Asian Criminology: Its Contribution in Linking Global North and South

Abstract

In recent years, Asian criminology and Southern criminology have drawn scholarly attention to the profound divide between Western and non-Western societies, or the Global North and Global South, in criminological knowledge production. Perspectives from Asian and Southern criminology expose these divides and propose critical ways to correct the hegemony of Western over non-Western, or Northern over Southern, knowledge production. For the contemporary movement of decolonization of knowledge, a particular contribution of Asian criminology is to link Western and non-Western, or Northern and Southern, criminological science. As Sandra Walklate concluded, “Asian criminology … stands at the positive intersection of the north–south and east–west in terms of geography and culture. It is well placed to think differently, both conceptually and methodologically, about the criminological enterprise, and the debates that such different thinking might generate.” This article reviews the divide in criminology between the Global North and South. Based on the framework of the Asian criminological paradigm, Asian criminology has made major contributions to bridging the divide between the North and the South through academic institutionalization and theoretical development strategies.