Criminal Legalities and Minorities in the Global South: Rights and Resistance in a Decolonial World

by George B. Radics (Editor), Pablo Ciocchini (Editor)

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783031179204
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	01/24/2023
Series:	Palgrave Socio-Legal Studies
Edition description:	1st ed. 2023
Pages:	299
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

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.

Table of Contents

Part I. Rebuilding after violence.- Chapter 1. The Caradiru Prison Massacre and Ongoing Military Repression in Brazil (Emilio Meyer, Marta Machado).- Chapter 2. Politics before Law: The New Penal Code of 2017 and its Limited Protections for Ethnic Minorities in Post-Conflict Afghanistan (Bashir Mobasher, Nasiruddin Nezaami).- Chapter 3. “Between denial and memory” a socio-legal reading of securitisation narratives in Transitional Colombia (Gustavo Rojas Paez). - Part II. Economic interest and the state.- Chapter 4. Enforcing Exclusion through the Law: The National Register of Citizens in India (Suraj Gogoi).- Chapter 5. Colonial Legal Continuities in Post-Colonial Pakistan: A look at the construction of law, ownership and crime (Sabeen Kazmi).- Chapter 6. (Cr)Immigration and Merit-Based Migration in the Global South: Policing "Alcoholic Indians" and "Bangladeshi Terrorists" in Singapore (George Radics).- Chapter 7. Disciplining colonial subjects: Neoliberal Legalities, Disasters and the Criminalization of Protest in Puerto Rico (José Atiles Osoria).- Part III. Entrenched cultural biases.- Chapter 8. “Truth” and “Consent” in Sexual Violence Reporting in Criminal Justice and Legal Contexts in Singapore (Dr Joseph Greener, Stacy Ooi). - Chapter 9. Between Toys and Behind Bars: Mothers in Jail in the State of Ceará, Brazil (Lara Nascimento Meneses, João Araújo Monteiro Neto, Nestor Eduardo Araruna Santiago).- Chapter 10. The “War on Drugs” in Philippine Criminal Courts: Legal Professionals' Moral Discourse and Plea Bargaining in Drug-Related Cases (Pablo Ciocchini, Jayson Lamchek).- Part IV. Criminalisation of Diversity. - Chapter 11. Circuits of Law: Everyday Criminalisation of Transgender Embodiment in Istanbul (Ezgi Taşcıoğlu). - Chapter 12. Reaffirming Womanhood: Young transwomen and online sex work in Philippines (Veronica Gregorio).- Chapter 13. A queer chinkhoswe: Reimagining the customary in Malawi (Nigel Timothy Mpemba Patel).

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“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)