Chapeltown: a case study on the limits of collective violence during the 2011 English ‘riots'

In August 2011 rioting developed in towns and cities across England to a scale and intensity not witnessed since the summers of 1980 and 1981. Rioting developed initially in Haringey in North London on the 6th August and in the following days spread across London then to other cities such as Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Nottingham. Many attributed this ‘contagion’ to ‘copycat’ behaviour and ‘mindless criminality’, whilst others pointed toward a context of social deprivation and poor police community relations. Despite these assertions, it is actually the case that theoretical understanding of the processes underlying this spread from one location to another is very limited and under developed.
Of particular importance for advancing theory in this domain is the issue of the pattern of the spread of violence; because it is the case that rioting did not spread everywhere. Why was it that collective violence happened in places like Nottingham and Liverpool but did not develop in cities like Sheffield and Leeds? Why did some cities that have obvious potential to riot not actually suffer them? To tackle these questions Dr Clifford Stott explores the situation in the Chapeltown district of Leeds with some key stakeholders directly involved in some of the events that took place there during those critical days in August.
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