Doing Justice Differently in a Mountain Region of Contemporary Crete, Greece

• In Event: Challenging Criminological Universality: Perspectives on Alternative Forms of Justice in the Global South

Abstract

Early anthropologists shaped the parameters constituting the presence and operation of customary law in the Mediterranean and Balkan Peninsula. Eurocentric epistemologies acknowledged customary law as an honour-driven approach to correcting an injustice occurring in ‘developing’ societies wherein legal and social infrastructure is absent, and corruption prevails. Similar research indicated a revenge culture, rooted in customary law, in the mountain villages of Crete (Southeast part of Greece), wherein Cretans tend to take the law into their own hands when their honour is harmed. Nonetheless, knowledge from northern metropolises continues to impact subsequent research on the island, receiving zero to little scrutiny by researchers on why and how Cretans prefer ‘customary laws’. This paper will examine why and how locals in Crete follow a customary approach to justice beyond the conventional understanding of customary law. It will explore why people in Mountain Crete follow different practices from the Western-influenced justice procedures the Greek state applies despite the lack of legal affirmation of customary justice practices. Re-evaluating the customary practice of justice in Crete will advocate reconsidering the existence and preference of customary justice in non-northern contexts and rethinking the impact of universalising justice notions. The paper will use the findings to attempt to decolonise the scholarship of customary law in Eastern European Countries.

Author

• Leah Koumentaki, Keele University