Could Design thinking work in the youth and voluntary sectors?

This piece originally appeared on the Social Innovation Europe website.

An emerging trend in some UK government departments and local authorities has been to use a Design thinking approach to help shape services, but involving users in co-design stays a rare occurrence in the voluntary sector, especially when technology and young people are involved.

The Social Innovation field is one that encourages an approach close to Design thinking, but the testing, evaluating and adjusting approach can also be seen as very similar to what is seen as an action research approach in the voluntary sector.
The term Social Innovation itself is interpreted in many different ways, some seeing the innovation as necessarily involving technology (as does Tim Brown, Ideo CEO, when describing Design thinking, often leading to social ventures) while others see Social Innovation as new forms of service delivery such as user-participation and other non-technological innovations (usually in the voluntary sector). A combination of both approaches can be useful to ensure Innovation is driven by good useful ideas rather than by the need to 'fit in' a technological component to a solution solely because it is possible.

However technology being now ubiquitous in many young people's lives, it is difficult to conceive of innovation around young people without at least looking into some technological dimension if one is coming from an entrepreneur or business background, but for the voluntary sector, the Design thinking approach and the potential innovations offered by technology around youth work and youth-related services remain opaque.

Numerous surveys have shown that young people use and need digital tools (how much is another issue) on a daily basis (e.g. for social networking, accessing information, support, as stated by the latest Youthnet report), but Social Innovation projects around ICT and young people are rare (e.g. Youngdads.tv by Social Innovation Camp).
Youth projects are usually funded by statutory organisations or Trusts and Foundations, and funding streams that initiate or that encourage applicants to include a Social Innovation or Design thinking type approach to make their programmes more suited to young people's needs are rare.

There could be several reasons for this:
- organisations will often not invest in technology for young people's projects for fear of the risks involved (fear of theft of equipment and of cyber-bullying for instance).
- staff would need to be trained extensively and updated regularly as found by the 2011 Warwick University report around young people, ICT and mental health.
- target groups might have limited access to technology if they are marginalised, making innovation restricted to what technology they currently use.


It would be interesting to see the start of a Design thinking movement in the voluntary sector with the systematic involvement of Designers in exploratory conversations, as their knowledge might help unlock issues through technology that most people outside the Design world wouldn't be aware of, mainly because of the fast-moving pace of technology. The Good Gym is an example of social innovation outcome with a digital tool (website and webforum) to help isolated elderly people, not the target group one would immediately think of when thinking about how technology can help fight isolation.
Designers have also proved very useful in discussions around the built environment (Futurescape08 ) and learning (Futurelab) , but this is usually limited to schools contexts.
The built environment and how young people use it outside a learning context could lead to further innovative ideas: the desire for young people to display their graffiti in public spaces, causing high costs to Councils, is an issue that could potentially be addressed through technology as suggested by young Graffiti artists in Stratford during an Open-City project: physical and virtual graffiti walls could be replicated and projected throughout community spaces to minimise the need for 'illegal graffiti'. Graffiti artists could work with Designers to see how they could use technology and push technological boundaries to serve their art, potentially leading to motion graphics graffiti, turning ‘over-writing’ by another graffiti artist into palimpsests to name but a few.

One could easily get carried away thinking about all the innovations that could come out of the systematic involvement of Designers when exploring ideas within the voluntary sector, and therefore the involvement of end users and of relevant staff would be paramount to ensuring these ideas were grounded in reality.
When discussing innovation for vulnerable young people with the Foyer Federation Director of Innovation Colin Falconer last week, he mentioned how useful it was to have a social entrepreneur involved in conversations, which is another interesting dimension of Social Innovation: it is usually driven by social entrepreneurs as opposed to charities, trusts or foundations. Is there a conflict between testing out and incubating new ideas for the benefit of client groups and the lack of financial sustainability of many of ideas from a business perspective?

This could be why the Right Here (Paul Hamlyn Foundation/Mental Health Foundation), Comic Relief and Nominet Trust new Innovation Labs project  is such an interesting project (although I would say leading the project for Right Here).
The aim of the Innovation Labs is to explore how ICT/Digital Tools could help young people look after their mental health and access effective support, and the investment in exploratory workshops with Designers and young people as a starting point by the three funders is ground-breaking in the voluntary sector.

