Anthropological Criminology 2.0: Ethnographies of Global Crime And

Home , Criminalization

THEME SECTION Anthropological criminology 2.0: Ethnographies of global crime and criminalization Guest edited by David Sausdal and Henrik Vigh Introduction Anthropological criminology 2.0

David Sausdal and Henrik Vigh

Abstract: Th is introduction seeks to outline a contemporary anthropological approach to crime and criminalization, an “anthropological criminology 2.0.” Th is anthropological criminology distances the subfi eld from its social Darwinist connotations and instead etches itself clearly onto a social and political anthropological tradition. In doing so, the introduction moves from Malinowski’s initial functionalist and localist approach to present-day political and global orientations. It off ers fi ve distinct propositions for anthropological criminology to engage with in the future, which we believe are essential for future anthropological studies of crime and criminalization. With these as guidelines, we hope to fully revive a much-needed dialogue between criminology and anthropology. As we shall see, anthropological and ethnographic insights are currently in demand as global, yet poorly understood, forms of crime are developing alongside ever cruder and more amplifi ed reactions to them. Keywords: anthropology, crime, criminalization, criminology, ethnography, globalization

We [should] pursue two lines of anthro- poses an “anthropological criminology 2.0”1 by pological inquiry . . . One is the study clarifying the potential of a social anthropolog- of criminalization . . . Th e other is ethical approach to crime and criminalization and nographic attention to illegal predation distancing the subfi eld from the social Darwin- . . . Taken together, [this] enables us to ist connotations with which it is conventionally provid[e] refl ection[s] on global crime . . . associated. Demonstrating how another gene- an issue that urgently awaits anthropolo- alogy exists—one that builds on the insights gy’s contribution. (Schneider and Schnei- of Bronisław Malinowski rather than Cesare der 2008: 352) Lombroso—and revisiting and retelling the history of social anthropological engagements Th is Focaal theme section seeks to revise and with crime and criminalization, we move from rejuvenate anthropological criminology. It pro- earlier functionalist and localist approaches to

Focaal—Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 85 (2019): 1–14 © Stichting Focaal and Berghahn Books doi:10.3167/fcl.2019.850101 2 | David Sausdal and Henrik Vigh anthropological criminology’s present-day po- [approximating] seven times the rate of growth litical and global orientations. Finally, we off er of legal trade” (Heine and Th akur 2011: 50). fi ve distinct propositions for anthropological Still, while quantitative analyses have been use- criminology to engage with in the future. ful in identifying its vast dimensions, its under- In doing this, we follow in the wake of the lying sociocultural logics and practices remain renewed attention that anthropological crim- under-researched and partially understood to inology has been receiving. In relation to an the point where it can be claimed that no “valid increased focus on transnational crime and il- empirical overview exists” (Bruinsma 2015: 3). legalized dimensions of globalization, several Or, as the UN concludes, “despite the gravity of anthropologists have begun to approach global the threat it remains insuffi ciently understood” forms of crime and criminalization ethnograph- (UNODC 2010: ii). ically. In the process, they have uncovered a fi eld In this dearth of knowledge lies an invita- that not only urgently awaits our disciplinary tion for anthropological engagement—fi rst, as engagement, as Jane and Peter Schneider (2008) an enticement to shed ethnographic light on a among others have argued (cf. Jeroslow 2011; dramatically developing yet relatively unknown Penglase et al. 2009), but one that is a matter of global phenomenon. Th is is a bidding that suits primary concern for many international policy anthropology particularly well. Unlike tradi- makers and pundits. As the United Nations Of- tional criminologists, who are, by their own ad- fi ce on Drugs Crime stressed in its report Th e mission, too-oft en hindered by methodological Globalization of Crime: A Transnational Orga- nationalism and, perhaps therefore, theoretical nized Crime Th reat Assessment, contemporary ethnocentrism (Aas 2013), anthropologists of- issues of criminal activity, and the policing and ten “follow and stay with the movements” of the prevention thereof, are increasingly attuned to people and phenomena we study (Marcus 1995: problems and processes that are related to global 106)—and increasingly do so across scale. An- dynamics (UNODC 2010). Illegal cross-border thropologists, in other words, aim to prevent activities such as various forms of traffi cking, local, national, or other sociopolitical borders smuggling, property theft , cybercrime, fi nancial and boundaries artifi cially cutting our investiga- crime, environmental crime, and terrorism have tions short. Th e discipline is thus well suited to become governmental worries and causes of so- answer the prevalent yet rarely answered crimi- cietal fears. Th ey are seen, in Manuel Castell’s nological call for an ethnographic criminology (1998) words, as “the perverse connections” of a “that travels” both in methodological and the- growingly global order: an interconnected state oretical terms (Aas 2011). In doing so—that is, of aff airs, where the increasing movements of in traveling with contemporary forms of crime people, goods, capital, and information facili- and criminalization—anthropological criminol- tate not just legal but also illegal fl ows. ogy may not only respond to a request for more Yet, despite the widespread anxiety, little is qualitative knowledge; it may also be able to pro- still known about these matters. Quantitative vide detailed pushback against the alarmist and studies indicate the scale of the problem. In fear-mongering tendencies of contemporary 2009, cross-border or transnational organized politics, which currently seem set on singling crime was, for example, estimated to gener- out migrants in ways that criminalize them. ate $870 billion a year, equaling 1.5 percent of global gross domestic product. To put it in perspective, this is more than six times the amount Anthropological criminology: of offi cial development assistance at the time From worlds within to the worldwide (UNODC 2011). Looking to the future, pundits have even predicted “illicit trade may reach any- While the subdiscipline of anthropological where from 1 to 3 trillion dollars in value . . . criminology has diff erent theoretical tenets, it is Introduction | 3 perhaps best known for its relation to the late “healthy” population. Th