Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Sociology Show Podcast. My guest
Speaker 1: for this episode was Professor Simon Winlow, talking all about
Speaker 1: his famous ethnographic research looking at bouncers and the nighttime economy.
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Speaker 1: and without further ado, let's go over to the interview
Speaker 1: with Professor Simon Winlow Enjoy Hello and welcome to the
Speaker 1: Sociology Show podcast. Would you like to start by telling
Speaker 1: us a little bit about who you are and what
Speaker 1: you do?
Speaker 2: Please? Hello everyone, My name is Professor Simon Winlaw. I
Speaker 2: am a professor of social sciences at Northumbria University.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Simon, and we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about your study, which which my students just know is
Speaker 1: the Bouncer Study. But yeah, we just wanted to find
Speaker 1: out a little bit more about about the research, very
Speaker 1: famous piece of research. So do you mind telling us
Speaker 1: about how it all started to begin with a little
Speaker 1: bit of background about the study.
Speaker 2: Sure. Well, in the dim and distant history, I the
Speaker 2: first of my family to head off to university and
Speaker 2: went to Durham University, which was then very posh and
Speaker 2: is still quite posh, and here did it really didn't
Speaker 2: enjoyed it all, didn't fit in. Took every opportunity that
Speaker 2: I could do to get back home to environments that
Speaker 2: seemed a little bit more comfortable to me. But during
Speaker 2: the process of doing my sociology degree Derrim I encountered
Speaker 2: Professor Dick Cobbs, who was one of my letturers there
Speaker 2: and we got on well, and he obviously saw something
Speaker 2: in me and encouraged me, which was very good of him.
Speaker 2: And I made it through my degree amazingly and started
Speaker 2: a PhD that he supervised. So I started to look
Speaker 2: at a world I knew quite well, which was the
Speaker 2: world of illegal trading. So I was interested in professional
Speaker 2: criminals who were buying and selling stolen goods. The drug
Speaker 2: markets at the time were absolutely exploding. As a ray
Speaker 2: of music it took hold. Night clubs were springing up
Speaker 2: all over the time place, and the nighttime economy was
Speaker 2: growing incredibly quickly. And so how did bounce of stuff started? Specifically?
Speaker 2: Dick got a grant from the Economic ESRC, which is
Speaker 2: the Economic Social Research Council along the Stavehoul that investigates
Speaker 2: bouncers specifically, and he kind of tagged me onto the
Speaker 2: bill bid. I was appointed as a research assistant and
Speaker 2: he said, can you can you extend your study into
Speaker 2: the world of bounces, which which I could. I knew
Speaker 2: that friends of mine were involved in that work, and
Speaker 2: that's how it all got going. I worked alongside Stuart Lister,
Speaker 2: who's currently at University Elites, and Phil Hartfield, who's no
Speaker 2: longer an academic, and we kind of divvied up the
Speaker 2: research and Stewart phil did you know, interviews, various interviews
Speaker 2: that went in the Bounces boat, and I did the
Speaker 2: participant observation.
Speaker 1: Stuff, right, So what was the I'll come on to
Speaker 1: that there, because that's really interesting. What was the kind
Speaker 1: of overall aim or hypothesis of the study? What was
Speaker 1: it you were trying to identify?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, as part of my studies there, I'd
Speaker 2: done anthropology, and I had this idea of participant observation
Speaker 2: as kind of joining a culture and trying to see
Speaker 2: the world through the eyes of those who were actively
Speaker 2: involved in it. And I approached it with a kind
Speaker 2: of very youthful, evangelical zeal to kind of to really
Speaker 2: understand the complexity of a culture and not simply to
Speaker 2: ask questions of participants, but to try and understand how
Speaker 2: their representations of reality matched with what I saw with
Speaker 2: my own eyes. So I observed the legal trading, I
Speaker 2: observed Bounce, private security companies and whatever else, and I
Speaker 2: wanted to see, you know, what we could make that,
Speaker 2: how we could use that information to really pull back
Speaker 2: the curtain and submit to the cold light of the world,
Speaker 2: which for most people, you know, they would never say
Speaker 2: and certainly never understand.
Speaker 1: And let's get stuck into that, you know, the participant observation,
Speaker 1: because you know, we often talk about sociologists characteristics being
Speaker 1: right for the job as it were, So did you
Speaker 1: look the part Simon? Did you meet the criteria of
Speaker 1: what we imagine about to debate to be able to
Speaker 1: do the research?
