Qualitative Research in Criminology: Rita Faria Mary Dodge Editors

Rita Faria
Mary Dodge Editors
Qualitative
Research in
Criminology
Cutting-Edge Methods
Qualitative Research in Criminology
Rita Faria • Mary Dodge
Editors
Qualitative Research in
Criminology
Cutting-Edge Methods
Editors
Rita Faria Mary Dodge
School of Criminology School of Public Affairs
Interdisciplinary Research Center on Crime Program in Criminology and
Justice and Security Criminal Justice
University of Porto University of Colorado Denver
Porto, Portugal Denver, CO, USA
ISBN 978-3-031-18400-0 ISBN 978-3-031-18401-7 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18401-7
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2023
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and
transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar
or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Introduction
Our position as editors of this cutting-edge methods in qualitative criminology book

has elicited both distress and delight. We mention the former only to emphasize that,
despite years of innovative results, qualitative work is still viewed by some academ-
ics as fringe work. As the contributors and editors show in the following pages noth-
ing could be further from the truth or, at least, our conceptions of the veracity of
what is or is not in a world of surprises and rapid change. Qualitative methods in
criminology, often discounted or misunderstood, offer significant insights that
frame our understanding of the narratives, events, theoretical perspectives, and real-
ities of the world.
One strength of qualitative methods is the ability to inform and enhance quantita-
tive work. In fact, a mixed methods approach offers the opportunity for creating
synergy and cross-fertilization. This book includes cutting-edge methods of how
qualitative research can expand beyond traditional approaches and, perhaps, result
in mixed methods research. Such endeavors make even more sense at the start of the
2020s as social groups, communities, and individuals navigate climate crisis, global
pandemics, new far-right trends, polarization of political discourses, refugees’ cri-
ses, and the growing relevance of social media, while structural inequalities such as
racism and class and gender discrimination persist. Diversity in methods includes
gender, race, and geographic sensitivities that also considers technology as a means
of achieving meaning in research. Social media, participatory videos, YouTube,
Zoom interviewing, and photographic visual methods as well as sensory approaches
are creating groundbreaking research that informs all social sciences and appeals to
a wider audience. While the importance of quantitative research is undeniable, the
rich nature of qualitative criminology offers findings that are exciting and colorful.
Qualitative criminology allows deeper and more nuanced understandings of local
and regional specificities in a globalized world, of how the social interactions are
influenced by individual interpretations, social interactions, and collective decision-
making. A “no-numbers” approach offers world views that are attractive to scholars,
commentators, and the public, allowing for improved chances of common under-
standing and building of shared, collective action and empowerment practices. Not
only that, but innovative qualitative approaches also offer the opportunity for
v
vi Introduction
improving the co-creation of knowledge. Qualitative methodologies have the poten-

