Beneath the Surface

"Beneath the Surface" takes a London Borough as a case-study in order to analyze the theoretical and policy problems posed by the incidence of racial harassment in Britain. Based on the method of local investigative inquiry it examines in great detail the extent, pattern and locations of racial harassment in Waltham Forest. It also analyzes the issues associated with problematic policy responses from both the local policy and the local authority. The attributes of "Beneath the Surface" lie in two areas which introduce a new analytic approach. Firstly, it critiques the "official" view of racial harassment exemplified by the Home Office and the Metropolitan Police, which identifies racial harassment as random and not conforming to the contours of a pattern. It does this by demonstrating the significance of a theoretical analysis of racial harassment based on ideas drawn from social geography, which is used to illustrate the level at which protracted patterns in racial harassment can be revealed. Secondly the analysis offered by "Beneath the Surface" points to the complexity of the racial victimization experience.
It argues that despite contemporary pre-occupations with victims of crime, the experience of racial victimization is both little understood by policy-makers and marginalized. It argues also that this experiential factor is an integral part of the pattern of racial harassment. The book concludes by arguing for a contextualist philosophy for understanding racial harassment and attempting to develop policy responses. It also outlines the strategic rationale of a policy to tackle racial harassment and argues that this must become integral to any ecological prescriptions for the social environment.