Class, gender and religious influences on changing patterns of Pakistani Muslim male violence in Bradford

Abstract

In this article I seek to extend the analysis of the 1995 public disturbances by Burlet and Reid: 'A gendered uprising: political representation and minority ethnic communities' (Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 21, no. 2, 1998). That incident is contextualized as part of a process of changing Pakistani Muslim male behaviour in the public sphere from orderly protest, through demand, to harassment, violence and disorder. This is related to the ongoing public and private violence perpetrated by such young men which often centres on issues of control in the spheres of sexuality and gender. I suggest that Burlet and Reid prioritize cultural differences over such features of the person as gender, age, class location and religious affiliation, and that this results in sociologically inadequate analysis. It also, despite the title of the article, renders invisible women (and other) victims of the male violence which is justified by its perpetrators on cultural and religious grounds.