Queer utopias and queer criminology

Drawing on the concept of utopia to reflect upon the emerging field of queer criminology and José Esteban Muñoz’s account of queer theory as essentially utopian, we draw two conclusions. First, we suggest that queer criminology is currently limited by tinkering at the edges with piecemeal reforms instead of focussing on radical, wholesale changes, and second, that queer theory contains within it the potential for a more holistic reimagining of the social world. In doing so, we question rigid cis/trans binaries and reject accounts of trans/gender that ignore the role of structural harm. We draw on Ernst Bloch’s concepts of ‘abstract’ and ‘concrete’ utopia to suggest that while queer criminology has succeeded in producing largely ‘abstract’ utopias, it struggles in translating these into ‘concrete’ ones. By introducing examples of trans literary utopias as potential transformative cultural forms, however, we consider the potential of queer theory for realising ‘concrete’ utopia through a more radical rethinking of the social world

Transversal Harm and Zemiology: Reconsidering Green Criminology and Mineral Extractivism in Cerro de Pasco, Peru

Green criminology has been advancing a focus on environmental crimes and harms. Extending this inquiry into avoidable and avertable environmental harms is a key function of both green criminology and zemiology. However, while the former seeks to expand regulatory frameworks, the latter contains within it the potential for a more holistic reimagining of the social world. Based on a methodology that combines qualitative methods (key informant interviews), a zemiological analysis, and the political ecology of Felix Guattari, we present a reconceptualization of harm inflicted by mineral extractivism in Peru’s Cerro de Pasco. The analysis utilizes the concept of transversal harm, which allows us to move beyond the criminal and civil damage of corporate crime and negligence, and to capture the collective and continuous impact of mineral extractivism. A discussion of transversal harm as a potential new avenue for expanding the conceptual boundaries of studying environmental harm concludes the article

Transversal Harm, Regulation, and the Tolerance of Oil Disasters

Law, through regulation, criminalization and litigation, provides key mechanisms for mitigating the harmful effects of oil disasters. At the same time, these mechanisms also enable the perpetuation of oil disasters under an extractivist imperative. This disaster tolerance is the point of departure for this paper’s examination of the legal response to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster over the last decade. Based on a methodology that combines a social harm approach with the political ecology of Felix Guattari, we first present a reconceptualization of harms inflicted by oil corporations across three registers: environment, society, and subjectivity. We subsequently introduce the concept of transversal harm, which allows us to move beyond the criminal and civil damages of corporate crime and negligence and to capture the collective and continuous impact of oil extractivism, as opposed to the exceptional impact of oil disasters. Transversal harm opens new avenues for assigning corporate responsibility and reducing disaster tolerance as the by-product of environmental law

Guest editorial: Queer theory and criminology

In 2015, queer theorist Heather Love called for her fellow queer scholars to recognise the centrality of the study of norms and deviance to ‘the intellectual genealogy’ of queer studies. She argued that queer approaches and understandings, with their ‘embrace of a politics of stigma’ and ‘reliance on a general category of social marginality’, were ‘borrowed’ from mid-20th century social science studies of deviance (Love, 2015: 75). For most criminologists, it is axiomatic that this tradition is equally central to our own genealogy, and our concerns with deviance, normativity, social control and the production of power and marginalisation. Despite this shared set of concerns, queer theory and criminology have little contemporary crossover. We share Love’s concern around this state of affairs, but where she is primarily concerned about the stakes for queer studies, the focus of our Special Issue is on what criminologists can gain from greater engagement with the analytic and conceptual tools of queer theory

Genealogies of Slavery

This chapter addresses the concept of slavery, exploring its character and significance as a dark page in history, but also as a specifically criminological and zemiological problem, in the context of international law and human rights. By tracing the ambiguities of slavery in international law and international development, the harms associated with slavery are considered. Harms include both those statutorily proscribed, and those that are not, but that can still be regarded as socially destructive. Traditionally, antislavery has been considered within the parameters of abolition and criminalization. In this context recently, anti-trafficking has emerged as a key issue in contemporary anti-slavery work. While valuable, anti-trafficking is shown to have significant limitations. It advances criminalization and stigmatization of the most vulnerable and further perpetuates harm. At the same time, it identifies structural conditions like poverty, vulnerability, and “unfreedom” of movement only to put them aside. Linked to exploitation, violence and zemia, the chapter brings to the fore some crucial questions concerning the prospects of systemic theory in the investigation of slavery, that highlight the root causes of slavery, primarily poverty and inequality. Therefore, the chapter counterposes an alternative approach in which the orienting target is not abolition of slavery but advancing structural changes against social harm

