Intergroup dynamics within the 1831 reform riots: towards a new social psycho-history

1831年10月，第二次改革法案在上议院被否决后，一波骚乱席卷了英国。这些“改革暴乱”始于东米德兰（德比，诺丁汉）的严重混乱，随后在西部和西南部城镇发生骚乱。这股浪潮在布里斯托尔达到高潮，引发了19世纪英国最严重的骚乱。持续了三天，人群放火烧毁了几个主要机构，并释放了四所监狱的囚犯。暴乱被军队暴力镇压，造成数百人伤亡。对布里斯托尔骚乱的历史分析产生了两种主要叙述；前者将事件描述为一群愚蠢、不理智、醉酒的“暴民”的犯罪行为，后者则将其描述为一场改革抗议。然而，这两种说法都不能令人满意地解释抗议是如何发展成如此规模的集体暴力的，也不能解释骚乱者的议程是如何在三天内发生变化的，这反映在他们对目标的选择上。同样，“改革骚乱”在全国的蔓延在很大程度上仍无法解释。这些事件与布里斯托尔之间的关系是什么？拟议的研究为历史学家开辟了新的领域，因为它将使用社会心理学的概念和原则，其中社会身份研究人员已经成功地解释了骚乱人群中的行为限制；当局在这类骚乱中扮演的角色；以及暴乱在不同地理位置蔓延的过程。通过群体规范的概念，共享社会身份使人群能够作为一个整体行动，并规定了什么是适当的行为。由于社会身份是建立在与其他群体的关系基础上的，当这些关系发生变化时，社会身份也会发生变化——包括群体规范和采取集体行动的能力。因此，这种社会认同方法可以帮助解释群体事件升级为冲突和混乱的蔓延；为什么一些团体加入了一波骚乱，而另一些则没有。到目前为止，社会身份的方法还没有被应用到现代晚期（1750-1900）的骚乱中，这是本项目的目的之一。此外，我们将批判性地评估我们的研究和分析，以便为历史学家和其他应用社会身份概念来分析类似的近代骚乱的人创建一个用户友好的程序。这项研究包括收集1831年10月所有与改革有关的骚乱的证据，以便对每个事件进行三角分析。特别令人感兴趣的是人群和当局的行动。例如，参与者如何在骚乱浪潮中获得有关先前骚乱的信息，人群为何、如何以及在何处聚集，如何产生领导以及选择哪些行动目标。同样，我们也对当局的行为感兴趣，他们是否事先意识到这一事件，他们在骚乱之前和期间的反应如何，以及他们使用了何种强制手段（如果有的话）来处理骚乱。然后，研究将重点放在参与者的心态和感受上。特别重要的是能够说明群体成员动机的证据来源；他们对有关改革抗议的信息作何反应；他们对合法性的看法；以及他们如何理解自己和他们的“对手”作为社会群体。所需的证据种类繁多，从目击者对人群讨论、诵经或起哄的描述，到回忆录，以及宣传单、海报和横幅等视觉和材料来源。将这两种描述结合起来，并分析地使用社会身份概念，将有助于我们理解抗议活动是如何发展成集体暴力的，以及它们是如何在城市、地区和国家之间传播的，这是一个新的框架，可以在未来应用于其他骚乱浪潮。

In October 1831 a wave of disturbances swept across England after the rejection of the Second Reform Bill in the House of Lords. These 'reform riots' began with serious disorder in the East Midlands (Derby, Nottingham) followed by unrest in towns in the West and Southwest. The wave culminated in Bristol with the most serious riot in nineteenth century Britain. Lasting three days, crowds destroyed several major institutions by fire and released prisoners from four jails. The riot was violently suppressed by military units with hundreds of people killed and wounded.Historical analysis of the Bristol riot has led to two principal narratives; the first characterises the event as the criminal actions of a mindless, irrational, drunken 'mob', and the second as a reform protest. However, neither of these accounts satisfactorily explains how the protest developed into collective violence on such a scale nor how the agenda of the rioters, reflected in their choice of targets, changed over three days. Equally, the spread of the 'reform riots' across the country remains largely unexplained. What were the relationships between these events and Bristol? The proposed research breaks new ground for historians in that it will be carried out using concepts and principles from social psychology, where social identity researchers have had success in explaining the limits of behaviour in rioting crowds; the role of authorities in the dynamics of such riots; and the process through which rioting spreads across different geographical locations. Sharing social identity allows a crowd to act as one and also specifies what counts as appropriate behaviour, through the notion of a group norm. Since social identities are based on relationships with other groups, when these relationships change so do social identities - including group norms and ability to take collective action. This social identity approach can therefore help explain the escalation of crowd events into conflict and the spread of disorder; why some groups join in with a wave of rioting but others do not. The social identity approach has not, hitherto, been applied to disturbances in the late-modern period (1750-1900), which is one aim of the present project. In addition, we will critically evaluate our research and analysis in order to create a user-friendly procedure for historians and others applying social identity concepts to analyse similar late-modern disturbances.The research involves collecting evidence about all of the reform related disturbances in October 1831 in order to produce triangulated accounts of each event. Of particular interest would be the actions of the crowds and the authorities. For example, how participants gained information about previous disturbances in the wave of unrest, why, how and where the crowd assembled, how leadership emerged and what targets were selected for action. Similarly, we are interested in how the authorities behaved, whether they were aware in advance of the event, how they reacted before and during the disturbance and what kind of coercion (if any) was used to deal with the disorder. The research will then focus on the mentalities and feelings of the participants. Of particular import will be sources of evidence that explicate the motivations of crowd members; how they reacted to information about reform protests; their perceptions of legitimacy; and how they understood themselves and their 'opposition' as social groups. The kinds of evidence required range from eye-witness accounts of what crowds were discussing, chanting or heckling, to memoirs, and visual and material sources such as hand-bills, posters and banners.Combining these two kinds of accounts and using social identity concepts analytically will help us understand how protests developed into collective violence and how they spread across cities, regions and the country, in a new framework that can be applied in the future to other waves of disturbances.