Speaker 2: Yes? So I was kind of young and fit and
Speaker 2: like then I would have been like six foot two
Speaker 2: and maybe had a seven in stone and had boxed
Speaker 2: and you know all that kind of stuff and just
Speaker 2: part of you know, I kind of had all the
Speaker 2: scripts that rough and tumble of growing up in a
Speaker 2: working class neighborhood and you know, all those issues that
Speaker 2: one encounters in those environments. And yeah, I could get
Speaker 2: a job. I boxed, and I knew people who were
Speaker 2: working on doors. I knew a couple of people who
Speaker 2: could get me access to private security companies. So, you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of friends, lots of acquaintances, and use my
Speaker 2: friendships with those men very very instrumentally get them to
Speaker 2: introduce me to people who could help push things along.
Speaker 1: And then if we just build on that methodology a
Speaker 1: little bit more, was it covit observation? Did you want
Speaker 1: to remain anonymous? How did you actually approach that?
Speaker 2: Well, to be perfectly honest, as I understand it looking
Speaker 2: back now, I had a very open attitude towards revealing
Speaker 2: why I was there, and I didn't go in with
Speaker 2: a very clear idea of what I was willing to
Speaker 2: talk about and what I wasn't. I let the that
Speaker 2: the situation dictate as people who would help me. The
Speaker 2: geatekeepers obviously knew that I was working for a university
Speaker 2: and I was there to gather research. But I went
Speaker 2: in there started the research. And the only real thing
Speaker 2: that I strategy I had with was that I would
Speaker 2: never lie, So if I was asked, I would always
Speaker 2: tell the truth. So the covert aspect of the research
Speaker 2: was simply withholding that information. But as soon as anyone
Speaker 2: solicited information that would lead the truthful disclosure, I simply
Speaker 2: told them. And I think this is one of the
Speaker 2: kind of bursting the bubble here a little bit. But
Speaker 2: this is not Donald mcantyre, This is not police undercover
Speaker 2: or any of that stuff. These are just men. This
Speaker 2: is like twenty odd years ago. These are men who
Speaker 2: were engaging in legal trading, you know, to get a
Speaker 2: little bit extra money for themselves and their families. There's
Speaker 2: no there. There were gangsters, and there was very serious violence,
Speaker 2: and there were very lugrative criminal markets operating in that world.
Speaker 2: But most of the people I encountered really couldn't care
Speaker 2: too much about who was there, who was observing place
Speaker 2: investigations of this kind of cultural environment was still in
Speaker 2: their infancy. There was no consideration of why attacks or
Speaker 2: you know, grasses hadn't been used in any major criminal
Speaker 2: cases up where I was doing the research. And people
Speaker 2: really didn't care too much whether you watched them buying
Speaker 2: and selling bit Ralph Laurent shirt so you know, counterfeit
Speaker 2: perfume and whatever else. They really didn't care too much.
Speaker 2: Here was watching because I had people that vouch for me.
Speaker 2: I was just a face and a crowd in most cases,
Speaker 2: and I could cult the their friendships and never no
Speaker 2: one really asked what I was doing there, And the
Speaker 2: occasions where they did ask why I was there, I
Speaker 2: told them the truth, yea, and sometimes they loved it,
Speaker 2: you know that you know, guy's going to write a
Speaker 2: book about this, you know, and they thought it was
Speaker 2: funny and everything else, and it's possible that some people
Speaker 2: clammed up around me. I didn't really see it, and
Speaker 2: there's no way of knowing, but I didn't want to
Speaker 2: get caught in a lie. Yeah, and obviously I didn't
Speaker 2: want to go through and kind of begin my project
Speaker 2: with that kind of moral failure of kind of manipulating people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, was there anything ethically that you think was perhaps
Speaker 1: on dodgy ground or do you think you're always open
Speaker 1: no deception, safety harm, those sort of issues.
