Cultures of suspicion

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Abstract

What is suspicion? What are we suspicions of? What makes some things evoke suspicion and not others? And how are practices and technologies of suspicion formed and put to use? These are the central questions discussed at this roundtable – a discussion focused on both general and everyday “cultures” of suspicion as well as specific instantiations of it. Drawing on a variety of empirical examples and theoretical perspectives, the roundtable’s participants consider cases such as drug trafficking, environmental crime, police work, covert investigations, private eyes, graffiti subculture, as well as the futuristic technologies of suspicion and surveillance embedded in the utopia/dystopia of the crime free “smart city”. Indeed. We live in an age of suspicion (Bakir and Barlow 2007). And the future looks no less circumspect. Come join us for a critical discussion of why and how that is – and what the implications are for criminological fieldwork and theory.

Subtopic

• Topic 1: Perspectives on Crime and Criminal Behavior / Cultural Criminology

Chair

• David Sausdal, Lund University

Discussants

• Henrik Vigh, University of Copenhagen

• Erik Hannerz, Lund University

• Keith Hayward, University of Copehagen