Journal Articles by Waqas Tufail
Race and Class, 2020
‘Muslim grooming gangs’ have become a defining feature of media,
political and public debate arou... more ‘Muslim grooming gangs’ have become a defining feature of media,
political and public debate around child sexual exploitation in the UK. The dominant narrative that has emerged to explain a series of horrific cases is misleading, sensationalist and has in itself promoted a number of harms. This article examines how racist framings of ‘Muslim grooming gangs’ exist not only in extremist, far-right fringes but in mainstream, liberal discourses too. The involvement of supposedly feminist and liberal actors and the promotion of pseudoscientific ‘research’ have lent a veneer of legitimacy to essentialist, Orientalist stereotypes of Muslim men, the demonisation of whole communities
and demands for collective responsibility. These developments are situated in the broader socio-political context, including the far Right’s weaponisation of women’s rights, the ‘Islamophobia industry’ and a long history of racialising crime. We propose alternative ways of understanding and responding to child sexual exploitation/abuse. We contend that genuinely anti-racist feminist approaches can help in centring victims/survivors and their needs and in tackling serious
sexual violence without demonising entire communities.
Contention: The Multidisciplinary Journal of Social Protest, 2015
This article explores the social dynamics in the city of Salford at the time of the Pendleton rio... more This article explores the social dynamics in the city of Salford at the time of the Pendleton riot, which took place amidst the four days of national rioting that began with the killing of Mark Duggan in Tottenham by the Metropolitan Police Service. Attempting to counter what we see as a dominant narrative of the riots as 'shopping with violence', this article explores the development of the significant disorder in Salford through a triangulation of accounts, including an extensive review of journalistic accounts, alongside interviews from a dozen people who witnessed the riots as police officers, residents and spectators. Beginning with an overview of the events of August 9th 2011, we argue that the deployment of officers in riots gear in the vicinity of Salford Precinct proved provocative, and created a focal point for the widespread antagonism felt towards the police. Furthermore, we suggest that an understanding of local contextual factors is critical both in terms of answering the question ‘why Salford?’, but also in terms of explaining the ferocity of the violence targeted towards officers of Greater Manchester Police (in contrast to the focus on looting in nearby Manchester city-centre). Interpreting the riots as a response to punitive policing policies that have accompanied state-directed policies of large-scale gentrification, we highlight the degree to which the 'contestations over space' that characterised the riot pointed to an underlying politics of resistance (despite lacking 'formal' political articulation).
In light of increasing concerns in relation to police accountability, this article reviews the hi... more In light of increasing concerns in relation to police accountability, this article reviews the history of public order policing for one large provincial force (Greater Manchester Police). Explaining our misgivings about those narratives that discern a trend towards ‘negotiation’ and ‘facilitation’ between protestors and the police, we outline a critical framework for the analysis of police practice. This account is centred upon an understanding of the development of policing as the cornerstone of the fabrication of bourgeois social order, but stresses that this is mediated through its formal subservience to the rule of law, conflicting priorities and the need to establish ‘patterns of accommodation’ with the populations that are to be policed. All of this makes for the reproduction of ‘local social orders’, influenced by particular urban political contexts, as well as wider cultural currents. This article suggests that this is clearly evident in the facts surrounding the four major riots, and numerous other public order policing engagements, that mark the history of this particular provincial force.
In light of increasing concerns in relation to police accountability, this article reviews the hi... more In light of increasing concerns in relation to police accountability, this article reviews the history of public order policing for one large provincial force (Greater Manchester Police). Explaining our misgivings about those narratives that discern a trend towards ‘negotiation’ and ‘facilitation’ between protestors and the police, we outline a critical framework for the analysis of police practice. This account is centred upon an understanding of the development of policing as the cornerstone of the fabrication of bourgeois social order, but stresses that this is mediated through its formal subservience to the rule of law, conflicting priorities and the need to establish ‘patterns of accommodation’ with the populations that are to be policed. All of this makes for the reproduction of ‘local social orders’, influenced by particular urban political contexts, as well as wider cultural currents. This article suggests that this is clearly evident in the facts surrounding the four major riots, and numerous other public order policing engagements, that mark the history of this particular provincial force.