e two laws were not of- nineteenth-century Italian school of criminol- fi cially revoked until 1975 and were explicitly ogy led by the charismatic Cesare Lombroso. argued for and legitimated in crime prevention Building on early connections between evolu- terms. tionism, phrenology, and physical anthropology, the fi eld of anthropological criminology (or Alternative tenets criminal anthropology, as it was interchange- ably termed at the time) used phrenological However, at the same time as Lombroso was methods and the analyses of “mug shots” to set studying the “internal others” of the Occident, forth the theory of “the born criminal” (Lom- his social anthropological contemporaries had broso 1911). Instead of locating the causes of begun studying law and crime focusing on crime in will and rational choice, Lombroso and “external others” instead (cf. Vigh and Sausdal his colleagues argued criminality was primarily 2018) Obviously, early social anthropology car- a manifestation of biological “atavism.” Crimi- ried with it many of the same problems as Lom- nals were primitive throwbacks in our civilized broso’s positivist school of criminology. It too midst, literally “off track” or “falling short”2 in was based on evolutionist, ethnocentric, and relation to the evolutionary progress of the rest colonial ideas of the world. Yet, while Lombro- of the Western population. Unsurprisingly, the so’s thoughts were politically and scientifi cally people labeled as archaic and deviant Others acknowledged, social anthropology had begun were oft en religious or cultural minorities such distancing itself from the “original sin” of its as indigenous populations or stateless people, early social evolutionist leanings (Kuper 2010). for example, the Sami, Jew, or Roma (cf. Stewart Th e move from abstract “armchair anthropol- 2013). ogy” to long-term ethnography resulted in the Anthropological criminology quickly gained discipline becoming unceasingly focused on ex- ground, not just in academia but also in politi- panding our understanding of what it means to cal and public life, and came to inform a range be human and attuning the academic gaze to the of policies and ideologies from the middle of the contextual social and political factors behind nineteenth century onward. It laid the ground social and cultural diff erences. Work carried for politicized eugenics and was widely cele- out by foundational fi gures such as Malinowski brated as off ering both scientifi cally sound and (1926) and Alfred Radcliff e-Brown (1935) pro- enlightening ways of maintaining and purifying vide, as such, a more reasonable point of depar- national populations by both the conservative ture for an updated and sociopolitically attuned and the progressive, the conformist and the bo- anthropological criminology. hemian. Although Lombroso’s work now seems In fact, many early social anthropologists to be a fl eeting image of an erroneous science were particularly interested in criminality. Crime belonging to a time long gone, the impact of and reactions to crime interested them as they his ideas endured and was noticeable in public were seen as an expression of “the central strug- policies in the early to mid-twentieth century. gle of social principles.” Th is was brilliantly In Denmark, the perspective was, for example, demonstrated by Malinowski (1926) in his eth- central to the “social reform” draft ed by the So- nographic exploration of Crime and Custom cial Democratic politician K. K. Steincke and in Savage Society. Drawing on the structural- implemented by the Danish state in 1933. Th is functionalist work of Durkheim, Malinowski was and is a reform understood as the very foun- proposed an anthropological criminology that dation of the globally renowned Danish welfare treated crime as a social, and not a biological, state, yet it contained two laws that granted the fact. Yet, contrary to Durkheim, he did so with Danish state the right to sterilize “degenerates” attention to the way crime was socially nego- as a way of maintaining a physically and morally tiated and evoked. Th e famous example he of- 4 | David Sausdal and Henrik Vigh fered was that of clan incest: according to local tions and reinstalled it into the social world, Trobriand customs (i.e., unwritten laws) built on making it a subdiscipline of social anthropol- the rules of exogamy, a young Trobriand man was ogy. We are, of course, not the fi rst to notice in apparent violation of the rules as he had taken this (Jeroslow 2011; Schneider and Schneider the daughter of his mother’s sister as his lover. 2008). Social anthropological interest in crime Yet, to Malinowki’s surprise, although most of and criminalization did not come to a halt aft er the village’s inhabitants knew of this illegitimate Malinowski’s seminal study. It progressed not incestuous interaction, no one seemed to react. only beyond biologism but also beyond local- Th e “crime” was largely disregarded and brack- ism and early anthropological particularity. Th is eted by society. Th is, however, changed when the development had begun already in the 1960s young man’s rival publicly accused him of incest. and 1970s with Anton Blok’s (1974) study of the Now, ridden with shame, the young man had no Sicilian Mafi a as a prime example. Instead of choice but to kill himself. To Malinowski, this analyzing organized crime as an insular expres- evocative example clarifi ed that criminality is not sion of the immediate community, Blok argued a phenomenon in or unto itself but contingent the Mafi a rose to power not merely because it on the social world that surrounds and interprets was an infl uential local organization but also the (criminal) act. Following Durkheim’s ([1893] because of the gaps in governance that occurred 2014) contention that it is the act of condem- in the early establishment of the Italian state. nation that makes the crime and not vice versa, In carrying out such analysis, he was heavily Malinowski showed the young couple’s off ense inspired by Eric Wolf’s (2010) neo-Marxist ar- was unobtrusive before it got criminalized. gument that “criminal peasant communities” Furthermore, Malinowski’s observation dem- should be understood as parts of a larger polit- onstrates crime and criminalization cannot sim- ical and economic order—or a “world system.” ply be read as a tautological dialectic. His work In this theoretical framework, criminal groups on the issue showed how kinship structures, and communities came into being and became succession, sexuality, rivalry, morality, and, not embedded within wider social structures, a least, economic structures were negotiated and point Blok thought to be further evidenced by lived rather than blindly followed in Trobriand the way the Mafi a’s presence and power dwin- society. In criminology, Malinowski’s anthro- dled when the Italian state