Book Review: Anarchy and Art: from the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall

Review of Anarchy and Art: from the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall, by Allan Antlif

Metal at urban margins: Regulating scrap metal collecting in Winnipeg, Canada

Scrap metal theft and collection has captured the attention of criminology and criminal justice scholars. Mainstream criminological research on scrap metal theft is focused on opportunity theory, arguing that theft can be reduced through stringent regulation of buying and selling by salvage yards. Alternatively, cultural criminology has examined the issue in ethnographic research exploring dumpster diving and scrounging. Additional conceptual tools are needed to analyze regulation of urban metal collecting, which leads us outside of criminology. The present study draws from urban studies and socio-legal studies to conduct a case study of the policing and regulation of scrap metal theft in Winnipeg, Canada. Using multiple methods including interviews, observations, analysis of news media and municipal regulations, we examine how scrap metal collection and processing is regulated in the city. We found four layers of regulation and law: federal, provincial, municipal laws, and what we refer to as the law of the lane. Our analysis contributes to literature on urban scrap and metal collecting and well as socio-legal literature on urban forms of regulation.Le vol et la collecte de ferraille ont attiré l’attention des spécialistes de la criminologie et de la justice pénale. La recherche criminologique courante sur le vol de ferraille se concentre sur la théorie des opportunités, faisant valoir que le vol peut être réduit par une réglementation stricte de l’achat et de la vente par les chantiers de récupération. Alternativement, la criminologie culturelle a examiné la question sous le regard de la recherche ethnographique explorant les plongeurs des bennes à ordures et les maraudeurs d’ordures. Des outils conceptuels supplémentaires sont nécessaires pour analyser la réglementation de la collecte des métaux en milieu urbain, ce qui nous conduit en dehors du domaine de la criminologie. La présente étude s’inspire d’études urbaines et socio-juridiques afin de mener une étude de cas sur la police et la réglementation du vol de ferraille à Winnipeg, au Canada. À l’aide de plusieurs méthodes, notamment des entrevues, des observations, l’analyse des médias et les règlements municipaux, nous examinons comment la collecte et le traitement de la ferraille sont réglementés à Winnipeg. Nous avons trouvé quatre niveaux de réglementation et de droit: les lois fédérales, provinciales et municipales, et ce que nous appelons « la loi de la voie ». Notre analyse contribue à la littérature sur la collecte urbaine de ferraille et de métaux ainsi qu’à la littérature socio-juridique sur les formes de régulation urbaine

Imagining the urban other: Place, abjection, and public views of risk

This paper examines the relationship between individual feelings of aversion, fear, and disgust of city spaces and broader systems of cognitive urban zoning. We analyze interviews conducted in four distinct urban areas of Ottawa, Canada, working with an open-ended method to learn about how urban individuals understand the concept of “risk.” We identify fear of crime as a central risk perceived by the respondents and observe how they construct boundaries between themselves and perceived “risky” zones, occurrences, and bodies. Drawing from Kristeva’s theory of abjection, we trace a semiotic system of Othering in the respondents’ narratives, examining the symbolic cleansing that occurs when respondents attempt to differentiate themselves from what they perceive as encroaching Otherness. With focus on claims about four distinct neighbourhoods, we argue that risk in the city is configured through physical and imaginative mobilities, through which inhabitants construct boundaries and attempts to cleanse or purify “risky” spaces. We conclude that the sense of abjection and/or the experience of aversion is a way that fear is mapped onto cities. This research shows how city spaces are zoned through fear-based semiotic systems. We also raise questions about the relationship between these semiotic systems and actual tangible threats in these spaces.et les systèmes de zonage urbain cognitif. Nous analysons des entretiens menés dans quatre zones urbaines distinctesd’Ottawa (Canada) en utilisant une méthodologie ouverte pour enquêter sur la façon dont les citadins comprennentle concept de « risque ». Nous identifions la peur du crime comme un risque central perçu par les répondants et observons comment ils établissent des périmètres entre eux et les zones, évènement et corps perçus comme « à risque ». En nous inspirant de la théorie de l’abjection de Kristeva, nous retraçons un système sémiotique d’altérité dans les récits des répondants, examinant le ‘nettoyage symbolique’ qui se produit lorsque les répondants tentent de se différencier de ce qu’ils perçoivent comme une altérité envahissante. En nous concentrant sur les revendications concernant quatre quartiers distincts, nous soutenons que le risque dans la ville est configuré à travers des mobilités physiques et imaginatives, à traves lesquelles les habitants construisent des périmètres et tentent de nettoyer ou de purifier des espaces « à risque ». Nous concluons que le sentiment d’abjection et/ou l’expérience de l’aversion est une façon dont la peur est cartographiée sur les villes. Cette recherche montre comment les espaces urbains sont zonés à travers des systèmes sémiotiques fondés sur la peur. Nous soulevons également des questions sur la relation entre ces systèmes sémiotiques et les menaces tangibles réelles dans ces espaces

