Criminology, Civilisation and the New World Order

‘The Earth is one but the world is not’: Criminological theory and its geopolitical divisions

“…In likeness with the other social sciences, criminology’s history and present has been marked by a similar, if not even more pronounced, constellation of northern production. Although its origins are marked by a surprising intensity of international connections (Knepper and Ystehede, forthcoming), criminology has been traditionally a discipline of the West (Agozino; 2003; Morrison, 2006), as well as a discipline under a strong Anglo-American dominance in terms of its theoretical production (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1999). As Morrison (2006) points out, the production of criminology has been associated with a particular set of nation states.…”

“…Although its origins are marked by a surprising intensity of international connections (Knepper and Ystehede, forthcoming), criminology has been traditionally a discipline of the West (Agozino; 2003; Morrison, 2006), as well as a discipline under a strong Anglo-American dominance in terms of its theoretical production (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1999). As Morrison (2006) points out, the production of criminology has been associated with a particular set of nation states. What is nationally produced, such as for example Gottfredson and Hirschi’s (1990) A General Theory of Crime , ‘is simply assumed to provide a “general criminology”’ (Morrison, 2006: 53).…”

Green Harms and Crimes

“…Today criminological theory is largely performative; activity is focused on scoping out and building up a research project, then following the terms of the grant that one has obtained, with great attention being given to building on the methodologies of the canon. In my own history of criminological theorizing (Morrison, 2006), I emphasized how so much of criminology has been a labouring for security in what I termed 'civilised space', what we might visualize as the protected internal territory of Hobbesian sovereignty. Outside, the external, the colonial, waging of war did not provide material for the criminological gaze.…”

TheWhyQuestion in International Criminal Punishment – Framing the Landscapes of Asking

“…The role of modern political states as pursuers of final solutions in their vastness and totality, with access to resources, administrative capacities and law-making competence, makes the basic criminological paradigm appear too reductive. 16 As Chris Cunneen writes: '[…] the positivist approaches in law and criminology [that] define "crime" as a breach of state criminal law, and count crimes from the data driven by state agencies. Within such state-centric discourses, it is difficult to conceptualize the incidence and nature of state crime.'…”