Speaker 2: Well, you've opened up a whole kind of worms there,
Speaker 2: because they have to ask ask the academic question is
Speaker 2: what do you mean by ethics? Whose ethics? Which ethical
Speaker 2: system you're talking about? I certainly don't have a great
Speaker 2: deal of respect for the dominant ethics of research practice
Speaker 2: as it is understood in the contemporary university, which is
Speaker 2: basically make sure that you protect the university from litigation. I,
Speaker 2: you know, totally disinterested in that. And the obsession with,
Speaker 2: for example, accumulate and consent forms just seems nuts to me.
Speaker 2: Just seems a complete waste of time and an abdication
Speaker 2: of our ethical duty to our research subjects, rather than
Speaker 2: you know, some kind of ethical Uh, get out the
Speaker 2: Jill free card or you know, the kind of top
Speaker 2: quality research studies always have the you know, comprehensive forms,
Speaker 2: building and triplicate whatever else. I don't go along that.
Speaker 2: I think ethical research involves acting ethically. It involves treating
Speaker 2: people with respect and humility and you know, engaging with
Speaker 2: them honestly. And I think you don't need a form
Speaker 2: to do that kind of thing.
Speaker 3: I like that answer. I like that answer. That's great.
Speaker 1: And what about that movement perhaps away from ethics, but practically,
Speaker 1: what were the kind of obstacles that you really faced
Speaker 1: with the research practically?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean that the obvious one is, especially with
Speaker 2: regard to the bouncer side of this subject. I was
Speaker 2: employed as a bouncer, so I had to do the
Speaker 2: job that you can't just stand there and say, well, actually,
Speaker 2: i'm an academic, so in this case, I'm not going
Speaker 2: to get involved in And so I was, you know,
Speaker 2: whenever there was a violent incident, or when there was
Speaker 2: any incident that needed the attendance of bouncers at any
Speaker 2: of the pubs or nightclubs I worked at, I was
Speaker 2: present and involved. So I dragged lots of people out
Speaker 2: I threw them roughly. I had punches in at me,
Speaker 2: all kinds of things, you know, just the usual stuff
Speaker 2: of I've interrupted a couple having sex in the corner.
Speaker 2: I threw out people who were urinating on a gambling machine,
Speaker 2: all kinds of stuff. Jesus. It was just these were
Speaker 2: kind of very wild environments where everyone was crammed in.
Speaker 2: You know, these places really were. I don't think there
Speaker 2: was much pretension paid to all the crowding in these
Speaker 2: bars and nightclubs, and everyone was pissed, and so they
Speaker 2: were dangerous, edgy environments. And when you're working as a
Speaker 2: bouncer in a place like that, you've got to keep
Speaker 2: order as best you can. And that's certainly what I did.
Speaker 1: I mean, what you've just described there is and I
Speaker 1: think this is why your research is so famous and
Speaker 1: used throughout sort of available sotologies. You're describing the classic
Speaker 1: ethnographic research, you know, getting stuck in being involved. For
Speaker 1: the students listening, do you mind just describing what you
Speaker 1: interpret or what you mean by ethnographic.
Speaker 2: Research, Yeah, it means actually getting involved. I prefer the
Speaker 2: term participant observation because it suggests you're actually participating in
Speaker 2: the research culture, and that is what makes this particular
Speaker 2: method particular methodology distinct. So I interviewed people as well,
Speaker 2: and of course when I interviewed them, it became obvious,
Speaker 2: you know, I was divulging my actual occupational background, and
Speaker 2: there was all that mixed in with it. But I
Speaker 2: actually did the job. And because I did the job,
Speaker 2: I saw the problems that my colleagues had to deal
Speaker 2: with on any given night. I saw up close and
Speaker 2: personal who the you know, the cast of characters were
Speaker 2: gangster's coming in, those suggestions of you know, protection rackets
Speaker 2: and things like that. But you also got lots of
Speaker 2: drunken teenagers trying to sneak in. You've got all the people,
Speaker 2: some of whom may be carrying knives. All of that.
Speaker 2: That the kind of the job as it's understood by
Speaker 2: the people involved doing it. You get a kind of
Speaker 2: really a kind of up close and personal understanding of
Speaker 2: the problems they have to deal with and how they
Speaker 2: respond and why they respond in the way. There's wiz
Speaker 2: that they respond.
Speaker 1: And talking about those problems, the word that keeps on
Speaker 1: coming out over and over again, it's word alcohol.
Speaker 3: The word alcohol.
