The Purpose and Aims of the Cambridge Decolonising Criminology Network (CDCN)
Like other social science disciplines, criminology has been dominated by Western scholarship, literature, and theoretical perspectives. This 'Westerncentrism' of the discipline often limits its serious engagement with alternative, non-western, and culturally specific accounts / theorisation of crime and punishment. More prominently, it pushes the non-west into an ‘exotic periphery’ that might be spoken about or extracted from, but which is not imagined as a source of valuable insight or production of knowledge.
The Cambridge Decolonising Criminology Network (CDCN) is an initiative set up by members of the Institute of Criminology, to overcome the coloniality of knowledge and understanding by encouraging more subaltern, non-western and indigenous voices in the field. It aims to bring together students, researchers, and eminent scholars in the field of criminology or related fields to critically reflect, discuss and rethink the workings of the discipline through a decolonial lens.
More importantly, the CDCN aims to provide a space for open reflection and dialogue for future criminological research. It seeks to unseat the western nation state as a singular point of departure for comparative criminological research and engage with post-colonial and post-disciplinary perspectives and methodologies.
Since its inception in early 2020, the network has grown leaps and bounds and has managed to reach and spark interest of a lot of students, researchers, and academicians in the field in the UK, and around the world. The network has regularly organised online seminars, panel discussions, reading groups, and they have been actively involved in the equality, diversity, and inclusion discussions at the Institute of Criminology.
Through this network, they hope and strive to push scholars in the discipline to think about set matters when researching or writing about criminological issues.
PHOTO CREDIT: Professor Jianhong Liu (Faculty of Law, University of Macau & Editor, Asian Journal of Criminology)
How to Contact the CDCN
| Decolonising Criminology Network Group @decolonisingcriminology | |
| @CambridgeDCN | |
| dcn@crim.cam.ac.uk |
| Mentors | |
| Members |
Other members are appointed on an annual basis.
In May 2022, Kanupriya Sharma, the founding member of the network was nominated and awarded with the Vice Chancellors Social Impact Award by Cambridge Hub, for exceptional achievement and commitment to positive social change in academia. You can read Kanupriya's blog about her award here.
The CDCN Seminar Series runs throughout the academic year, hosting a diverse, and interdisciplinary range of speakers including imminent academicians, early career researchers and criminal justice practitioners from the UK and around the world.
The seminar usually lasts for an hour followed by questions and a discussion. To encourage global participation, the seminars are usually held virtually or in a hybrid format and are open to all.
If you are interested in speaking at the series or have a recommendation for a speaker, please get in touch!
Please find below a list of our previous seminars:
2020 - 2021
2021 - 2022
Lent Term 2022 |
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21 January Carceral Cultures in Contemporary India |
Dr Mahuya Bandyopadhyay (Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi) | |
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11 February Human Rights for Righteous Humans: A pluriversal regime of rights in Brazil |
Dr Omar Phoenix Khan (Lecturer in Criminology, University of Oxford) | |
Easter Term 2022 |
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| 5 May
Panel discussion on ‘The future of policing: Defund? Decolonise? Or Reimagine?’ |
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27 May 27 Decolonising Criminology: Why is it important to understand about coloniality? |
Dr Eleni Dimou (Department of Social Policy & Criminology, Open University, UK) | |
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27 June Exploring the Gendered Harms of Imprisonment in Southeast Asia: Critical and Reflexive Perspectives |
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The Decolonising Criminology Reading Group meets once each term, and is open to all who have an interest in decolonisation matters related to research, writing, and academic practice. We are committed to creating a safe space for candid reflection and respectful discussion.
Find CDCN on Facebook and Twitter for more details on reading group details. There is no need to confirm attendance, but please do get in touch if you would like to be added to our network e-mail list:dcn@crim.cam.ac.uk
The CDCN Reading Group has previously read:
- Ajil, A., & Blount-Hill, K.-L. (2020). 'Writing the Other as Other”: Exploring the Othered Lens in Academia Using Collaborative Autoethnography'. Decolonization of Criminology and Justice, 2(1), 83-108.
- (2012) Restorative justice: the indigenous justice system. Contemporary Justice Review, 15(4), 449-467.
- Tuck, E. & Yang, K. Y. (2014b). ‘R-Words: Refusing Research’ . In D. Paris and M. T. Winn (Eds.), Humanizing Research: Decolonizing Qualitative Inquiry with youth and Communities. Thousand Oakes, CA: Sage Publications.
- Gatewood, B. J. & Norris, A. (2019) ‘Silence around Prisoner Protests: Criminology, U.S. Black Women and State-Sanctioned Violence’.
- Tuck, E. & Yang, K. W. (2012) ‘Decolonisation is not a metaphor'. Decolonization:Indigeneity, Education & Society, 1(1), 1-40.
- Valdés-Riesco, A. (2021) ‘Can the Subaltern Speak in Criminology? Analysing the Production of Knowledge on Crimes of the Powerful in the 21st Century through Latin American Postcolonial Lenses.’ International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 10(1).
- Steinmetz, K. F., Schaefer, B. P. & Henderson, H. (2017) ‘Wicked Overseers: American Policing and Colonialism’. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 3(1).
- Moore, J. M. (2020) ‘ “Law”, “order”, “justice”, “crime”: Disrupting key concepts in criminology through the study of colonial history’. The Law Teacher, 54(4).
- Lawrence, P. (2012) ‘History, criminology and the “use” of the past’. Theoretical Criminology, 16(3).
Details will be posted here of future events, as well as on the Institute of Criminology's Upcoming Events webpage.