Scott, John

Carrington, Kerry

McIntosh, Alison F

2012

Using Elias and Scotson's (1994) account of established-outsider relations, this article examines how the organizational capacity of specific social groups is significant in determining the quality of crime-talk in isolated and rural settings. In particular, social 'oldness' and notions of what constitutes 'community' are significant in determining what activities and individuals are salient within crime-talk. Individual and group interviews, conducted in a West Australian mining town, revealed how crime-talk is an artefact of specific social figurations and the relative ability of groups to act as cohesive and integrated networks. We argue that anxieties regarding crime are a product of specific social figurations and the shifting power ratios of groups within such figurations.

Sociologia Ruralis, 52(2), p. 147-169

1467-9523

0038-0199

https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/11080

en

Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Established-Outsider Relations and Fear of Crime in Mining Towns

Journal Article

Publication