Ethnography at the periphery: Redrawing the borders of criminology’s world-map

Abstract

In the current era of globalization, a paradox has developed in the field of criminology. In the context of the increasingly global nature of crime, there has been a firm recognition among criminologists of the need for comparative, transnational research; particularly that which moves beyond knowledge created in the global North. However, production of this knowledge remains clustered in a relatively narrow range of geographical sites—and understandings of crime and criminology in the South too often defined through the lens of the North. As processes of globalization confound and disrupt the traditional dualisms of East/West and North/South, there is a pressing need for an expansion of criminology’s world-map. This article explores the conceptual possibilities of one particular methodology—ethnography—as a means of explicating the deep-seated tensions, fragmented realities and hybridized identities that emerge from the margins of globalization. Drawing on cogent debates from the fields of sociology and anthropology, I argue that ethnographically informed ‘theory from the South’ can at once enrich the criminological imagination and provoke a more cosmopolitan global imaginary.

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