Four years after the inner city riots that shocked Britain, high street shops are marketing the style of 1990s Los Angeles gangbangers as current fashion.
It’s the latest example of a fear-fascination relationship with the urban poor that forms the central theme of a new book by criminologist Dr Jonathan Ilan.
Entitled Understanding Street Culture: Poverty, crime, youth and cool, the book analyses why – as politicians condemn ‘gang crime’ – media and marketing industries co-opt street styles to sell their products.
Referencing various facets of street culture, including fashion, music and gangs, Dr Ilan, of the University’s School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, examines its origins, functions, manifestations and appeal.
Where urban poverty is more commonly discussed in terms of the crime problems it produces, Dr Ilan shows how it also inspires a range of styles and practices that the makers of fashion, music, films and video games are keen to harness.
His research draws on examples of street culture from around the world, including the favelas of Brazil and the housing projects of the USA, to conclude that they all share similar characteristics.
These characteristics, he argues, are based on a particular set of social, cultural and economic factors that have led, throughout history, to street culture being regarded as ‘cool’.
Rather than resistance to ‘mainstream culture’, Dr Ilan suggests that street culture can better be regarded as a posture of ‘defiance’, where gaining and displaying wealth or ‘bling’ is preferable to accepting the fate of poverty.
Drawing on contemporary research and original examples, the book examines the sometimes brutal violence that has led to the ‘fear of the street’, as exhibited by those in authority. Ultimately it is often this interaction with processes of governance that reproduces and exacerbates exclusion, which in turn reinforces the underpinnings of street culture.
Dr Ilan, a lecturer in criminology within the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, is also a DJ and music writer. He has published widely on the subjects of youth culture, urban poverty, cultural criminology and social class.