Sentencing Reform

The studies contained within this book describe very different groups of people in the British Isles, ranging from remote rural communities to adolescent urban teenagers; from Irish fishermen to south London householders;
from Devonshire farmers’ wives to suburban activists in northern England; from Glaswegians to Hebridean crofters. This variety of field is matched by a diversity of theoretical standpoint. However, beneath this variety all the contributors share an objective: to describe ways in which people mark out their immediate and intimate social identities, those boundaries of their social lives which demarcate most powerfully and meaningfully their sense of similarity to and difference from other people. The scale of boundaries with which we deal differs from chapter to chapter. For example, in Charsley’s case it is the juxtaposition of gross entities: Scotland and England. At the opposite extreme Bouquet is concerned with boundaries within households.
The difference of scale replicates the segmentary nature of social life and identity, long a rich vein of anthropological investigation, and the heterogeneity of milieu and societal level which characterise the individual’s experience of contemporary social life.