A Friendly Critique of Asian Criminology and Southern Criminology

This article analyzes Asian Criminology and Southern Criminology, exploring their efforts to decolonize criminology and incorporate marginalized perspectives.

Running head: Studying Social Sciences: A Critical Approach
Studying Social Sciences: A Critical Approach
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Author Note

1STUDYING SOCIAL SCIENCES: A CRITICAL APPROACH
A Friendly Critique of ‘Asian Criminology’ and ‘Southern Criminology’
Criminology is marked by an ethnocentrism and is frequently excluded from non-western
scholarship. This article analyzes Asian Criminology and Southern Criminology because there
have been a lack of theoretical interrogation in these fields. The main aim of the article is to
show how Asian Criminology and Southern Criminology are trying to decolonize criminology
from a Western centric bias and incorporating marginalized perspectives.
This research is topical because Asian criminology is very important and it is a major
loss for practitioners, criminologists etc to miss this engaging and enlightening field of study. In
addition, conducting a research in this field is important as Western criminology can learn a lot
from Asian criminology. Southern criminology is important because it provides a fresh insight to
crime, punishment and crime control. Thus, research in these fields is necessary to decolonize
criminology.
The study explores Asian and Southern criminology and tries to negate the belief in the
field of social sciences that academic scholarship outside the West is inferior, irrelevant and is of
a low quality. The study strives to pursue the decoloniality of knowledge. This paper further
illustrates the similarities between Asian criminology and Southern criminology. Both
approaches of criminology criticize this tendency to exclude criminal knowledge from the
periphery and propagate the fact that this outlook should undergo a change. Both these
approaches seek to give priority to research agendas that are integral for marginal societies. They
also take into account the significance of religion in relation to crime. They also give priority to
the postcolonial context of most Southern and Asian societies because the fallout from the
colonial era is a key subject that academicians from these approaches of criminology are

2STUDYING SOCIAL SCIENCES: A CRITICAL APPROACH
concerned. Southern criminology and Asian criminology are also similar in the sense that both
paradigms do not include much of Global South as is required. Asian criminology and Southern
criminology too have similar differences. Both paradigms face an inadequate examination of
their ontological, epistemological and philosophical premises. The lack of sustained critique of
these two paradigms has led to the fact that both Asian and Southern criminology lacks a
concrete definition (Liu 2018).
The study further explores the differences between Asian criminologists and
Southern criminologists, which include the fact that Asian criminology is administrative,
quantitative, positivist in nature in contrast to Southern criminology and tends to combat crime
from the perspective of a state. Asian criminology has also created a large number of empirical
studies than Southern criminology, which is more intangible than Asian criminology. Asian
criminology also coalesces with other fields of criminology, which include green criminology,
feminist criminology and queer criminology. Unlike Southern criminology, Asian criminology
does not provide much research related to gender. This is because in Asia, criminology persists
in being a masculine discipline where Asian women are not represented properly. This is most
regrettable since the efforts to decolonize criminology will remain incomplete if women scholars
are not taken into account (Liu 2018).
The reason why some criminologists from the periphery are ignored is because some
criminologists lack a fluency in the English language. Since English is the main medium of
language, criminologists who are proficient in English have an upper hand over those
criminologists who are not that proficient in English and are therefore unable to express
themselves (Carrington, Hogg & Sozzo, 2018). To change this scenario, some
recommendations include Asian and Southern criminologists who are proficient in English

3STUDYING SOCIAL SCIENCES: A CRITICAL APPROACH
helping those academics who lack the fluency in English to achieve greater achievement in
publishing by providing help with proof reading and translation. For non-Western criminology to
grow, criminologists who are in the centre ought to collaborate and support criminologists who
are in the marginalized areas. One can extend support to criminologists who are in the periphery
through scholarships, joint research, co-authoring and literature access as is being done by Asian
criminologists and Southern criminologists. Other differences between Asian criminology and
Southern criminology include the fact that both paradigms give different justifications for their
existence. Asian criminology and Southern criminology are also different in terms of the way
they place themselves in relation to Northern and Western criminology. For example, Asian
criminologists pay tribute to Western criminology while Southern criminologists problematize
Northern criminology. Southern criminology aims to break free from Northern criminology
while Asian criminology allies itself with Western criminology. Southern criminology perceives
itself to have a global and a universal project while Asian criminology believes that it has
relevance only in Asia. Southern criminology and Asian criminology also differs on who is in the
periphery or who has been marginalized. Asian criminology tends to integrate Asian
criminologists while Southern criminology tends to opt for a wider incorporation of
criminologists who are categorized as Southern (Carrington, Hogg & Sozzo, 2018).
There is a need for further research on whether the decolonization of criminology is
probable given the western origins of the discipline, its connection with elite force and coercion
and if there is a possibility to free social science knowledge production from Western hegemony.
Research should also be conducted on whether Australia ought to be considered as part of the
Global South (Carrington, Hogg & Sozzo, 2018).

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To conclude, one can say that there was no bias in the findings. The study of Asian criminology
and Southern criminology is extremely useful since it helps to decolonize criminology from a
western centric bias. It was further useful in exploring the topic of Asian criminology and
Southern criminology. I agree with the author’s findings because I too feel that one should
decolonize criminology and a research in these fields is integral in order to explore this area of
criminology further and to negate the belief that scholarly learning outside the West is inferior,
extraneous and is of a low quality.

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REFERENCES:
Liu, J., 2018. The Asian Criminological Paradigm and How It Links Global North and South:
Combining an Extended Conceptual Tool box from the North with Innovative Asian Contexts. In
The Palgrave Handbook of Criminology and the Global South (pp. 61-82). Palgrave Macmillan,
Cham.
Carrington, K., Hogg, R. and Sozzo, M., 2018. Southern criminology. In Routledge Handbook of
Critical Criminology (pp. 57-73). Routledge.