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Advancing Critical Criminology Through Anthropology” Western Criminology Review 12(2):55-77

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Advancing Critical Criminology Through Anthropology” Western Criminology Review 12(2):55-77 Brisman/ Western Criminology Review 12(2), 55-77 (2011) Online citation: Brisman, Avi. 2011. “Advancing Critical Criminology through Anthropology” Western Criminology Review 12(2):55-77. (http://wcr.sonoma.edu/v12n2/Brisman.pdf). Advancing Critical Criminology through Anthropology Avi Brisman Emory University Abstract: Since its genesis, critical criminology has been committed to a critique of domination and to developing and exploring broader conceptions of “crime” to include “harms” that are not necessarily proscribed by law. Without diminishing the contributions of early or current critical criminologists, this article suggests that critical criminology can further its goals by looking to anthropology. Such a recommendation is not without risk. Early “criminal anthropology” regarded criminality as inherited and contended that individuals could be “born criminal” (e.g., Fletcher 1891). Subsequent anthropological investigations of crime were and have continued to be sporadic, and the discipline’s approach to crime has not been particularly unified. (Anthropology has often considered crime within broader explorations of law, for example, or through related, albeit different, examinations of sorcery and witchcraft.) Despite these limitations or shortcomings, this article presents three ways in which anthropology can speak to, and engage with, critical criminology’s “insistence that criminological inquiry move beyond the boundaries imposed by legalistic definitions of crime” and its critique of domination (Michalowksi 1996:11): 1) anthropology can help reveal processes of domination that are pervasive; 2) anthropology can remind us that what constitutes “crime” is culturally specific and temporal; and 3) anthropology can help provide paradigms for better living—allowing critical criminologists to be not just critical, not just prescriptive, but aspirational. A wide range of ethnographic accounts is considered. Keywords: anthropology; culture; domination; harm; power; resistance INTRODUCTION anthropological attention (cf. Parnell and Kane 2003; Schneider and Schneider 2008). As a subject, “crime” has not generated significant This phenomenon may be due, in part, to sociology’s interest in the field of cultural anthropology.1 While one near hegemony over all matters crime-related (before criminology became its own discipline or sub-discipline, could point to an anthology here or a review essay there, 3 one would be hard-pressed to support the contention that depending on one’s perspective). But cultural anthro- anthropology has approached crime in a coherent, unified, pology’s lack of attention to crime may also be attributed, or sustained way—or that it has even generated substantial, at least in part, to the regrettable subfield of criminal ongoing debates about crime.2 Most often, crime appears anthropology (also known as anthropological crim- in the context of some other inquiry, such as disorder inology), which Fletcher (1891:204), in his famous address (Comaroff and Comaroff 2004, 2006), violence (e.g., to the Anthropological Society of Washington, defined as Betzig et al. 1988; Knauft et al. 1991), witchcraft and “the study of the being who, in consequence of physical sorcery (Favret-Saada 1980; Geschiere 1997), primitive conformation, hereditary taint, or surroundings of vice, law (Driberg 1928), the nature of the relationship between poverty, and ill example, yields to temptation and begins a law and conflict (Collier 1975), or labor, employment, career of crime.” Although such efforts to “biologize law- social stratification, and the effects of deindustrialization breaking” (Rafter 2007:808) were later discredited and (e.g., Bourgois 1996; Phillips 1999; Sullivan 1989), rather abandoned because of concerns for their racist and than on its own and as the primary subject of eugenicist policy implications (Cullen and Agnew 55 Advancing Critical Criminology 2006:22; see also Brennan et al. 1995:65; Raine 2002:43), anthropology extends beyond society and social structures the experience may have left anthropology reluctant to — because anthropology considers elements of culture, venture into the world of crime.4 such as beliefs, ideas, symbols, and other internal Such unwillingness is unfortunate for a number of dimensions of group living (Donovan 2008:xviii) — very basic reasons: 1) anthropology shares sociology’s and anthropology can provide further avenues for criminology’s forefathers (e.g., Durkheim, Marx, Weber) understanding how “crime” is, has been, or might be and canonical figures (e.g., Foucault) — individuals who defined, prevented, and controlled, as well as its meaning contemplated