This chapter begins to incorporate an analysis of more symbolic politics focusing on aspects of the Obama Administration which are symbolic and substantive. The racial backgrounds of the people presidents appoint to positions of influence should not preclude their ability to act in the interests of all Americans, blacks included. However, the representation literature does provide a justification for the importance of descriptive representation and even makes claims about the connections between descriptive representation and substantive politics. Similarly, presidential rhetoric can be deployed for symbolic and substantive purposes. It can create a powerful signal of inclusivity. It can also help set a substantive policy agenda which could have long- reaching implications for reducing inequality and for aiding the life chances of blacks and other disadvantaged groups.This chapter includes a comparative analysis of Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama’s State of the Union Addresses to gain greater insight into the ways presidents make symbolic gestures toward African Americans and the extent to which they propose policies that are targeted toward black communities and examines the ways that presidents respond to questions about race in news conferences.

This chapter follows Pedro’s trajectory, which goes back and forth across the boundaries that circumscribe São Paulo’s ‘world of crime’. The young man describes violent persecutions, shootings and what he ought to do in many different situations, experiencing both sides of these boundaries. ‘Crime’ appears as a set of normative codes and social practices established primarily at the local level, around markets such as illegal drug trafficking, robbery and theft, yet equally established through family relations, gendered status, and through courage and respect. Based on São Paulo’s peripheries, transformations and Pedro’s narrative, I argue an interpretation of the expansion of ‘crime’ boundaries in recent decades, as well as the patterns of coexistence between crime and other normative legitimacies in the outskirts of the city.

This chapter documents a variety of issues which continue to concern victims of crime in Ireland and those working on their behalf. The absence of comprehensive, accurate and reliable data on the experience of victims of crime while engaging with the criminal justice system and support services is raised as a concern. The chapter examines the challenges facing the state in tackling the problem of under-reporting and attrition in this country. It also documents the burden placed on victims and the potential for disillusionment and further trauma through engagement with the system, focusing on the potential to minimise risk through comprehensive training programmes designed to enable front-line workers to provide a sensitive and compassionate service to victims. Innovative policy options adopted in other jurisdictions, including the creation of an Ombudsman for Victims of Crime and measures to unify service provision within the sector, including Witness Care Units, are also explored.

This chapter considers the 1915 match-fixing scandal between Manchester United and Liverpool and its impact on the perception of the game and its leading players. It considers the long-range impact of that scandal on the structure of league football. The significance of the match-fixing scandal and player-related issues is that a simple episode, such as the increase in membership of the Football League, is merely one event within a sequence of events at the episodal level and that, as in this case, analysis of each League meeting and an interrogation of evidence reveals a broader series of episodes. In the case of the League’s expansion, this was a transformational cycle containing a series of episodes such as the Liverpool–Manchester United game and the various meetings along the way.

The Conclusion provides a balanced overview of the achievements and limitations of Obama’s record on race relations. It hopes to provide readers with important context with which to judge the Obama Administration. By explicitly comparing the performance of the Obama Administration with the Clinton and Bush Administrations at critical junctures in this analysis, it gains perspective on the limitations and possibilities of presidential power in being able to unilaterally address issues of racial inequality. Similarly, the comparative analysis of the presidents’ symbolic behaviour also provides some insight into the extent of President Obama’s importance as a racial figurehead. Finally, by exploring public opinion data on reactions to the Obama Administration, it has the ability to understand black voters on their terms and ascertain what their political desires and expectations are and make distinctions—if necessary and appropriate—between black mass and elite opinion.

One of the abiding controversies that attends The Clash centres on their ‘authenticity’ as a political band. While some recall seeing the band live as a moment that altered their perspective on the world, others have dismissed their politics as posturing framed by a certain cinematic version of outlaw chic. In this chapter, the author leans towards the former, more optimistic reading of The Clash’s cultural politics. The focus here is on the band’s 1982 tour of Australia during which they championed the cause of Aboriginal rights. Each night during their cover of the reggae number ‘Armagideon Time’, the group would segue into an instrumental section during which activist Gary Foley would take the stage and address the predominantly white audience. The attendant media attention for these moments was sparse and it remains difficult to establish whether they had any real political impact. That The Clash were willing to provide a space for the airing of what were at the time controversial views serves to underline that here was a band that, for all their shortcomings, had a genuine concern for the promotion of human rights and global justice.