became much more pological insights had a profound eff ect. Th is repressive during Mussolini’s fascist regime. is especially evident in the work of the Chicago Blok thus successfully drew anthropological School, where Malinowski’s ethnographic and criminology away from its particularist and lo- constructivist approach to the issue has been an calist traditions and into the wider power struc- explicit or implicit basis for the school’s many tures of the state. Simultaneously, he securely celebrated studies of street corners and criminal inscribed the subdiscipline into the realm of subcultures (cf. Cohen and Short 1958; Whyte political anthropology. Subsequently, the torch 2012). It was equally foundational for labeling has been taken up by a few insightful anthro- theory and critical criminology, as Malinowski’s pological studies. An example is Philippe Bour- work demonstrated how criminality should not gois’s (2003) study of drug dealers and street be understood as an a priori matter but, rather, life in East Harlem. Here, he beautifully shows as something that comes into being through a how the selling and use of crack relates to sig- politicized process (Becker 2008). nifi cant changes occurring in the US economy as the country moved from being an industrial Th e powers beyond society to one based on the service sector. Sell- ing, smoking, snorting, and shooting drugs are Malinowski took anthropological criminology thus signs not only of a criminal subculture but, away from its focus on inner, genetic disposi- equally, of the strains experienced by minorities Introduction | 5 and marginalized people through global capi- organ traffi cking, just as it is the very baseline talism. Another example of a globally and polit- of Henrik Vigh’s (2016a, 2016b, 2017, 2018) ically attuned anthropological criminology, par study of cocaine traffi cking and dealing from excellence, is Jean and John Comaroff ’s (2008) Guinea Bissau and into Europe. International anthology on Law and Disorder in the Postco- politics and economic policies are also primary lony, in which the editors critically asses the push-and-pull factors in “illegal” migration widely shared Western notion that the global (Andersson 2014), including the traffi cking and South is a place inherently haunted by violence, smuggling of human beings (Sanchez 2014). crime, and corruption. Th e problem with this And the question of global forms of crime idea is twofold, they hold. First, it constitutes and control is at the very heart of some of the a redistribution of culpability. Many of the recently published anthropological work on criminal and social issues of the Global South, present-day policing (cf. Karpiak and Garriott it is argued, stem not simply from fl awed local 2018). What unites these more globally attuned customs and politics. Rather, they are direct ex- anthropological studies is that they all tackle the pressions of the colonial and postcolonial neo- question of contemporary crime and criminal- liberalism brought to bear on these societies. ization by methodologically and theoretically Second, the notion of an inherently felonious following various fl ows and formations from Global South should be understood more as a their local manifestations to their wider foun- political technology than a description of actual dations, just as they demonstrate how crime reality. It is a symbolic means by which postco- and criminalization “constitute[s] and reconsti- lonial stakeholders keep a hold on their former tute[s] the local within transnational contexts” colonies by presenting themselves as those who (Kane in Penglase et al. 2009: 107). can and will counter crime and reestablish order—as the saviors rather than the malefactors. A new family tree Obviously, using the notion and fear of crime as both a means of political concealment and con- In sum, what we have revealed is that two ge- trol is not confi ned to postcolonial societies. As nealogies of anthropological criminology can the Comaroff s remind us, then, be drawn: one that thankfully got lost in the wake of the catastrophic consequences of social everywhere these days, criminal violence Darwinism, eugenics, and scientifi c racism, and has become an imaginative vehicle, a hi- another that countered the evolutionism and eroglyph almost, for thinking about the biologism of the positivist school in criminol- nightmares that threaten the nation and ogy and develops along social anthropological for posing “more law and order” as the lines. In this historical readjustment of anthro- appropriate means of dealing with them. pological criminology, we have thus gone from And everywhere the discourse of crime a focus on worlds within to the worldwide— displaces attention away from the mate- that is, from locating the causes of crime in rial and social eff ects of neoliberalism, inner human dispositions to an anthropology blaming its darker undersides on the evils attuned to the social and political dynamics de- of the underworld (2008: 148). fi ning it and, increasingly, to the global connections that currently infl uence its development. Similarly, an insistence that acts of crime and In many ways, anthropological criminology is criminalization need to be understood in rela- still, as Malinowski conceptualized it, a study of tion to larger economic and political powers un- the central struggles of social principles (1926: derscores most state-of-the-art anthropology on 122). However, this is no longer merely related the matter. It is, for example, part and parcel of to a local community’s judgments and struggles Nancy Scheper-Hughes’s (2005) work on global with illegality as a window to the social princi- 6 | David Sausdal and Henrik Vigh ples that defi ne and divide it. It is increasingly and cultural phenomena (cf. Parnell and Kane a study of how these judgments and struggles 2003). Th is glimpse—or “unveiling,” as Didier relate to and reverberate with governing prin- Fassin (2017b: 5) also calls it—repeatedly un- ciples of the wider world that surrounds them. covers a discrepancy between how things are Framing, as Carolyn Nordstrom has argued in offi cially portrayed and their everyday reality. her work on Global Outlaws, an anthropological Th is diff erence is both a matter of deception and criminological study as such is the only way we ignorance. It is a matter of deception insofar can analytically “catch the powerful confl uence as certain societal actors willfully curate their of the extra-legal and the twenty-fi rst century front-stage appearances and hide their back- globalization” (2007: xix). stage actualities. It is a matter of ignorance insofar as all humans are unable to fully grasp the richness of their everyday lives. Th is was what Five propositions for an Malinowski (2002) termed “the imponderabilia anthropological criminology 2.0 of everyday life,” namely the fact