Competitive Violence and the Micro-Politics of the Fight Label

Abstract

Although physical fighting is a common theme in research on youth, crime, and schools, social scientists have only rarely confronted a basic question: What makes a fight a ‘fight’? The label and its application are highly consequential for violent actors and social control agencies. Based on several years of longitudinal ethnographic fieldwork with several dozen American youth involved in violence (including a qualitative dataset of 189 violent encounters), the analysis documents the meaning of physical fights as a distinctive form of violent interaction. First, a definition of a ‘fight’ from the sample members' perspective is presented: a stretch of serious, competitive, hand-to-hand violence. Next, the article turns to the ‘micro-politics’ of labelling violence by institutions of discipline and control. By treating violence as a mutual fight, social control agents implicitly deny the roles of ‘victim’ and ‘perpetrator’. Police and school officials may creatively invoke the fight label either to avoid taking action or to punish all parties involved in violence on the street, in the home or at school. Finally, the discussion concludes by addressing variations in how violence is labelled across social ecologies and socioeconomic contexts, and the interrelated nature of the ‘fight’, ‘violence’ and ‘victim’ labels.