This chapter explores the ways in which a band such as The Clash illustrates the tension in popular music between aesthetic judgement and political influence, that is, between making more interesting art and reaching more people. Original member Keith Levene evidently had rather more adventurous musical tastes than the rest of the band. If the guitarist had continued working with The Clash, it is possible that the group may have taken more interesting musical directions. A flavour of what Levene would have added to the band is evident when we consider the composition of the only song for which he receives a writing credit on the debut album, ‘What’s My Name’. While the early departure of the gifted guitarist in all likelihood narrowed the creative range of The Clash, it also perhaps allowed them to have greater political influence. It is unlikely, after all, that the palpably more avant-garde tastes that Levene would showcase in his future work would have allowed the band to reach the mainstream audience that they had always craved.

This chapter shows how, since the 1990s, the management of homicides in the state of São Paulo , has been carried out by at least two coexistent regimes of justice and security policies. These regimes can only be understood in their constitutive relationship. The author reviews the general lines of their development over two decades, from which have emerged the fundamental elements of São Paulo’s contemporary urban order. The chapter argues that state policies have offered best conditions for the current hegemony of Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) policies in the regulation of both homicides and illegal markets, inside both prisons and favelas. Many ethnographic situations exemplify the argument of São Paulo as an entangled city where urban conflict could be much better understood if it were theoretically reframed.

This chapter begins the analysis of football in Manchester by setting the scene. It discusses the development of the city and the impact of sport in the city’s formative years, including the early versions of football played, and banned, within the region. By the nineteenth century the demand for leisure activities had increased alongside the city’s growth. Despite being officially banned, bear-baiting and cock-fighting continued, while horse-racing, pugilism, pedestrianism and other sports suitable for gambling increased, generating a thriving sporting culture across the city and laying the foundations for the subsequent enthusiasm for organised team games, such as cricket and football. To understand the role football plays in Mancunian life it is first important to appreciate how the city and its surrounding area evolved, and how sport took a hold of the region.

The conclusion argues that today Brazil’s urban peripheries have two dichotomous public façades: on the one hand, they are the cause of ‘urban violence’ that calls for more repression; on the other hand, they are the focus of the ‘national development’ project which would turn poor people into middle-class individuals. The idea of urban violence, as commonly perceived, has displaced the focus of the contemporary social question from ‘the worker’ to the ‘marginal people’. As a side effect, tensions between ‘crime’ and ‘state’ regimes have grown and their relationship has found a common basis in monetised markets. Money seems to mediate the relationship between forms of life which, from other perspectives – legal or moral – would be in radical alterity. Consumption emerges as a form of common life and mercantile expansion, above all, connecting legal and illegal markets and fostering urban violence that otherwise would have been under control, had those territories seen economic development. Religion, and especially Pentecostalism, emerges as a plausible source of mediation between the regimes.

Chapter 2 provides a general overview of Obama’s performance, presented with respect to race and the state of black-white racial inequality in America on a number of key indicators. It analyses the President’s political philosophy on addressing racial inequality and injustice. It argues that he takes a ‘deracialised’ approach to race issues, but embraces policies that are likely to be of disproportional benefit to African Americans because of the social and economic disadvantages they experience in American society. For example, the Affordable Care Act, or ‘Obamacare’ is of particular significance for African Americans and Latinos because they constitute 20 million and 30 million of the 60 million Americans without health care respectively. It examines if this was also the case with measures to address the concerns of Veterans, given that in terms of their proportion of the total U.S. population African Americans were more likely than their white counterparts to be drafted during the Vietnam War and to serve on the frontline.