Some of the issues involved in running the Innovation Labs project could explain why social entrepreneurs haven't looked much into Social Innovation for young people:
- The cost of involving and supporting young people throughout the co-design process is very high.
- Ideas generated will probably involve further costs in terms of implementation (building outputs/devices).
- The return on investment is likely to be very low because young people are unlikely to pay much (if at all) to use outputs, and advertising possibilities on outputs targeted at young people could be seen as a highly unethical way of generating income.
- The cost of technology and the digital divide are still an issue for some young people, despite them being called 'digital natives' and the misconception that every young people can now afford to be connected 24/7.

Similar challenges would probably apply to design innovation approaches for young offenders, young asylum seekers, young mothers, gang members etc, which could be another reason for the voluntary sector not investing more in this approach.

However, I believe many organisations working with young people start innovative projects using technology on an ad-hoc basis because they work closely with young people in co-designing services. I stumbled upon one ad-hoc innovation when I was managing Dublin’s Intel Computer Clubhouse a few years ago, after being met with similar issues I had been met with when working with disaffected pre-teens and teenagers in Paris: however great the work participants were doing with us, their parents would virtually never attend the celebration and showcase events, making it very painful for the young people who had prepared for months. I was lucky enough in Dublin to be working with Media Lab Europe Researchers/Designers, and after speaking to them we decided to take the show that no parent had come to see to the local estate by projecting it on a wall and laying a few chairs. A local youth worker had explained to me that the parents didn’t come to events not because they didn’t care (many people’s initial thought), but because they didn’t have the self-confidence to do so, and we thought a projection they could watch from their balcony might suit them better, while making it a small event for the young people in the estate. It didn’t take much technology to set the projection up, one plug in a local flat was enough for the projector and laptop. The most difficult part was the screen, which Designers built from a giant piece of white linoleum weighted by heavy sticks against the winter wind.
That evening the parents peeped from their balconies for a long time before deciding to come down and join the young people watching their work (performances, animations, music, etc). The 50 or so people who ended up coming down were more than we would have ever hoped for at an event, and more watched from their floors.

While at the time this was seen as an innovation that could be replicated elsewhere and help other youth professionals, there was no repository for these ideas to be shared and tested out in other parts of the country, and there still isn’t.
 
As research shows that young people need services to use technology more than ever before, and as many services and projects working with young people are wondering how technology could help them engage with their audience better, a wider use of Social Innovation, Design thinking and research approaches in the youth and voluntary sector in the UK could lead to many exciting new ideas and new projects matching young people’s needs better.
Sharing those with others in the UK and around the world through an online repository like  Social Innovation Europe and relevant voluntary sector and researchers’ forums would be crucial to enthusing other youth organisations and overcoming current barriers, the biggest being the fear of technology endangering young people rather than supporting them.

End of September riots in the news update

As the government is blamed by the police and children's services professionals for not listening to their warnings about potential riots before the Summer at the Lib Dem conference this week, an interesting Guardian recording/slide show tells the story of post-riot reactions in a Barber shop, and how that particular community feels it has a responsibility to solve youth issues as much as the government, very much in line with my initial reaction when first hearing about riots in my area (although not necessarily in line with the Big Society agenda as the Localism Bill discourages young people's involvement in local decision-making).
This community focus is reflected in the Independent Riots Communities and Victims Panel  work into the root causes for the riots and their quick replication across the country, as panel chair Darra Singh states in CYP Now magazine: "There has been no shortage of national commentary, opinion and speculation, but the people best placed to help us understand the riots are communities themselves. We want to talk to the residents, shop keepers, parents, young people, council workers, youth leaders, faith organisations – this is a panel for the people."
Worryingly, the article states that the panel will also be asking communities what motivated them to come together to protect their property and clean up afterwards, which seems to potentially add a layer of Big Society volunteering as a positive outcome of the riots rather than keeping focus on the reasons behind the riots. The panel's interim report is announced for November 2011, and final report for March 2012, so we'll be keeping a close eye on post-riots developments before then.
At local authority level, Councils are also working towards finding solutions to prevent future riots, by vowing 'to consult young people on how to prevent a repeat of the disturbances and looting seen across England last month'.
From a national policing practice perspective, 'stop and search' methods are to be done in a 'smarter way' says Met Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe as he states in the Guardian: 'We need to target people who have been convicted of gun and knife crime', amid fears that current methods had triggered the anger in communities in areas such as riot-hit Tottenham.
It will be interesting to see if the attitude of the police and random 'stop and searches' come up as reasons for antagonism between young people and the police Darra Singh's panel report, but a riot in Soisson (France) last week was reportedly triggered by a police 'identity check' on young people (French version of 'stop and search' as the French have to carry ID with them at all times and show it to the police if asked). If France can be seen as having tried to overcome regular rioting for the last 15 years, changing 'stop and search' methods early on could help prevent further conflicts with the police in the UK.

