From the chaotic debris of experience, we select fragments…. arguing with lived experience of the criminal justice system and taking lessons for convict criminology.

Abstract

Recognition of connections between personal experience, our lives and our work as academics, is not exactly new. In this paper I explore a fairly basic question: Are there examples of experiential insight or lived experience radically shifting or challenging a conventional discourse in criminology or anywhere else? By identifying brief case studies in sociology, working class studies, history, feminism, critical race theory, post-colonial studies and post-structuralism where an academic’s lived experience demonstrably informed their academic contributions, I suggest there might be