Social Representations and the Labeling of Non-Compliant Youths: The Case of Victorian and Edwardian Hooligans

摘要

In this study my goal is to identify the causes that explain certain labels' capacity to endure and to keep their discriminatory effectiveness over long periods of time, and even provoke moral panics. I will argue that although the labeling approach to deviance has been successful in showing the constructed nature of labels it has not been equally successful in explaining the reasons for the durability of some of its products. In my view this shortcoming can be overcome by the introduction of relevant historical content informing the everyday processes through which labels come into being and bring to bear influence in society. In this sense, the theory of social representations offers an important reference. The central argument I will be expounding in this article is twofold. First, a deviant label can be understood as a constituting symbolic theme, interacting with a wider constellation of themes concerning a social representation. Second, the resilience of a label will depend on the extent it stands in opposition to, or corrupts, the crucial assumptions of the core themes that work to uphold the structure of a social representation. In order to ascertain the efficacy of my argument I looked at the origins and early history of one of Britain's most disreputable labels: that of the “hooligan.” I conclude by saying that the endurance of this label and the moral panic it generated were grounded in its power to radically counter one of the core themes—that of respectability—sustaining the social representation the Victorian middle-class built in relation to itself.