Approaching the topic under discussion as I have, facilitates the analysis of some of the central ideas and concerns of the sociology of specific localities and spaces – in this case notions of community. Furthermore, I wanted to critically examine how what might be called macro-sociological approaches to social life (by this I mean phenomena such as globalisation, post-Fordism, transnationalism, cosmopolitanism) which have, in some readings, come to dominate the discipline, are narrated and experienced at the micro-level and, in turn, what such empirical study (at that level) can tell us about macro-sociological theorising and analysis (Crow, 1999). I want to examine the argument that all macro-sociologically significant developments take place or at least are enacted within specific localities and are made – to some extent – ‘real’ at the micro-level within those very localities. If not real, as such, then experienced as actual events, as consequences, as outcomes. Consequently, examination of the relationships between macro-sociological trends and micro-sociological experiences of individuals is critical. This, of course, is not to suggest any form of causal hierarchy here - indeed far from it - but that I would argue that sociological research needs to
113
take account of and be able to account for (as far as possible) both top-down and bottom-up narratives, discourses and experiences.
One of the macro-sociological factors I wanted to examine (as will have already become clear) is the notions of ‘advanced marginality’ and ‘territorial stigmatisation’ most readily associated with the work of Waquant (1993, 1996. 2007, 2008a,b,c) as discussed in chapter two. I wanted to identify a location for fieldwork that would allow me to explore the degree to which this phenomena could be mapped through the discourses of ‘outsiders’ and the views on to an identifiable community which I was both familiar with and one I knew to be stigmatised to some extent by policy makers, the media and non-residents. Furthermore, I wanted to be able to explore what people who actually lived in that community felt about both this stigmatisation and the degree to which this construction overlapped with their own views and experiences of living on the estate. The most readily accessible location for the fieldwork for me was the large, peripheral housing estate on the east of Oxford made up of Blackbird and Greater Leys or as it is known more generally: The Leys. This site seemed the most appropriate because of my own experience of working on the estate, the experiences I have had working with statutory partners in this part of the city (predominantly around various regeneration projects) and the way in which the area has been constructed and represented in popular, political and official discourses since its original construction. On a more structural level the area possessed some of the characteristics Wacquant identifies as significant in relation to his concepts of ‘advanced marginality’ and ‘territorial stigmatisation’. This includes the decline of traditional, large-scale industrial production (in this case car manufacturing), the existence of a bounded and relatively isolated community and the loss or absence of an alternative or compensatory ‘hinterland’.
Having worked as a social researcher on a number of projects for local and national statutory and government agencies for several years I have often worked on what are often
114
popularly termed ‘social problems’which have included homelessness, substance and alcohol misuse, crime and anti-social behaviour, health inequalities, sex work, social exclusion and deprivation. Almost invariably these projects have ended up focusing on particular geographical areas, specific localities and parts of certain towns and cities. In those towns and cities I have worked in across the UK there have tended to be persistent patterns and practices (from outside my own research practice) that have shaped and constrained my work. These areas were often presented to me by statutory and agency colleagues as in some ways or others as holding the ‘key’to all or at least the worst of the problems under investigation.
Importantly, there are a number of key ways in which official constructions of specific localities are constructed and depicted. To some degree this is accomplished through the ways in which particular social phenomena (for example, educational attainment, health outcomes, experiences of crime and anti-social behaviour, income, mortality rates, rates of teenage pregnancy, family structure and employment rates) are measured, recorded and reported in state and local agency processes. These official constructions often rely heavily on the significant weight of data available to and collated for national and local purposes. This includes, for example, the Multiple Index of Deprivation, the Child Well-Being Index, NHS health data and crime and disorder data. Furthermore, these data collections and demographic profiles exist at different levels, from the macro-transnational data sets collected by, for example the European Union or the OECD right down to the level of Single Output Areas (SOAs), subsets of these SOAs and families and individuals. But what does this data and the mapping of people and places in this way really tell us and what does the assembling of such relentless and diverse data linked directly to specific localities and those who live there really tell us? What are the implications for those who live there and those who live somewhere else? How does the modelling of neighbourhoods in this way affect policy development, implementation and outcomes? My central argument here is that it is less
115
important whether or not such data is accurate, valid or interpreted or deployed correctly but that it is more important to draw attention to the ways in which such data contributes too and maps onto other representations of localities and spaces both in generic and specific cases (see for example, O’Connell Davidson and Layder 1994).
