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Crowds, context and identity: Dynamic categorization processes in the 'poll tax riot'
ABSTRACT
Reicher has recently developed the social identity model of crowd behaviour based on self-categorization theory (SCT). This model begins to tackle the thorny theoretical problems posed by the dynamic nature of crowd action (Reicher, 1996b). The present paper describes an ethnographic study of a crowd event in which there were changes in the inter-group relationships over time. It is suggested that the laboratory evidence in support of SCT is complemented by ethnographic research of this type. By exploring situations in which definitions of context and/or categories are not purposefully manipulated, we can demonstrate the explanatory power of a dynamic and interactive approach to social categorization.
KEY WORDS crowds * ethnography * inter-group behaviour * selfcategorization * social identity
Introduction
The crowd is a dynamic phenomenon, both in the sense that it is associated with social change and in the fact that participants in crowd events may have their ideas and ideologies transformed through such participation (Drury & Reicher, in press; Green, 1990; Mann, 1973; Thompson, 1991). The examples of the French Revolution of 1789, the American civil rights movement of the 1960s and the 'Velvet' revolutions in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s are vivid illustrations (e.g. Ackerman & Kruegler, 1994; Boesel et al., 1971; McAdam, 1989; Nye, 1975).
Reicher (1984, 1987, 1996a, 1996b, 1997) argues that a greater understanding of psychological processes in crowd events can help us to tackle the key problem of social theory: that human activity can operate as both a product and a producer of social relations (Asch, 1952; Giddens, 1979). Grasping the richness of crowd processes, then, has implications beyond the particular questions motivating crowd psychology.
The elaborated social identity model of the crowd (Drury & Reicher, in press; Reicher, 1984, 1987, 1996a, 1996b, 1997; Stott & Reicher, 1998a) goes some way towards offering a social psychological explanation of this key question, and apparent paradox, in social theory. The model suggests that members of a crowd act in terms of shared social identity. The defining dimensions of this identity determine both the normative limits of action (what people do) and the extent of participation (who joins in). Thus, the model succeeds where...