The battle for interpretation: the 1826 Chatterton Massacre and ‘riot as denial’

This article evaluates the usefulness of Stan Cohen’s ‘techniques of denial’ (2001) for understanding how the discourse of ‘riot’ is deployed in response to accusations of state violence against those engaged in social protest. It does so through a historical case study defined by the state as a ‘riot’: the Pennine Lancashire working-class protests, and most notably, the killings at Chatterton, in April 1826. By examining how the state used techniques of historical, literal, and interpretive denial to obscure both the motivations of the protesters and the violence of the state, the article highlights the ways in which these dominant narratives uphold existing power relations. We further develop Cohen’s work by applying a dialogical lens (Bakhtin, 1981; Steinberg, 1999), which foregrounds the multivocal struggle over meaning between state and subaltern actors. In doing so, we introduce the concept of ‘dialogical acknowledgement’ – a deliberate counter-strategy to denial that affirms protestors’ narratives, reclaims historical truth, and challenges dominant frames. Conceptualising Chatterton as an essentially contested event, the article examines how campaigns and commemorative work have begun to subvert official memory and redefine the moral legitimacy of the state. Ultimately, we argue that interpretive struggles over the language of ‘riot’ are not only historical but political, shaping contemporary efforts to contest denial and restore epistemic justice.