Will opposable thumbs soon be disposable?

As I was yesterday trying to catch up on my post-card writing of the Summer, pretending I had written but had forgotten to send the promised postcards and was now sending them from London (I have now blown my cover for anyone reading this and receiving my postcard of rainy Brittany from London in the next few weeks), I remembered a conversation with French friends around letter writing as a long lost habit to be deplored.

One friend was telling me how insistent she was at still sending letters to her good friends as opposed to e-mailing them,  while  I was surprised to hear another one say that he was now typing the letters rather than hand-writing them. In any case, we were all complaining that despite writing long letters to some friends, they didn't always reciprocate, and we lamented the loss of pleasure from writing and receiving long letters in this new world of emerging technology.
If there is an art-project out there looking at people's strongest memories of sending/receiving letters, I'd love to take part, as I take great pleasure in remembering dousing my very first lovel letter to a classmate in the cheapest cologne and seeing his disbelieving face and scrunched up nose when I handed it to him.

I have recently wondered at how hand-writing notes of long meetings (2-3 hrs) make my wrist and hand ache, while I spent written exams of up to 7 hours hand-writing without any discomfort as a student. At 34 I think this is due more to lack of practice than to arthritis, and I have been trying to hand-write more in the last few months (mostly To Do Lists like so many).

So as I wonder if we'll soon be having an App that creates postcards for us, inclusive of 'authentic-looking' coffee stains and bent ears, and if I can remember the protocol of writing a proper letter again.
I also wonder if typing  (if not 'tapping' on touchscreens) will one day mark the end of our ability to hold a pen, and if our evolution will eventually enable us to do away with hand-writing altogether? Will our language follow that trend (usually much later, as we still call manu-scripts 'typed-up first versions of novels'), will we lose the word mani-pulate and all the other words starting with man-(manus, hand in latin) that imply the use of our opposable thumbs in some way or another ?

Discussing the impact of technology on our lives with Critical Designer James Auger as we walked around beautiful Belle-Ile, we watched a Ferry 'sailing across' (as an arrogant French I argued the Ferry should be 'motoring across') and ended up looking for examples of when language had been overtaken by technology. I'm sure there's plenty and as a former student of Linguistics I marvel at the adaptive flexibility and open-mindedness to technological revolutions of the verb 'to ride', seamlessly moving form the horse to the invention of the bicycle and then of the motorbike (what next for it?).

While I believe that in many cases technology can be giving us a wonderful new tool to write the same content as before, and in a similar style (e-mails are like fast letters; tweets are like telegrams, with their own meta-language of @s and #s instead of STOPs, bringing their own nostalgia; blogging is another form of diary/column, all of the above with the big difference of the audience reading them), I also think that the way we now shape what we want to say is being influenced by the medium we're going to use to express those messages, a process I findv ery similar to learning a foreign language .

As I started tweeting and blogging (2 months ago, so still a fresh experience), I found myself thinking in tweets and turning my inner monologue into blogposts (including this one), trying to make it interesting, cross-referenced etc. When I caught myself thinking about my son's homework in 140 characters and hashtags I felt like I was back in University reading too much of the French playwright Racine and thinking in 12-syllable sentences (the equivalent of thinking in iambic pentameters if you've been reading too many Shakespeare Sonnets), something that is probably common amongst actors. It made me realise that despite all my old-school book-rather-than-kindle and phone-rather-than-Facebook approach, my brain and the way I produce language are being shaped by the technology I choose to use.
I also realised that the argument for making informed choices about technology and not letting it decide for us was becoming very relevant to me (an argument at the core of the Critical Design discipline and Speculative Futures approach).
So while I am thrilled and thankful to the invention of blogs for giving me at last an opportunity to write without having to pretend to be an essayist, I also want to reclaim what I miss from my letter-writing days: sitting in a quiet place, with a fountain pen and a clean smooth piece of A4, looking out the window reflecting on the past few months (as often as I can hope writing letters) , wondering how they could be turned into nice epistolary sentences written along straight lines (a graphic challenge in itself for me).