Speaker 1: I mean, this might sound really obvious to put it
Speaker 1: this way, But is that the root cause that we're
Speaker 1: seeing behind this violence is helf break of antisocial behavior.
Speaker 2: No, it's always more complicated than that. Yeah, I think
Speaker 2: the first thing to say is that the like the
Speaker 2: nighttimeomy today has shrunken significantly from when we were doing
Speaker 2: the research, and younger people are now less attached to
Speaker 2: alcohol as a drug of choice and also less like,
Speaker 2: less interested in inebriation. Generally speaking, it seems I think
Speaker 2: it's trying to kind of grasp how cultures have changed,
Speaker 2: and lots of young people at the turn of the
Speaker 2: century would rush towards adulthood in a way that young
Speaker 2: people that they tend not to quite the same degree
Speaker 2: they want to wanted to grow up quickly. They wanted
Speaker 2: to leave the parental home, establish themselves as adults, you know,
Speaker 2: choose for themselves. And part of that was a traditional
Speaker 2: part way to do that was to get pissed with
Speaker 2: your friends and to kind of to act out in
Speaker 2: ways that were in your normal everyday life. You know.
Speaker 2: This allowed so alcohol gave you the opportunity to talk
Speaker 2: to men or women that you normally wouldn't be able
Speaker 2: to kind of summon up the carriage to talk to them.
Speaker 2: Alcohol was the opportunity to dance around like an idiot
Speaker 2: in ways that you never would think to behave, in
Speaker 2: ways that were off the rear door. And that's what
Speaker 2: the nighttime economy was. It encouraged, It invited people to
Speaker 2: ditch their normal persona, to set aside their usual rules
Speaker 2: of behavior and engage in this kind of hedonistic, alcohol
Speaker 2: fueled environment, which for a lot of people at least
Speaker 2: that going through it for the first time was just
Speaker 2: incredible fun and really quite liberating, because I was really interested.
Speaker 3: You mentioned right at the start about the rave scene.
Speaker 1: I just wondered if there was this change, because you know,
Speaker 1: late eighties nineties you kind of had the rave scene where,
Speaker 1: let's be honest, drug of choice was not alcoholics ecstasy,
Speaker 1: and many people said the problems and the fighting reduced then.
Speaker 1: And then by the late nineties, I guess you get
Speaker 1: that real lad culture, drinking culture, even sort of ladd
Speaker 1: aut culture was there, kind of almost like a peak
Speaker 1: of alcohol consumption around that time.
Speaker 2: I think it remained fairly steady over you know, if
Speaker 2: we look back at the twentieth century, but the ways
Speaker 2: in which alcohol was consumed changed significantly. So the major shift,
Speaker 2: especially the growth of nighttime economy, is a shift from
Speaker 2: from the local boozer to city center drinking strips where
Speaker 2: people would imbibe alcohol in a very different way. So
Speaker 2: people got pissed. And then sixties and sixties and seventies
Speaker 2: and now there were there were dance halls and whatever
Speaker 2: else and venue places that they could go to, but
Speaker 2: a lot of it was done in situe. So they'd
Speaker 2: go to a pub and they'd sit and drink and
Speaker 2: get drunk in that one place. But these the places
Speaker 2: were we were doing the research. It produced these kind
Speaker 2: of drinking strips where people would have one drink in
Speaker 2: one venue and then move on to the next, and
Speaker 2: that kind of environment changed drinking practices quite considerably. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure. I think it was probably an increase. And
Speaker 2: as you say, you know, the rave culture kind of
Speaker 2: for some people at least, they kind of a kind
Speaker 2: of suppressed alcohol consumption at least for a little bit.
Speaker 2: But it's strange. I don't think, you know, during the
Speaker 2: nineteen nineties they may have been an upturn, but I
Speaker 2: think alcohol has always been a fairly significant feature of
Speaker 2: working class popular culture. The you know, going back, you know,
Speaker 2: more than one hundred years. It's a part of especially
Speaker 2: part of British culture, part of how we do leisure,
Speaker 2: a part of how we kind of come together in
Speaker 2: community settings, how we get over difficulty in our lives,
Speaker 2: how we rushed towards pleasure in our lives, how men
Speaker 2: negotiate friendship. It's often very difficult. It certainly was very
Speaker 2: difficult the time of the research to have any kind
Speaker 2: of contact with friends that wasn't in a sporting capacity,
Speaker 2: or wasn't didn't involve alcohol in some respect, lubricate dose,
Speaker 2: difficult interactions, and it had a function greatly appreciated function
Speaker 2: in common culture.
