What is more “empirical” than lived experience?

• In Event: DCS Handbook on Lived Experience: Exploring the Possibilities of Lived Experience

Abstract

In his 2023 Presidential Address at the American Society of Criminology meetings, Shadd Maruna argued that we are currently witnessing a powerful social movement comprised of persons who have been directly and vicariously impacted by the legal system. These lived experts, who have taken key positions as credible messenger mentors, violence interrupters, reentry and bail navigators, advocates, change agents, and non-profit founders, draw on a unique and valuable form of credibility that many academic criminologists may not yet appreciate. Moreover, as prison-to-college pipelines produce newly credentialed “convict criminologists” and academic researchers increasingly work with community justice partners, it is time to take stock of our field’s accepted ways of knowing. In this presentation, I argue that American criminologists’ commitment to positivist epistemology and methodologies may prevent us from sharing intellectual space with and learning from lived experts. I trace the history of knowledge production in criminology and criminal justice in the U.S. and discuss the costs of positivism’s hegemony, including academic gatekeeping or exclusion of those using alternative or critical epistemologies. The essay concludes with concrete recommendations for removing existing barriers to producing and publishing qualitative research of the kind that is showcased so beautifully throughout this volume.

Author

• Jamie Fader, Temple University