ESLJ Volume 3 Number 1 Reviews
ISSN 1748-944X
Bouncers: Violence and Governance in the Night-time Economy by Dick Hobbs, Philip Hadfield, Stuart Lister and Simon Winlow.
Oxford University Press, 2003, ix + 323 pp, £35.00 hbk and £15.99 pbk, (ISBN: 0-19-925224-6).
The authors start the book with the claim that, ‘this is a book about the political economy of violence’. Ultimately, it is a very seductive account of that economy. It is also utterly refreshing to have a book dedicated to this vastly under-researched yet critical night-time economy.
The introduction outlines the authors’ rational and structure of the book. The first three chapters of the book frame their study within a broader context with reference to the night-time economy and the structural and historical developments of post-industrial Manchester, which they use as a case study. This is followed by a consideration of several ethnographic themes centred on the world of bouncers. Of particular note here is the interesting use of some longitudinal data from a veteran bouncer, although more could have been done with this.
The following three chapters analyse and discuss this changing world of bouncers with reference to the somewhat contradictory forces of regulation and marketization in the night-time economy. The consequent professionalization of the ‘bouncing trade’ is also explored via masculinity, class and crime frames of reference. The book concludes with a succinct exposition of the moral contradictions of the social control work done by bouncers. Here, empathy for what is in effect ‘private policing’ and the problems of resourcing are made clear by the authors. The tone throughout the book is lively and reflective, which I fully support.
I am very pleased that the bouncer’s story is being told. However, what I am not convinced about in this account by Hobbs et al is the way it is told. Having published in this specific field myself, my major criticism is about what you could term ‘ethnographic faithfulness’. When they stress at the outset that, ‘this is a book about an environment where it regularly ‘goes off’’ (page 11), I would strongly resist and reject such a portrayal as a caricature. That is not to claim that violence is not a typical feature of the door environment but it is routinely avoided and is often an exaggerated part of the ‘war stories’ told amongst bouncers. The story that they want to seduce you by is an exotic tale of violence, drugs and gangs. It ignores the more mundane quiet nights, pleasant customers and how to cope with boredom. Thus, bouncers are used as an analytic vehicle to discuss wider issues of governance, regulation, masculinity, crime and social class. A more minor point is that the survey of the practitioner literature is a limited one. There is a genre of bouncers’ stories from a practitioner perspective, including Thompson (1984,1986) and Twemlow (1980), which is marginalized and not fully engaged with.
This book will appeal to a wide community of readership across the social sciences and in particular the criminological. Ultimately, Hobbs et al have produced an interesting and overdue book. I would welcome other contributions to this important field.
Dr David Calvey
Manchester Metropolitan University
Calvey, David, "Bouncers: Violence and Governance in the Night-time Economy by Dick Hobbs, Philip Hadfield, Stuart Lister and Simon Winlow", Entertainment and Sports Law Journal, ISSN 1748-944X, September 2005, <http://go.warwick.ac.uk/eslj/issues/volume3/number1/calvey/>