tial to stimulate the participants’ active contribution in the research process by giv-
ing away data to the researchers (as it is usually preferred in more traditional
approaches) and by being asked to (co)create and share data in a way that simultane-
ously empowers and cares for them.
The qualitative tradition in criminology and its impact has a long history. Early
scholars focused on giving voice to the disenfranchised (e.g., stigmatized, vulnera-
ble victim populations) and holding the powerful accountable (e.g., white-collar and
corporate crime, harmful practices in the criminal justice system). The use of quali-
tative methods to inform policies and crime prevention evaluation adds important
elements to quantitative research that promotes mixed methodology. Despite the
production and publication of qualitative studies in journals, which remains some-
what scarce, this book is a treasure trove of gems that often remain hidden.
Qualitative inquiries on topics related to deviance, crime, social control, and vic-
timization are often overlooked by scholars and policy makers, who tend to give
higher relevance to hypothesis testing, deductive approaches over inductive, theory
generating qualitative research processes. However, the central importance of quali-
tative methods in criminology is unquestionable – consider, for example, the impor-
tance of such seminal works as the ones produced by the Chicago School on the
lives and meanings of migrant criminals, or Sutherland’s The Professional Thief, as
well as Becker’s Outsiders. Such books had the ability to throw new and revolution-
ary insights into the diversity of social worlds, the need for integration of migrants,
the normalization of criminal motivations, as well as need to re-think the stigmatiz-
ing criminal justice system of the twentieth century. More recently, subcultures
(e.g., Illan), and judicial decision-making (see, e,g., work by Olga Petintseva), for
instance, have been explored by qualitative methods adding significantly to crimi-
nological knowledge.
The work presented in this book fills some gaps and offers scholars relevant
examples of how qualitative research in criminology and related sciences happens
and the benefits of using it, especially in a rapidly changing world. Currently, com-
bined efforts of criminological and sociological imagination are offering new ways
to conduct qualitative research, such as using social media, accessing growing vol-
umes of open access data (e.g., Wiki leaks and documents released by the
International Consortium of Investigative journalism, uncovering cases of corrup-
tion and money laundering), social movements against racism, and the overt and
covert patriarchy and climate destruction, to name a few.
This book, among other issues, clearly presents some solutions and reasons
about what can be considered a current paradox: the need to deepen social and
human connection between researcher and participants by detailing, for instance,
sensory approaches to individuals’ experiences, while simultaneously having to
adapt qualitative inquiry to and about the online world, much of it potentiated by the
worldwide lockdowns. These two apparent contradictory dimensions and approaches
(sensory such as smell and noise, as well as computer-mediated interaction, devoid
of such sensorial details) are well discussed, and chapters provide reasoning, tech-
niques, and arguments for overcoming limitations and difficulties.
Introduction vii
Simultaneously, the chapters also offer much needed guidance and mature reflec-
tion on cultural sensitivity and structural critical analysis, providing in-depth reflec-
tions on topics which are intrinsically rooted in qualitative methodologies. Such
topics include discussions on language(s), power, ethics, or on authorized ways of
producing knowledge about the world, the researcher-participant relationship,
impact of research on the public and policy makers, and many more.
The book is divided in 5 parts, each of them containing a brief overview from the
editors.
Part I – Adapting to a New World – offers new insights into some of the most
traditional queries of qualitative criminology, particularly in criminology. Those
queries include reflections adapted to the twenty-first century on how to protect and
avoid harm when researching with vulnerable individuals and groups; how to con-
duct in-depth ethnography on criminal activities, in the underworlds of drug use or
prostitution, in academic environments growingly attuned with liberalism and
dependent on funding; or on how and why to promote bridging gaps between quali-
tative and quantitative methods, designing mixed methods approaches in
criminology.
Part II – The Growing Relevance of the Online World – is an updated incursion
on the uses of the Internet on qualitative criminological research. The chapters offer
thought-provoking essays about the growing autonomy of online activities, not only
of social phenomena happening online (both simultaneously or alternatively on and
offline) but also of research taking place online – from the recruitment stage to the
data gathering steps and everything in between. Chapters also help navigating some
of the most pressing ethical and methodological challenges of doing research online.
Part III – Methodological Innovations – presents a series of chapters advocating
for the growing use of visual and sensory approaches to the study of crimes, harms,
and justice. Deeply rooted in theoretical and empirical analysis of the social world,
particularly of social interaction, meaning making and co-construction of symbols,
and sharing of individualities, the chapters of Part III show new venues for criminol-
ogy in meaningfully approaching social realities, by combining structural and cul-
tural approaches with individual and subjective stories embedded in inequal
structures and power relations.
Part IV – The Connecting Power of Language – returns to one of the most press-
ing challenges in qualitative research (languages) by reenacting and reframing the
ways in which language is considered data but, also, how power frames languages.
In other words, the chapters question how the scientific power of criminology, and
its uses of concepts, theories, and methodological technicalities, may or may not
contribute to deepening social inequality, or stigmatization. Furthermore, they offer
insights on how to conduct critical criminology analysis with language as data, as
well as how to consider cultural sensitivities in respect for participants in crimino-
logical research.
The last part of the book – Praxis: Pondering and Publishing – lays bare what
previous chapters had somehow argued: that criminological research happens in
social and institutional contexts that, worldwide, influence the way research is con-
ducted. The COVID pandemics offered a real opportunity for criminologists (and
viii Introduction
other social scientists) to testify rapidly changing conditions in social control and
crime patterns, as well as in deeper social patterns for people and institution’s daily
practices. Volatility, precariousness, and radical and rapid changes need to be
addressed by science, particularly by criminology, while simultaneously those are
the same conditions that involucrate the scientific endeavor and affect those who
study crime, harm, and crime control. Researchers, despite changes, find themselves
responding to the scientific ethos of (co)creating knowledge and disseminating find-
ings, aiming at raising awareness of the public to specific social realities (e.g., drug
use, climate change, corruption). And to do so can, at times, seem harder for qualita-
tive criminologist than for researchers using quantitative, numerical approaches to
social phenomena. Part V, thus, provides practical insights on how to publish quali-
tative (criminological) research, if most top tier journals prioritize quantitative
rather than qualitative studies. Furthermore, it offers some reflections on needed
ethical considerations in the adaptation of qualitative methods (including online
methods, or sensory and visual methodologies) to this rapidly changing world argu-
ing that, despite everything else, the principle of not harming participants needs to
be relentlessly preserved.
As editors, our work was not only to try to showcase the most thought-provoking
reflections on the topic of the book but also to fulfill that purpose considering the
need to be sensitive to diversity. The chapters gathered in this book deal with a great
sort of criminological subjects, including drug use and trafficking; subcultures; cor-
ruption, fraud, and embezzlement; poaching and pollution; cybercrimes; prostitu-
tion; incarceration experiences and prison release; radicalization; and so on.
Simultaneously, studies and cases presented in the chapters were generated in dif-
ferent countries, from Canada to the United States, China, Italy, Germany, Spain, or
the United Kingdom. Finally, the authors have different affiliations and nationalities
(including Chile, Belgium, Portugal, and many others) with contributions from
young scholars and early career researchers, as well as from well-established senior
researchers and academics. Diversity and inclusion are, from our perspective, rele-
vant and, in this case, fundamental to bring to the forefront of debate a multitude of
perspectives, methodological suggestions, and ways of conducting critical analysis,
offering provocative essays not only on how to research in criminology but also,
more broadly, in what criminology is.
Finally, we express our gratitude to the contributors of the book, who so gra-
ciously shared their time, work, creativity, and insights into worlds that are for many
of us accessible only through scholarly work that transports the reader to an
unknown cultural narrative and encourages examination of ourselves and empirical
work in new ways. To all our esteemed authors, we say thank you. We also would
like to express our thanks to the Springer team including Cynthya Pushparaj, Anna
Goodlett, Lavanya Devgun, and Amelie von Zubusch. A special thank you to Judith
Newlin for her assistance and inspiration that moved a fledgling idea to a reality.
Our partners, family, and friends deserve credit for their patience, encouragement
(Bob), and cooking abilities (Pedro) while we invested our time and energy in pre-
paring a book that we hope adds considerably to the area of qualitative research in
criminology.
Contents
Part I Adapting to a New World

