Thinking about Punishment and Punitiveness from the Global East

• In Event: Shedding Light on the Global East: An Empirical Perspective

Abstract

This paper tackles a number of concepts connected to penality that have emerged from Northern and Southern criminology and tests their dimensions when utilised in jurisdictions that are not clearly marked as belonging to the Global North or South. Thus, the paper looks at the meanings of popular punitivism, prisoner governance, and decarceration when seen through the lens of the Global East. In each case theories from the North and South are found to overlook aspects of these concepts and that a Global East perspective shines a light on these. The Global East reveals potentialities for popular punitivism based in the specific relationship between punishment and labour developed in Marxist penal philosophy; it shows how prisoner governance may not govern so much as subjugate and prey on prisoners; and how decarceration can correlate with authoritarianism. It is argued that northern and southern criminology would inadequately explain these examples. Therefore, jurisdictions that are predominantly of the Global East can help develop and deepen our theories of punishment.

Author

• Gavin Slade, Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan