Making Trouble

Abstract

Mayhem caught Britain by surprise in the summer of 2011. Extensive rioting and looting spread across several cities after Mark Duggan, a young man of mixed race, was shot dead by the police in a poor housing estate in north-east London. An initially peaceful protest march following his death got out of hand and marked the beginning of several violent days and nights during which the police were attacked, cars were burned and shops were plundered. The extent of the expressed violence and lawlessness came as a shock¹ and led to public condemnations of the “opportunistic theft”² of the involved “vandals,” “thugs” and “hooligans.”³ The riots brought into mind the similarly extensive riots around Paris and other French cities in 2005.⁴ Both cases are recent symbols of unexpected violent disorder in a Western European context, which seems to strike blindly, without any motives except for criminal intent, and without any signs of a legitimized revolt.