The Import of Southern Criminology

Post-Colonialism Trumps the Defiance of Universalism

Abstract

Southern Criminology is a post-colonial movement of knowledge production that has political, empirical and theoretical facades. This article argues that the most significant characteristic of Southern Criminology is the highlighting of the everlasting criminogenic effects of colonialism. It challenges the suggestion made by Roger Matthews, in his paper “False starts, wrong turns and dead ends: Reflections of recent developments in Criminology,” that the greatest import of such a movement is the defiance of universalism of the theories of the Global North. It does so by examining the concepts of Southern Criminology, the risks of recognising the defiance of universalism as its main output and the potentialities of recognising its post-colonial characteristics for the advancement of theoretical criminology both in the Global South and the Global North.