How can the “uniform” be integrated into a marginal street culture?

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Johan Leman, 25 September 2026

In some working-class neighborhoods, street culture is particularly dominant among certain groups of young men. It is also this street culture that causes some areas to become, as it were, privatized. These areas are then perceived as territories where someone coming from outside can quickly be regarded as an intruder. And no one comes more obviously from outside than someone wearing a uniform, which embodies the authority associated with that outside presence.

The uniform, and the person wearing it, therefore face difficulties in being accepted in such socially marginalized and “privatized” spaces. Moreover, uniforms are not only worn by the police, but also by firefighters and paramedics. Outsiders are then understandably astonished to observe that even paramedics and firefighters sometimes encounter resistance.

This is therefore one of the challenges in which youth organizations should invest more. How can “the uniform” — police officers, paramedics, firefighters, etc. — become, more than is currently the case, an integrated and integrating part of life in some working-class neighborhoods?

The relative internationalization of such neighborhoods — through the presence of people whose asylum or residence procedures have been exhausted, or through people temporarily arriving from abroad — obviously does not make matters any easier.

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