As my grandmother would never be reading my e-mails, she will be thrilled by this new resolution (when/if I manage to carry it out), as would probably be many grandparents and older people who do not receive that many hand-written letters any more.

Would a fund-raising campaign asking people to donate £1 and to send a hand-written letter to a loved one  for a charity like Age Concern be successful? I think my grand-mother would like it very much.

Can high streets welcome their youth?

Another day in Loughborough Junction and another worried conversation with a neighbour about how we could stop the latest shop from closing already, as it's showing signs of decline after a few months of being opened. I couldn't help mentioning Julian Dobson's article in the Huffington Post last week about 'people-powered city centres' and how Mary Portas is looking at ways of regenerating our high streets, hopefully making them more 'social' than 'consumer' spaces.
While we, as Loughborough Junction Action Group, have looked into ways of using these empty shops for community purposes, the legal aspects of insurance, sourcing funding and most tricky of all, finding volunteers to use those shops, proved immensely difficult. We had to give up in the end, thinking that finding volunteers in communities would be Big Society's most difficult challenge.
Julian Dobson's words are all the more relevant to this area as some shops in our own local high street have just been looted by local young people (Owen Jones calling them 'consumerist riots'), while Open-City's research into young people's needs for their town centres (My City Too campaign) says they use shopping areas as social interaction spaces rather than as spaces to shop, for a number of reasons (feeling of safety from adult presence, being at the heart of the community, not having much money to shop, etc.).
This is probably why young people are generally considered as a 'problem group' by shopkeepers and urban centres designers, as the invention of the Mosquito device, 'non-skateable surfaces' and the systematic removal of benches show. Most young people do not feel welcome in shopping areas, and their Manifesto for better spaces states they need youth spaces at the heart of their community (rather than pushed aside, hidden away in side street youth clubs as they often are).

As a local community group was lamenting to me in July that they couldn't find a space to host their youth activities this year (a few meters from two schools with state of the art equipment that would be empty all Summer) and that therefore they wouldn't be running any, I was wondering what we would need to do to turn empty high street shops in youth spaces and whether any of the schemes for empty shops are even thinking of youth spaces. I don't think the lack of space for Summer activities can be easily linked to the riots that took place in that very street a few weeks later, but I remember clearly when teaching in Paris being told by a Youth Centre Manager that the City of Paris funding towards youth residentials was mostly motivated by the desire to 'get them off the streets for as long as possible' and prevent anti-social behaviour rather than by the philanthropic desire to give them the opportunity of a holiday.

Would urban planners even consider using some of their 'ghost town' empty shops for youth activities? Would they think it could be a good idea to involve young people in the planning and design of their urban centre?

The recent publication of the MyPlace evaluation report shows the desire by the previous government to involve young people in planning and designing their youth centre, a major step for youth advocacy, but it seems to be the victim of what French economists call 'the lamp post syndrome' ('le syndrome du lampadaire'): tackling an issue only very partially, where the lamp post lights the street, rather than looking beyond the light and integrating what seems like less urgent issues into their thinking. Is a state of the art youth centre the solution if it is not been woven into the urban fabric in a way that matches young people's needs? Rarely have I visited a youth centre in Paris, Dublin or London, that wasn't in a quiet (not to say dead or unsafe at 10pm on a cold winter's night) residential area at the end of a dark street where no one had managed to argue successfully against its planning permission.
I have worked with urban designers who would choose the space for the 'older children play area' (now compulsory in new major developments) where nothing could be built, far from all amenities and squeezed between railway tracks, arguing that teenagers would like to be far from adults' watch and would like to be left alone.
Young people in Loughborough Junction and in many other places show everyday after school that they want to be near shops, on their high street or in their shopping centres, where the rest of their community is and where they feel safe.