As my research has progressed I have found that my original emphasis was too weighted to the policy aspects of New Labour administrations and not focused enough on the voices of my participants. In some ways I wanted to engage with Smith (2005) and others’ observations that a great deal of analysis of issues related to regeneration tend towards a focus on ‘top-down’initiatives rather than the voices of those who are often subject to policy interventions. Initial analysis of my interview data suggested to me that I was missing the point and importance of my participants’ contributions if I did not focus more directly on their experiences. Consequently, during the course of my research I have altered the emphasis of the thesis away from a direct focus on the policy prescriptions of New Labour and the administration’s focus on regeneration onto a greater focus on the notion of ‘neighbourhood’. In doing this I have decided to foreground the narrative and experiences of my participants – to pay them far greater serious attention in Back’s terms (2007) – to focus on the deep, rich data and what it can tell us about how individuals and groups interact with and make sense of their everyday lives and how they respond to macro-forces that directly and indirectly shape their lives and environments they live in.
This shift in emphasis leaves the role of policy discussions highly relevant but in different ways to how I originally conceived of it. Taking a slightly longer historical perspective and analysis draws on the discourse of policy documents to illustrate how central the notion of neighbourhood has become to policy and urban management discussions. In addition, the shift in emphasis also facilitates analysis on other key sources of discourses, images and representations which includes printed media and academic and quasi-academic
116
treatments of both the notion of neighbourhood (Day, 2006, Lynsey, 2007, Robertson, et al, 2008) and, in this case, the specific neighbourhoods of Blackbird and Greater Leys, East Oxford (Campbell, 1993, Harvey and Hayter, 1993, Lavery, 1997, McGuigan, 1996).
There is one further consideration that is relevant here and that was the decision of whether to anonymise the locality itself. Place anonymisation is a technique that has been employed across a large number of studies located in specific places throughout the history of sociological inquiry (Nespor, 2000). A number of other studies I refer to in this thesis employ this approach from Reynolds use of ‘Omega’ (1986), through Kelaher et al’s., ‘Birdville’ (2010) and Smith’s anonymizing of the London estate in his 2005 study or Blokland (2008) who refers only vaguely to an inner-city neighburhood. Nespor (2000), notes that this approach has often been deployed by researchers without justification or reflection and operates as an assumed guarantor of further anonymity for participants. However, Nespor (2000) also notes that using this technique does not, in reality, anonymise the locality in which the research is conducted as the area may well be recognizable to others despite the adoption of a pseudonym and that researchers are often inconsistent in maintaining the anonymity of place. Other studies I refer to in this thesis do not anoymise the localities in which their studies take place. This includes, for example, Barke and Turnbull’s (1992) study of Meadowell, Charlesworth’s (2000) study located in Rotherham, Rogaly and Taylor’s (2011) study of the Larkman, North Earlham and Marlpit estates in Norwich and McKenzie’s (2013, 2015) study of St. Anns estate, Nottingham (amongst others). As with these other studies I felt that the identity of the locality was important for four main reasons. The first is the specific history and political economy of the area in relation to the decline of car manufacturing and its impact on the Leys and its residents. Second, is the striking comparison between public assumptions about Oxford as a whole and the Leys. Third is the historically
117
situated narrative that has been constructed locally, nationally and even internationally about the Leys which forms an important context for aspects of my research. Finally, in terms of preserving the anonymity of the participants (who have themselves been anonymised) I felt that the size of the population of the estates (nearly 14,000) and the size of the sample (20) makes identification of individual participants no more likely because the location is identified than it would be if the name of the area had been withheld or replaced by a pseudonym (see also Warr, 2005).