Caste Confusion and Census Enumeration in Colonial India, 1871-1921

The colonial censuses of India were colossal attempts to enumerate castes according to a hybrid taxonomy that mixed local knowledges with European preconceptions and misconceptions. From 1871 onward, colonial administrators were determined to categorize and count the castes of India, yet experienced many difficulties in classifying, enumerating, and compiling caste data. The administrative practice of census making and taking in colonial India during the 1890s incorporated anthropometric and ethnological tools from "scientific" anthropology. The introduction of these measures in the census schedule and in enumeration furnished caste with a biological and racial connotation. Yet this biological vision of caste never fully took hold and was contested by colonial administrators and Indian political activists who did not believe in anthropometry. In detailing the complications of colonial census work in India, the authors show that epistemological problems with envisioning and enumerating caste were the rule rather than the exception. Les recensements coloniaux de l'Inde étaient de colossales tentatives visant à dénombrer les castes en fonction d'une taxonomie hybride amalgamant les connaissances locales aux préconceptions et aux idées fausses venues d'Europe. ¤ partir de 1871, les administrateurs de la colonie résolurent de catégoriser et de compter les castes indiennes, mais ils éprouvèrent de nombreuses difficultés à les classifier, à les dénombrer et à compiler les données à leur sujet. Durant les années 1890, on commença à faire le recensement administratif de l'Inde coloniale en empruntant des outils anthropométriques et ethnologiques à l'anthropologie >. L'introduction de ces mesures dans le bulletin de recensement et leur emploi durant le dénombrement donnèrent à la notion de caste une connotation biologique et raciale. Pourtant, cette vision biologique de la caste ne s'est jamais véritablement imposée et fut contestée par les administrateurs coloniaux et les activistes politiques indiens qui ne croyaient pas à l'anthropométrie. En exposant en détail les complications de recenser l'Inde coloniale, les auteurs montrent que les problèmes épistémologiques entourant la façon d'envisager et de dénombrer les castes étaient la règle plutôt que l'exception

Risk Technologies and the Securitization of Post-9/11 Citizenship: The Case of National ID Cards in Canada.

The attacks of 11 September 2001 on Washington and New York continue to influence how governments manage im/migration, citizenship, and national security. One of the more contentious national security responses to the events of 9/11 in Canada has been the drive to introduce a biometric national identification card. In this paper, we argue that the drive for a Canadian national ID card is bound up in ideological processes which threaten to exacerbate, rather than to alleviate, state insecurities pertaining to risk, citizenship, and border (in) security. We maintain that ‘proof of status’ surveillance technologies, such as biometrically-encoded ID cards, lead to the ‘securitization’ of citizenship, and we conclude that ID cards threaten to destabilize the modern spatializations of sovereignty that they are purported to uphold under the guise of national security

Institutional Ethnography as a Method of Inquiry for Criminal Justice and Socio-Legal Studies

Institutional ethnography (IE) is a method of inquiry created by Canadian feminist sociologist Dorothy E. Smith to examine how sequences of texts coordinate forms of organisation. Here we explain how to use IE, and why scholars in criminal justice and socio-legal studies should use it in their research. We focus on IE’s analysis of texts and intertextual hierarchy, as well as Smith’s understanding of mapping as a methodological technique; the latter entails explaining how IE’s approach to mapping differs from other social science approaches. We also argue that IE’s terms and techniques can help examine the textual work undertaken in criminal justice and legal organisations, and reveal how people are governed and ruled by these organisational processes. In the discussion, we summarise how IE can productively contribute to criminal justice and socio-legal studies in the twenty-first century

“You Have to Accept the Pain”: Body Callusing and Body Capital in Circus Aerialism

Little sociological research has examined the work of circus aerialists. Drawing from interviews with 31 circus aerialists in Canada, we explore what aerialists say about their bodies. Circus aerialism is an intense form of physical work, and aerialists endure intense pain during training and performance. Engaging with sociologies of the body and injury, we examine how body capital is generated, maintained, and lost in the career of the aerialist, as well as how injury accelerates this process. Injury and “aging out” of the circus are prominent themes in what aerialists say about their bodies. Arguing that circus aerialism is an undervalued form of work in which risk accumulates in aerialist bodies, we explore how aerialist bodies provide tacit cues about how to avoid injury and when to consider retirement. In the conclusion, we explain how this work contributes to sociologies of the body and circus

“Hobocops”: Undercover Policing’s Deceptive Encounters

Policing cultures have reflected a conservative mindedness, particularly when directed toward street-involved, unhoused persons. Yet alongside an increase in urban poverty across Canada, public police today have taken up a puzzling, disturbing affinity with the identity of homelessness. We explore public police use of an undercover technique called “hobocops”. As part of these operations, public police disguise themselves as homeless people holding cardboard signs at busy motor traffic intersections as a way of regulating distracted driving. We explore these practices as encounters between the increasingly everyday activities of covert policing, urban governance, and a sociological account of police engaging in identity co-optation. Detailing how hobocop operations have unfolded in Canada, we contribute to the literature on covert policing by focusing on the operatives of these deceptive encounters rather than the targets. Drawing on the results of freedom of information requests and media reporting, we suggest that hobocop operations are undertaken in part because of police officer enjoyment of enacting the hobo identity. Applying literature on deception in policing and on the degradation of homeless persons, we reflect on the implications of these deceptive encounters for public policing and literature on criminal justice practices