1 Photo-Based Research with Vulnerable Groups: Breaking
Frames for Researchers, Participants, and Audiences �� 3
Heith Copes and Alex Davis
2
Breaking the Shackles of Academic Capitalism: Academic Life,
Liberation and Ethnographic Innovation�� 19
Daniel Briggs
3
Mixed Methods: A Justification, Explication, and Example�� 37
Diana Sun and Michael L. Benson
Part II The Growing Relevance of the Online World

4 Smart Researching in Criminology: Virtual Ethnography
at the Edge�� 53
Cosimo Sidoti
5 Researching Political Corruption and White-Collar Crime
on the Internet�� 69
Henry N. Pontell and Adam K. Ghazi-Tehrani
6
Online Methods in Qualitative Criminology �� 85
Daniela Mardones-Bravo
Part III Methodological Innovations

7 Trigger Warnings, Feeling Rules and Other Lessons from the Inside:
The Emotional Labour of Qualitative Prison Research �� 107
Jennifer M. Kilty and Rachel Fayter
8 Sensory “Heteroglossia” and Social Control:
Sensory Methodology and Method�� 125
Kate Herrity, Bethany E. Schmidt, and Jason Warr
ix
x Contents
9 Towards Visual and Sensory Methodologies in

Green Cultural Criminology�� 141
Lorenzo Natali, Nigel South, Bill McClanahan, and Avi Brisman
Part IV The Connecting Power of Languages

10 How to Deal with “Doing Social Inequality” by
“Doing Criminological (Qualitative) Research” �� 165
Katharina Leimbach and Nicole Bögelein
11 Shooting Poachers on Site: Reflections on the Use
of Photography in Active Offender Research�� 181
Joanna F. Hill and Gary R. Potter
12 Language Matters: Doing Systematic (Critical)
Discourse Analysis�� 199
Olga Petintseva
Part V Praxis: Pondering and Publishing

