‘No place for hate’: community-led research and the geographies of Nottingham citizens’ hate crime commission

Abstract

This paper recounts the Hate Crime Commission carried out in 2014 by Nottingham Citizens, a charity and community organiser. It provides an insider account of a piece of community led and co-produced research into the experiences of and under-reporting of hate crime in the city, and the relative success of the commission in forcing policy changes and inspiring future leaders and campaigns. It details a responsive methodology that evolved over the yearlong campaign, which collated over 1000 survey responses. It explores the spaces in which mobilisation took place (religious, educational, civic) and the pressure points (private and public) that were used to create change. It concludes by weighing up the successes and critiques of the commission, especially regarding the successful campaign to have misogyny recognised as a hate crime, and relates this work to ongoing attempts to conceptualise non-radical geographies of activism and community organising.