Based on three years of ethnographic research undertaken in London amongst a loose network of what British Transport Police term ‘serious graffiti vandals’, this article considers how we might conceive theoretically of the interrelationships between graffiti writing, urban space and social control. The article proceeds in two parts. By way of introduction, the first half of the article delineates some of the major subcultural elements that comprise the day-to-day practice of graffiti writing as it exists in present-day London. The second half of the article engages the theoretical work of Henri Lefebvre. It is suggested that graffiti can be understood as simultaneously disrupting authoritative spatial orderings, whilst superimposing its own alternative social geography onto the city

Coronavirus and changing conditions for crime

A short blog, part of the Discover Society rapid response to Covid 19

Ripping up the map: Criminology and cartography reconsidered

Criminologists have long been interested in mapping crime, yet their use and understanding of maps remain superficial and uncritical. This article traces crime mapping’s historical development before considering the emergence of ‘critical cartography’ and exploring its implications for criminology. Criminologists are urged to interrogate conventional crime maps, and to investigate the criminological implications of emergent digital mapping technologies. Maps and map making afford a host of innovative methodologies that criminologists have yet to take advantage of, and some tentative suggestions are made as to how criminologists might utilize cartographic methods in order to generate unique empirical insights. Finally, the article considers how criminologists might harness maps’ communicative power to better engage with the public and to promote social justice

Radiographic joint space narrowing in osteoarthritis of the knee: relationship to meniscal tears and duration of pain

[[abstract]]Objective The objective of this study was to assess, with knee radiography, joint space narrowing (JSN) and its relationship to meniscal tears, anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) ruptures, articular cartilage erosion, and duration of pain in patients with knee osteoarthritis. Materials and methods A total of 140 patients who had knee osteoarthritis and underwent primary total knee replacement (TKR) surgery, with unicompartmental medial tibiofemoral JSN (grade 1 or greater) and normal lateral compartments, were recruited. Polytomous logistic regression was used to assess the relationship between JSN and risk factors. Results All patients with JSN were categorized as grade 1 (n = 14, 10.0%), grade 2 (n = 64, 45.7%), or grade 3 (n = 62, 44.3%). Women presented with indications for a TKR at a younger age than men (mean age, 69 vs 73 years, P < 0.05). There were 123 (87.9%) meniscal tears and 58 (41.4%) partial (insufficient or attenuated ACL fibers) and 10 (7.1%) complete ACL ruptures; 115 of 134 (85.8%) patients had moderate to severe cartilage erosion. A higher grade of JSN was correlated with a higher frequency of meniscal tears [odds ratio (OR) 6.00, 95% CI 1.29–27.96 for grade 2 vs grade 1 JSN] and duration of knee pain (OR 1.25, 95% CI 1.01–1.53 for grade 3 vs grade 1 JSN). A higher grade of JSN was not correlated with a higher frequency of ACL rupture or articular cartilage erosion. Conclusion A higher grade of JSN is associated with a higher frequency of meniscal tears and long duration of knee pain in patients with knee osteoarthritis.[[incitationindex]]SCI[[booktype]]紙

The Paradox of Parkour: Conformity, Resistance and Spatial Exclusion

Drawing upon two years of ethnographic research into the spatially transgressive practice of parkour and freerunning, this chapter attempts to explain and untangle some of the contradictions that surround this popular lifestyle sport and its exclusion from our hyper-regulated cities. While the existing criminological wisdom suggests that these practices are a form of politicised resistance, this chapter positions parkour and freerunning as hyper-conformist to the underlying values of consumer capitalism and explains how late capitalism has created a contradiction for itself in which it must stoke desire for these lifestyle practices whilst also excluding their free practice from central urban spaces. Drawing on the emergent deviant leisure perspective’s interest in issues of infantilisation and adultification, this chapter explores the lifeworlds of young people who are attempting to navigate the challenges and anxieties of early adulthood. For the young people in this study, consumer capitalism’s commodification of rebellious iconography offered unique identities of ‘cool individualism’ and opportunities for flexibilised employment, while the post-industrial ‘creative city’ attempted to harness parkour’s practice, prohibitively if necessary, into approved spatial contexts under the buzzwords of ‘culture’ and ‘creativity’. Therefore, this chapter engages in a critical criminological reappraisal of issues of transgression, deviance and resistance in urban space under consumer capitalism

Tidal Influence

Feeling that city spaces were exclusionary and oppressive, New York artist Sean Vegezzi turned his attention to alternate geographies. After a decade-long engagement with a cavernous underground space, his recent explorations of NYC waterways reveal the city as a suppressed natural environment, with the specter of the security state lurking in the background