Exploring Black, Chicana, and Decolonial Feminist Methodologies in Critical Criminology

Session Submission Type: Complete Thematic Panel

Abstract/Description

Criminology has historically contributed to the criminalization, dehumanization, and oppression of racialized communities. Over the past several decades, however, the application of Critical Race Theory to the field of criminology has invigorated scholarship centering the experiences and perspectives of aggrieved racialized communities. CRT has inspired a shift from studies primarily concerned with the relationship between race and crime toward examining the systems, institutions, and processes which produce racialized criminalization. CRT has highlighted the need for analyzing racism, sexism, classism, and other axes of oppression as intersecting structural forces that shape our interactions with the law. CRT has also helped bring Black, Chicana, and decolonial feminist theories and methodologies into conversation with criminological research. The papers in this panel illustrate some of the ways in which these traditions can inform our research ethics, methods, and praxis. Focusing on different research contexts, questions, and methods, these papers invite us to consider how our research can move beyond simply centering the experiences of communities of color to more deeply engage with the theoretical, methodological, and political offerings of Black, Chicanx, and decolonial scholarly traditions to produce research that not only avoids doing harm but contributes to collectively imagining and building more liberatory futures.

Sub Unit

• Area X. Critical Criminology / 76. Critical Perspectives in Criminology

Individual Presentations

• Decolonizing Healing: Ethical and Methodological Considerations in Research with Chicana/xs from the El Paso-Ciudad Juarez Borderland - Marlene Mercado, California State University, San Marcos

• Community-engaged ethnography as Black feminist praxis - Jasmine Kelekay, Howard University

• Barrio Chicana Feminist Methodological Ruminations - Marisa Salinas, California State University, San Marcos

• Reimagining Spatial Analysis: Using Black Geographies to Center and Amplify Black Life in Criminal Justice Research - Talia LaSane, Temple University

Discussant

• Veronica Lerma, University of California, Davis