When the government's latest discussion paper for its youth strategy doesn't mention urban planners as key players in young people's well-being, and when high street shop keepers might be reluctant to ask local youth to use their neighbouring empty shops, the road to town centres becoming people-centred and harmonious social spaces for all generations feels like a very long one indeed.
One can only hope that future Neighbourhood Forums created through the Localism Bill will want to involve their local youth in the regeneration of their local high street as social spaces more than as spaces for the display of riches as argued by Will Davies.
Could Big Society reclaim the growing privatisation of public spaces and shopping centres where young people need to be included?

Riots mid-september update

This week's overview of news related to the August riots:

While the week started with Justice Secretary Ken Clarke blaming the riots on the 'legacy of broken penal system', after David Cameron stated that most of the rioters were gang members and therefore existing criminal (rather than frustrated youth) (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14797602), Theresa May corrected the facts on Thursday stating that 'the majority of rioters were not in gangs' (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14835590). The BBC website states that: 'She said gangs were involved in rioting but their involvement may "not be as high as people first thought."Nonetheless, the home secretary said she would be hosting an international conference next month "looking at other countries that have gang problems" as well as at examples of work being done in the UK, including in London and Strathclyde.
This is welcome news as I am a strong advocate of cross-country sharing and learning when it comes to the riots (see previous posts especially French/UK sociologists reflecting on the riots: http://eliseleclerc.blogspot.com/2011/09/alain-bertho-and-tony-travers-on-french.html).

After the nomination of Dara Singh to head the riots panel, Tony Blair's former respect agenda tsar Louise Casey has been drafted in by Prime Minister David Cameron to work on the response to last month's riots, amid criticism from BME communities (incl. Afyia Trust CEO Patrick Vernon http://www.backchat.afiya-trust.org/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=panel-examining-the-riots-lacks-independence-and-teeth.html&Itemid=5#readmore) that this panel 'lacks independence and teeth'.

Interestingly enough it seems a number of third sector organisations are carrying out their own assessment of the reasons behind the riots, through Trust for London funding (as stated by the Participation Works bulletin), following the 'Not in our Name' activities that took young people to Westminster to give their views and to stress the positive contribution of young people in society.

Also on the Participation Works bulletin:

The Guardian launched a series of articles based on their interviews with young people with regard to the riots, the first of which provided illuminating reading (more to come): Read The Guardian article.
Also following up on the August riots, NCVYS reports that the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) has been commissioned to conduct independent research to understand why the riots happened, by speaking directly to those involved and those affected by the events. They will be speaking to young people in five areas: Tottenham, Peckham, Clapham, Salford or Birmingham. They would really like to hear from young people directly, but also from any organisations that may be able to put them in touch with potential participants.Find out more about the NatCen study.

 

Other relevant and interesting articles:

riots and credit crunches: when economic objects attack

http://potlatch.typepad.com/

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Riots reveal ‘retro racism’ resurgence

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2011/09/09/riots-reveal-retro-racism-resurgence/

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PM's pet project overlooks the need for skilled professionals

By Ravi Chandiramani Tuesday, 06 September 2011

When it comes to the causes, Emma Harrison's Working Families Everywhere programme has become Prime Minister David Cameron's post-riot response of choice.http://www.cypnow.co.uk/news/1089214/PMs-pet-project-overlooks-need-skilled-professionals/
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A telling link between riots, injustice and welfare

http://www.guardian.co.uk/public-leaders-network/blog/2011/aug/25/telling-link-riots-injustice-welfare

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Youth custody reduction pilot goes ahead despite riots

By Neil Puffett Wednesday, 07 September 2011

A pilot scheme that will give local authorities responsibility for the cost of youth custody will be launched next month despite three of the trial areas being hit by last month's riots, the Youth Justice Board has confirmed
http://www.cypnow.co.uk/Youth_Justice/article/1089779/youth-custody-reduction-pilot-goes-ahead-despite-riots/?DCMP=EMC-CONCYPNow%20Daily

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Government will not change youth policy in wake of the riots, says the DfE

By Neil Puffett Friday, 02 September 2011

The government has no plans to radically alter its forthcoming youth policy in response to last month's riots, the Department for Education has said.