13
The Future Is Already Here: Covid-19, Criminology, and Crime�� 213
Daniel Briggs
14
“Being” Ethical in Research�� 229
Rita Faria
15
What Now and How? Publishing the Qualitative Journal Article�� 241
Mary Dodge and Megan Jean Parker
Index�� 255
About the Editors
Rita Faria is Assistant Professor of Criminology in the School of Criminology,

Faculty of Law, University of Porto (Portugal), and director of the Interdisciplinary
Research Center on Crime, Justice and Security – CJS. She holds a PhD in
Criminology, a Master of Sociology, and a Bachelor of Law. Her research interests
include white-collar crime, and financial, corporate, and environmental crime. She
also has been researching and writing about research misconduct and research eth-
ics, as well as the history and epistemology of criminology, particularly in Portugal.
She has co-authored papers on the use of qualitative research in criminology, draw-
ing attention to the fields’ methodological and ethical specificities. She is president
of the European Society of Criminology’s European Working Group on
Organizational Crime (EUROC) and co-chair of the Working-Group on Qualitative
Research Methodologies and Epistemologies (WG-QRME). Currently, she is also
on the editorial board of Crime, Law & Social Change.
Mary Dodge is Professor in Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of

Colorado Denver. She earned her PhD in 1997 in criminology, law, and society from
the School of Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine. Her research
articles, which employ primarily qualitative methodology, on white-collar crime,
policing, victimization, and gender equity/inclusion have appeared in the American
Journal of Criminal Justice, Women & Criminal Justice, International Journal of
the Sociology of Law, Police Quarterly, and the Journal of White-Collar and
Corporate Crime. She is the editor of Crime, Law & Social Change. She and Gilbert
Geis co-edited the books Lessons of Criminology and Stealing Dreams: A Fertility
Clinic Scandal. She also is the author of Women and White-Collar Crime. She
shares authorship on the book Introduction to Criminal Justice: Systems, Diversity,
and Change.
xi
Part I
Adapting to a New World
Overview
The sense of rapidness and unrest is not new in social analysis, including in crimi-
nology and criminological reflections and studies on a diversity of topics, including
the works of U. Beck (1996) and the notion of “risk society,” of Giddens (1999).
Aas (2012) describes how globalization currently exacerbates neoliberalism poli-
cies, insecurities, and demands for securitization. Young (2007) depicts the “ver-
tigo” felt in late modernity, and Bauman (2000) offers the concept of “liquid
modernity” to portray societies where volatility thrives. Likewise, Walklate and
Jacobsen (2017) introduce the concept of “liquid criminology,” claiming for creative
and critical ways of doing criminology.
Qualitative methods in criminology may be specially prepared to innovate to
study old things anew and to produce reliable knowledge on new phenomena. The
changing nature of social worlds and, consequently, of qualitative research
encompasses a multitude of areas, including cultural sensitivity, political unrest,
social movements, and global pandemics. Work in this field also addresses the
Anglo-Saxon monopoly on qualitative research (i.e., the Global North versus the
Global South). Several contemporary authors have described the particularities of
the twenty-first century and how these situations interfere with crime trends and
social control mechanisms.
Part of this book offers new insights into some of the most traditional queries in
qualitative criminology, particularly in criminology. Those queries include
reflections adapted to the twenty-first century on how to protect and avoid harm
when researching with vulnerable individuals and groups; how to conduct in-depth
ethnography on criminal activities, in the underworlds of drug use or prostitution, in
academic environments growingly attuned to liberalism and dependent on funding;
or on how and why to promote bridging gaps between qualitative and quantitative
methods, designing mixed-method approaches in criminology.
Qualitative methods are especially well suited to portray subjectivities and
personal experiences of unrest from specific social groups and in such contexts of
western societies in late modernity. Consider the BLM, #metoo, migrant flows,
2 I Adapting to a New World
polarization of political discourse, the surge of the alt-right, pandemics, fake news,
or the relevance of social media in shaping perspectives. Qualitative work offers
deeper insight and explanation of the rapid cultural shifts that often are underground
or ignored. Likewise, the following articles question if and how qualitative methods
should adapt to volatility, rapid flows (e.g., of people, of news, of politics),
globalization and its darker side, as well as other phenomena. Breaking frames
(Copes & Davis), breaking shackles (Briggs), and breaking methodological divides
(Sun & Benson) are the kinds of actions that the chapters in Part 1 suggest.
Cognizant of the harsh working conditions in universities worldwide, which tend
to become harder as new economic and financial crises, born from COVID and the
war in Ukraine, exert more pressure on academics and departments, the chapters
presented here show how, ultimately, curiosity-driven research is needed and should
be fostered. Simultaneously, the papers offer accounts of methodologically rigorous
and reflexive approaches to sensitive topics and populations, such as drug users,
immigrants, or former detainees. The papers share the need to carefully approach
research with respect for participants and for ethics and to look for innovative ways
to convey results and thinking about the world, adding detail and nuance to the field
of criminology. The chapters in this section are also relevant in offering reflections
on how research results may be expected to impact audiences, policy makers, and
relevant stakeholders.
The advantages of mixed-method approaches are becoming more relevant, as
they demonstrate the power of amalgamation and work outside “traditional”
frameworks. The co-participation and co-creation of knowledge are to be
increasingly recognized as valuable and reliable in the production of knowledge,
while simultaneously, epistemological reflections on the value of co-produced
knowledge in respect of the most vulnerable elements of communities and societies
are also expected to continue. Finally, acknowledging the current trend (at least in
the Global North) for academic capitalism allows future researchers to develop,
choose from, and use tools and techniques to change the status quo and demand that
knowledge production (and not efficiency or value-for-money) be at the center-
stage of academic production.
References
Aas, K. F. (2012). ‘The Earth is one but the world is not’: Criminological theory and its geopoliti-
cal divisions. Theoretical Criminology, 16(1), 5–20.
Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Beck, U. (1996). Risk Society: towards a new modernity. Sage Publications.
Giddens, A. (1999). Risk and responsibility. The Modern Law Review, 62(1), 1–10.
Walklate, S. & Jacobsend, M. H. (2017). Introducing ‘liquid criminology’. In M. H. Jaconsend, &
S. Walklate (Eds.) Liquid Criminology: Doing imaginative criminological research (pp. 1–13).
Routledge.
Young, J. (2007). The vertigo of lLate modernity. Sage Publications.
Chapter 1
Photo-Based Research with Vulnerable
Groups: Breaking Frames for Researchers,
Participants, and Audiences
Heith Copes and Alex Davis
hoto-Based Research with Vulnerable Groups: Breaking

