Exploring Urban Youth Culture Outside of the Gang Paradigm : Critical Questions of Youth, Gender and Race On-Road

‘On-road’ is a complex term used by young people to describe street-based subculture and a general way of being. Featuring the voices of young people, this collection explores how race, class and gender dynamics shape this aspect of youth culture. With young people on-road often becoming criminalised due to interlocking structural inequalities, this book looks beyond concerns about gangs and presents empirical research from scholars and activists who work with and study the social lives of young people. It addresses the concerns of practitioners, policy makers and scholars by analysing aspects and misinterpretations of the shifting realities of young people’s urban life. Front Cover 1 Exploring Urban Youth Culture Outside of the Gang Paradigm: Critical Questions of Youth, Gender and Race On-Road 2 Copyright information 3 Table of Contents 4 Notes on Contributors 6 Foreword 9 Preface 12 1 Introduction: Youth and On-Road – Making Gender and Race Matter 16 Roads of history, paths of patriarchy: the endless excess of youth terminated? 21 Young women’s lives on-road 24 Outline of the collection 24 References 31 2 Black, British Young Women On-Road: Intersections of Gender, Race and Youth in British Interwar Youth Penal Reform 35 Introduction 35 Methodology 37 Part I 38 The contemporary Black, British urban girl on-road: the contentious preconditions shaping girls’ individual and social development 38 Black, British young women on-road: intersections of a historic gendered, racial marginality 41 Part II 44 On-road: forged in modernity’s fury of racialised, gendered exclusion 44 On-road: race and gender in interwar British youth penal reform 45 Conclusion 48 References 49 3 Tainted Love: Intimate Relationships and Gendered Violence On-Road 54 Introduction 54 Road and racial ambiguity 56 Road life, patriarchy and gender 57 Theorising love 58 Methodology 60 Fixity, desire and heterosexist eroticism 61 Implosion and gendered violence 66 Conclusion 69 References 70 4 (The) Trouble with Friends: Narrative Stories of Friendship and Violence On-Road 74 Introduction 74 What is friendship? 77 Friendships of virtue 77 Friendships of pleasure and utility 77 Friendship on-road 79 What is on-road and on-road life? 79 Researching friendship on-road 82 Participants, data collection and analysis 82 On-road and the expression of friendship 83 “There’s mates, good mates and best mates”: friends and associates 85 “I would jump in no questions asked!”: loyalty on-road 87 “There’s no love, it was all fake. It was all lies” 88 Conclusion 90 Notes 92 References 92 5 The Sexual Politics of Masculinity and Vulnerability On-Road: Gender, Race and Male Victimisation 96 Introduction 96 Sexual prowess and gang stereotypes 97 Intersectional blind spots 98 Sexual victimisation as anti-masculine 99 Methods 100 On-road as a space, place and mentality 101 On-road as a heteronormative space 102 Child sexual abuse 104 The blind-spot of boys’ sexual exploitation 105 Heritage of sexual violence 107 Tough men, hidden wounds: gender trauma 110 References 111 6 The Road, in Court: How UK Drill Music Became a Criminal Offence 115 Introduction 115 What is drill music? 118 Evidence of things not known 118 The artistic nature of drill music, denied 120 Dispensing justice through procedural injustice 121 Rap experts needed, but anyone will do 123 Criminalising road culture, one rhyme at a time 124 References 126 7 On-Road Inside: Music as a Site of Carceral Convergence 130 Introduction 130 Entrapment 132 Music and the carceral 134 Rap and urban geography in prison 138 Authenticity 143 Conclusion 145 Notes 146 References 146 8 Jeta e Rrugës: Translocal On-Road Hustle, Within and from Albania 149 Introduction 149 Albanian rap and gangs: myth construction and moral panic 151 Adultification and Albanian youth migration 153 Methodology: music and connection 155 Findings 156 Neighbourhood solidarity and marginalisation experience 156 Nacut (‘the boys’): gendered solidarity 158 Code of the street 159 Kam marrë rrugët (‘I took to the streets’) 162 Conclusion 163 Note 164 References 164 9 ‘He’s shown me the road’: Role Model and Roadman 170 Introduction 170 Role models and roadmen: policy and positioning 170 Role models 170 Roadmen 173 Psychosocial and positioning theory 173 Germaine 176 Analysis 179 Conclusion 182 References 183 10 Diary of an On-Road Criminologist: An Auto-Ethnographic Reflection 185 Provocation 185 On-road researcher 186 On-road criminologists versus carwash sociologists 186 Who am I? 187 Whose story is it? 187 Blackness 188 Case example: on-road with ‘T’ 189 Discussions: breaking the fourth wall 195 Conclusion 199 References 200 11 Conclusions, Compromises and Continuing Conversations 201 Jade’s reflections: feminist lens on the soundtracks to subjectivity, relationality, love and community 201 Tara’s reflections 205 Rod’s reflections: roads taken, lessons learned, no detour ahead 208 Note 211 References 211 Index 216