 http://www.cypnow.co.uk/Youth_Work/article/1088792/government-will-not-change-youth-policy-wake-riots-says-dfe/?DCMP=EMC-CONYouth%20Work%20News

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Riots show why happiness agenda is vital

Mark Williamson: We must pursue a fundamentally different way of life where we care less about what we can get for ourselves and more about the happiness of others

http://positivenews.org.uk/2011/wellbeing/4925/riots-show-happiness-agenda-vital/

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Councils vow to listen to young people's views to prevent a repeat of recent riots

By Lauren Higgs 06 September 2011

Riot-hit councils across the country are to consult young people on how to prevent a repeat of the disturbances and looting seen across England last month.

http://www.cypnow.co.uk/Youth_Work/login/1089211/

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 http://www.matthewtaylorsblog.com/socialbrain/looting-sentences-youre-the-judge/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MatthewTaylorsBlog+%28Matthew+Taylor%27s+blog%29

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London riots 'crisis' surprised police - Boris Johnson

Comments (71)

Mayor Boris Johnson: Backed decisions by Acting Commissioner Tim Godwin

Continue reading the main story

Mayor of London Boris Johnson has defended how the city's police handled the recent riots, saying that the "crisis" caught everyone unawares.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14804223

Alain Bertho and Tony Travers on French radio: riots in the UK and around the world: English

Having found the Alain Bertho (http://berthoalain.wordpress.com/) and Tony Travers (http://www.nlgn.org.uk/public/2010/tony-travers/ ) interviews on the UK riots very interesting on French radio (http://www.franceculture.com/emission-culturesmonde-la-condition-peripherique-24-lieux-en-marge-troubles-sociaux-2011-08-30.html), below is a translation of extracts for the benefit of English-speaking people:

Journalist: Alain Bertho, you've been interviewed countless times after the 2005 riots in France. There are numerous differences between the French and British riots, e.g. in France state institutions had been targeted, such as libraries, schools, while in the UK shops were the main target, leading Owen Jones to label the events 'consumerist riots'. Do you think this vision reflects reality?
Alain Bertho: I think one of the things we must bear in mind is the fact that most of the recent riots (including in Greece in 2008 and in another 40 countries or so across the globe last year) all started with the death of a young person (sometimes several) where the  responsibility of the police was under suspicion. This usually leads to an explosion of anger that comes as a surprise for those who have not been following events closely. I think this is a common point that we need to reflect on.
In general (although France is not England) years have gone by and I feel the conflict between young people and the authorities across the globe has worsened. The level of rioting was more violent in the UK than it had been in France in 2005.
Looting is an age-old form of rioting, rebellions have taken the shape of looting riots for centuries.
In 19th and 20th centuries' social conflicts, looting had been marginalised. The fact that we're seeing this form of rebellion start again is, I feel, a clear sign that the effects of social inequalities across the world are becoming greater, and especially in Europe and North America. Indeed, we are witnessing levels of social inequalities similar to those we witnessed 100 years ago or more, so seeing similar forms of rebellion is not that surprising to me.

J: Does this mean looting is a specific type of rioting or does this mean we have reached a new degree of violence in riots?
AB: I think this means we have reached a new degree of message, rather than violence. That message is then translated into violence, this is how we should read the riots. We need to remember that as Martin Luther King said 'riots are the voice of the unheard', and that acts should be read as a language. Greek Rioters in 2008 had targeted banks, while the French hadn't  (maybe as a forsight of what would be happening to their country).

J: But then what is the message in those riots? Is there a message and if there is, what is it? 
AB: That's always the issue: when you start a riot, this is a very intense moment, people who riot take serious risks, not only physically during the riots but also later facing the criminal justice system. For them to make the collective decision to ignore this danger and riot, there must be a frustration and/or an anger that have become unbearable, and that can't be expressed through words anymore because there isn't a political space for these words to be expressed any longer. Of course people will say that there is no message, but it is because this message can not be articulated through words that riots happen in the first place. One must read the language of these acts to understand events. When words can be found again, as in Tunisia in December and January, then riots stop. In this case (UK) the riots started with silence and are ending in silence, so we can expect riots to happen again.

