Fire Fighters, Neighbourhoods and Social Identity: the relationship between the fire service and residents in Bristol
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ExclusionThis idea of social and spatial exclusion has been picked up by many, including policy makers and theoreticians, as the way in which complex problems become manifested in a neighbourhood context. Many works, both popular and academic, discuss what it means to live in an excluded area, and to deal with exclusion (Hanley 2007, Hare 2005, Power, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion. 2007, Davies 1998, Campbell 1993), but fewer discuss the processes through which neighbourhoods become excluded. Sibley (2001, 1999, 1995) draws on object relations theory to address ideas of social exclusion, partly in regard to gypsy traveller communities, but also more generally. He contends that from childhood, via processes of ‘introjection’ and ‘projection’, we create a sense of border between ourselves and others, which are conceptualised as either good or bad. Further, this process can also be considered in terms of place, and particularly the people that inhabit those spaces, whereby ‘power is expressed in the monopolization of space and the relegation of weaker groups in society to less desirable environments’ (Sibley 1995) (page 1). Social exclusion has crossed the divide from academic to policy audiences and was a mainstay of government policy between 1997 and 2010, with the development of the Social Exclusion Unit and its evolution into the Social Exclusion Taskforce. Although the idea of social exclusion covers a number of different facets of poverty and deprivation, its definition is not clear cut, and it is used in a number of different ways by policy makers and practitioners. Levitas (1998) identified three separate discourses which are referred to in social exclusion talk, and which present both different causes of exclusion, and consequently different paths for its amelioration. These are commonly referred to as MUD, RED and SID, which represent a moral underclass discourse, similar to Murray, where poverty is seen as the consequence of the degeneracy of the poor (Murray, Lister et al. 1996); a redistributionist discourse, which has a particular focus on material poverty; and, a social integrationist discourse, which is most closely allied to the New Labour ideology of social inclusion through paid work (Levitas 2005). Key to the translation of these concepts into policy work has been the recognition that in many areas, and for many people, problems are multiple and complex, typically comprising unemployment, low skills, low incomes, poor housing, high crime, bad health and family breakdown (Social Exclusion Unit 1997). Inevitably, these groups present the greatest risk factors for fires (Communities and Local Government 2008) and are also concentrated in those areas that tend to be most problematic for the FRS. As such, concern for exclusion has a corollary with concern for community fire safety. Further, as will be discussed, the FRS have taken up a number of these exclusion discourses, leading them to view certain neighbourhoods in certain ways through the ways in which they speak about them. Areas that experience social exclusion are covered by a number of area based initiatives aimed to address these issues in whole or in part. They are also, inevitably, the same areas that present the fire service with much of their ‘business’, with residents of neighbourhood renewal areas twice as likely to die or be injured in a fire as residents of more affluent areas (Arson Control Forum 2004). The moral underclass discourse is redolent of Victorian beliefs about the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor, and re-established itself in the 1980s on the back of neo-conservatism in both the UK and the US (Levitas 2005). Although early commentators on the underclass wrote about underclass as exclusion from society and shorthand for the multiple problems of structural poverty, it was taken up by the right to imply moral degeneracy on behalf of the poor, which spreads, like a disease, through society (Murray, Lister et al. 1996). Further, it particularly stigmatises certain groups, such as young men (who are idle) and single mothers (who are feckless) (Young 2002, Young 1999). There are similarities here with the way in which the fire service target their interventions (Communities and Local Government 2008), and with the transfer of responsibility for community fire safety away from those in power – the planners of overcrowded communities, the housing allocators, the landlords with substandard furniture – to those in deprived neighbourhoods, who are increasingly made to seem responsible for their own fire safety (or lack of it) (MacLeavy 2009). Social capitalOne of the ‘solutions’ that is frequently suggested to revitalise neighbourhoods, promote social inclusion and reduce ASB is social capital. However, social capital has its own heritage and a particular set of ideas which originate with Bourdieu (1986) who discussed three different forms of capital: economic, cultural and social (Bourdieu 1986). This has been expanded and elaborated by a number of commentators (Forrest, Kearns 2001) including Putnam, who developed distinctions between ‘bridging’ and ‘bonding’ social capital and the different impacts that these can have on communities (Putnam 2000). Social capital refers to the connections that members of communities have with one another, and the resources which may be linked to these networks. In the past it was believed that communities which were low in economic capital ‘compensated’ in some way with higher social capital. However, modern urban planning and the associated dynamics in communities (Hanley 2007) have eroded this, so that deprived communities are frequently seen as lacking social capital in addition to economic capital. Putnam’s contribution about bridging and bonding types of social capital extends this into an explanatory mechanism for positive and negative types of social capital which can inhibit or enhance community relations. Bonding social capital is seen as the preserve of poor communities, which encourages a ‘we keep ourselves to ourselves’ mentality and which is not conducive to welcoming outsiders or to extending links out of the community, and by implication, also inhibits social mobility. By contrast, bridging social capital is linked to more affluent areas, where more heterogeneous groups can engage in social networks, bolstered by the commonality of class and affluence. Encouraging informal social interaction is seen as key to the development of social capital and, in turn, of the neighbourhood improvements which are believed to follow from enhanced social capital. However, there is something of a tension between the encouragement of social capital and the growth of diversity (Crawford 2006), which may have ramifications for both the fire service and some communities. There is a body of research to suggest that the fire service is neither porous, nor outward looking (Baigent 2001, Bain 2002), although the situation is seen to be improving (Audit Commission 2004). Whether the fire service are best placed to be advocates for this type of approach could therefore be questioned to some extent. Further, interventions which bolster community norms and bonding social capital, where those norms present or permit hositility to fire fighters could also be seen to be counterproductive. Further, ideas around social capital, although helpful in understanding the trajectories taken by different neighbourhoods, and the type of social life to be found there, fail to address the intergroup dynamic that occurs when certain groups meet in particular places. And so, although social capital has its uses in understanding neighbourhoods, it falls short when it comes to explaining the relationship between groups. Nevertheless, like many other of the concepts covered in this review, it is used as an explanatory mechanism by many in the community sector, the fire service included, and as such, provides part of the context in which they operate. Download 0.87 Mb. Share with your friends:
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