P
Frames for Researchers, Participants, and Audiences
Ethnographic research that centers on the lives of marginalized people can take an
emotional toll on those being studied and on the ethnographers. Most who have
engaged in this type of research can point to times in the field that were emotionally
difficult (Worley et al., 2016). Reliving past trauma during interviews can be hard
for people. Although talking about the past can be therapeutic, it can still be hard in
the moment (Campbell et al., 2010; Griffin et al., 2003; Johnson & Benight, 2003).
When confronted with an outpouring of emotions from participants, it is not uncom-
mon for researchers to question whether they should continue the work or to con-
sider how their presence may negatively impact those being studied.
These concerns are compounded when incorporating photography into the
research. One reason is that photographs evoke emotions. Thus, the interviews can
become even more emotional when photographs representing people’s lives and
losses are introduced than traditional interviews. For example, Copes and Ragland
were conducting a photo-driven interview with a young mother, Alice, who had lost
custody of her daughter for their project on people who use methamphetamine. The
photographs brought out intense emotions in her, which resulted in her crying
uncontrollably. She said that the images led her to reflect on what she had lost and
how her current path would lead to more loss.
H. Copes (*)
Department of Criminal Justice, University of Alabama at Birmingham,
Birmingham, AL, USA
e-mail: jhcopes@uab.edu
A. Davis
Department of Sociology and Justice Studies, Eastern Washington University,
Cheney, WA, USA
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 3

