Philosophy, Crime, and Criminology

3 Crime, Criminology, and Epistemology:Tribal Considerations

three Crime, Criminology, and Epistemology: Tribal Considerations ronnie lippens In his essay “On Ethnographic SelfFashioning : Conrad and Malinowski” (1988), James Clifford, one of the most distinguished voices in theoretical ethnography , developed an interesting thesis . Comparing writing styles and strategies in literature (Joseph Conrad’s novels in particular) and ethnography (Bronislaw Malinowski’s anthropological works), Clifford argues that, like literature, ethnographical writings are just that: writing (see also on this topic Geertz, 1988). Like literature, ethnographical works seem to be largely the result of authors who, more or less desperately, are trying to build, or, at least, to stabilize themselves through the use of particular writing strategies, styles, and forms. More often than not, the anthropologist or ethnographer finds himor herself in a more or less uneasy posi- 104 / ronnie lippens tion. Anxieties about the unfamiliar abound. The “others” are to some extent still “other.” The own self starts to lose its footing in a sea of fluid uncertainties. This is the predicament whence the ethnographer or the author begins to develop or employ strategies and styles that (so it is hoped) will bring some stability. Much of ethnographical writing, claims Clifford, results from attempts to gain or, better, to regain stability of the self. In producing a more or less coherent story about a more or less coherent and therefore more understandable “other,” the own self appears to stabilize again. This is an important insight for both epistemology and criminology. Clifford’s essay suggests that the tasks for epistemology (the theory of knowledge, or knowledge about knowledge) ought to include at least considerations about the human, all-too-human context of knowledge production (the phrase, by the way, is the title of one of Friedrich Nietzsche ’s books). That which ends up in texts as “knowledge” seems to be a matter of strategy, style, and form rather than substance. Criminologists very often rely on ethnography to produce criminological “knowledge.” Like anthropologists, criminologists often aim to produce “knowledge” about “others,” about “them,” about those who allegedly are not like us. Clifford’s message deserves to be heard by anyone who is involved in the production of criminological knowledge. In this chapter, we will explore the human, all-too-human context of criminological knowledge, or, to put it in other words, knowledge about insiders and outsiders. For reasons that remain to be elaborated below, we will consider this human, all too human context not just as authors’ writing strategies, styles, and forms aimed at the stabilization of individual selves but rather as the deeply social practice of tribal communality. Yes, our intention here is to stay with the tropes of anthropology, ethnography , tribalism, and otherness. The chapter includes two sections. The first section develops the thesis of knowledge as the social practice of tribal communality. In the second section, this thesis is applied to and illustrated with criminological themes and issues. We will end on a note that connects the themes and issues explored in this chapter to a text on knowledge that has arguably been one of the most defining in recent decades. This chapter has no encyclopedic ambitions. However, connections will be made throughout with the perhaps more familiar literature on epistemology and philosophy of science. Reference will also be made to the postmodernist debates that have figured in much of the Crime, Criminology, and Epistemology / 105 literature of the 1980s and 1990s. Let us note in passing that the framework that provides the theoretical backdrop for much of this chapter, namely actor-network theory, was and still is, in my view at least, one of the more successful attempts at dealing with the unnecessarily rigid modernity-postmodernism dichotomies that have dominated so many of those end-of-the-century debates. Knowledge about Insiders and Outsiders Tribal Connections Let us, by way of introduction, describe an everyday scene from the highland jungles in Papua New Guinea. Marilyn Strathern, an anthropologist, witnessed such scenes when she was doing fieldwork there and described them in her book Partial Connections (1991). Strathern has since become known as one of the representatives of actor-network theory. We will get back to actor-network theory later, as this strand of social theory is providing the thread of reasoning that underpins this chapter at hand. Let us for now just describe a scene in the Papuan jungle. Please bear with me. Picture a hut in a village. In front of the hut, a...