The Anthropology of Crime and Criminalization

Jane Schneider, Peter Schneider
2008 Annual Review of Anthropology  
The ambiguity of the concept of crime is evident in the two strands of anthropological research covered in this review. One strand, the anthropology of criminalization, explores how state authorities, media, and citizen discourse define particular groups and practices as criminal, with prejudicial consequences. Examples are drawn from research on peasant rebellion, colonialism, youth, and racially or ethnically marked urban poor. The other strand traces ethnographic work on more or less
more » ... d illegal and predatory activity: banditry, rustling, trafficking, street gangs, and mafias. Although a criminalizing perspective tends to conflate these diverse forms of "organized" crime, in particular erasing the boundary between street gangs and drug trafficking, the forms have discrete histories and motivations. Their particularities, as well as their historical interactions, illuminate everyday responses to crime and suggest ways to put in perspective the "crime talk" of today, which borders on apocalyptic. 351
doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.36.081406.094316 fatcat:qsozpw5g6rbgzlxuyc5jub6ixu