that much of what we do has become so routinized and ha- Th e question remains how best to grasp anthro- bituated that it has faded into the unconscious. pologically this “confl uence of the extra-legal Pondering what is imponderable in social and and the twenty-fi rst century globalization.” In cultural life is a classic raison d’être of ethnogra- what follows, we have singled out and elaborated phy. Th e refl exive move into a social space that fi ve distinct propositions we believe represent is foreign to us enables us to make the ordinary some of the most important aspects of a pres- stand out and, hence, provides a view to the ent-day anthropological criminology. Building social relations, imaginaries and practices that on contemporary insights, they represent a pro- constitute the environments in question. grammatic condensation of the procedures and In terms of crime and criminalization, ex- learnings found in much of the aforementioned tensive ethnographic engagements enable us work on crime and criminalization and, as al- not only to penetrate the “smokescreen,” as John ways, ethnography forms part of the answer. Van Maanen (1973) has called it, of the police or the policed but also to see the way social life Proposition 1: Ethnographic engagement comes to incorporate crime and criminalization. Methodologically capturing such concealment, While traditional forms of crime in many parts routinization, and revelation demands not only of the world have been reduced to an all-time short and serendipitous ethnographic encoun- low, global forms of crime are experiencing a ters but also a lengthy engagement. Time is nec- rapid growth—not only in size but in complex- essary for trust to be built, insights achieved, ity (Van Dijk et al. 2012). An ethnographic ap- and the consequences of change noticed. proach is uniquely suited to investigating such developments. Th e embedded and long-term Proposition 2: Methodological mobility fi eldwork approach not only provides fi rst- hand witnessing of crime and criminalization As a consequence of global changes, anthropol- but equally enables us to chart the way such ogists have strived (and struggled) to formulate proc esses depart from social formations and a sound, mobile methodology that allows us to environments, as well as how they become so- follow those we study in an ever more inter- cially embedded and incorporated. Th rough connected world. Some have proposed to call the ethnographer’s long-term engagement with such itinerant ethnographic approaches “multi- interlocutors and their lives, we get a unique sited,” in the spirit of George Marcus (1995), glimpse beneath the discursive veneer which while others to refer to it as “transnational” oft en guides the average understanding of social (Schiller et al. 1992) or “nonlocal” (Feldman Introduction | 7

2011). While researchers disagree on the term, obviously, this once again feeds back into the there seems to be general agreement that certain ethnographic tradition and the fact that anthro- issues increasingly need to be charted beyond pologists, more than those in other criminolog- their immediate locality. ically interested subjects, conduct fi eld studies Th is of course also goes for global forms of in, for example, the Global South. Such studies crime and criminalization where, for example, oft en demonstrate that several of the most cus- a limited study of local migrant drug dealers tomary criminological concepts and notions would run the risk of missing out on the very are culturally specifi c rather than universal reason they are pushing cocaine on a given (Carrington et al. 2016). For example, the very street corner. Th e same can be said of pres- notion that crime or violence are exceptional ent-day policing, where both research and re- events may be seen to rest on ethnocentrism. ality have shown that many policing policies Where they will oft en be seen as exceptional and practices are not only increasingly directed from a Western middle-class perspective, they at cross-border criminality issues but also tied are, in many places around the world regarded into and formed by international bodies and as part and parcel of daily life—not a critical policies (Bowling and Sheptycki 2012). Th ough event but a critical continuity (Vigh 2008). Such the ethnographer cannot cover entire networks everydayness, rather than exceptionality, of or spectrums across time and space, including crime alters the way it is and should be under- mobility as an ethnographic practice makes it stood. Th e same can be said in relation to po- possible to trace connections and their impact licing and the prevalent Northern idea that the across time and space in order for the empirical state is a provider of (criminal) justice. In many data collection and subsequent analysis not to societies, the state is seen in a much less positive fall short. Th is is why leading criminologists are and democratic light, and as a force of injustice currently calling for further ethnographic crim- rather than impartiality and reasonableness. inology as “an antidote to the abstract nature of Cross-cultural comparison is indeed in- many theoretical claims about globalization and tegral to the training of any anthropologist. It its impact” (Aas 2013: 175), as well as a “crim- was the very reason Malinowski set out to study inology that travels” (Aas 2011). Such method- matters of crime and criminalization in Mela- ological mobility is needed as contemporary nesia. He wanted to understand how they dif- knowledge of crime and criminalization is oft en fered from European notions in order both to obstructed by methodological nationalism. gauge the cultural specifi city of it and to carve out a generalizable anthropological theory. To- Proposition 3: Cross-cultural comparison day, cross-cultural comparison is similarly oft en undertaken as a means by which anthropolog- Cross-cultural comparison comes almost auto- ical theories about crime and criminalization matically as anthropological criminologists 2.0 can simultaneously appreciate the particularity move with their study subjects across borders of certain forms of law breaking, making, and and boundaries. As those we study are subjected enforcing while understanding these as repre- to a new sociocultural reality, so is the ethnog- sentations and contrivances of grander societal rapher. However, cross-cultural comparison questions. should not only be a matter of happenchance when studying crime and criminalization; it Proposition 4: Discovering the ordinary should also be integral to the analysis made. Where criminological thought has a tendency As Fassin (2013) recently contemplated, the most toward Occidentalism, anthropological en- striking fi nding of his ethnography of Parisian gagements carry the promise of breaking with police offi cers was “the paradoxical discovery such