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This chapter compares the social behaviour of human hunter-gatherers with that of the better-studied chimpanzee species, Pan troglodytes, in an attempt to pinpoint the unique features of human social evolution. Although hunter-gatherers and chimpanzees living in central Africa have similar body weights, humans live at much lower population densities due to their greater dependence on predation. Human foraging parties have longer duration than those of chimpanzees, lasting hours rather than minutes, and a higher level of mutual dependence, through the division of labour between men (hunting) and women (gathering); which is in turn related to pair-bonding, and meat sharing to reduce the risk of individual hunters' failure on any particular day. The band appears to be a uniquely human social unit that resolves the tension between greater dispersion and greater interdependence.

This chapter introduces the concept of privacy, which is defined as the exercise of a genuine option to withhold information on one's self. The discussion is concerned with the question of why people struggle to protect their privacy. It examines the tensions of privacy and disclosure and looks at the debates over privacy that reflect long-running ethical and political tensions between individual prerogatives and claims of larger social units. It also studies the struggles to draw a line between private and public, as well as the resulting pressures for surveillance systems to connect and exchange. Finally, the chapter discusses privacy protection and the constraints and countercurrents to mass surveillance.

To date, few theories specific to women’s homelessness have been suggested. The numbers of homeless men in the UK and the rest of Europe are greater than those of women and therefore the majority of the current research and statistics on homelessness is more relevant to the concept of homelessness as experienced by men. However, our research demonstrates that homelessness for women has certain elements and characteristics that distinguish it from the homelessness of men and for this reason it seems logical to suggest that from this analysis, some theoretical framework should be proposed. This chapter will set out the current theories relating to homelessness, demonstrating how the findings of our research highlight certain unique features of the homelessness of women and consequently proposes that a new theory of ‘women’s homelessness’ should be based upon these findings.

One of the early initiatives of the Labour government was the establishment of the Social Exclusion Unit (SEU). This unit aimed for neighbourhood renewal and for the eradication of social exclusion of marginalised groups. Up to 2004, the groups which SEU produced reports on were: pupils excluded from school or truanting; rough sleepers; teenage parents; sixteen- to eighteen-year-olds not in education, employment, or training; young runaways; ex-prisoners; and children in care. This chapter evaluates New Labour's record on the first three groups. For each in turn, the chapter examines the policy context and trends before 1997, the targets set, and the policies recommended by the SEU, and the outcomes. In addition to discussing the three groups, the chapter also discusses another marginalised group which the SEU failed to consider. This group is the asylum seekers. Asylum seekers provide an interesting case study because they are among the most vulnerable of vulnerable groups. They often arrive traumatised, penniless, and unable to speak the language. Furthermore, asylum has been one of the active areas of government policy, with four major parliamentary acts in the last decade and one currently making its way to Parliament, however one policy can have the effect of generating social exclusion rather than eradicating it. The chapter ends with an assessment of the extent of the success of the government's efforts to reduce the exclusion of marginalised groups. Although it lauded the evidence-based approach by the SEU, the chapter notes the gap that has often emerged between the structural analysis of the problems and the ‘supply-side’ nature of proposed solutions.

This chapter reviews the direction that ‘community safety’ and ‘social inclusion’ has taken since the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act and the Social Exclusion Unit's recommendation that a National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal be developed the same year. It considers the assumptions underpinning, and the tensions and contradictions that have emerged between, ‘community safety’ and ‘social inclusion’ strategies and approaches. It argues that there has been a reconfiguration of inequalities in cities, which has profound implications for victimisation, criminalisation, and criminality. It notes that the most marginal sections of working-class communities are bearing the brunt of these changes.

This chapter focuses on the research project that was carried out over a three-year period, from early 1995 to mid-1997. The approach used in this project was specifically guided by an anthropological frame of reference. Its first step was to identify reasonably bounded social units for research. Within these areas or localities, the researchers then conducted surveys, organized focus groups, interviewed key informants, followed local events, and measured air and water quality and noise levels. The methodological goal of this project was to situate the numerical results coming from a survey in the context of neighborhood social and cultural data coming from intensive contact with a single locality. The concern of this project was not with a collection of individual “perceptions,” but with the collective “construction.” Thus, this research was fit broadly within the constructivist paradigm, with a goal of elaborating a cultural model.

This chapter offers a brief discussion of a draft paper by Daniel Ortiz, focusing on whether individuals or communities should be the unit of political and social analysis. It is hazardous to discuss this in terms of individual ‘sovereignty’. Better analyses of the relation between individual and group are available, and talk of sovereignty systematically obscures the distinction between ‘is’ and ‘ought’.Nor is the category of ‘contradiction’ very appropriate for considering, even clearly normatively, that relation. Some observations are offered about Duncan Kennedy, Dworkin, Richard Rorty, and Whitman's pantheism and apparent optimism about reason and spirit.

For five years, the lives of the 200 families in four of the most deprived areas in the country have been traced. Every year, the authors of this chapter visit the families and record their changing views and experiences on child-raising in difficult and unpopular neighbourhoods. The four areas, two in East London and two in Yorkshire were chosen from the twelve representative deprived areas that were examined in an attempt to understand the changing fortunes of such places. Three of the four places were rapidly changing and becoming more ethnically diverse while the other area comprises almost entirely white large council estates in Leeds. After the ascension to office of New Labour in 1997, the new Prime Minister introduced a new approach to the joined up problems by calling up for joined up solutions. Under the Prime Minister, a new unit that tackled social exclusion was set up. The Social Exclusion Unit (SEU) recognised the centrality of area conditions in holding back families and particularly children and young people from opportunities, and advocated broad targets that would reduce deprivation within disadvantaged areas. However, as the area of initiatives multiplied, complaints from local authorities and within Whitehall emerged. This chapter focuses on what is really happening within the four deprived areas, whether programmes and interventions really matter, and whether mothers and their children benefit or not from the policies targeted at deprived and marginalised groups. The first section discusses the two areas of government action targeted at the entire population, but with greater emphasis on deprived areas where the problems are most severe: education and employment. The succeeding sections focus on the three initiatives that are specifically targeted at deprived areas: New Deal for Communities and Sure Start; community participation and empowerment; and community policing and neighbourhood wardens.