The trouble with culture: A speculative account of the role of gypsy/traveller cultures in ‘doorstep fraud’
| Published date | 01 August 2019 |
| Author | Coretta Phillips |
| Date | 01 August 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1362480617733725 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
733725TCR0010.1177/1362480617733725Theoretical CriminologyPhillips
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Article
Theoretical Criminology
2019, Vol. 23(3) 333 –354
The trouble with culture: A
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speculative account of the role
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of gypsy/traveller cultures in
‘doorstep fraud’
Coretta Phillips
London School of Economics and Political Science, UK
Abstract
This article makes the case for the empirical study of the causative role of culture and
ethnicity in offending and criminality. It advocates considering that racist subordination
and structural exclusion may produce adaptive cultural practices which in turn
contribute to negative outcomes such as crime. This article tentatively uses a case
study of ‘doorstep fraud’, commonly associated with Gypsy/Traveller ‘rogue traders’
and ‘cowboy builders’ to engage with this idea. Drawing on conceptual and theoretical
developments in anthropology, sociology and criminology, and using data from offender
interviews with ‘doorstep fraudsters’, I examine the opportunities provided by nomadism
and family self-employment for crime commission. The article speculates that Gypsy/
Travellers’ cultures, structurally framed by economic insecurity, political marginalization
and hostile social relations with sedentarist society are nonetheless dynamic rather than
fixed, often sharing the aspirations and motivations of other ethno-cultural groups.
Keywords
Culture, fraud, Gypsy/Traveller, racism, structure
Introduction
Criminology has a long history when it comes to locating the causes of criminality in
aspects of human identity. As is well known, Lombroso (1884/2006: 175) claimed that
Corresponding author:
Coretta Phillips, Department of Social Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton
Street, London, WC2A 2AE, UK.
Email: coretta.phillips@lse.ac.uk
334
Theoretical Criminology 23(3)
for the biologically inferior savage and atavistic races, including Negroes, Gypsies,
Aborigines and Southern Italians, ‘crime is not the exception but almost a general rule’.
As with habitual delinquents, various physical stigmata could be discerned which had a
behavioural corollary in immorality and criminality. Lombroso (1897) also outlined the
parameters of the ‘race and crime debate’ by identifying Negroes as disproportionately
responsible for the high homicide rate in the USA compared with Europe. Yet, referenc-
ing the abject material conditions experienced by African Americans in the post-slavery
period, Lombroso also acknowledged their longer imprisonment terms which he attrib-
uted to a discriminatory justice system. More problematically, Lombroso talked of the
negative biological traits of shiftlessness, carelessness, primitivism, callousness and a
greater willingness to confess to criminal activity.
Ideas such as the latter ones are now easily dismissed but arguably ‘new racism’ has
simply substituted culture for biology in determining putative hierarchies of inferiority
and superiority (Barker, 1981). Critical criminologists, whose intellectual project has
been to advance social justice, eschew ‘individual’ explanations of criminality, privileg-
ing the impact of structural inequalities on patterns of crime and criminality and making
visible the ideological rationales and means by which only certain forms of lawbreaking,
including that most often committed by minority ethnic individuals, comes to the atten-
tion of law enforcement agencies (McLaughlin, 2011; Ritchie, 2011).
In the UK discussions of (typically black) culture and criminality have engaged pun-
dits and journalists while vexing academics (Starkey, 2011; Sveinsson, 2008). Gilroy
(1987), Hall et al. (1978) and Lawrence (1982) have refuted the notion that crime is
inherent to some pathological essence of subhuman, alien cultures, whose savagery pre-
vents them from appreciating civilized British law. Highlighted instead is the racist crim-
inalization of minority ethnic communities by the state during political economic crisis
and their active resistance to authoritarian law and order strategies. Critical race scholars
additionally seek to unmask how racialized practices are embedded in laws and policies
in liberal democracies which claim colour-blind legal neutrality but where white privi-
lege is upheld (Delgado and Stefancic, 2012). The key objective of this article is to make
the case for the empirical study of culture and ethnicity and its role in criminality along-
side structural inequalities and legal bias.
