Cultural Criminology and Gender Consciousness

Cultural criminology emerged in the mid-nineties with defining texts written by Jock Young, Keith Hayward, and Jeff Ferrell, among others. Since its inception, it has been criticized for its shallow connections with feminist theory. While in theory cultural criminology clearly acknowledges the influence of feminist scholarship, it has in practice often only superficially ‘added’ on gender and sexuality to its scholarly investigations. Yet, as we argue, research identified with cultural criminology has much to gain from feminist theory. This article reviews a range of cultural criminological scholarship, particularly studies of subcultures, edgework, and terrorism. We investigate three themes significant for feminist research: masculinities and femininities, sexual attraction and sexualities, and intersectionality. Such themes, if better incorporated, would strengthen cultural criminology by increasing the explanatory power of resulting analyses. We conclude by advocating that feminist ideas be routinely integrated into cultural criminological research. </jats:p

Commodifying compliance? UK urban music and the new mediascape

Subcultural theory and cultural criminology have traditionally viewed ‘underground’ youth movements as providing images of deviance/resistance which the cultural industries harvest to turn a profit. The logic follows that street and sub cultures imbue products with a ‘transgressive edge’ that increases their appeal within youth markets. This paper uses the example of UK ‘grime’ music to demonstrate how this dynamic cannot be viewed as applying universally in contemporary times. Where their street orientated content is censured, many grime artistes express a desire for commercial success which would ultimately emerge through muting their rhetorical links to crime and violence and explicitly championing ‘mainstream’ values. This case is used as an empirical cue to explore the use and critique of the concept of ‘resistance’ within cultural criminology and subcultural theory. The paper problematizes commodification of resistance discourses as they apply to the rugged culture of the streets and indeed its supposed ‘oppositional’ character where disadvantaged urban youth clearly embody and practice the logic of neoliberalism. It furthermore suggests that certain critiques of cultural criminology go too far in denying any meaning to criminality and subcultural practice beyond consumer desire. Ultimately, the concept of ‘defiance’ is suggested as a useful tool to understand the norms of and behaviours of the excluded

Emotions in cultural criminology

Cultural Criminology (CC) is one of the most recent and exciting developments in criminological theory. Its main argument is that mainstream criminological theories provide inadequate explanations of crime due to epistemological and theoretical flaws. CC’s alternative involves assuming a phenomenological and interpretative approach that focuses on the cultural and emotional components of crime. In this article I shall argue that although CC makes a valid demand for more realistic and complex explanations of crime, its own alternative needs to deal with two main challenges referred to its conceptualization of explanation and emotion. First, two problematic antagonisms should be avoided: understanding vs. causal explanation; and universal nomothetic explanations as opposed to ideographic descriptions. Considering recent developments in philosophy of social science, particularly the ‘social mechanisms approach’, CC should focus on explaining retrospectively through identification of specific causal mechanisms rejecting universal and predictive pretensions. Second, although cultural criminologists rightly question the emotionless character of criminological explanations, they lack an articulated alternative conceptualization of emotions to explain crime. A more refined concept needs to be elaborated in dialogue with recent advances in social sciences

Experiencing Relative Deprivation as True Crime: Applying Cultural Criminology to the Qanon Superconspiracy Theory

This essay builds upon earlier studies of the QAnon superconspiracy theory by applying cultural criminology as a framework to investigate the significance of QAnon and the events that facilitated the rise of the superconspiracy and the associated political movement. QAnon has had multiple impacts that should be of interest to criminologists. In the United States, QAnon was involved with the 2020 election, as adherents believed messages posted by "Q" referred to President Trump as a messiah and Trump tacitly acknowledged the group. In addition, QAnon has international influence, most recently in the "trucker" convoy in Canada and anti-vaccine protests in New Zealand and Germany. This essay utilizes cultural criminology to introduce the framework of relative deprivation theory and emphasize the importance of the gaze from above and below in structuring relative deprivation. In addition, we discuss the role of cultural understandings of victimization in shaping ideology and physical frameworks used by QAnon

Never Forget: The Meaning of the Global War on Terror in Post-9/11 U.S. Presidential Discourse

Framed by cultural criminology, this project examines the discursive construction of the U.S. state and the Global War on Terror (GWOT) in 190 public speeches and statements made by U.S. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Whereas cultural criminology\u27s focus on the politics of meaning and transgression in deviant subcultures is often criticized for glorifying deviance and ignoring real harm (O\u27Brien 2005; Hall and Winlow 2007), this project instead uses the framework to analyze the cultural practices of the state in regard to the waging of war. A key contribution of this work is thus the development of a cultural criminology of the state. Through a deep reading of the cultural narratives driving U.S. Presidential discourse from September 11, 2001 - February 18, 2015, this dissertation asks: Through what narrative does ongoing, global warfare make sense? In what story does the torture of human beings seem necessary? How does the state construct a symbolic universe in which its material violence is justified? This project further contributes to a growing body of literature addressing state criminality. Using a constitutive conceptualization of crime (Henry and Milovanovic 1996) and narrative (Presser 2009), this study positions state discourse itself as criminogenic, as it constructs a totalizing narrative that encourages violence toward dehumanized others and justifies perpetual global warfare as a necessary means of achieving peace. With the state established as a potential criminal actor, it uses a distinctly cultural approach to expand the motivational framework used to analyze state criminality. It accomplishes this first by looking at state violence through an expressive rather than purely instrumental lens and connecting the transgression of U.S. ideals to national identity and ontological insecurity

The existence of Roma in youth justice discourses

Critical scholars have repeatedly emphasised the importance of how various categories become constructed. This paper discusses the ‘existence’ of ‘the other’ in youth justice discourses. Drawing on qualitative analysis of police, prosecution, youth court and social services discourses, this paper discusses the positioning of migrant youths, referred to youth court on suspicion of having committed an offence. The talk particularly focuses on Czech and Slovak Roma in two legal departments in Belgium. I discuss in what types of cases and discourses the case of Roma (i.e. references to ethnicity and popular images of the ‘Roma culture’) exists and in what instances it seizes to exist. Particular attention is directed to the constitutions, circularity and contexts of ethnicising discourses throughout youth justice trajectories, as well as their performative nature

Renewing Criminalized and Hegemonic Cultural Landscapes

The Mafia's long historical pedigree in Mezzogiorno, Southern Italy, has empowered the Mafioso as a notorious, uncontested, and hegemonic figure. The counter-cultural resistance against the mafiosi culture began to be institutionalized in the early 1990s. Today, Libera Terra is the largest civil society organization in the country that uses the lands confiscated from the Mafia as a space of cultural repertoire to realize its ideals. Deploying labor force through volunteer participation, producing biological fruits and vegetables, and providing information to the students on the fields are the principal cultural practices of this struggle. The confiscated lands make the Italian experience of anti-Mafia resistance a unique example by connecting the land with the ideals of cultural change. The sociocultural resistance of Libera Terra conveys a political message through these practices and utters that the Mafia is not invincible. This study draws the complex panorama of the Mafia and anti-Mafia movement that uses the ‘confiscated lands’ as cultural and public spaces for resistance and socio-cultural change. In doing so, this article sheds new light on the relationship between rural criminology and crime prevention policies in Southern Italy by demonstrating how community development practice of Libera Terra changes the meaning of landscape through iconographic symbolism and ethnographic performance