Reseaaaaaarch tiiiime

As I was saying a while ago, when you’re writing an ethnographic report or doing anthropology in general, you start with your participants. You approach your research with an open mind and see what comes up in discussions. Firstly, you need to listen, and only then start translating someone’s day-to-day reality into theoretical concepts. I’m now in a transitional phase - I’m researching theoretical concepts that fit the stories I heard.

What am I researching? The moral panics around young people and, on the back of that, the relationship between young people and authority (police/teachers/ordinary adults), plus some links to policies. So, what am I reading? ‘Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers’ by Stanley Cohen. Why? Because it theorises a useful concept (and because I really wanted to read it…).

It’s quite interesting to see how chaos seems to surround youth no matter the time or place. There’s a constant fear of degradation and somehow young people are perceived as the symbol of that. And if you think there’s a very logical explanation for that, there isn’t. Most of it is exaggeration and propaganda. We can talk about it more broadly another time.