J: One could have thought that the social mix that we find in London, and the fact that rich and poor live side by side could have prevented this explosion. But Wayne Hartley says in the Guardian that actually the riots took place in areas with starkest inequalities living side by side. Can we say these inequalities inevitably led to the riots?
AB: the maps published by the Guardian are extremely interesting, the very precise mapping of rioting areas shows that riots took place virtually on the boarders between richest and poorest areas.
In 2005 reporters had asked young people in France why they had rioted and burnt cars in their own areas rather than in city centres or in areas where the rich lived, as they were blaming social inequalities, the authorities, etc. Here this is what they did, they burnt the luxury shops. This is a phenomenon we saw in France in October 2010 with students and young people from the suburbs marching together in city centres, as in Lyon, Dijon, even in St Denis, riots taking place in city centres, unlike in 2005. This shows we are witnessing not only the effects of inequalities becoming unbearable, but also the effect of their display in city centres and shopping areas becoming intolerable, and there are no words/political discourse to articulate this feeling.

Tony Travers is now on the line from London:

J: Tony Travers, You have said in the papers that these riots weren't race-related, and you have repeatedly stated that the riots in '80 and '81 in Brixton and Tottenham had been very different to this Summer's riots. You insist that the social mix in these areas is not the reason behind the riots and that the multicultural model is not at stake.
Tony Travers: It is possible that there is a small dimension of race-related issues in the riots, but in all major cities with multicultural areas and poor areas, there area also British people living in those poor areas, so I think racial issues are not the main reason behind the recent events. Left and Right politicians are arguing around what those reasons are.

J: so you say the 100+ nationalities living in some areas are not the reason behind the riots?
TT: I think poverty, younth unemployment are the reasons, and I think we should worry about why the riots took place.

J: And when david Cameron says that 'moral collapse' is the reason behind the riots, what do you think?
TT: Personally I don't think a country like the UK, France or the States can say there is a moral collapse. It is possible to say there is a trust issue between the youth and the police, but 'moral collapse' is too strong a word, most people stay at home during riots and the rioters represent a very small minority of people, mostly young people. I think the riots have only a little bit to do with moral issues.

J: In a response to David Cameron, Tony Blair says the reasons for the riots are dysfunctional families, a phenomenon that's widespread in a lot of countries, do you agree, and couldn't that be read as a sign of moral collapse as well?
TT: I think Mr. Blair wants to make sure people don't blame the riots on the Labour government, when he was PM and say that problems could've been created then. I don't think that what Tony Blair said is very different to what David Cameron said. There are issues in theses areas like Brixton and Tottenham. Changes in the economy over the last 30 or 40 years has meant the world has totally changed for those families, unemployment, etc. These families might have less rules in this new society. We need to find a personal set of morals for this new society. I think the British government needs to find solutions for each family on a case by case basis, as they each have very different needs, just as the previous government of Mr. Blair needed to do.
J: Alain Bertho, you have mapped out riots across the world up to 2009 in your latest book 'Le Temps des Emeutes', have you found a link between levels of multucularism and riots?
AB: Not at all, and still now I keep a watch on riots on a daily basis: in 2010 I worked on 1248 riots, it's a spreading phenomenon. The major common point between all those riots is that rioters are young people, with some similar modus operandi thousands of miles apart while people who don't know each other, and similar triggering factors (as opposed to causes maybe) such as youth issues, social conflicts, electricity black-outs. Therefore there are national, cultural, ethnic contexts that trigger riots which look very similar. Leaving that aside, in some situations as in France, it is clear that the attitude of the police towards a youth from ethnic minorities is not without consequences, and this is the way the multucultural issue should be considered in this case.

I would like to come back to the issue of 'moral collapse'; I agree with my British colleague, but I want to remind listeners that  Nicolas Sarkhosy, President of the French Republic, had also mentioned 'moral collapse after riots in July 2010 after the Grenoble riots: I think it's interesting to see governments using the same reason when facing the same type of events.
I think it's meaningful, and that it reflects the loss of legitimacy today of both the State and the social order it represents as part of the wider globalisastion. I also think it reflects a loss of the sense of the value of work, triggered by the end of industrial capitalism and the predominance of financial capitalism, where value is represented by money rather than by work. So if there is 'moral collapse' we need ot make sure we identify it as this type of moral collapse.

What next after the riots?