parochialisms (cf. Manning 2018). Most of the obvious” (Fassin 2017a). Like many other 8 | David Sausdal and Henrik Vigh ethnographies of, for example, armed forces tiques. Th e aim is not to form a revolutionary and security providers (Grassiani 2015; Sausdal “militant anthropology” (Scheper-Hughes 1995), 2018; Vigh 2006), Fassin “depicted the every- whose “ethical primacy” is to politicize, but day life of squads, the eventless nights of pa- rather to formulate the means by which anthro- trolling, the tedious routine of stops and frisks, pological analyses can be a reformist ground of the wearisome arrests of undocumented immi- dialogue and change. In recent years, anthro- grants and marijuana smokers, the repetitive pologists have been increasingly discussing how questioning of youths in the housing projects to make our ethnographic insights available and of Roma people on country roads” (2013: to the public and thus to political life. Th is of 632). Instead of adhering to the sensationalism course includes a discussion of who and what of much journalism (as well as some criminol- “the public” is. For the sake of clarity, we here ogy and sociology on the matter), Fassin’s most follow Fassin’s simple defi nition of the public “‘spectacular discovery’ was the inaction char- as “publics beyond academic circles” where the acterizing police work in these disadvantaged task of the anthropologist is to allow for his/ neighbourhoods and the profound boredom her fi ndings to be “apprehended, appropriated, exuded by the long hours of roaming through debated, contested, and used [so that] a circu- the city”—a boredom which oft en became the lation of knowledge . . . [may] contribute to a very fuel which led the Parisian police offi cers to transformation of the way the world is repre- (over)react in relation to even the slightest hint sented and experienced” (2013: 626). Th is may of criminal activity. be obtained as follows. First, anthropologists Th e unremarkable and humdrum, boredom can present their analysis in the form of a “crit- and waiting, are common aspects of such every- ical tale.” Th is entails a form of representation day realities and constitute the unspectacular where descriptions of everyday scenes and sit- background to much crime and policing. An- uations are inscribed into the social structure thropological criminologists should therefore and the historical context (Fassin 2013: 628). remember not only to search for the extraordi- Th e coupling of ethnographic situations with nary but also to dwell holistically on the many the societal and historical context allows for a ordinary and everyday aspects of the things we dialectic tale or narrative that takes advantage study. We should not—in any case—enter the of the didactic powers of the example. Second, fi eld with presupposed ideas about what matters anthropologists should move beyond the ques- about crime or policing. Th ough it is indeed diffi - tion of good and evil (Fassin 2008). Th is relates cult to take boredom and other ordinary aspects to Jared Zigon’s (2007) anthropology of mo- of crime and criminalization seriously when ralities in which he argues for an examinatory also witnessing evocative displays of violence, approach to morality rather than a depreciatory confl ict, struggle, and suff ering, it is an import- one. In short, ethnography should take place ant part of the picture if we want to understand before normative conclusions. Anthropologists what is going on. Although an anthropological should, as Kevin Karpiak (2016) has discussed criminology certainly cannot comprise all the in relation to the anthropology of policing, treat diff erent nuances and matters of such a scalar what it means to be human as an open research continuum, it should nevertheless try to depict question rather than a closed analytical cate- the ordinary as well as the governing overhead gory. While we might not agree with our crim- forces and, importantly, how they interrelate. inalized or/and criminalizing interlocutors, the task is to explore how they perceive the world as Proposition 5: Grounded critiques something that is, to them, meaningful. Th is directly relates to Fassin’s (2013, 2017b) An anthropological criminology 2.0 should pro- third contention. Rather than championing vide critical analysis, as well as constructive cri- “the primacy of the ethical,” he champions the Introduction | 9 primacy of ethnography. In this view, anthro- Roecker, we are ethnographically transported pology’s critical potential lies fi rmly within our from local lives within a polluted Ecuador- discipline’s ethnographic endeavor. Instead of ian rainforest to the large-scale environmental committing oneself to a critical anthropology criminal dispute involving the multinational (which has and furthers an a priori understand- American energy and oil giant Chevron. In this ing of right and wrong) or an anthropology of manner, we get to follow what has been named critique (which “merely” explores people’s own “the trial of the century,” that is, the court pro- critical outlooks as a matter of cultural relativ- ceedings between Chevron and plaintiff s repre- ism), ethnography should move between the senting tens of thousands of smallholder farmers two in an informed manner, making intelligible and indigenous people aff ected by oil pollution both inside and outside perspectives—includ- of their homes and livelihood. In the fi nal arti- ing how they compare, contrast, and maybe cle of the theme section, David Sausdal takes an even connect. Th ere is, of course, nothing ethnographic look at contemporary police sur- novel in this. Arguing that ethnography has a veillance, or what is also referred to as “policing critical, mediating potential has been acknowl- at a distance.” By following the daily surveillance edged since Boas and has been most directly work of several Danish detectives and their ef- stated in Wolf’s famous work on “brokerage.” forts to monitor diff erent forms of cross-border Nevertheless, it seems worthwhile once again crime, he discloses how such police work—with highlighting ethnography’s critical potential as little if any actual human interaction—runs the a method that off ers grounded rather than ab- risk of kindling police cynicism and contempt stract critique. for the people they police. What also unites the articles is the use of mobility as a methodological approach. By fol- Cross-border pollution, lowing and staying with the movements of a smuggling and policing particular group of people, or a particular phenomenon, the contributors to this theme sec- With these fi ve rules of anthropological en- tion track and trace human practices beyond gagement fresh in our minds, let us turn to how the confi nes of one specifi c locality. Vigh has this theme section’s four articles have sought to followed and stayed with the cocaine