""Since mass immigration recruitments of the post‐war period, ‘othered’ immigrants to both the UK... more ""Since mass immigration recruitments of the post‐war period, ‘othered’ immigrants to both the UK and Australia have faced ‘mainstream’ cultural expectations to assimilate, and various forms of state management of their integration. Perceived failure or refusal to integrate has historically been constructed as deviant, though in certain policy phases this tendency has been mitigated by cultural pluralism and official multiculturalism.
At critical times, hegemonic racialisation of immigrant minorities has entailed their criminalisation, especially that of their young men. In the UK following the ‘Rushdie Affair’ of 1989, and in both Britain and Australia following these states’ involvement in the 1990‐91 Gulf War, the ‘Muslim Other’ was increasingly targeted in cycles of racialised moral panic. This has intensified dramatically since the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the ensuing ‘War on Terror’.
The young men of Muslim immigrant communities in both these nations have, over the subsequent period, been the subject of heightened popular and state Islamophobia in relation to: perceived ‘ethnic gangs’; alleged deviant, predatory masculinity including so‐called ‘ethnic gang rape’; and paranoia about Islamist ‘radicalisation’ and its supposed bolstering of terrorism. In this context, the earlier, more genuinely social‐democratic and egalitarian, aspects of state approaches to ‘integration’ have been supplanted, briefly glossed by a rhetoric of ‘social inclusion’, by reversion to increasingly oppressive assimilationist and socially controlling forms of integrationism. This article presents some preliminary findings from fieldwork in Greater Manchester over 2012, showing how mainly British‐born Muslims of immigrant background have experienced these processes.""
Book Chapters by Waqas Tufail
Over the past decade in Britain, a number of sexual abuse scandals
emerged. These ranged from the... more Over the past decade in Britain, a number of sexual abuse scandals
emerged. These ranged from the revelations about celebrity Jimmy Savile,
thought to be the most prolific sexual abuser in British history, to the
crimes of long-standing Liberal MP Cyril Smith. Both men, now
deceased, were left unchecked to commit sexually violent offences against
young girls and boys over a period of decades. Operation Yewtree, the
on-going Metropolitan Police investigation initiated following the Jimmy
Savile scandal, led to the conviction of high-profile sex abusers such as
celebrity publicist Max Clifford and entertainer Rolf Harris. Around the
same time as the celebrity sex abuse scandal began to make news headlines, another scandal emerged concerning the violent sexual abuse of
young girls and women. This related to revelations that groups of men in
towns including Rochdale in Greater Manchester and Rotherham in South Yorkshire had been sexually abusing scores of young girls over a
number of years. Whilst all of these crimes received widespread news
coverage, there was a marked difference in how they were framed and
how they came to be understood. In the popular press representations of
the Rochdale and Rotherham sexual abuse crimes, issues of violence
against women and patriarchy were relegated and decentred in place of a
dominant and mainstream narrative that portrayed the child sexual abuse
scandal as primarily due to the uniquely dangerous masculinities of
Muslim men (Tufail 2015; Gill and Harrison 2015). This chapter examines
how local media and state actors and institutions in Rotherham
framed the child sexual abuse scandal, the impact this had on minority
communities and community relations more broadly and the ways in
which these representations were challenged and resisted. This chapter
also addresses the inherent tensions between feminists and anti-racists
that arise in the context of sexual abuse scandals involving ethnic minority
perpetrators (Grewal 2012; Ho 2006) and argues that in Rotherham
there is evidence of an emergent, grassroots, anti-racist feminism.