Speaker 1: And if we could move on a bit more about
Speaker 1: about your findings, then I know this is very difficult
Speaker 1: to condense a whole study into a small amount, but
Speaker 1: what was there kind of a classic story of the
Speaker 1: average person that became a bouncer in terms of you know, background, ethnicity, upbringing.
Speaker 2: Well, where I did the research principally is certainly was
Speaker 2: then and still is now dominated by the white working class.
Speaker 2: So all bouncers not at all. There were some ethnic
Speaker 2: minority bouncers who worked for the security company that I
Speaker 2: worked for, but overwhelmingly big white working class men, and
Speaker 2: the overwhelming audience the people coming into the bars and
Speaker 2: clubs and whatever else, they were also working class. This
Speaker 2: research was done in working class cities. In order to
Speaker 2: get a job, you had, well, this is not a
Speaker 2: job that you would want to do if you didn't
Speaker 2: think you were capable of carrying it out. At the time,
Speaker 2: things were a little bit wilder than they are now.
Speaker 2: They were less regulated. There was a broad awareness that
Speaker 2: violence was You would face violence if you took a
Speaker 2: job as a bouncer, and if you're going to take
Speaker 2: that job, you better be ready to face it head on.
Speaker 2: Nobody wanted you there if you were just going to
Speaker 2: kind of roll up a curlub in a ball when
Speaker 2: faced with you know, all the problems that bouncers have
Speaker 2: to engage with on any busy night. So I guess
Speaker 2: it's the willingness they give it a goal that is
Speaker 2: the real key. But obviously that in order to give
Speaker 2: it a go, you have to have a sense of
Speaker 2: confidence when it comes to kind of physical aggression. You
Speaker 2: have to have a kind of general sense that lots
Speaker 2: of people will, you know, challenge you verbally and then
Speaker 2: go no further. And so it's just about being you know,
Speaker 2: not falling to pieces in the face of violence, being
Speaker 2: able to I mean, there were plenty of bouncers who
Speaker 2: would become violent if they were faced with violence, but
Speaker 2: most of the bouncers I worked with would kind of
Speaker 2: shrug it off, and they were comfortable with it. They
Speaker 2: didn't start crying, they didn't run away, They weren't incredibly
Speaker 2: nervous or anything like that. It was just part of
Speaker 2: their life and they were confident in dealing with people,
Speaker 2: especially drunken people. One of the obvious things with alcohol
Speaker 2: consumption and violences, your confidence goes up, tends to go
Speaker 2: when you've imbibed alcohol, but your ability to carry it
Speaker 2: out goes right down hill rapidly. And all of the
Speaker 2: guys I worked with, lots of them were working out
Speaker 2: regularly in gym's. Some had come from boxing, but most
Speaker 2: were just kind of gyms. There was an element in
Speaker 2: the UFC which is just starting the crab in at
Speaker 2: the time, and they were confident. Some hard established reputations
Speaker 2: for violence come from local communities, come from in some
Speaker 2: cases criminal families, and they were you know, had a
Speaker 2: degree of confidence in their bodily ability to face down
Speaker 2: these challenges that they would face. So this is the
Speaker 2: kind of people that we're talking about. Often, you know,
Speaker 2: nice moral family men, occasionally trading in the illegal economy.
Speaker 2: There was lots of kind of you know, everyone had
Speaker 2: a kind of side hustle as it's called now going
Speaker 2: on somewhere important cigarettes and alcohol, which is common at
Speaker 2: the time, lots of trading in faith designer goods, lots
Speaker 2: of trading in counterfeits, and of course, as the research progressed,
Speaker 2: just a massive amount of drug dealer some of which
Speaker 2: was really quite small, hand to hand stuff, but some
Speaker 2: of the people involved that involved in the research was
Speaker 2: certainly trading at the level above the street.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I did.
Speaker 1: I did one that you know, you said about confidence,
Speaker 1: and so I wondered how much it was about status masculinity.
Speaker 3: So the terms that we use in sociology.