smuggling apply them. What will be most evident is that network from Bissau to Lisbon to Paris and be- they all deal with the way people engage in yond. Richter has done much the same, follow- cross-border criminality through in situ eth- ing Malian migrant smugglers all the way from nographic research. In Vigh’s article, we gain Mali through the Maghreb up into Europe. In insights into the inner workings of one of the their ethnography of the trial against Chev- “ant trails,” that is, moving small quantities of ron, Ofrias and Roecker move from research cocaine along the western smuggling corridor conducted among local communities aff ected from West Africa into Southern Europe. Th e by and responding to the disaster in the Ama- article focuses on the way cocaine is smuggled zon into courtroom proceedings in the United from the cartels in South America to Guinea States and Canada. And Sausdal provides exam- Bissau, repackaged, and smuggled by Bissauan ples from greater Copenhagen area police sta- men into Europe. Th e business of smuggling tions and streets from where detectives surveil from Africa into Europe is also the focus of Line suspected movements across district, national, Richter’s article. However, here the “goods” in and international borders, including insights question are humans rather than narcotics. We from international missions. are presented with a case where Malian nation- Where a methodological mobility ensures als help smuggle fellow compatriots into the the theme section’s studies are not cut empiri- EU. In the article by Lindsay Ofrias and Gordon cally or analytically short by obstructive socio- 10 | David Sausdal and Henrik Vigh political borders, cross-cultural comparison acts and much to do with dealing with life in both as a necessary and complementary antidote to everyday and more general terms. Much the ethnocentrism. Obviously, cross-cultural com- same can be said about Richter’s description parison automatically enters as a refl ective per- and analysis of human smuggling. In the bizness spective in a study of cross-border crimes and (the emic termed used) of smuggling migrants, criminalization, as these enter and, hence, in- her study of Malian smugglers reveals how very evitably, involve diff erent sociocultural spheres. ordinary and mundane matters lie at the heart Moreover, the fact that the theme section of both the would-be smuggled migrant and involves ethnography from four continents the smuggler. Th is is, in other words, a far cry (Africa, South America, North America, and from the discursive depiction of human smug- Europe) provides the reader with a rare multi- glers as criminal masterminds with an iniqui- national and multicultural insight into the sim- tous yet entrepreneurial gift for fi nding the gaps ilar and diff erent ways crime is constituted, in European border control and for exploiting carried out, and controlled, depending on the poor and desperate migrants. In the trial against specifi c context it involves. Vigh and Richter, for Chevron, Ofrias and Roecker also shed light on example, off er understandings of criminal activ- the everyday eff ects of the environmental disas- ity, intention, and perceptions that largely diff er ter and the struggle for justice. Yet, they also ex- from conventional Euro-American notions. pertly demonstrate how the very laws that have Ofrias and Roecker can be said to describe not been passed to protect people against criminal only diff erences in how criminality is perceived organizations are now being used to criminal- but also how these very diff erences clash in legal ize them. What was a supposed to be a Scottian terms. And Sausdal illustrates how a perceived “weapon of the weak” has now been appropri- cultural and contextual distance between the ated by the powerful and turned against the police and their suspects fosters police con- plaintiff s. In discussing this, Ofrias and Roecker tempt—but also how an ostensible bridging of not only succeed in critically assessing one of this distance might appease Danish police offi - the world’s largest cases of environmental crime cers, as well as colleagues worldwide. but also analytically step outside the courtroom Th e articles also all look at both the ordinary proceedings as they remind the reader of their and the larger structures at play—looking not wider eff ects—namely that Chevron might have just at overt manifestations of crime and crim- succeeded not only in devastating the rainforest inalization but also at the way matters of both but in crippling and even criminalizing margin- minor and macro scale impact our interlocutors’ alized people’s means of lawfare. Here, as in the practices and perceptions. In Vigh’s analysis, other studies, the particular cases of criminal this becomes evident as he aff ords the reader an activity are thus analyzed for their immediate understanding of drug traffi cking as something eff ects but also in terms of their eff ects and rela- much more than just an unscrupulous illegal tion to the wider aspects of everyday life, as well enterprise. In and out of Bissau, smuggling and as to the surrounding politics and economies. It dealing drugs is (also) an activity formed and becomes an analysis that doesn’t confi ne itself furthered by the prominence of a collapsed state, to a simple and strict crime-criminalization or problematic international relations, opportu- police-policing binary but holistically explores nistic, and threatening cartels and Bissauan both the more ordinary and that which looms politicians, substantial poverty, family relations, overhead. To be sure, this is also palpable in migratory yearnings, ideas about masculinity, Sausdal’s article, where he invests much time in respect and social becoming, and, ultimately, an understanding how Danish detectives’ aggres- attempt to gain a better future. Dealing drugs, sive yet also somewhat apathetic surveillance in short, has only little to do with dealing drugs of cross-border criminals has much to do with Introduction | 11 both international tendencies in policing and Conclusion politics, as well as with the less debated and less obvious workaday vocational partialities of po- In this introduction, we have presented an an- lice investigators. thropological criminology 2.0. Th is is an up- Lastly, all the articles seek to develop a form dated anthropological approach to current issues of grounded critique—a critique that takes se- of crime and criminalization that leaves the sub- riously the perspectives and practices of our discipline’s evolutionist past behind and insists interlocutors as expressions of, to them, mean- on its social and political anchoring and rele- ingful, albeit criminal(izing), human activity. vance. To create a workable template for future Vigh explains how our critiques of transna- engagements, we have, furthermore, off ered fi ve