Why culture and ethnicity might matter
Culture is notoriously difficult to pin down and the disciplines of anthropology and soci-
ology have engaged in their own self-criticism of the concept (Brightman, 1995; Gans,
2012). In its early conceptualizations stable systems of symbols and meaning which
regulated behaviour through shared values, beliefs, norms, customs, rituals, taboos, mor-
als, laws and world-views, were foregrounded by anthropologists (Boas, 1904; Tylor,
1871). Subsequently, Geertz (1973: 44) conceptualized culture as ‘plans, recipes, rules,
instructions’ governing behaviour (see also Swidler, 1986).
Later this dominant paradigm was displaced by the inclusion of political economy
and the ‘deterritorialization of identity’ as globalized trade, conflict and migration
occurred. Cultures were no longer seen as isolated with a fixed, unique essence (Barth,
1969; Gupta and Ferguson, 2007). Recognizing the dynamism of cultures and ethnicities
Phillips
335
as sites of contestation, fragmentation, performativity and transformation, has been an
emblem of post-structural scholarship as has reflections on scholars’ positionality (Abu-
Lughod, 1991; Bhabha, 1994; Hall, 1991/2000).
Sewell’s (1999) notion of ‘thin coherence’ highlights prescribed and distinctive modes
of being among ethno-cultural groups, but also the instability of cultural truths and dis-
courses. Interests, values, beliefs and practices may be consensually shared within
bounded groups creating a culturally distinct interpretation of the social world or they
may be widely shared even among culturally dissimilar groups (see also Parekh, 2006).
The analytical payoff of considering behaviour through the meso-level lens of culture
is that it guards against a structural determinism that sees minority ethnic groups pro-
pelled towards criminality by powerful economic and political forces alone—in what
Gans (2012: 131) likens to ‘Pavlovian responders to overpowering social stimuli’. It
acknowledges individual actions, reactions and interactions are chosen or imposed, but
are also embedded within families, communities and other socio-cultural sites (see also
De Coster and Heimer, 2017). Politically, this approach challenges the culturalist expla-
nations of ideologues who posit unanchored, individualistic understandings of human
behaviour (Alexander, 2016).
In the policy field there has long been an acceptance that culture matters, with efforts
made to ensure sensitivity to the culturally unique needs of service users (Baskit, 2009;
Macpherson, 1999). Undertaken comprehensively means interrogating questions of ine-
quality and racism, and politically engaging subaltern expertise (Dutta, 2007). If we
accept the validity of this premise it is then implausible to deny the possibilities of cultur-
ally specific variations in thinking, living and behaving, which might have relevance for
criminological research.
Studying culture and ethnicity empirically fits with the move to analyse religion as
both an inhibiting and a motivating factor of criminal offending (Cottee, 2014;
Parmar, 2017; Walklate and Mythen, 2016). This can encourage thinking of ethnicity
as a resource or strategy, albeit often a response to discrimination (Parmar, 2017;
Tomlins et al., 2002). In many European countries there is a rich sociological litera-
ture documenting ethnic enclaves providing access to social networks, finance and
community institutions (Massey, 1985). In the employment field too, occupational
niches develop in specific sectors, particularly where racism may bar entry into other
roles (Waldinger, 1994). Ruggiero (2001) has maintained that racial barriers can pre-
vent access to the most profitable, organized and secure criminal economies too.
Negative perceptions of black and Jamaican Yardie dealers by users and distributors
kept them in the lower strata of the distribution chain in Ruggiero’s London case
study (see also Cloward and Ohlin, 1960). There, the risks of violence and detection
were higher, rewards lower and career advancement limited. Relatedly, Grund and
Densley (2012) have documented gang co-offending based on shared Somalian, West
African, Jamaican or black British ethnic origins.
For McPherson et al. (2001), such ethnic homophily is an essential pattern of human
organization where people with shared values, and therefore predictable behaviour, are
co-located, creating conditions of trust and loyalty, a key prerequisite also of criminal
co-operation (Paoli, 2002). Calverley’s (2012) findings of Indian and Bangladeshi
advantaged access to family and community employment opportunities assisting the
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Theoretical Criminology 23(3)
process of desistance, also underlines why culture and ethnicity should not be automati-
cally dismissed (see also De Coster and Heimer, 2017).
Of course, any...
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