Speaker 2: Well, I certainly wouldn't want to bandy around that fridge
Speaker 2: toxic masculinity, which really kind of is just a grotesque
Speaker 2: simplification of how and why people behave for it kind
Speaker 2: of takes a phrase which is antagonistic to any reasonable
Speaker 2: sociologist who you know, wants to look at nuance and complexity,
Speaker 2: rather than simply denigrate, you know, particular forms of behavior
Speaker 2: that they don't like, rather than seeking to understand them.
Speaker 2: So I don't think that had anything really they do
Speaker 2: with the study. I think there was a form of
Speaker 2: robust masculinity which is rooted in working class culture and
Speaker 2: goes back through the Industrial Revolution and back into the
Speaker 2: mists of history, which you know, there were work classmen
Speaker 2: were bred with that kind of sense of stoicism, desire
Speaker 2: for autonomy, and these characteristic characteristics found an outlet in
Speaker 2: this particular new context, very old characteristics and the new context.
Speaker 2: So they were just kind of you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: it wouldn't be They looked as if they would handle
Speaker 2: themselves because they've been around violence a lot in their lives.
Speaker 2: They were confident in the face of it. They were young,
Speaker 2: they were generally bigger than the average man. They worked
Speaker 2: out a lot more so, they had more muscle m
Speaker 2: and some of them boxed and were very good with
Speaker 2: their hands. Some of them were on UFC, and they
Speaker 2: were judo enthusiasts, wrestling enthusiasts, you know, quite a broad gamut.
Speaker 2: But they were all kind of men who were bodily
Speaker 2: quite confident in their ability to face down challenges in
Speaker 2: terms of masculinity. Obviously their men, and they're enacting particular
Speaker 2: scripts about around masculinity. But I don't think there was
Speaker 2: anything particularly negativistics. There was elements of sexism which were
Speaker 2: far more common then, So they were, you know, kind
Speaker 2: of they would comment on women passing in the street
Speaker 2: and things of that kind. But they were also subject
Speaker 2: to sexual assault themselves, and they would laugh about I
Speaker 2: kind of. I mean, really they were grabbed and man
Speaker 2: handled by women all the time. And I can remember
Speaker 2: a group of male strippers who were working at this bar,
Speaker 2: this kind of disco bar with a capacity about like
Speaker 2: a thousand people were in there and meals. They had
Speaker 2: mail strippers on and one of the jobs for the
Speaker 2: for the bouncers to keep ordering this very difficult environment
Speaker 2: was to get the strippers from the manager's office, which
Speaker 2: is where they got changed, onto the dance floor, which
Speaker 2: is where they did the act. And this was incredibly difficult.
Speaker 2: And these these strippers, these poor guys, Jesus Christ, they
Speaker 2: were sexually assaulted. It was impossible to keep them safe
Speaker 2: between the two places, and they were grabbed and whatever else,
Speaker 2: and the bouncers were also grabbed, but because of their
Speaker 2: cultural background, they kind of shrugged all that stuff off.
Speaker 2: They didn't start crying about being the victim of sexual assault.
Speaker 2: So these are very quite old fashioned cultures. A lot
Speaker 2: of the discourse we have about inappropriate sexual talk, inappropriate
Speaker 2: interactions between men and women, it was all there, but
Speaker 2: it was often going in both directions.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I wonder even if that word would have been used,
Speaker 1: you know, would they have even considered that they had
Speaker 1: been sexually assaulted at that time?
Speaker 2: That's just ask grabbing them and mostly, you know, they
Speaker 2: kind of shrub it off and they'd make a joke
Speaker 2: about it. You know, in some cases they would considered
Speaker 2: a sign of flattery. It was all comedy to them,
Speaker 2: and you know, they'd make light of that kind of thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I just made a note of the robust masculinity. I've
Speaker 1: not had that one before.
Speaker 2: I like it.
Speaker 3: I like it, Simon. I just wanted to ask you.
Speaker 1: You just mentioned an event there, but I wondered if
Speaker 1: there was any other events or perhaps individuals that really
Speaker 1: stand out from that piece of research.
Speaker 3: They're kind of really stick in your mind.
