‘All Knowledge Begins with the Senses’1: Towards a Sensory Criminology

Abstract

Visual criminology has established itself as a site of criminological innovation. Its ascendance, though, highlights ways in which the ‘ocularcentrism’ of the social sciences is reproduced in criminology. We respond, arguing for attention to the totality of sensorial modalities. Outlining the possible contours of a criminology concerned with smell, taste, sound and touch—along with the visual—the paper describes moments in which the sensory intersects with various phenomena of crime, harm, justice and power. Noting the primacy of the sensorial in understanding environmental harm, we describe an explicitly sensory green criminology while also suggesting the ways that heightened criminological attention to the non-visual senses might uncover new sites and modes of knowledge and a more richly affective criminology.

The Limits of the City: Atmospheres of Lockdown

“…To adapt arguments made by Elden about place ( Elden 2013b ), lockdown strategies disrupt the affective volume of a city, by thickening its regulatory tactics and thinning its networks of connection. While the new administrative offences of the pandemic, such as not wearing a face covering or congregating in groups, are enforced through the imposition of fines, 7 the altered bodily gestures and movements that have emerged in public spaces reveal a deep and parallel need for other atmospheres of control—ones that citizens can deploy for themselves and which find their place in the pandemic city through our sensory perceptions of its changed environments, ‘spaces configured in the totality of sensory information’ ( McClanahan and South 2020 : 13).…”

“…These ‘emotional knots’ ( Thrift 2005 : 138) within the city lead to a combination of extensive and intensive atmospheres permeating the everyday spaces of the city and communicating their affect to the subject through myriad sensory differentials. Following McClanahan and South, some of the resulting affective sensory encounters are set out here as a ‘sensorial criminological agenda’ ( McClanahan and South 2020 : 9) of the pandemic city.…”

“…Another strand of scholarship is further expanding criminological investigation of the city by undertaking sensory analyses of urban environments. McClanahan and South (2020 : 17) argue that criminological thinking can be transformed through the consideration of how crime, law, justice and authority may be sensed :…”

Indefinite stuckness: Listening in a time of hyper-incarceration and border entrapment

“…Rather than analysing the affective potentials of new sound media for witnessing secretive systems of offshore detention (Rae et al., 2019), this article explores how audible accounts of confinement shed light on the temporal and spatial aspects of carceral experiences, and how these aspects align and vary between distinct (onshore and offshore) systems of imprisonment. We are aware that there are many possible directions for studies of the relationship between sound and carcerality, which include important contributions to a broader sensory criminological project (Brown and Carrabine, 2019; McClanahan and South, 2019), such as Hemsworth’s (2016) examination of sound as an emotional anchor and spatialising tool in Canadian prisons. Our primary interest in sound in this article lies with its capacity to serve as a vehicle or medium for learning about the specific meanings that people ascribe to their experiences of confinement that are otherwise largely inaccessible to prison researchers.…”

‘Betrokken’ onderzoeksmethoden in criminologisch onderzoek

“…In de voorbije decennia zien we talrijke methodologische innovaties én groeiende aandacht voor kwalitatieve onderzoeksmethoden (zie Decorte & Zaitch, 2016). Kritisch, reflexief en origineel werk is verricht door gebruik te maken van etnografie (klassieke etnografie, maar ook instant, liquid, multi-sited etnografieën (Ferrell, Hayward & Young, 2015), narratieve (Fleetwood, Presser, Sandberg & Ugelvik, 2019), visuele (Brown & Carrabine, 2017), sensory (McClanahan & South, 2020), participatieve (O'Neill, 2010) en online/virtuele (Hine, 2015) methoden -om er maar enkele te noemen. Deze ontwikkelingen zijn niet uitsluitend terug te brengen tot intellectuele spitsvondigheden en een streven naar innovatie omwille van nieuwigheid an sich.…”