tional, cross-border drug smuggling and deal- distinct propositions for fellow-minded col- ing need to include the fact that this is not only leagues to ponder—fi ve propositions we believe a moral enterprise (when seen from within), a to be key ingredients if we are to make this sub- criminal one (when seen from the outside), but, discipline fl ourish and matter. Th ese proposi- for many of the people involved, also turns out tions are, of course, neither in themselves nor to be a corrosive one. While cocaine traffi cking together exhaustive and all-encompassing. Other off ers them a rare migratory way out of Bissau, and perhaps even contrasting approaches may it simultaneously catches them and creates a exist or emerge as the world around us changes. crippling drug dependency that stretches from Indeed, as we have highlighted with the help individual to international abuse—a caustic yet of the work of other contemporary colleagues diffi cult to escape criminal circle. In Richter’s of anthropological criminology, global forms article, we are aff orded a critical, ethnographic of crime and criminalization urgently await an- look at the actual everyday reality of human thropological scrutiny. At the moment, global smuggling. Th ough oft en posited as a lucrative forms of crime (such as drug traffi cking, hu- and evil business, we here get to understand man traffi cking, human smuggling, organized how very mundane it most oft en is: indeed, its property theft s, cybercrime, environmental lucrativeness can be said to depend on a mas- crime, fi nancial crime, and terrorism) are at the tering of the mundane rather than malicious very heart of societal fears and spur increas- criminal innovation. Ofrias and Roecker also ingly harsh, exclusionary, and Orwellian forms provide a form of grounded critique. In follow- of governance. Yet, these forms of cross-bor- ing the struggles of the Ecuadorian smallholder der criminality and control remain only rarely farmers and indigenous people aff ected by the studied. Most knowledge stems from statistical environmental disaster, we are presented with guesstimates, policy briefs, and sweeping so- substantiated extralegal insights that stretch be- ciological and criminological appraisals. Th e yond the oft en confounding and dichotomizing anthropological criminologists here off er qual- legalism of the courtroom and political and me- ifying ethnographic depictions—depictions dia representations. Finally, as Sausdal engages that will aid in bettering our knowledge about critically with police surveillance, he shows how the workings and eff ects of contemporary crime a group of Danish detectives are—perhaps sur- and criminalization and nuance the oft en ste- prisingly—similarly apprehensive and skeptical. reotypical and politicized representations of the Th ey too, like Sausdal and other police anthro- phenomenon. Yet, the aim of an anthropological pologists and criminologists, fi nd an increasing criminology 2.0 is not just to be the conveyor of use of surveillance and information technolo- necessary empirical insights but to take the lead gies worldwide is hindering “good police work,” in a global criminology able to explain how and albeit for slightly diff erent reasons than those why crime and criminalization stretches across suggested by the critical scholar. space and scale from the local to the global. In 12 | David Sausdal and Henrik Vigh following crime and criminalization as it travels Notes across space and scale, we envision a subdiscipline able to provide both productive anthropo- 1. Our use of “2.0” to distinguish our anthropological contributions, as well as a critical impact logical approach to crime and criminalization beyond academia. is not directly intended to bring forth connotations of cyberspace, software updates, or other digital or technological developments. We sim- Acknowledgments ply use the term to denote a difference from the most commonly anthropological criminology, namely the Lombrosian approach. That said, Authors Henrik Vigh, David Sausdal, and Line it is obvious that crimes committed in and Richter would like to acknowledge that research through cyberspace present themselves as par- for this edited special section is supported by ticularly important research subjects for anthro- funding from the European Research Coun- pologists interested in contemporary forms of cil (ERC) under the European Union’s Hori- crime and criminalization. Unfortunately, this zon 2020 research and innovation programme theme section doesn’t include such a study, but (grant agreement #725194). it is a focus of the University of Copenhagen’s Centre for Global Criminology, which is home to several of the theme section’s contributors. 2. De + via stemming from the Latin “off way” and David Sausdal is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the de + linquo from “depart from.” Department of Anthropology and Centre for Global Criminology at the University of Co- penhagen. His overall research interest includes References a wish to further develop a productive connection between anthropology and criminology. Aas, Katja Franko. 2011. “Visions of global control: Presently, he is trying to achieve this through Cosmopolitan aspirations in a world of friction.” ethnographic studies of the policing of cross- In What is criminology? ed. Mary Bosworth and Carolyn Hoyle, 406–419. Oxford: University of border crimes in Europe—something that he, Oxford Press. alongside more general theoretical discussions, Aas, Katja Franko. 2013. Globalization and crime. has written about in leading anthropological London: Sage. and criminological journals such as Theoretical Andersson, Ruben. 2014. Illegality, Inc.: Clandestine Criminology, Policing and Society, and Anthro- migration and the business of bordering Europe. pological Theory. Berkeley: University of California Press. Email: [email protected] Becker, Howard. 2008. Outsiders. New York: Free Press. Henrik Vigh is Professor of Anthropology and Blok, Anton. 1974. The Mafia of a Sicilian village, Head of the Centre for Global Criminology at 1860–1960: A study of violent peasant entrepre- the University of Copenhagen. He is the au- neurs. Oxford: Blackwell. Bourgois. Philippe. 2003. In search of respect: Sell- thor of Navigating Terrains of War (2006) and ing crack in El Barrio. Cambridge: Cambridge has written extensively on conflict, crisis, and University Press. crime. He has researched issues of youth and Bowling. Ben, and James Sheptycki. 2012. Global conflict in both Europe and Africa and is cur- policing. London: Sage. rently researching the intersection between war Bruinsma, Gerben. 2015. Histories of transnational and crime focusing on the criminalized move- crime. New York: Springer. ment of people, goods and drugs from Africa Carrington, Kerry, Russel Hogg, and Máximo Sozzo into Europe. M. 2016. “Southern criminology.” British Journal Email: [email protected] of Criminology 56 (1): 1–20. Introduction | 13