Islamophobia: Still a Challenge for Us All, 2017
Shades of Deviance A Primer on Crime, Deviance and Social Harm, Mar 31, 2014
Book Reviews by Waqas Tufail
Web Contributions by Waqas Tufail
Conference Presentations by Waqas Tufail
Uploads
Journal Articles by Waqas Tufail
political and public debate around child sexual exploitation in the UK. The dominant narrative that has emerged to explain a series of horrific cases is misleading, sensationalist and has in itself promoted a number of harms. This article examines how racist framings of ‘Muslim grooming gangs’ exist not only in extremist, far-right fringes but in mainstream, liberal discourses too. The involvement of supposedly feminist and liberal actors and the promotion of pseudoscientific ‘research’ have lent a veneer of legitimacy to essentialist, Orientalist stereotypes of Muslim men, the demonisation of whole communities
and demands for collective responsibility. These developments are situated in the broader socio-political context, including the far Right’s weaponisation of women’s rights, the ‘Islamophobia industry’ and a long history of racialising crime. We propose alternative ways of understanding and responding to child sexual exploitation/abuse. We contend that genuinely anti-racist feminist approaches can help in centring victims/survivors and their needs and in tackling serious
sexual violence without demonising entire communities.
At critical times, hegemonic racialisation of immigrant minorities has entailed their criminalisation, especially that of their young men. In the UK following the ‘Rushdie Affair’ of 1989, and in both Britain and Australia following these states’ involvement in the 1990‐91 Gulf War, the ‘Muslim Other’ was increasingly targeted in cycles of racialised moral panic. This has intensified dramatically since the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the ensuing ‘War on Terror’.
The young men of Muslim immigrant communities in both these nations have, over the subsequent period, been the subject of heightened popular and state Islamophobia in relation to: perceived ‘ethnic gangs’; alleged deviant, predatory masculinity including so‐called ‘ethnic gang rape’; and paranoia about Islamist ‘radicalisation’ and its supposed bolstering of terrorism. In this context, the earlier, more genuinely social‐democratic and egalitarian, aspects of state approaches to ‘integration’ have been supplanted, briefly glossed by a rhetoric of ‘social inclusion’, by reversion to increasingly oppressive assimilationist and socially controlling forms of integrationism. This article presents some preliminary findings from fieldwork in Greater Manchester over 2012, showing how mainly British‐born Muslims of immigrant background have experienced these processes.""
Book Chapters by Waqas Tufail
emerged. These ranged from the revelations about celebrity Jimmy Savile,
thought to be the most prolific sexual abuser in British history, to the
crimes of long-standing Liberal MP Cyril Smith. Both men, now
deceased, were left unchecked to commit sexually violent offences against
young girls and boys over a period of decades. Operation Yewtree, the
on-going Metropolitan Police investigation initiated following the Jimmy
Savile scandal, led to the conviction of high-profile sex abusers such as
celebrity publicist Max Clifford and entertainer Rolf Harris. Around the
same time as the celebrity sex abuse scandal began to make news headlines, another scandal emerged concerning the violent sexual abuse of
young girls and women. This related to revelations that groups of men in
towns including Rochdale in Greater Manchester and Rotherham in South Yorkshire had been sexually abusing scores of young girls over a
number of years. Whilst all of these crimes received widespread news
coverage, there was a marked difference in how they were framed and
how they came to be understood. In the popular press representations of
the Rochdale and Rotherham sexual abuse crimes, issues of violence
against women and patriarchy were relegated and decentred in place of a
dominant and mainstream narrative that portrayed the child sexual abuse
scandal as primarily due to the uniquely dangerous masculinities of
Muslim men (Tufail 2015; Gill and Harrison 2015). This chapter examines
how local media and state actors and institutions in Rotherham
framed the child sexual abuse scandal, the impact this had on minority
communities and community relations more broadly and the ways in
which these representations were challenged and resisted. This chapter
also addresses the inherent tensions between feminists and anti-racists
that arise in the context of sexual abuse scandals involving ethnic minority
perpetrators (Grewal 2012; Ho 2006) and argues that in Rotherham
there is evidence of an emergent, grassroots, anti-racist feminism.
