Les Moran - Sexuality and the Politics of Violence and Safety

Sexuality and the Politics of Violence and Safety offers a timely and critical exploration of issues of safety and security at the centre of responses to violence. Through a multi-disciplinary analysis that draws on feminism, lesbian and gay studies, sociology, cultural geography, criminology and critical legal scholarship, this book offers to transform the way we understand and respond to the challenges raised by violence. It breaks new ground in its examination of the rhetoric and politics of violence, property, home, cosmopolitanism and stranger danger in the generation of safety and security.

Using interviews, focus groups and surveys with lesbians and gay men, Sexuality and the Politics of Violence and Safety draws upon real life experiences of safety and security. It raises some fundamental challenges to the law and order politics of existing scholarship and activism on homophobic hate crime.

Leslie Moran is Professor of Law at Birkbeck College, University of London.

Beverley Skeggs is Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester.

First published 2004
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

2004 Leslie Moran and Beverley Skeggs
with Paul Tyrer and Karen Corteen

Typeset in Times by Exe Valley Dataset Ltd, Exeter

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This book draws upon research that was undertaken as part of the Violence Sexuality, Space project, one of twenty projects that made up a major research initiative on violence promoted by the UK government funded Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) (award No LI33 25 1031). Full details of the project can be found at http://lesl.man.ac.uk/sociology/vssrp.

First and foremost our thanks must go to those who shared their everyday experiences of safety and security with us. A special thanks also goes to Professor Betsy Stanko, the Director of the Violence Research Programme, for her support and enthusiasm throughout the length of this project and beyond. Paul Tyrer, Karen Corteen and Lewis Turner worked as the projects research staff. Their energy, dedication and determination were fundamental to the projects success.

Papers based on the research have been presented to various audiences over the last four years in universities and conferences in Australia, Canada, Germany, the UK and the USA. The experiences have always been challenging and contributed to the genesis of the text presented here.

Special thanks to current and past colleagues and friends who offered support in many and various ways during the course of this project: Richard Collier, Derek Dalton, Tor Docherty, Costas Douzinas, Dominic Janes, Morris Kaplan, Elena Loizidou, Fiona Macmillan, Derek McGhee, Shaun McVeigh, Daniel Monk, Gail Mason, Dirk Meure, Tim Murphy, Steve Myers, Suresh Nanwani, Susan Paterson, Mariana Valverde, Andrew Sharpe, Bev Skeggs, Julie Wallbank and last but not least my Mum and Dad, Annie and Alec Moran.

Particular thanks are due to Paul Passavant who arranged my visit to Hobart and William Smith College, Geneva, New York as visiting fellow in the Fisher Centre for the Study of Men and Women. Special thanks to the members of the centre, Betty Bayer, Susan Henking, Dunbar Moodie and Lee Quinby who provided such a warm welcome and a stimulating and convivial environment. Finally, thanks to Dirk Meure for his hospitality and Professor Chalmers for the invitation to be a visiting fellow at the Law School, University of Tasmania, Hobart.

Thanks to those who have read all the sections of this book. I am truly grateful. Laura Doan, Mike Savage, Sallie Westwood, Andrew Sayer, Jon Binnie, Betsy Stanko, Sally Munt, including the great queer reading group Comings and Goings, with Lisa Adkins, Nicole Vitellone, Sarah Green, Don Kullick, Eleanor Castella, Penny Harvey. Thanks also due to my fantastic ex-colleagues who remain influential: Celia Lury, Jackie Stacey, Sarah Franklin, Maureen McNeil, Sara Ahmed, Lynne Pearce, and, of course, my new colleagues who have had to cope with a very stressed head of department as I finished this book. Thanks especially to Les for tolerating the stress too.

Especial thanks and apologies to my mates: Valerie Atkinson, Nickie Whitham, Graham Day, Jean Grugel, Stuart Baron, John Hobbs, John Phillips, Pat Kirkham, Jeanette Edwards, Krystal Packham and Henri Kreil. I know some have lived the pain of this book with me. Sorry. And of course, thanks and apologies to my amazing parents: Doreen and Ken Skeggs, who continue to sustain me when I should be sustaining them. I really do appreciate the care and loving that all the above have provided.

This is a book about violence and safety. Our primary focus is the nature and practices of safety and security, not violence, a departure from most contemporary writing on violence. The focus on safety can be explained simply. Safety and security are at the heart of reactions and responses to violence, yet violence is predominantly represented as being in opposition to safety. But this is a very partial and limited representation of the relationship of violence and safety. The loss of safety and insecurity the threat of, the drama, the anxiety, the possibility shapes the whole public imaginary of violence. Violence, we suggest, is also for safety and security.

In taking safety and security as our point of departure, it is not our intention to suggest that work which gives priority to violence, is either invalid or has no urgency. Nor do we seek to distract attention from the perpetrators of violence. Our study builds on pioneering lesbian and gay scholarship (Blumenfeld 1992; Comstock 1992; Herek and Berrill 1992; Mason and Tomsen 1997; Valentine 1989) and activism (Butler 1997b); Greater Manchester Lesbian and Gay Policing Initiative (GML & GPI) 1999; Kuehnle and Sullivan 2001; Mason and Palmer 1996; National Advisory Group 1999; National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programmes (NCAVP) 1999; Sandroussi and Thompson 1995; Morrison and Mackay 2000), which documents violence previously denied or ignored. Though debate continues as to whether this work documents previously unrecorded levels of violence or reports an explosion of new violence (Jacobs and Potter 1999; Moran 2000), it is clear that lesbians and gay men experience a wide spectrum of heterosexist violence, from physical assault to harassment and verbal abuse, on a day-to-day basis.