Geoffrey Pearson’s Followers (1)

Geoffrey Pearson

Born

in Manchester, The United Kingdom

March 26, 1943

Died

April 05, 2013

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Geoffrey Pearson, academic and writer.

Among the cacophony of cant and ignorance masquerading as social commentary that followed Britain’s 2011 riots, there were few credible voices of understanding, let alone attempts to place the youthful violence, nihilism, and looting within anything approaching a historical perspective. Yet as clichés were rolled out about the riots being without precedent, a sure sign of a radical and dangerous departure from the subservience of the past, the carefully modulated tones of Geoffrey Pearson, author of the ever-pertinent study Hooligan: A History of Respectable Fears, came once again to the fore

He was born in Manchester, the only son of a Co-op worker and a Labour activist. At Peterhouse College, Cambridg
Geoffrey Pearson, academic and writer.

Among the cacophony of cant and ignorance masquerading as social commentary that followed Britain’s 2011 riots, there were few credible voices of understanding, let alone attempts to place the youthful violence, nihilism, and looting within anything approaching a historical perspective. Yet as clichés were rolled out about the riots being without precedent, a sure sign of a radical and dangerous departure from the subservience of the past, the carefully modulated tones of Geoffrey Pearson, author of the ever-pertinent study Hooligan: A History of Respectable Fears, came once again to the fore

He was born in Manchester, the only son of a Co-op worker and a Labour activist. At Peterhouse College, Cambridge, he studied moral sciences (philosophy and psychology) then carried out postgraduate studies before working with people with disabilities in Sheffield, and later trained as a psychiatric social worker at the LSE before returning to Sheffield to practise. .

Much of Pearson’s early career was in social-work education and training, first as a lecturer at Sheffield Polytechnic, then at University College, Cardiff. While at Cardiff he published his first major work, The Deviant Imagination (1974), which explored the assumptions and ideological foundations of a wide range of theories of deviance. It was critical of the burgeoning subjective politics of identity that was a direct threat to the traditional socialism that had nurtured his boyhood and youth. Most importantly in terms of his subsequent career, it established historical precedents for many contemporary policies and social attitudes, particularly those relating to youthful hedonism.

In 1976 Pearson joined the University of Bradford, where he published Hooligan: A History of Respectable Fears (1980) the study for which he was best known. Hooligan is concerned with the recurrence of a form of cultural pessimism that regards youth crime as a threatening departure from the stable traditions of a “golden age”. Whether the triggers for youth deviance were regarded as music hall, gangster movies or rock’n’roll, he identified a connected vocabulary of respectable fears stretching back to Victorian times and beyond. Hooligan will remain relevant for as long as the default reaction to youth violence continues to disinter such notions.

Yet his work does not deny that youth and the communities that spawn them have undergone huge changes. As he noted in the wake of the 2011 riots: “How do you reintegrate people who were not integrated in the first place?”

Pearson was always careful not to glamorise deviance, and in The New Heroin Users (1987) he gave a voice to users and addicts, confounding many stereotypes concerning this demonised group, who were concentrated in areas already suffering unemployment, poor housing and poverty.

In 1985 he became Professor of Social Work at Middlesex Polytechnic, during which time he was a member of the Council for Education and Training in Social Work, and worked on projects including a critical study of multi-agency policing, written in the wake of the Scarman Report.

In 1989 he moved to Goldsmiths as Professor of Social Work, and later of Criminology. For eight years he was editor-in-chief of the British Journal of Criminology, and was a member of the Runciman inquiry into drugs and the law and vice-chair of the Institute for the Study of Drug Dependency. He carried out studies of drug use among young people in care, of drug markets, and the policing of drugs.

Although he retired in 2008, his inquisitiveness and natural affinity with blighted communities led him to chair the Independent Commission on Social Services in Wales that produced a highly critical report in 2010.

A talented jazz pianist, and lifelong Manchester United fan, he was the most sociable of men who always had a story to tell but who knew when to listen. When nurturing and inspiring younger ethnographe ...more

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Geoffrey Pearson’s books

Average rating: 4.02 · 54 ratings · 7 reviews · 19 distinct works • Similar authors

	Hooligan: A history of respectable fears 4.07 avg rating — 45 ratings — published 1983 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Deviant Imagination: Psychiatry, Social Work and Social Change really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 1975 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The New Heroin Users really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 1987 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Social Problems and Social Policy (New Directions in Social Work series) by Geoffrey Pearson, Antony A. Vass liked it 3.00 avg rating — 1 rating	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Where's Me Teeth liked it 3.00 avg rating — 1 rating	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Young People and Heroin: An Examination of Heroin Use in the North of England : A Report to the Health Education Council by Geoffrey Pearson, Mark Gilman, Shirley McIver 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Social Work and the Legacy of Freud: Psychoanalysis and Its Uses by Geoffrey Pearson, Margaret Yelloly (Editor), Judith Treseder 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Middle market drug distribution by Geoffrey Pearson, Terence Conran 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2001	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Social Work and the Legacy of Freud: Psychoanalysis and its Uses by Geoffrey Pearson (Editor), Judith Treseder (Editor), Margaret Yelloly (Editor) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The deviant imagination: Psychiatry, social work, and social change 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Geoffrey Pearson…

Quotes by Geoffrey Pearson (?)

“Poetic writing can be understood and misunderstood in many ways. In most cases the author is not the right authority to decide on where the reader ceases to understand and misunderstanding begins. Many an author has found the readers to whom his work seemed more lucid than it was to himself. Moreover, misunderstandings may be fruitful under certain circumstances. ... I neither can nor intend to tell my readers how they ought to understand my tale. May everyone find in it what strikes a chord in him and is of some use to him!”
― Geoffrey Pearson, The Deviant Imagination: Psychiatry, Social Work and Social Change

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