Speaker 2: Sure, Yeah, well I'll tell you about the hardest thing
Speaker 2: that I had to deal with is I was working
Speaker 2: at a bar. It was actually quite a way away
Speaker 2: from where the majority of the research was conducted, and
Speaker 2: I was working with a friend of mine and we
Speaker 2: traveled down to worked the door and there was just
Speaker 2: a two of us working on. This wasn't a particularly
Speaker 2: loud pub. It was in the city center, didn't have
Speaker 2: a lot of music, and it wasn't particularly orientated towards
Speaker 2: younger duringism, and it was quite an easy gig, really
Speaker 2: bit boring, you know, not much going on. So we
Speaker 2: were watching the street traffic as people trailed up and
Speaker 2: down going about their business, lots of people out after
Speaker 2: dark in the city center, and a crowd had gathered
Speaker 2: just outside the bar that we were working, and girls
Speaker 2: were arguing and raised voices attracted a crowd out, and
Speaker 2: people kind of stopped going about their business and started
Speaker 2: to watch what was unfolding. And we kind of had
Speaker 2: a kind of ringside seat almost as we looked out
Speaker 2: from our place at the door to the pub under
Speaker 2: the main main street, and an argument there was two
Speaker 2: antagonists shouting at each other, and you know, there was
Speaker 2: all that kind of being, you know, from the crowd,
Speaker 2: you know, making noise, trying to you know, seem shocked
Speaker 2: by what was happening. And the argument stopped and one
Speaker 2: of the girls turned away, and it seemed as it
Speaker 2: was all over, but she picked up a bottle, a
Speaker 2: brown alcohol empty alcohol bottle that was on the curb side,
Speaker 2: and turned around immajorately and smashed off the girl who
Speaker 2: she was arguing in the face with it. And this
Speaker 2: changed the atmosphere and majorly on the street. It was
Speaker 2: a terrible act of violence. Just the sound, you know,
Speaker 2: everyone made a kind of intake of breath, which was
Speaker 2: obviously a very serious act of violence from the moment
Speaker 2: the blow was delivered. And so we'd rushed out from
Speaker 2: our place to kind of catch this girl who immediately
Speaker 2: had a hand clutch to her mouth, and caught her
Speaker 2: and kind of brought her into the pub, and the
Speaker 2: guy I was working with had first aid skills and
Speaker 2: kind of gradually persuaded the girl and let her hard
Speaker 2: come away from my mouth. And it was just the
Speaker 2: most awful injury, ripped from nostril to mouth, teeth missing.
Speaker 2: She was still fully conscious and wasn't crying. It was
Speaker 2: just shocked and hadn't really come around from the you know,
Speaker 2: the shot of the incident, and the police were there
Speaker 2: quite quickly. I agreed to give a statement, which is unusual.
Speaker 2: It was the only time that I agreed to give
Speaker 2: a statement of police. And I was just reflected my
Speaker 2: own cultural background, because if this had been a man,
Speaker 2: I probably wouldn't have done that, and because I was
Speaker 2: so shocked by what had happened, I, you know, I
Speaker 2: wanted to do all I could have to help the
Speaker 2: police in this in this incidentt And it turned out
Speaker 2: this girl was fifteen years old and the case didn't
Speaker 2: actually come to court, so I didn't have to do
Speaker 2: anything really give a statement. Place came around a couple
Speaker 2: of nights later and told us the fatter the matter,
Speaker 2: and I lost sleep over that was That returned to
Speaker 2: me quite a few times, and it prompted quite a
Speaker 2: lot of rumination around ethics. H Could I have intervened sooner?
Speaker 2: Is there anything I should have done differently? You know?
Speaker 2: And this is real efforts, I think, not feeling in
Speaker 2: a consent forms, trying to work out how one can
Speaker 2: assist one's fellow human beings, rather than how satisfy a
Speaker 2: kind of committee sitting in a university lecture theater.
Speaker 1: Was that the kind of was that a point where
Speaker 1: you stepped away from it? I mean, you know, we
Speaker 1: often talk about getting into a group, but you know,
Speaker 1: walking away from that study with a particular moment when that.
Speaker 2: Happened, I don't think I continue to work after that.
Speaker 2: The real end point came when I was working with
Speaker 2: a security company there was also involved in protection rackets
Speaker 2: and they got called out, we got called out. I
Speaker 2: was in the night club after the fact, after finishing
Speaker 2: work at a pub, and we all got in cars
Speaker 2: and flew out of this pub, which was on the
Speaker 2: end edge of town, and the head of the security
Speaker 2: company kind of attacked this guy who he believed was
Speaker 2: responsible for smashing up his public he's supposed to be protecting.