issues of conflict and cooperation, power for offenders, victims, cultural groups, and society, more and punishment, which lie at the heart of or are integral to generally. As such, anthropology should be more heavily understandings of crime;5 2) while all cultures possess invested in issues of, and matters pertaining to, crime and proscribed behaviors, “crime” is still culturally-specific criminology, or can, at the very least, and as this article and peoples differ (over time) over what behavior is to be suggests, contribute to criminologist’s study of crime. condemned and condoned (see, e.g., Betzig et al. 1988; Despite anthropology’s inattention to crime as a Brisman 2006; Cullen and Agnew 2006:266-67; Daly and singular subject matter — or, at least, anthropology’s Wilson 1997:53; Ellis and Walsh 1997:230; Fletcher sporadic interest in crime — there is much that 1891:204; Herrnstein 1995:40), rendering crime ideal for criminology as a whole could gain from a consideration of longitudinal and comparative anthropological study; and 3) anthropological approaches, insights, and perspectives on relatively few ethnographies of crime exist — “thick” crime. For example, Collier (1975:125) provides anthro- accounts (in the Geertzian sense) of the experience of pological support for both labeling theory and Quinney’s committing crimes or participating in a subculture of (1969, 1974) Marxist criminology. There may still be crime, of being a victim, of residing in a community that fruitful linkages between criminology and biological and fears crime, or of migrating to a particular community evolutionary anthropology (see, e.g., Brisman 2010c). To because of its low crime rate. offer a third example: anthropologists, because of the time This last point merits some clarification. I do not spent in the field, and the scope of their inquiries, can mean to suggest that researchers have not employed consider the distinctions and relationships between ethnographic field methods in their study of crime. Many “norms” and “institutions,” “legal formalities” and “legal fine ethnographies of crime have improved and shaped our realities,” and “rules” and “behaviors” (Donovan 2008:14, understanding of the convergence of cultural and criminal 18, 23-24) — all of which could have bearing on processes in various societies (e.g., Adler 1985; Becker criminological studies and explorations. In this article, I 1963; Ferrell 1993; Ferrell and Hamm 1998; Humphreys consider ways that anthropology can help or advance 1975). But only a small percentage have been written by critical criminology — or reasons why critical anthropologists or with an anthropological perspective criminologists might look to some of the work of (e.g., Malinowski 1959; Merry 1981). While ethnography anthropologists. More specifically, I identify three ways in does not and should not reside solely under the dominion which anthropology can speak to, and engage with, critical of anthropology (see Kratz 2007), given anthropology’s criminology’s “insistence that criminological inquiry move strength with this methodology and the fact that the study beyond the boundaries imposed by legalistic definitions of of crime has been increasingly dominated by “shallow crime” and its critique of domination — for “un- survey research” and “abstract statistical analysis” (Ferrell apologetically” embracing “a commitment to confronting 1999:402),6 there is a tremendous need for more racism, sexism, working class oppression and US neo- anthropologically-oriented studies of crime (see generally colonialism” (Michalowksi 1996:11, 12): Betzig et al. 1988; Burawoy et al. 1991; Hagedorn 1990; Polsky 1969; Van Maanen 1995; and Sampson and Groves 1. Anthropology can help reveal processes of 1989). domination that are pervasive. Furthermore, while sociology is often focused on 2. Anthropology can remind us that what constitutes social structures (and while criminology tends to focus “crime” is culturally specific and temporal (a either on how individual characteristics influence actors’ point alluded to above). propensity for aggression, violence, and crime based on 3. Anthropology can help provide paradigms for biological or social psychological antecedents, or on better living—allowing critical criminologists to individuals in relation to their larger social environments, be not just critical, not just prescriptive, but such as schools, neighborhoods, and nation states aspirational. (Griffiths, Yule, and Gartner 2011), anthropology appreciates these structures, characteristics, and These categories or types of intersections between environments, but realizes that much of what makes anthropology and critical criminology are but the tip of the humans “human” lies in cultural ideation (Donovan iceberg. The discussion that follows offers representative 2008:xiv). In other words, because anthropology casts a examples
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