As this week-end Guardian published X-Factor winner Leona Lewis's views on the riots (''I don't care how poor you are' she scoffs 'there's no excuse for setting fire to people's property (...) I was, 'This is our community and you're setting fire to your neighbour's house?''), I feel very disheartened that this is the only article that is published in this Saturday's edition as a major article making the newspaper's front page snapshot of what's in the edition. It's a striking contrast with the map of rioting areas showing the potential correlation with gentrified areas where one found the starkest social disparities published by the Guardian after the riots: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/interactive/2011/aug/10/poverty-riots-mapped

Anthropologist Alain Bertho states that looting is an age-old form of rioting, which is a similar form of rioting as political riots but going one step further, as a sign of social inequalities (as opposed to a different form of rioting altogether such as solely criminal activity/vandalism as claimed by the government). He insists we should read acts as a language, and that the lack of political message from the rioters is not evidence that there is no message, but rather that the political structures that would have enables that message to be voicd are not there for this to happen. As a Youth Participation Manager who have been working with young people and decision-makers over the last 6 years to give young people a voice and an involvement in governance at all levels on a number of issues, I can only agree with Alain Bertho.

Many governance structures for young people's voice in the UK can be seen as tokenistic, rarely representing the most hard-to-reach young people, with no accountability, and often not replicated at local level. The government's latest Localism Bill  and Big Society could further alienate young people's voice by enabling community and residents groups to make decisions for their community with no obligation to involve young people in these decisions. As young people (especially the rioters) are usually marginalised in their own communities, their voice, which was partly represented by Youth Services through Youth Councils in the best local authorities, are potentially at risk of disappearing altogether.

The recent Jack Petchey Foundation survey to more than 500 young people on the perception of the riots shows that seeing young people as a homogeneous group who will speak with one voice and have one coherent message is a mistake:

'Young people blame riots on 'mindless vandalism'

By Joe Lepper Wednesday, 17 August 2011

1 comment

This month's rioting was caused by "mindless vandalism" rather than cuts to youth services and inequality, according to a survey of young people.

Aftermath: youth unemployment and inequality were cited as a cause of the riots by just six per cent of young people surveyed

According to the survey of 517 young people by the Jack Petchey Foundation, around half said mindless vandalism was the cause of the disturbances.
Lack of youth provision and government interest in young people was mentioned by just 13 per cent. The same proportion said boredom was a major factor.
Youth unemployment and inequality were cited by just six per cent and one in 10 blamed a lack of morals in UK society.'

This survey confirms the rioters don't represent the views of the majority of young people who don't seem to understand why they rioted. One can only hope that the Riots Panel that Darra Singh will be heading can work with the young rioters rather than solely their communities to ensure the rioters voices are heard and the same silence doesn't lead to further riots. (http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2011/08/31/riots-panel-make-up-decided)

Interestingly (or maybe sadly), one of Leona Lewis's points about young people burning their neighbour's house and their own neighbourhood is one that has raised  a lot of questions in my own Brixton neighbourhood ; the same utter disbelief had occurred in France  in 2005 when people asked rioters:'why do you burn your neighbour's car rather than the cars of the wealthy people you're claiming to be rebelling against?'.
One would have expected to see rioters going to Chelsea or the West End to loot luxury shops, rather than their local Halfords and Carphone Warehouse. As a teenage girl explained she felt her local shops were the rich she was rebelling against in a BBC interview, I think this shows the lack of political awareness of these young people and therefore of an articulate political message about the bigger picture. These local shops are what these young people see everyday and consider as the rich they envy.

In a France Culture interview, LSE sociologist Tony Travers says that the riots are not a sign of a moral collapse, but that it could be a mixture of poverty, social disparities and youth unemployment, as well as lack of trust in the police.
In any case he agrees with A.Bertho when it comes to the risk of further riots if these issues aren't addressed, so let's hope the Riots Panel can create a meaningful dialogue with these hard-to-reach young people in the relevant areas.
It could also be interesting for researchers to look into the use of social networks and how they were used to help start and stop the riots (see RSA Thomas Neumark's article on banning Twitter:
http://comment.rsablogs.org.uk/2011/08/22/ban-twitter-praise/), and could potentially help the 'unheard voice' to be expressed.