An Academic Duty to Engage: Between Research Ethics and Scholar Activism

• In Event: Activism & Criminal Justice

Abstract

While universal research ethics are widely accepted by criminologists, scholar activism remains a highly contested subject. We identify a third remit – an academic duty to engage – positioned between research ethics and scholar activism on the spectrum of reasonable professional academic conduct. To do so, we draw on existing common-law doctrines that obligate people to act in harm-reducing ways where ‘special relationships’ exist, arguing that criminologists are in a special relationship with the people they study because they profit from their knowledge and experiences of harm. We demonstrate how criminologists are thus, inter alia, obligated to engage with racial injustices and imprisoned intellectual thought. Focusing on the latter, we argue, in line with Joy James (2003) and Dylan Rodriguez (2006), that this requires white self-criticality and developing research with, not for, incarcerated people, showing that, in Aotearoa New Zealand, this type of engagement is most seen in scholar-activist spaces.

Authors

• Antje Deckert, Auckland University of Technology

• Adele N. Norris, University of Waikato

• Jessica Martin, University of Waikato