R. Faria, M. Dodge (eds.), Qualitative Research in Criminology,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18401-7_1
4 H. Copes and A. Davis
In addition, the introduction of photographs in the final products of research

makes the emotions of those being studied visible to the public. By making the
pains and struggles of participants visible, the research can cause them personal
harm and contribute to stigma for the broader group. These two potential harms
from photo-driven research make it important to reflect on what the research offers
participants and our larger understanding of the issues being studied. During our
own research, we questioned whether we should continue with our photographic
work for fear of causing more harm than good. We asked ourselves, were our pho-
tographs and interviews causing undue pain for our participants? Could our photo-
graphs be used to further stigmatize those who volunteered to help us? Although we
hoped to minimize the stigma by showing the complexity, humanity, and suffering
of people, we had to question whether this was possible at all and whether the use
of photographs helped or hindered our broader aims (Copes et al., 2019).
We believe self-reflections such as these are important for those who wish to do
visual research with vulnerable or marginalized groups. The history of exploitation
and producing “poverty porn” through photographs of poverty or “needle porn”
through photographs of drug use necessitate that we be aware of the harm that can
come from using photographs when engaging in social science research (Becker,
2007). It is easy to conclude that photo-based research should not be carried out to
minimize potential harm. However, we think there is great value in photo-based
research. Indeed, photo-based research has the potential to improve lives by showing
the struggles of people and exposing the structures that contribute to this suffering.
Visual research on marginalized groups should not be avoided, even if it makes
readers uncomfortable. If conducted thoughtfully and empathetically, this type of
research can shape people’s perceptions of often stigmatized groups in positive
ways. That said, we also recognize the importance of being sensitive when making
photographs to not perpetuate stereotypes and suffering. In discussing photo-
documentaries, Sentilles (2017) argues that not doing this type of research is akin to
ignoring the harm people experience. There is an implicit assumption that arises
from the use of photographic research that all involved (researchers, participants,
and audiences) acknowledge harm and take responsibility to act accordingly.
According to Sentilles (2017, para. 4):
Photographers and people who have let themselves be photographed assume that someday
people will see their images and do something in response to what they see. … They imag-
ined you, their future viewers, hovering above them at the moment the picture was taken,
and we must live up to their expectations.
We are certain this sentiment is why many of those we photographed or who pro-
vided photographs welcomed us and told us their stories. This expected action is
why we include photographs in our research products. It is our hope that the photo-
graphs and the accompanying stories can enact change, even if only at an individ-
ual level.
Our aim here is to show how, with thoughtful care, the inclusion of photographs
in research about crime and justice can provide insights into how culture, structure,
and agency converge to contribute to participation in crime or experiences with
victimization. Specifically, we highlight the importance of seeing the experiences of
1 Photo-Based Research with Vulnerable Groups: Breaking Frames for Researchers… 5
others in new lights (i.e., breaking frames) using photo-based research. The break-
ing of frames not only improves the quality and depth of research but can impact the
lives of those being studied and the audiences who view it. Although there is still a
possibility of harm, the benefits of photo-based work make it worth pursuing this
method. We rely on our previous projects that incorporated photography to illustrate
these ideas.
Using Photography in Research
Incorporating photographs into research about crime, victimization, and justice can
be a powerful tool for collecting data and presenting findings. Indeed, photographs
have numerous benefits for interviewing—researchers can use them as prompts to
ask questions, they can be used to provide structure to interviews, and they can be
used to recall previous events and the emotions attached to them (Clark-Ibáñez,
2004; Copes et al., 2018a, b). In addition, photographs provided or created by par-
ticipants offer them opportunities to better communicate new dimensions of their
experiences and introduce novel ideas into the research (Barthes, 1978). By offering
photographs, participants are empowered to have a say in the direction of the
research and to dictate how they wish to be portrayed.
Researchers have many options into how they introduce photographs into
research. Some use photo-documentary, whereby the researchers take photographs
of people in natural settings (e.g., Bourgois & Schonberg, 2009; Copes et al., 2022).
This style has similarities to photojournalism and documentary photography.
Typically, the photographs are used to represent people and their lives rather than as
forms of data or tools for data collection. Bourgois and Schonberg’s (2009) photo-
ethnography of heroin use provides an excellent example of this type of photo-
graphic research. The strength of photo-documentary is that the photographs provide
an intimate look into the lives of participants, which can aid in minimizing the dis-
connect between those we study and the readers, especially policymakers.
There are of course downsides to this type of photographic research. One practi-
cal issue is that it requires a skilled photographer as the technical quality of the
photographs are vital to the success of the project. Another downside is that the
representation of participants is only through the eyes of the researchers. Decisions
made by photographers, including what to photograph, the focal length of the pho-
tographs, and the use of black and white, are all decisions that shape how partici-
pants are portrayed. As such, this type of photographic research runs the risk of
further othering those we study if not done with care.
Although there is great value in incorporating documentary photography in
research, we believe it is also important to incorporate the perspective of the partici-
pants when using photographs. When participants provide photographs as part of
the research (i.e., participatory photography), they are given greater agency and
autonomy in the research—they have opportunities to represent their experiences of
the phenomenon being studied in a visual manner (Lemelin et al., 2013). Participatory
photography energizes marginalized groups to depict their experiences and provide

