The property of safety

Abstract

This article draws upon data generated as part of a 30-month research project, 'Violence Sexuality, Space', undertaken as part of a wider Economic and Social Research Council initiative on Violence. The main focus of the article is upon ideas of property that are a recurring theme in our Manchester key informant data. We offer a jurisprudence of the everyday practices of property through an examination of the ways in which ideas of property are implicated in the production of experiences of security and insecurity, safety and danger, identity and community, as social inclusion and social exclusion. This analysis is grounded in an empirical study of the sexual social order of Manchester's gay Village.

Keywords:

• Boundary
• Danger
• Gays
• Lesbian
• Property
• Safety
• Spaces
• Violence