Castells, Manuel. 1998. “The perverse connection: Malinowski, Bronisław. 1926. Crime and custom The global criminal economy.” In End of millen- in savage society. Lanham, MD: Rowman & nium, vol. 3, 171–214. Oxford: Blackwell. Littlefield. Cohen, Albert, and James F. Short 1958. “Research Malinowski, Bronisław. 2002. Argonauts of the West- in delinquent subcultures.” Journal of Social Is- ern Pacific: An account of native enterprise and sues 14 (3): 20–37. adventure in the archipelagoes of Melanesian New Comaroff, Jean, and John L. Comaroff. 2008. Law Guinea. London: Routledge. and disorder in the postcolony. Chicago: Univer- Manning, Peter. 2018. “An anthropology of polic- sity of Chicago Press. ing.” In The anthropology of police, ed. Kevin Durkheim, Émile. (1893) 2014. The division of labor Karpiak and William Garriott, 23–33. London: in society. New York: Free Press. Routledge. Fassin. Didier 2008. “Beyond good and evil? Ques- Marcus, George. 1995. “Ethnography in/of the world tioning the anthropological discomfort with system: The emergence of multi-sited ethnogra- morals.” Anthropological Theory 8 (4): 333–344. phy.” Annual Review of Anthropology 24: 95–117. Fassin, Didier. 2013. Enforcing order: An ethnogra- Nordstrom, Carolyn. 2007. Global outlaws: Crime, phy of urban policing. Cambridge: Polity. money, and power in the contemporary world. Fassin. Didier. 2017a. “Boredom: Accounting for Berkeley: University of California Press. the ordinary in the work of policing (France).” Parnell, Philip and Stephanie C. Kane, eds. 2003. I: Writing the world of policing: The difference Crime’s power: Anthropologists and the ethnogra- ethnography makes, ed. Didier Fassin, 269–292. phy of crime. New York: Springer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Penglase, Benjamin, Stephanie C. Kane, and Philip Fassin, Didier, eds. 2017b. Writing the world of polic- Parnell. 2009. “Interview: The ‘new anthropology ing: The difference ethnography makes. Chicago: of crime.’” PoLAR 32 (1): 105–123. University of Chicago Press. Radcliffe-Brown, Alfred. 1935. “Primitive law.” Man Feldman, Gregory. 2011. The migration apparatus: 35: 47–48. Security, labor, and policymaking in the European Sanchez, Gabriella. 2014. Human smuggling and Union. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. border crossings. London: Routledge. Grassiani. Erella. 2015. “Moral othering at the Sausdal, David. 2018. “Everyday deficiencies of checkpoint: The case of Israeli soldiers and police surveillance: A quotidian approach to sur- Palestinian civilians.” Critique of Anthropology veillance studies.” Policing and Society. Published 35 (4): 373–388. online 13 December. https://doi.org/10.1080/104 Heine, Jorge, and Ramesh Thakur. 2011. “Introduc- 39463.2018.1557659. tion: Globalization and transnational uncivil Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. 1995. “The primacy of the society.” In The dark side of globalization, ed. ethical: Propositions for a militant anthropol- Jorge Heine and Ramesh Thakur, 1–16. Tokyo: ogy.” Current Anthropology 36 (3): 409–440. United Nations University Press. Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. 2005. “The last commod- Jeroslow, Phyllis. 2011. “Anthropological theories of ity: Post-human ethics and the global traffic in crime and delinquency.” Journal of Human Be- ‘fresh’ organs.” In Global assemblages: Technology, havior in the Social Environment 21 (3): 255–269. politics, and ethics as anthropological problems, Karpiak, Kevin. 2016. “The anthropology of police.” ed. Aihwa Ong and Stephen Collier, 145–168. In The SAGE Handbook of Global Policing, ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Ben Bradford, Beatrice Jauregui, and Ian Loader, Schiller, Nina Glick, Linda Basch, and Cristina 103–121. London: Sage. Blanc-Szanton. 1992. “Transnationalism: A new Karpiak, Kevin, and William Garriott, eds. 2018. The analytic framework for understanding migra- anthropology of police. London: Routledge. tion.” Annals of the New York Academy of Sci- Kuper, Adam. 2010. “The original sin of anthropol- ences 645: 1–24. ogy.” Paideuma: 123–144. Schneider, Jane, and Peter Schneider. 2008. “The Lombroso, Gina. 1911. Criminal man according to anthropology of crime and criminalization.” An- the classification of Cesare Lombroso: Briefly sum- nual Review of Anthropology 37: 351–373. marised by his daughter Gina Lombroso Ferrero. New York: Putnam’s Sons. 14 | David Sausdal and Henrik Vigh

Stewart, Martyn. 2013. “Roma and Gypsy ‘ethnicity’ Vigh, Henrik. 2016a. “Life’s trampoline: On nul- as a subject of anthropological inquiry.” Annual lification and cocaine migration in Bissau.” In Review of Anthropology 42: 415–432. Affective circuits and African migration, ed. J. UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs Crime). Cole and C. Groes, 223–244. Chicago: University 2010. The globalization of crime: A transnational of Chicago Press. organized crime threat assessment. New York: Vigh, Henrik. 2016b. “From warlord to drug lord: UNODC. The life of Joao Bernardo ‘Nino’ Vieira. In War- UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs Crime). lord democrats in Africa: Ex-military leaders and 2011. “Transnational organized crime: The glo- electoral politics, 156–176. London: Zed Books. balized illegal economy.” https://www.unodc.org/ Vigh, Henrik. 2017. “Caring through crime: Ethical toc/en/crimes/organized-crime.html. ambivalence and the cocaine trade in Bissau.” Van Dijk, Jan, Andromachi Tseloni, and Graham Africa, International African Institute 87 (3): Farrell. 2012. The international crime drop: 479–495. New directions in research. London: Palgrave Vigh, Henrik. 2018. “Lives opposed: Perceptiv- Macmillan. ity and tacticality in conflict and crime.” Social Van Maanen, John. 1973. “Working the street; A Anthropology—Anthropologie Sociale 26 (4): developmental view of police behavior.” Working 487–501. paper (Sloan School of Management). Vigh Henrik, and David Sausdal. 2018. “The anthro- Whyte, William Foote. 2012. Street corner society: pology of crime.” In Handbook of political anthro- The social structure of an Italian slum. Chicago: pology, ed. Harald Wydra and Bjørn Thomassen, University of Chicago Press. 441–461. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Wolf, Eric. 2010. Europe and the people without his- Zigon, Jared. 2007. “Moral breakdown and the tory. Berkeley: University of California Press. ethical demand a theoretical framework for an Vigh, Henrik. 2006. Navigating terrains of war: anthropology of moralities.” Anthropological Youth and soldiering in Guinea-Bissau. Oxford: Theory 7: 131–150. Berghahn Books. Vigh, Henrik. 2008. “Crisis and chronicity: Anthro- pological perspectives on continuous conflict and decline.” Ethnos 73 (1): 5–24.