Ghosts of other stories: a synthesis of hauntology, crime and space

Criminology has long sought to illuminate the lived experience of those at the margins. More recently, there has been a turn toward the spatial in the discipline. This paper sets out an analytical framework that synthesizes spatial theory with hauntology. We demonstrate how a given space's violent histories can become embedded in the texts that constitute it and the language that describes it. The art installation ‘Die Familie Schneider’ is used as an example of how the incorporation of social trauma can lead to the formation of a spatial “crypt”. Cracking open this “crypt” allows us to draw out Derrida's notion of the specter within the context of a “haunted” city space

Co-existence of Times: A conversation with John Akomfrah

In the form of a conversation with filmmaker and artist John Akomfrah, this book sets out to explore how his work with montage can be understood to articulate contemporaneity in sensuous ways. In multilayered video installations, sequences of images are forced into the same time and space, allowing the viewer to experience connections in her/his/their present. With examples from many of his key works, topics discussed include untold histories and the diaspora, migration, and “the enigma of arrival.” Akomfrah defines his way of working with montage not only as a technique but as an ethic, an ontology in which differences are brought together

Negative politics: the conformity, struggles and radical possibilities of youth culture in outer East London

Drawing on an ethnography study, this paper addresses young people’s contemporary politics in outer East London. Through an exploration of online music videos and one girl’s story it engages with, and questions, prevailing academic discourses on the decline of youth politics. Foregrounding a conjunctural methodology, it discusses how young people’s political performances do indeed conform to the neoliberal matrix. However, beyond this, it also explores their struggles against neoliberal marginalisation and the possibility of radical politics beyond these constraints. The overall argument of this paper is to understand how young people’s politics are simultaneously conformist, agonist, and possibly radical in contemporary outer East London