In the course of my interactions with the group, I was able to compile four sets of field notes: one from a SHARP meeting, two from concerts, and one from the aforementioned "action". In addition, I conducted four in-depth interviews with members of SHARP.

My previous association with anti-racist skinheads in other Canadian cities, as well as personal relationships I have formed with current members of SHARP as my neighbours, former roommates and as people I know from the Montreal punk rock music scene, permitted me to gain access to the group with relative ease. I discussed the possibility of doing some research with three members of SHARP in December 1999. In January 1999, I was invited to a meeting, where I explained to all present what I wanted to do, that their confidentiality would be maintained, and that all that I required was their consent to study them. At the next SHARP meeting, they voted to allow me to hang out with the group.

I chose to combine the methods of participant observation and intensive interviewing. My hope was to yield a rich and meaningful set of data from my interactions with the subjects, something that I believe I was able to accomplish.

After my proposal was accepted both by SHARP and by my field research supervisor, I began the process of constructing a rough interview schedule. In this, I was greatly aided by the appendixed interview schedule Lauraine Leblanc provides in Pretty in Punk, and I believe that ideas I gleaned from this illuminated some key findings, particularly regarding gender.

In February, after submitting my tentative interview schedule to my field research supervisor for comment, I began calling various SHARP members to inquire about when the next meeting would be held and what their plans were on the weekends. During my first field observations, at a SHARP meeting, I made a point to gather more phone numbers of members and to begin booking interview appointments.

A week or two later, I began interviewing members in addition to making observations in the field. While several interviews fell through or were repeatedly postponed, I did manage to yield four interviews from a sampling pool of about a dozen SHARP members fluent enough in English for me to conduct a meaningful interview with. Combined with my field notes (which occasionally contradicted what interviewees had told me), I believe I was able to yield a valuable set of data.

However, some concerns regarding my study may be raised. To begin with, my past close association with another SHARP chapter in another city, as well as my

·3

ongoing volunteer work with an anti-racist organization, could have biased my study. My construction of the interview schedule, my observations in the field, and my selection of probes during interviews are a few examples of areas that could have been tainted by personal bias. While I did attempt to maintain an objective frame of mind during my research, it remains to be seen whether or not obvious biases in the research can be pointed to.

·4

took a central position in my findings, forcing me to alter my interview schedule, probes and some of my focus. For example, the elaborate use of signification as an impression management process that I had initially hoped to uncover was much more subtle and secondary a consideration than I had anticipated. On the other hand, the role of gender within SHARP was far more prevalent than I had expected.

Gender, which was been grossly overlooked in most available academic literature concerning skinheads, also played a big part in the impression management process. Both men and women in SHARP saw the SHARP women as examples of authentic

·5

skinhead women, and viewed other skinhead women (particularly those who were perceived as sexually promiscuous or as becoming a skinhead after dating a male skinhead) contemptuously. I also noticed a contradiction between what male SHARPs said in relation to sexism during interviews and the behaviour of male SHARPs in relation to female SHARPs and other women.

SHARPs were very class conscious and while this appears to be a commonality with skinheads universally (making them somewhat unique among youth subcultures), their definition of "working class" and their actual class backgrounds contradict with this class consciousness to some degree, a feature noted by other studies of North American skinheads (Hamm, 1993: Young and Craig, 1997). What also interested me was the degree to which the importance of being "working-class" played a role in being a skinhead or a SHARP. Two of my interviewees held very specific political positions that rested upon being working-class. They seemed attracted to skinhead largely due to its open self-definition as a working-class youth subculture. One even belonged to another skinhead "crew" called the Class War Crew or Class War Cartel! All my interviewees identified their class position by using members of another youth subculture who could only be considered lumpen as a reference group, which contrasts with previous findings of earlier generations of skinheads using middle-class youth subcultures as a reference group to locate their position in the class structure.

I had braced myself to witness an inordinate amount of violence during my field research ö an expectation that I am happy to say was disappointed! SHARPs seem quite preoccupied with violence. Past fights are relived and referred to with great frequency.

·6

A clear value system surrounding the use of violence has been constructed by SHARP, and it was most interesting to watch it play out in most of my participant observation sessions. I even received a fairly elaborate written document justifying the use of violence against "white powers." So it was all the more shocking when I witnessed no single incident of violence above the level horseplay or posturing on the part of any of the SHARPs. I was particularly surprised at the restraint displayed by the SHARPs during one "action" I had been invited to attend. While violence seems to be a primary method for acquiring in-group status and cementing oneâs identification as a SHARP skinhead, there are quite elaborate and specific prescriptions as to when violence is considered appropriate, and the possibility of informal sanctions if it is used inappropriately.

Since this is the second incarnation of SHARP in Montreal, it would be useful to locate and interview members of the previous chapter to gain a historical perspective.

SHARP locate themselves within the local punk subculture, and it would be good to interview some punks about their views, regarding SHARP.

·7

Concerns for my own safety preclude me from conducting any participant observation or interviewing of neo-Nazi skinheads (a local gang of neo-Nazis have recently created a website where they threaten my life, as well as the lives of SHARP members!). However, other researchers have had some success with surveys in identical or similar situations (Hamm, 1993), so the creation of a survey could yield interesting data.

Given the not-inconsequential amount of animosity existing between the trad skins and SHARP, it would be a good idea to do similar research with Montréal trad skinheads. This could extend the research to an overall ethnography of the Montréal skinhead scene itself. Of particular note is the recent reformation of Montréal skinhead band The Discords, who are quite likely the first skinhead band to be formed in North America, having released their debut 7" single in 1982. Being able to interview them may well yield valuable historical data concerning the original North American skinhead subculture, whose origins and characteristics have been in dispute in academic literature (Hamm, 1993; Baron, 1997; Young and Craig, 1997; Wood, 1999).

Skinhead is a subculture unique among youth subcultures for a variety of reasons. Now entering its fourth decade, skinhead is probably the only youth subculture that explicitly identifies itself as working-class. SHARP is the most successful North American contribution to the skinhead subculture and my time spent studying and observing the SHARPs in Montréal was fascinating. Never before have I spent time with a group of young people so fiercely working-class (or who identified as such) and

·8

committed to the basic principle that all "races" are equal that they are prepared and willing to fight to defend those positions. I hope that the research I was able to conduct on SHARP Montréal proves to be a valuable start to what could easily become an insightful and ground-breaking ethnography of the skinhead subculture in a major North American city.