Criminological Futures Dangerous Knowledge & Innovation

Criminological Futures Criminological Futures Dangerous KnowledgeDangerous Knowledge

& Innovation& Innovation

Presentations: The ‘trailer’ for your final project

How you are evaluated:• Limit of 5-6 minutes (per

presentation)• What was interesting about your

observations related to one or two concepts?

• Engaging – Prepared (practice...)• Can be a video (trailer),

performance, visual ‘essay’ w/music, etc

Techno Tips...• Expect everything to fail– PREZI never works as well

as people hope it will– Consider saving files to

Dropbox as backup– No more than 5 slides (ppt)

• Non-techno presentations are always welcome

Avoid...

Alternative Final Projects

The assignment guidelines apply to all projects.

Rule of thumb: 3/5ths of the document

dedicated to demonstrating your understanding of theoretical concepts...

Cultural Crim Recap...

It is a theoretical frameworkIt is a theoretical framework• Critical perspective (Marx..)• Symbolic Interactionism & Structure (Mills...)

Assumptions: Power is performed culturally. By moving between the level of analysis (Micro-Meso-Macro) we can access the relationship between the individual & the social (Merton)

It is a theoretical frameworkIt is a theoretical framework• Critical perspective (Marx..)• Symbolic Interactionism & Structure (Mills...)

Assumptions: Power is performed culturally. By moving between the level of analysis (Micro-Meso-Macro) we can access the relationship between the individual & the social (Merton)

Crime & CultureCrime & Culture

Interrogating ‘crime’ through the lens of culture

• Emotion/Excitement– Heroic fantasies– Ultimate meaning

• Subterranean Values• Reaction to larger

cultural institutions....

Late Modernity...A way to speak about the present

without defining it as pre/post modern

(issue: autonomy)• Ontological Insecurity– Sensation Gatherers– Edgework– Politics of Inclusion/Exclusion– Commodification of resistance

Contemporary Consumer CultureWe are caught up in a cycle

of consuming identities as a response to anxieties, creating endless needs & markets.

Conspicuous Consumption (Veblin)– Waste is built into

capitalism– Seduction of ignorant

consumption

Phenomenology of Crime…(65-70)Phenomenology of Crime…(65-70)

Cultural phenomena is part of the process of collective meaning

• Situational dynamics of emotionSituational dynamics of emotion• Sites of contested performanceSites of contested performance• Cultural practice as livedCultural practice as lived– EmbodiedEmbodied– EmotionalEmotional

Politics of transgressionPolitics of transgression

Mardi GrasMardi Gras Banality of Evil (Arendt)Subterranean Values (Mardi Gras)Carnival of Crime (Presdee)Commodification of CrimeVocabularies of MotivesPolitics of ViolenceOntological Insecurity• Hyperpluralism • Defamiliarity

Criminology of the State (p.75)The Colonization of

Everyday Life HabermasHedgemonic mediaReliance on Image

Image manipulation

Theoretical Response• Ahistorical approachesAhistorical approaches• Positivist Criminology Positivist Criminology

(anti-humanism)(anti-humanism)• Theoretically vapid Theoretically vapid

analysisanalysis

Dangerous Knowleges?Dangerous Knowleges?• Crime & treesCrime & trees• Youth gangsYouth gangs• Gun runnersGun runners• Rap music...Rap music...

Critiques...RomanticismRomanticism

““we don’t focus on crimes we don’t focus on crimes that disturb the that disturb the comfort of the comfort of the powerful”powerful”

Understanding humansUnderstanding humans

Without an Without an understanding of understanding of people & culture, we people & culture, we will never have good will never have good policy. policy.

Critical Research

How you look at something, shapes your response to it:“Can I speak with you about youth gangs?”

(p.196)

Inverted Criminal Inquiry:• How is crime ‘institutional’?• Why don’t we all transgress?• Who defines ‘crime’ or ‘crime stats’?• Subcultures as innovation? Reaction? Representations?

Research & KnowledgeResearch & KnowledgeChicago School

1920s & 30s

Depression & ‘Red Scares’‘Book length’ sociologyEthnography*Positivistic approaches to

urban life

Research & KnowledgeResearch & Knowledge

North AmericaNorth America late 40s & 50slate 40s & 50s

Post-War Economy & Post-War Economy & American DreamAmerican DreamCorporate Corporate

Management Management PracticesPractices

Promises of SciencePromises of ScienceSurvey Research Survey Research

Research & KnowledgeResearch & Knowledge

1950s & 60sSubcultural ethnographiesUnorthodox methodologies

70s & 80s‘Neo-liberal’ shift

GovernmentalityPromises of ObjectivityCuring Nations of Crime

Irony of Ethics….Conflicts between ethics and law:

‘law must always prevail’?

EthnographiesEthnographies• Liquid (activism)Liquid (activism)• Instant (emotion)Instant (emotion)

Writing from belowWriting from below• Appreciating the Appreciating the

tensions : creativity tensions : creativity & harm& harm

Methods of Cultural Methods of Cultural CriminologyCriminology

Visual Visual CriminologyCriminology

• Degradation Ceremonies• Spectacle of Crime• Politics of inclusion &

exclusion (see index p.235)

• Culture Jamming...

Environmental Criminology

Civic Criminology

Such criminologists need their objects of study more than the objects need them, and in the face of strong expressions of subjectivity, attributions of subjectivity from without become totally inappropriate.

Ruggiero critique

Resistance....Wobblies, Dada and

Mobs...

“Resistance is everywhere...”

What will you resist?