The big gang theory
Academic Alistair Fraser believes youth gangs are all about identity. And he should know – he spent 18 months living in one of Scotland’s poorest areas to observe youngsters first-hand
ALISTAIR Fraser has no fear of gangs. If a youth in a hoodie walks past, he is more likely to give him some cheery chat than to cross the street.
While he was researching his PhD, Alistair lived in one of Glasgow’s most deprived areas for 18 months, hanging out with the youngsters he was studying.
“I couldn’t pop down the street for milk without bumping into one of them,” he said. “Their names were spray-painted on the back door of the close I was living in. They were a constant feature.”
Ten years after he lived in their hood, Alistair has turned his time with the Langview Young Team (it’s a made-up name – he promised to keep the area a secret) into a book.
It is an academic tome designed for university libraries rather than Waterstones’ special offer tables.
But he is determined to take his message beyond the lecture theatre. He has just been named one of BBC Radio 3’s New Generation Thinkers. Programmes about his work with gangs will be broadcast between the classical music station’s symphonies and concertos.
He said: “When I was doing the study in Langview, I spent more time out of university than in it. It impressed on me how important that is for academics.
“We might think of gangs as scary or dangerous. Sometimes they are, but sometimes there are social reasons people get involved. That’s not to excuse the bad behaviour but it’s important to understand it.”
Alistair did not grow up as a member of his local Fleeto or Tongs. There was nothing that called itself a gang in Tillicoultry when he was a teenager.
But when he started hanging with the Langview massive, he saw familiar behaviour.
He added: “Before I started my research, I imagined gangs to be something hierarchical and static, like a club. You were in or out.
“What I discovered was much more normal. It was similar to my upbringing, which was rural, with a few villages clustered together.
“Everyone identified with this village or that village and wee fights would break out. The same sort of contests happened in Langview.”
Despite having a law degree
from Glasgow University, Alistair had to go to Oxford to find out about the city’s gangs.
“I was looking for a subject for my dissertation,” he said. “In the library, I came across a book called A Glasgow Gang Observed. It was about a place I knew really well and a way of doing research that was really different from what I’d been taught.”
Alistair read the book – and decided to produce the sequel.
He added: “It seemed like no one had developed the subject since James Patrick wrote that book in the 1960s.”
Alistair wanted his study to be hands-on. He trained as a youth worker, volunteered in the area and moved to Langview for 18 months of the four years he spent on the study.
“I didn’t want to be a researcher from the ivory tower parachuting in,” he said.
What he found was a shifting group of teenagers who saw gang identity as part of adolescence.
Alistair added: “Young people growing up in the area would identify with the gang name. That would not necessarily mean fighting, it could just be a name for a place.
“The younger ones watched the older ones have fights over the bridge. Then they would do it to prove themselves in front of the older ones. That’s how it would reproduce.
“It’s passed on, the next generation grows into it, then they grow out of it and pass it on again.”
Alistair’s study focused on the boys he called “the likely lads of the area”. He observed them around Langview and saw how gang identity had changed since Patrick’s day.
He said: “In the 1960s, there were cinemas, cafes, skating rinks and dance halls, all in the local area. These leisure options are not there any more. They are all in out-of-town retail parks, big shopping malls and multiplexes all rolled into one.
“People remembered an area in Langview where young people hung about. I think it used to be playing fields. When new flats were built there, the Langview boys went back and created a wee space for themselves – a den – in the bin area.
“There is a connection between that process and their identification with their local area. They are saying, ‘This turf is mine’.”
Alistair found that turf wars and border skirmishes did happen – but not often. Instead, the lads marked their territory with graffiti.
He added: “There were fights between that area and the neighbouring gang but they were less often than I expected and more talked about than happened.
“There were a lot more fights among the group themselves.
“Quite a few of the boys had scars but they had come from one another rather than from fights with neighbouring areas.”
After Langview, Alistair spent time in Chicago, Hong Kong and Shanghai studying gangs there.
He said: “There, groups that started out on the streets became organised and entrepreneurial over time. They were aiming to make money and exploited criminal opportunities.”
But for the likely lads of Langview, the Young Team was a passing phase. By the time Alistair left, they were leaving school and going on to apprenticeships or casual jobs.
He said: “For them, the gang was about being stuck in a place.” ●Alistair’s slot, Free Thinking, is on Radio 3 on May 17 at 10pm.