Review article

Postmodernism and Criminology: A return to anthropological origins

Vladan Čutura ; Zagreb

Abstract

The article intends to describe the state of crisis besetting a classical, mainstream criminology that arose as a result of the application of postmodernist science practices to traditional knowledge and methods of criminology. Alongside this, the immense role in the repositioning of this branch of science was played by cultural studies and new analytic objects and ways of analysis. Still, the crisis in criminology was instigated at its “weak spot”, which relates to the examination of mechanisms by which certain kinds of social activities are labelled as criminal, and individuals as criminals. Scholars from the field of cultural criminology pointed to similar suspect places and mechanism by the assistance of which the narratives of criminals were created at the fonts of criminology in the nineteenth century. This concerns mostly the scholarly work by the “father of criminology”, Cesare Lombroso. Likewise, the intertwining and influence of not only social and ideological context but also their cultural counterpart can be demonstrated in these processes. Certainly, literature is often instrumentalized within a dominant positivist methodology as a proof of the dubious scientific theories.

Keywords

criminology; cultural criminology; postmodernism; Cesare Lombroso; literature

Hrčak ID:

171290

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/171290

Publication date:

12.12.2016.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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