From schoolyards to factory floors

Willis, Roxana (2023) From schoolyards to factory floors. LSE Law, Society and Economy Working Papers (15/2023). London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK.

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Abstract

This is the first empirical chapter in A Precarious Life (OUP 2023)—a long-term ‘ethnography at home’, providing an internal view of crime and conflict among one of the most socio-economically disadvantaged communities in Britain. Instead of explaining violence by theorising from the ‘top down’ (a tendency of mainstream accounts), A Precarious Life offers an alternative perspective ‘from below’. Criminal law scholarship often begins with the presupposition that individuals are autonomous. However, philosophers and legal scholars have compellingly shown that the autonomous individual does not exist in a metaphorical state of nature; instead, autonomy is a moral ideal in liberal societies, which certain people can attain if the socio-economic conditions are conducive for them to do so. This chapter argues that structural inequality in Britain prohibits the least advantaged from becoming autonomous. Ethnographic analysis—including working-class biography and ethnographic portraiture— shines a light on how precariously situated participants must navigate a challenging trajectory from punitive schooling into precarious forms of deregulated and insecure work. Rather than regarding structural conditions in England as apt for all to attain autonomy, this chapter indicates that the autonomous individual would struggle to flourish in such coercive conditions, where workers describe themselves as ‘scared to fart without a good excuse’. Importantly, if class inequality in Britain thwarts the possibility of universal autonomy, then the presupposition of the autonomous individual in criminal law requires imminent revision.

Item Type:	Monograph (Working Paper)
Official URL:	https://www.lse.ac.uk/law/working-paper-series
Additional Information:	© 2023 The Author
Divisions:	Law
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races K Law > K Law (General)
Date Deposited:	24 May 2024 09:18
Last Modified:	14 Sep 2024 04:46
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/123614

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