Social Control and Deviance: A South Asian Community in Scotland(Routledge Revivals)

This title was first published in 2000:  This book provides an empirical account of social control and deviance in a South Asian community in Scotland. Focusing on Edinburgh’s Pakistani community, the book examines the social order of this particular community and the ways it is maintained. It explores the various social institutions and processes that operate as mechanisms of (informal) social control within the community. This book also examines the ways the second generation South Asians relate to their community and the extent to which they conform, or deviate from its norms. Criminological social control theory is used as an analytical framework for explaining deviance. It is concluded that the South Asian youngsters (boys) who have weak / broken bonds with their community are more likely to deviate from its norms. The book further concludes that social control and deviance are intricately interrelated. While social control defines what is deviance, the latter has important implications for the former: repeated occurrence of deviance prompts agencies of social control to redefine and gradually normalize deviance.

Table of Contents:
Contents: General Introduction. Social Control: Migration, exclusion and the making of a ’closed community’; The family and the Biraderi; The mosque and the Pakistan Association, Edinburgh and the East of Scotland. Deviance: The Pilrig boys and deviance; Attachment; Commitment, involvement and belief; Summaries and conclusions; Bibliography; Index.

Review :
’...a unique study...Dr. Wardak has produced a careful and sensitive empirical study of the dynamics of control and deviance that will be of interest to scholars in the fields of race relations and criminology...one of the very few rigorous tests of Hirschi’s control theory that have been completed in the UK. I recommend it to all criminologists interested in the relationship between race, crime and social control.’ Dr Peter Young, University of Edinburgh, UK ’The book is recommended to readers who are interested in the sociological understanding of the experiences of members of Pakistani/Muslim communities in Scotland, or in social control and deviance in Pakistani/Muslim communities.’ Ethnic and Racial Studies ’This is the first in-depth study of social control and deviance within a British Pakistani community. The study is clearly sritten and rigorous. If these were not reasons enough to read the book, then the fact that little systematic social scientific knowledge is available about this community offers further enticement. Readers with a specific interest in adapting social control theory to specific community and cultural contexts will directly benefit from reading this book, as will those with a more general interest in how British Pakistani communities are socially organised.’ Crime Prevention and Community Safety ’Wardak should be credited for being among the very first scholars who have done research on this community in general...the book has a lot of qualities...overall, this is a well-written and accessible book, with clear debates and coherent arguments, unreservedly recommended to scholars and students of crime and social control, social life and customs, cultural studies as well as race relations.’ Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies