Language as Cultural action: Why Criminology Needs to Engage with Institutional Discourses

• In Event: New Directions In Critical Methodology

Abstract

Critical and cultural criminology have been sensitive to the complexity of communication, collective codes and semiotics. Approaches such as constitutive criminology, narrative criminology, language of justice studies and the wider spread use of ethnographic content analysis and critical discourse analysis embody this. Nevertheless, criminologists’ attention has been mainly focused on image, political rhetoric, media representations and self-narratives.
In this presentation, I briefly discuss the linguistic turns (and ‘returns’) in criminology and particularly emphasise the relevance of institutional discourse analysis of the practices of criminal justice administration. Expectations and inanities of these spheres embedded in discourse can reveal the ways domination, discrimination, power and hegemony are expressed, understood and enacted. Taking a step in the direction of linguistics does not imply developing an obsession with prose and linguistic details. The approach that is outlined however does help to disentangle the opaque and contradictory discursive practices of criminal justice institutions. The talk is underpinned by empirical research (document analysis and interviews with professionals) of discursive positioning of migrant youth in juvenile courts and discusses how such positioning eventually (very materially) affects correctional experiences.

Author

• Olga Petintseva, Ghent University, Belgium