Book review: Men, Masculinities and Violence: An Ethnographic Study
| Published date | 01 December 2017 |
| Date | 01 December 2017 |
| Author | Andrew Fowler |
| DOI | 10.1177/0264550517740998a |
| Subject Matter | Book reviews |
Men, Masculinities and Violence: An Ethnographic Study
Anthony Ellis
Routledge; 2016; pp. 166; £34.99; pbk
ISBN: 978-1138040274
Reviewed by: Andrew Fowler, Senior Lecturer, Sheffield Hallam
University
Men, Masculinities and Violence by Anthony Ellis is ethnography of violent men in
several urban areas across the north of England, which means that the author went
to the homes, pubs, streets, football matches and day-to-day spaces the men
occupied. Every probation worker will recognize the accounts offered by the men,
but the unique insight Ellis offers due to his contact time in the spaces occupied by
participants is worth the exploration – particularly in the contemporary probation
landscape where high case-loads and administrative commitments make leaving
the office increasingly untenable. The author’s ‘use of self’ to gain access to the
world of the participants and reflections on the consequences will also be of interest
to practitioners and researchers alike.
In summary, the book forms an analysis of the subjective lives of the men and their
masculine identities within the context of the neoliberal capitalist society. Rightly,
Ellis highlights the lack of attention to gender and class in relation to violent men,
despite the overwhelming evidence that men are, in the majority, responsible for
violent crime and many are from post-industrial, deprived and marginalized com-
munities. While the national statistics and media report a drop in criminality, Ellis
argues that for the men and communities featured in the ethnography the drop in
violence and crime is not apparent. By the author’s own admission the book is
political and ethical, laudably seeking to contribute to a dynamic and critical
criminology that represents the ‘harms throughout the social order’ (p. 16).
The book is methodically structured with Chapter 1 offering the rationale and
justification for the study, laying the theoretical foundations for the argument
expounded in Chapter 7, for an integrated theory of why men are violent. This is
motivated, in part, by the argument that previous theoretical traditions have
treated interpersonal violence as ‘tangential’ (p. 37) to something else, for
example, football violence, rather than critiquing the violence itself and the sub-
jectivities of the perpetrators. Chapter 3, ‘Top Lad’, provides an in-depth case
study of Darren and provides the ‘analytical threads’ (p. 56) that are developed in
Chapters 4, 5 and 6. It recounts Darren’s criminality and violence at different
stages in his life history. The rich description of Darren’s experiences in childhood,
his violent heritage, motivation to use violence as a resource to avoid humiliation
and shifting towards a ‘nothing to lose mentality’ (p. 57) in his youth is a reminder
of the scale of the task of working with men who have violent histories. The picture
that emerges is one where interpersonal violence does not sit neatly with
434 Probation Journal 64(4)
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