ABSTRACT
Whether, ideologically, their views are best understood as ‘nationalist’, ‘racist’ or ‘fascist’, the young people discussed in this book thought of themselves first and foremost as ‘skinheads’ who were, in their words, distinguishable from everyday racists by their willingness to ‘act’ upon their beliefs. In this chapter the substance of, and moral philosophy underpinning, the ‘action’ that embodies skinhead identity is discussed. Ritual violence, it is suggested, is an important mode of articulating that identity but it does not take centre stage. Its place is taken by racist or, in respondents’ terms, ‘ideologically motivated’ violence. The chapter considers also a range of direct and indirect ‘actions’ that fall short of the use of physical violence but which are employed by respondents to reproduce relations of racial and ethnic domination and subordination; these are discussed as manifestations of symbolic violence.1 They include verbal articulations of everyday racism but also practices of intimidation and the dissemination of literature and images that promote racial or ethnic hatred.
