Policing the Borribles: conjunctural crisis and moral panic in children's literature.

Michael de Larrabeiti's controversial series of novels for youth (published in 1975, 1981, and 1986) about the Borribles, children who grow feral and live in anarchic communities in London, were influential for the urban fantasy genre. The novels describe a fictional fantasy subculture but neverthel...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cultural Studies Vol. 38; no. 4; pp. 567 - 588
Main Author: Wise, J. Macgregor
Format: Article
Published: Taylor & Francis Ltd Jul2024
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
fields @attributes:
  recordID: 1
pdfLink:
plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=177840005&site=ehost-live
header:
  @attributes:
    shortDbName: hlh
    uiTerm: 177840005
    longDbName: Humanities International Complete
    uiTag: AN
  controlInfo:
    bkinfo:
    jinfo:
      jid:
        09502386
        05G
      jtl: Cultural Studies
      issn: 09502386
      maglogo: N
    pubinfo:
      dt: Jul2024
      vid: 38
      iid: 4
      pid: 377
      pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd
    artinfo:
      ui:
        177840005
        10.1080/09502386.2022.2154816
      ppf: 567
      ppct: 21
      formats:
        fmt:
          – @attributes:
              type: T
          – @attributes:
              type: P
              size: 1.5MB
      tig:
        atl: Policing the Borribles: conjunctural crisis and moral panic in children's literature.
      aug:
        au: Wise, J. Macgregor
        affil: School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Arizona State University, Glendale, AZ, USA
      su:
        De Larrabeiti, Michael
        Subcultures
        Cultural studies
        Black youth
        Children's literature
      sug:
        subj:
          De Larrabeiti, Michael
          Subcultures
          Cultural studies
          Black youth
          Children's literature
      keyword:
        children's literature
        cultural studies
        Michael de Larrabeiti
        Subculture
        The Borribles
      ab: Michael de Larrabeiti's controversial series of novels for youth (published in 1975, 1981, and 1986) about the Borribles, children who grow feral and live in anarchic communities in London, were influential for the urban fantasy genre. The novels describe a fictional fantasy subculture but nevertheless engage with issues of the rise of a law-and-order society in the U.K. in the 1970s and police harassment of black youth. Drawing from the work of the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, the paper argues that the trilogy represents an imaginary political solution, grounded in anticapitalist, antiauthority, and antiracist ethics, to the conjunctural crisis of the 1970s and the rise of Thatcherism. The paper reads the structure of feeling of Borrible culture and argues how its narrative functions through a series of displacements to engage with racist police tactics, anarchist squats, and anticapitalist and antiwork ethics.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
    refInfo:
    copyright:
      @attributes:
        flag: Y
      custom: Copyright of Cultural Studies is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
      item: Cultural Studies
      holder: Taylor & Francis Ltd
      dt:
        @attributes:
          year: 2024
    holdings:
      @attributes:
        islocal: N