Criminal Legalities and Minorities in the Global South

This book explores how the law and the institutions of the criminal justice system expose minorities to different types of violence, either directly, through discrimination and harassment, or indirectly, by creating the conditions that make them vulnerable to violence from other groups of society. It draws on empirical insights across a broad array of communities and locales including Afghanistan, Colombia, Pakistan, India, Malawi, Turkey, Brazil, Singapore, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. It examines the challenges of protecting those at the margins of power, especially those whom the law is often used to oppress. The chapters explore intersecting, marginal identities influenced by four factors: rebuilding after violent regimes, economic interest behind the violence, entrenched cultural biases, and criminalisation of diversity. It provides scholars from the Global North with important lessons when attempting to impose their own solutions onto nations with a different history andcontext, or when applying their own laws to migrants from the Global South nations explored in this book. It speaks to legal and social science scholars in the fields of law, sociology, criminology, and social work.

“The chapters in this volume provide critical insights into issues of pressing global concern, turning them on their head and challenging us to rethink – and retheorize – how law shapes, controls, and sometimes criminalizes, diversity. Radics and Ciocchini have deftly curated the contributions of new and established scholars in a work that amply illustrates why scholarship from the global South matters in building knowledge and shaping theory.” (Dee Smythe, Professor and Director of the Centre for Law and Society at the University of Cape Town, South Africa)

“Criminal Legalities and Minorities in the Global South centers scholarly attention on the experiences of populations who are multiply marginalized – by being minorities in their respective societies and by being situated in the Global South. The editors and authors not only show us how violence manifests in the Global South but also what we can learn from the diverse ways in which these populations respondto oppressive conditions and engage with the law.” (Lynette J. Chua, Associate Professor of Law at the National University of Singapore and President of the Asian Law & Society Association)

“Criminal Legalities’ originality lies in the Southern perspective it adopts to document the specific forms that law and the criminal justice system take when they target disadvantaged groups in nations that are politically and culturally marginalized themselves.” (Roberto Gargarella, Professor at the Universidad de Buenos Aires and Senior Researcher at National Research Center, Argentina)

“This highly impressive collection brings together a remarkable range of case studies from across the Global South, together demonstrating the severity and intensity of law’s violence. Yet in those cases there is also an intensity of resistance to repression. Where there is state violence, there is resistance. And this collection offers a uniquely diverse range of perspectives that isindispensable to scholars of criminology who claim to take the Global South seriously.” (David Whyte, Professor of Climate Justice and Director of the Centre for Climate Crime and Climate Justice at Queen Mary University of London)

George B. Radics is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and holds a joint appointment with NUS College.

Pablo Ciocchini is Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology at the University of Liverpool, UK, and Research Associate in the Institute for Legal Culture of the National University of La Plata, Argentina.