Book Reviews by Waqas Tufail
Web Contributions by Waqas Tufail
Conference Presentations by Waqas Tufail
political and public debate around child sexual exploitation in the UK. The dominant narrative that has emerged to explain a series of horrific cases is misleading, sensationalist and has in itself promoted a number of harms. This article examines how racist framings of ‘Muslim grooming gangs’ exist not only in extremist, far-right fringes but in mainstream, liberal discourses too. The involvement of supposedly feminist and liberal actors and the promotion of pseudoscientific ‘research’ have lent a veneer of legitimacy to essentialist, Orientalist stereotypes of Muslim men, the demonisation of whole communities
and demands for collective responsibility. These developments are situated in the broader socio-political context, including the far Right’s weaponisation of women’s rights, the ‘Islamophobia industry’ and a long history of racialising crime. We propose alternative ways of understanding and responding to child sexual exploitation/abuse. We contend that genuinely anti-racist feminist approaches can help in centring victims/survivors and their needs and in tackling serious
sexual violence without demonising entire communities.
At critical times, hegemonic racialisation of immigrant minorities has entailed their criminalisation, especially that of their young men. In the UK following the ‘Rushdie Affair’ of 1989, and in both Britain and Australia following these states’ involvement in the 1990‐91 Gulf War, the ‘Muslim Other’ was increasingly targeted in cycles of racialised moral panic. This has intensified dramatically since the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the ensuing ‘War on Terror’.
The young men of Muslim immigrant communities in both these nations have, over the subsequent period, been the subject of heightened popular and state Islamophobia in relation to: perceived ‘ethnic gangs’; alleged deviant, predatory masculinity including so‐called ‘ethnic gang rape’; and paranoia about Islamist ‘radicalisation’ and its supposed bolstering of terrorism. In this context, the earlier, more genuinely social‐democratic and egalitarian, aspects of state approaches to ‘integration’ have been supplanted, briefly glossed by a rhetoric of ‘social inclusion’, by reversion to increasingly oppressive assimilationist and socially controlling forms of integrationism. This article presents some preliminary findings from fieldwork in Greater Manchester over 2012, showing how mainly British‐born Muslims of immigrant background have experienced these processes.""
emerged. These ranged from the revelations about celebrity Jimmy Savile,
thought to be the most prolific sexual abuser in British history, to the
crimes of long-standing Liberal MP Cyril Smith. Both men, now
deceased, were left unchecked to commit sexually violent offences against
young girls and boys over a period of decades. Operation Yewtree, the
on-going Metropolitan Police investigation initiated following the Jimmy
Savile scandal, led to the conviction of high-profile sex abusers such as
celebrity publicist Max Clifford and entertainer Rolf Harris. Around the
same time as the celebrity sex abuse scandal began to make news headlines, another scandal emerged concerning the violent sexual abuse of
young girls and women. This related to revelations that groups of men in
towns including Rochdale in Greater Manchester and Rotherham in South Yorkshire had been sexually abusing scores of young girls over a
number of years. Whilst all of these crimes received widespread news
coverage, there was a marked difference in how they were framed and
how they came to be understood. In the popular press representations of
the Rochdale and Rotherham sexual abuse crimes, issues of violence
against women and patriarchy were relegated and decentred in place of a
dominant and mainstream narrative that portrayed the child sexual abuse
scandal as primarily due to the uniquely dangerous masculinities of
Muslim men (Tufail 2015; Gill and Harrison 2015). This chapter examines
how local media and state actors and institutions in Rotherham
framed the child sexual abuse scandal, the impact this had on minority
communities and community relations more broadly and the ways in
which these representations were challenged and resisted. This chapter
also addresses the inherent tensions between feminists and anti-racists
that arise in the context of sexual abuse scandals involving ethnic minority
perpetrators (Grewal 2012; Ho 2006) and argues that in Rotherham
there is evidence of an emergent, grassroots, anti-racist feminism.