"Necrocriminology": Responding to Mass Violence Through the Dead

• In Event: Applications of Criminological Theories across the World

Abstract

This paper summarises selected criminological findings from a major research programme examining the ways in which diverse societies do and do not come to terms with a legacy of mass violence through their relationship with the dead. Proceeding from primary fieldwork in five nations – Argentina, Bosnia, Spain, Latvia and Poland – that have experienced violent internal repression and/or the international crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, the paper charts the journey of the murdered corpse from production to investigation to commemoration. In so doing, it synthesises multidisciplinary and traditional criminological perspectives to describe a new sub-discipline of ‘necrocriminology’: the criminology of violent death, its dynamics, material products and consequences. Substantive themes of globalised networks of terror-knowledge, multi-layered perpetrator denial, defiant family-centred activism, interpenetration of forensic science and international criminal justice, and the contested politics of memory illustrate what is to be gained from this engagement. The paper agitates for a new critical and reflexive criminological agenda that contributes ultimately to the process of reascribing value to radically devalued lives.

Author

• Jon Shute, University of Manchester