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The period 2010–2013 was a time of far-reaching structural reforms of the National Health Service in England. Of particular interest in this paper is the way in which radical critiques of the reform process were marginalised by pragmatic concerns about how to maintain the market-competition thrust of the reforms while avoiding potential fragmentation. We draw on the Essex school of political discourse theory and develop a ‘nodal’ analytical framework to argue that widespread and repeated appeals to a narrative of choice-based integrated care served to take the fragmentation ‘sting’ out of radical critiques of the pro-competition reform process. This served to marginalise alternative visions of health and social care, and to pre-empt the contestation of a key norm in the provision of health care that is closely associated with the notions of ‘any willing provider’ and ‘any qualified provider’: provider-blind provision. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The context of this article is the use of employer sanctions, in the form of raids and fines on businesses found to be employing people who do not have permission to work in the UK, as a method of in-border immigration control. Drawing on qualitative interviews with undocumented migrants and ethnic enclave employers in London, this article examines the impact of sanctions from the perspectives of those who have been or are most likely to be affected. More specifically the article sheds light on individual experiences of and strategies against immigration enforcement raids, and the effect of raids on the labour market, conditions of work and more widely, on local community relations. The paper concludes that there is a disjuncture between the real impact of sanctions and at least some of the stated policy aims. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper concerns the use of photo-elicitation interviews in constructing migrant narratives of health and well-being. It argues that photo-elicitation can be particularly effective in producing nuanced understandings about relationships among culture, place and health. It explores how, through this method, subject-centred understandings of health and well-being are able to challenge dominant discursive constructions that tend to ‘other’ and potentially stereotype minority groups in explanations of health behaviour. The paper includes discussion of issues of power and representation in research with marginalized populations, which further elaborates the value of photo-elicitation in developing a non-essentializing view of minority groups. The paper concludes with comment on the potential value of this method in the formulation of health and social policies aiming to incorporate the views and needs of marginalized or minority groups. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper will focus on the place of black history in heritage sites in England and discuss how visual methodologies can be used to develop a more inclusive approach to heritage. It will argue that visual archives, from portraits of the aristocracy to asylum portraits, are an essential part of the research process for heritage site staff who are assessing how they connect to (potential) visitors. The paper highlights examples that illustrate the advantages and disadvantages of using the visual record for historical recovery and suggests how visual methodologies can be used to encourage greater participation with historic environments. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since 1977 homelessness legislation in England has offered limited statutory accommodation rights to unintentionally homeless people who are judged to be in priority need and able to demonstrate a local connection. Using data generated in interviews with homeless people and staff working to support them, this paper considers the impact of current homelessness policy and practice and explores how decisions about intentionality, priority need and local connection serve to exacerbate the social exclusion experienced by single homeless people with multiple support needs. It is concluded that a more genuinely inclusive welfare state will only emerge when, and if, policymakers and wider society are able to abandon their current fixation with using welfare policy to punish ‘irresponsible’ behaviour and refocus instead on providing services to adequately meet the basic needs of marginalised people. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite media and political rhetoric to the contrary, there is persuasive evidence to suggest an association between deprivation and those involved in the English riots of 2011, which continues to be downplayed when developing responses to crime and crime prevention policy. This study explores empirical evidence from two major cities in the North West of England, which highlights an association between deprivation and rioting in both criminal charge and sentencing data allowing further exploration of some of these issues. The paper argues that to mask the rioting as ‘mindless criminality’ is to ignore wider social-structural inequalities and to silence important messages contained in the rioting behaviour from disenfranchised youth and communities about the inequalities they suffer. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The concept of anti-social behaviour became prominent in the UK in the 1990s when the Labour government constructed it as an important policy challenge and deployed a series of high profile interventions against it. But anti-social behaviour faded significantly from the political agenda once Tony Blair’s premiership ended in 2007 and its diminution appeared complete when the most high profile of interventions, the Anti-social Behaviour Order or Asbo, was replaced by the more mundane-sounding Injunction in 2014. This commentary argues, however, that far from the anti-social behaviour control regime softening as government priorities shifted elsewhere, legislation passed in 2014, allied to technological innovation, has increased the potential for those whose presence is considered problematic to be ‘eliminated’ from public spaces. This has particular significance for young people, whose discursive association with disorder and greater tendency to congregate in groups make them likely to be the targets of enhanced exclusionary practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ agenda is best understood in terms of ideological and policy continuities with earlier Conservative and New Labour governments. But where previous post-1979 governments have sought to renegotiate the role of the state mostly through privatisations and marketisations of public services, the ‘Big Society’ agenda also proposed the replacement of the state by individual voluntarism and community enterprise. The accompanying political narrative portrays an atomised ‘broken Britain’ but at the same time insists that untapped community spirit can take the place of the state. This article examines the disjuncture between Big Society narratives and urban policy responses to the 2011 Tottenham riots. By comparison with previous local regeneration initiatives in Tottenham there was very little emphasis on community development. Instead explicit goals of gentrification in the Plan for Tottenham echo Thatcher-era approaches to ‘place shaping’ and exemplify a wider re-emphasis on property-led regeneration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]