Criminological Re-encounters with China: Notes on Publications, 1985-2015

• In Event: ACCCJ Chinese Societies, Law and Justice

Abstract

Drawing on a literature search and review of English language criminology and criminal justice publications on China in the period 1985-2015, this paper provides a commentary on the trajectory of such scientific endeavor over the last thirty years, alongside an interrogation of these encounters in terms of the questions posed, the critical stances taken and how China is ‘represented’. The extent to which China has figured as a land of contrast and other-ness within the criminological imagination is significant . Yet, often the criminological themes and tropes are far more about inherited perspectives than about the reality of China either then or now. Our paper provides reflections on the ineluctable polyvocality of representing another society.

Authors

• Bill Hebenton, University of Manchester, United Kingdom

• Liqun Cao, University of Ontario Institute of Technology