Social bandits
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Social bandit or social crime is a term invented by the historian Eric Hobsbawm in his 1965 classic study of popular forms of resistance, Primitive Rebels. He further expanded the field in the 1969 study, Bandits.
Hobsbawm's key thesis was that outlaws were individuals living on the edges of rural societies by robbing and plundering, who are often seen by ordinary people as heroes or beacons of popular resistance. He called it a form of "pre-historic social movement", by contrast with the organized labour movement.
Social banditry is a widespread phenomenon known in many societies and some argue that it still exists in remote areas and on high seas (pirates). Later social scientists have also discussed the terms applicability to more modern forms of crime, like street crime and the drug economy.
[edit] Further reading
- Benedetto Croce, Angelillo (Angelo Duca). Capo di banditi, 1892
- Eric Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels (1965) and Bandits (1969)
- John Lea, Social crime revisited (2002): http://www.bunker8.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/misc/socrime.html