Speaker 2: And then the other guys that I was working with
Speaker 2: kind of joined in and he was getting hoofed around
Speaker 2: the floor. This this guy, this this young guy. And
Speaker 2: I said shouted immediately stop because how could you not write?
Speaker 2: I mean, there was every these a big guys, powerful guys,
Speaker 2: and there was every opportunity that this could have been
Speaker 2: a fatality. So I had I had went to vein
Speaker 2: at that point, and I did in the vein and
Speaker 2: told them to stop, and they did stop. But from
Speaker 2: that point onwards it became played and made it to
Speaker 2: continue on with that kind of stuff was unsustained of them,
Speaker 2: and it was best at that point. We had more
Speaker 2: than enough data to write the book at that stage,
Speaker 2: and I kind of backtracked a little and exiting was
Speaker 2: far harder than entering the field. But that was the
Speaker 2: end point for me.
Speaker 1: This is going to sound a bizarre question based on
Speaker 1: the last two stories you just told, but did.
Speaker 2: You enjoy it?
Speaker 3: Did you enjoy the work?
Speaker 2: H There were moments of you know, fun, Like some
Speaker 2: of the guys I worked with a really good company
Speaker 2: and they'd make great jokes and I'd spend a lot
Speaker 2: of time four hour shift or whatever. It was just
Speaker 2: just laughing, right, you know, just great, great fun. I
Speaker 2: was still a young guy at the time, you know,
Speaker 2: it was a nice environment to spend timing. I didn't
Speaker 2: enjoy the violence at all. And you know, some of
Speaker 2: the professional criminals that spent time with were we're pretty
Speaker 2: good company, and I enjoyed that aspect. But it's u
Speaker 2: you know, I think this is the thing kind of
Speaker 2: research project you do on the weekend, but this was
Speaker 2: a like a full time this was my life, but
Speaker 2: kind of the best part of the year. And then
Speaker 2: there were interviews and whatever. Old that stretched it out
Speaker 2: around two years of worth of research. And so it's
Speaker 2: like any you know, if you look back on your youth,
Speaker 2: there will be high points and down points and points
Speaker 2: of regret and you know, points that you return to
Speaker 2: as you get nostalgic, you know, all the rest of
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. So it's just I've integrated all
Speaker 2: of that into my biography, and you know, I'm content
Speaker 2: that I did a good job. But the research that
Speaker 2: we conducted was worthwhile and we extended knowledge, which was
Speaker 2: the reason why we did it in the first place.
Speaker 2: I think I did reveal some important truths about how
Speaker 2: people live and how illegal markets are organized and the
Speaker 2: role of violence in those markets. And I'm quite kind
Speaker 2: of quietly confident that I did my part in contributing
Speaker 2: to the development of our intellectual life and no disciplines.
Speaker 1: Definitely, definitely, And in that respect, you know, if if
Speaker 1: listeners want to find out more about the research, and
Speaker 1: how can they find out more about the study.
Speaker 2: Well there are two books. Uh, you should be able
Speaker 2: to get them at any college university library. You get
Speaker 2: them for very cheaply on the on Amazon these days
Speaker 2: because they're quite all books. But the book that I
Speaker 2: wrote is called Badfellas, and the book I wrote with
Speaker 2: Dick Hobbs Stuart Lister in Phil Hartfield is called Bouncers.
Speaker 1: And yeah, is what you're working on at the moment?
Speaker 1: On what what's your current research.
Speaker 2: I've just written a book about nostalgia and how people
Speaker 2: experience nostalgia and the role of nostalgia in develop in
Speaker 2: forms of working class politics. I'm especially interested in how
Speaker 2: people on the far right utilize nostalgic imagery in formulating
Speaker 2: their politics. Thank you.
Speaker 3: And if people want to find out more about you,
Speaker 3: can they follow you on x or instacrat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm on Twitter. I don't tweet much, but whatever
Speaker 2: it is. Yeah x now, yeah, you can get me
Speaker 2: portion a few things that I've read and think we're interesting,
Speaker 2: So please do well.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much for your time, Tim, and I
Speaker 3: really really appreciate it lovely.
Speaker 2: Thanks nice to make you.
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