Valor nutritivo de los forrajes según el tipo de conservación Forraje verde

The social construction of young people using public space in Ravenswood as devils is developed both from adults’ own experiences of young people in public space, as well as residents’ conversations with one another. One resident, encountered during the one day street event, spoke very strongly about young people who use public spaces in Ravenswood. She told me how in the previous year she had moved into one of the airport terminal apartments after her retirement. As previously discussed in Section 5.3.2 of this chapter, residents reported the regular gathering of young people around Ravenswood’s shopping precinct and medical centre, close to the former airport terminal. Her report of this contained emotive language, such as, ‘feral youth’, and later on ‘scary’, ‘red-eyed’, and ‘wild children’. She then admitted that the presence of these ‘gangs of youths’ put her off leaving her home, even just to use the shops which she acknowledged to be only a two minute walk away . This example shows how the social construction of the young people who are using spaces in Ravenswood as ‘devils’ impacts on how other people choose to use public space in the neighbourhood, thus echoing debates in the existing anti-social behaviour literature that discuss how some behaviour restricts the use of spaces by others (Millie, 2008, p381). The impact on social mix is the undermining of aspirations for young people to be the initiators of social interaction and mixing in their communities. Moreover, it also illustrates how young people’s presence ensures that spaces are not used by all residents, despite public spaces being seen as sites of celebratory encounters.

An interesting observation for this study is that, young people using public space in Ravenswood were assumed by many residents to be from other areas and not Ravenswood. Residents believed that young people occupying public spaces were from the neighbouring housing areas of Gainsborough and Priory Heath. As outlined in Chapter 4, both of these estates were built after the Second World War by the local authority and still today remain predominantly areas of social housing. For many Ravenswood residents, especially those living in private housing, the knowledge that residents of the neighbouring estates were living in social housing, gave them sufficient grounds to assume that any anti-social behaviour witnessed in Ravenswood must be caused by young people from these neighbouring residential areas. These assumptions came despite Ravenswood being a mixed tenure development. Andrew Parkinson who lived on Bonny Crescent, and had witnessed young people’s ‘inappropriate’ use of Ravenswood’s village green, commented on his perceptions:

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‘I always assumed that the anti-social behaviour from unpleasant youths always came from the Gainsborough Estate; that was always my assumption’.

Andrew Parkinson, Resident Interview, 20th October 2009

It is clear that it is not only the presence of young people in public space that results in their social construction as unpleasant, but also their perceived origin. Valentine (2004) also believes that whether young people are cast as ‘angels’ or ‘devils’ can depend on various factors including ethnicity, gender, age and place of residence. However space, in her opinion, remains key. Surprisingly, in Ravenswood at no point did any adult resident refer to other possible characteristics, including age, as a means of identifying a young person as an ‘angel’ or ‘devil’, rather their focus remained on their presence and behaviour in public space, as well as their

perceived place of origin. Elias and Scotsman (1994) in their study of Winston Parva also

recounted how people in a community were divided and seen as ‘other’ according to their place of residence. This included the shunning of young people who lived on the ‘wrong’ side of the community. Here, in Ravenswood, as elsewhere in Britain, local authority or social housing is associated with the working class, with the working class often regarded as ‘deviant’ (Skeggs, 1997, p3). It therefore follows that working class housing areas have become associated with deviant behaviour (Allen et al, 2007, p241). According to Skeggs (1997) all behaviours serve to identify an individual’s social group. Therefore behaviour operates as a ‘signifier of class’ (Skeggs, 1997, p4). Furthermore, pre-existing ideas, or stereotypes, about different people, including those from different housing areas, tenures or classes, work to further deepen ideas of difference or ‘otherness’ (Cloke et al, 1999, p339), as witnessed in Ravenswood.

On this basis, it is contended that young people in Ravenswood are socially constructed on the basis of their presence in public spaces and assumed membership of the neighbouring working class areas. That said, this process of social construction as a ‘devil’ as witnessed in Ravenswood is not a linear a process as Valentine’s ‘angel’ and ‘devil’ concept might suggest. Rather, the pre-existing identities or stereotypes of residents of social housing areas also work to construct young people as devils, who are consequently seen as devils when in public space. Rather, many characteristics work together to construct young people in Ravenswood as devils and that these are co-constructed and nuanced. Moreover, in Ravenswood the wider context is influential in the construction of young people occupying spaces in Ravenswood. The importance of the wider context is revisited throughout this thesis.

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Andrew was not alone in his ideas about ‘unpleasant’ young people in Ravenswood. Sonia Cavanagh, who spoke about young people’s use of Martinet Green, suggested that the young people causing the trouble were, in her view, from the neighbouring residential areas. On a number of the questionnaire responses, residents also made links between young people’s inappropriate use of public spaces and the neighbouring housing areas. One resident explained how they ‘feel intimidated by groups of teenagers hanging around’ and went on to say ‘I just know they are from Gainsborough Estate which has a label of being a bit rough’. Others used quite derogatory language to describe young people from Gainsborough spending time in Ravenswood. For instance, one interviewee described them as ‘bloody scallies’. Meanwhile, another questionnaire respondent described teenagers from Gainsborough as ‘chavs’, justifying their claim by listing the inappropriate behaviour of these young people, which included racing motorbikes and scooters around Ravenswood and causing late-night noise and trouble for the police. These ‘inappropriate’ behaviours are again operating as signifiers of social group membership, or, in Ravenswood as signifiers of place of residence.