Criminology or Zemiology? Yes, please! on the refusal of choice between false alternatives

Buried deep within the zemiological movement and its supportive literature is the implicit assumption that the word zemia, the organising concept around which zemiology is built, simply represents ‘the Greek word for harm’. This interpretation has supported numerous drives to ‘move beyond criminology’ and erect strict borders between the study of crime and harm. However, a deeper, albeit still rather brief, exploration of zemia reveals that it possesses a broader range of meaning than that commonly afforded to it. By beginning to unpick zemia’s semantic genealogy, it appears that the conventional use of the word to support the imposition of false alternatives between criminology and zemiology is untenable. Accordingly, this chapter attempts to foreground a more integrated approach to the study of crime and harm

Cultural Harm: ‘trans fraud’, ‘gender deception’ and zero-sum games

In recent years zemiology has emerged to pose key questions about the ways in which social harm emerges from non-criminalised deleterious acts, from criminalisation processes and from the everyday workings of our socioeconomic systems. This article both explores and contributes to the zemiological perspective by focusing specifically on developing the notion of cultural harm, as one aspect of social harm. Utilising the examples of (i) the Gender Recognition Act 2004, (ii) a case of ‘trans fraud’ and imprisonment, (iii) and three legal cases involving ‘gender deception’, it explores the limitations of zero-sum approaches to recognising harm. In doing so, the article develops a typology of cultural harm that enables us to move beyond current conflicting claims to harm and begin to identify alternatives that better recognise and address all forms of harm, including those imposed by the hegemonic cis-hetero-patriarchal structures

How the last man to see Sylvia Plath alive was punished for his quiet homosexuality

Nearly 50 years ago, in July 1967, the government voted to partly decriminalise homosexuality for men over 21-years-old. The illegality of homosexuality had ruined countless lives and careers – even of those who were not actually convicted of a crime. One of those who fell foul of the law two decades earlier was the distinguished art historian and curator of Leicester Art Gallery, Trevor Thomas. His story is indicative of how others were treated and cautionary of how current injustices inflict harm. Thomas and another man were arrested in 1947 for allegedly "looking at each other" in a local public lavatory. He was not actually convicted of any offence, though he was “bound over” to keep the peace for 12 months. But he lost his job. Thomas was a London neighbour of the poet Sylvia Plath and the last to see her alive. She borrowed some airmail stamps from him on the eve of her death, but he was not aware of the tragedy until the arrival of the emergency services the following day, as he had himself been overcome by gas fumes

Trafficking and the “Victim Industry” complex

The antithesis between a criminalization and a human rights approach in the context of transnational trafficking in women has been a highly contested issue. On the one hand, it is argued that a criminalization approach would be better because security and border control measures will be fortified. On the other hand, it is maintained that a human rights approach would bring more effective results, as this will mobilize a more holistic solution, bringing together prevention, prosecution, protection of victims, and partnerships for delivering gendered victims’ services. In the field of victims’ services, galloping US-influenced developments have mobilized victim-specific strategies and institutionalized a “victim industry” vocabulary: “reflection period,” “screening process,” “cooperation in exchange for protection,” “happy trafficking,” “renew boutique,” etc. Underlying the construction of this vocabulary is the evolving notion of a phantom threat posed by organized crime. This chapter reanimates Hobbs’ suggestion that, in postindustrial societies, market forces overwhelmingly shape agency. Extending this to “sex trafficking,” mediated through market engagement, this emerging victim industry is an exemplary case of domain expansion. Revisiting the claims made under the initial antithesis between criminalization and human rights, the recent metamorphosis of gendered victims’ services due to financialization, neoliberalization, and debt governance is explored