a platform for their voice through images (Castleden et al., 2008). Participatory
photography is “an intentional, reflective, active human process” (Bach, 2012,
p. 282) in which both researchers and participants explore and make meaning of
experience in both visual and narrative ways. Visual narrative inquiry allows for
layered meanings to narratives; the active process of photographing and narrating
this experience enables participants to assign importance to aspects of their indi-
vidual experiences (Bach, 2012). When participants provide photographs, they can
represent themselves in ways that researchers are unable.
It is common for participatory photography to incorporate photo-elicitation
interviews. Photo-elicitation interviewing (PEI) is a qualitative interview technique
where researchers solicit responses, reactions, and insights from participants by
using photographs or other images as stimuli (Collier & Collier, 1986). Photo-
elicitation relies on selecting images that garner reactions, emotional responses, and
meanings that may not have been accessible using verbal methods alone. This is
because images have the power to bring forth memories, emotions, and reactions
that words alone cannot. Whether the images are provided by the researchers or the
participants, photographs can connect concepts in ways that verbal communication
cannot because images can “mine deeper shafts into a different part of human con-
sciousness than do words-alone interviews” (Harper, 2002, p. 23). By asking par-
ticipants to provide and comment on photographs, historical power dynamics
between researcher and participants are altered because the participants can define
what is important, which helps to minimize researcher biases. When participants
engage in the generation of data (reflecting on photographs or taking photographs),
it can empower them to “direct our gaze” towards theoretical concepts that are
meaningful to participants (Frohmann, 2005).
ontextualizing Breaking Frames Through

C
Photo-Based Research
Before defining and discussing the value of breaking frames when conducting
photo-based research, we think it important to contextualize our experiences using
this method. Here, we each discuss the projects and frame breaks (both ours and the
participants’) that shaped our experiences and those of our participants.
In the summer of 2015, criminologist Heith Copes and photographer Jared
Ragland began a photo-ethnography to understand the world of people who use
methamphetamine in rural, north Alabama.1 The project was designed to tell the
complex stories of people who use meth. The photo-ethnography began in the sum-
mer of 2015 and lasted for approximately 18 months. Data collection consisted of
1
Those interested in more about the methods of the project and the substantive findings of it can
find this in Copes & Ragland (2016), Copes et al. (2018a, b, 2019, 2021).
formal interviews (with 52 participants), informal observations, and photography

(of 29 participants). All participants were actively using meth and were living in
rural, north Alabama at the time of the interviews; however, some did stop using
over the course of the project.
When Copes and Ragland started, it was their hope that the images and stories
would present intimate, implicit narratives of those who live in rural poverty and
who struggle to gain a sense of agency amidst drug use and diminished social status.
They hoped that doing so would act as a counter-visual to help minimize the stigma
of rural drug use by humanizing participants (Brown, 2014; Copes & Lunsford,
2018). They soon found that those goals were not so easy to accomplish, as the
stories and photographs in many ways reaffirmed the very stereotypes they hoped to
counter. Accordingly, they adjusted the project to facilitate participants’ agency.
Midway through the project they began asking participants to provide photographs
or other images that represented important moments and aspects of their lives.
These photographs became a key part of the project and helped shape the experi-
ences of all involved.
Alex Davis (along with Lisa Frohmann and Cynthia Soto) carried out a photo-
narrative project within the Chicago Indigenous community in the summer and fall
of 2019. Their goal was to explore the experiences of both violence and resilience
of urban Indigenous women, whose narratives are underrepresented in studies of
gender-based violence; by focusing on both concepts of violence and those of resil-
ience, they hoped to present narratives that complicated the oversimplified and
harmful perspectives that currently surround Indigenous peoples—particularly
women—in the United States and beyond.
Their data collection consisted of eight photo-based “hybrid circles” (term given
by participants to reflect the merging of research and more traditional Indigenous
talking circles) with six participants and individual photo-narrative interviews with
five of those six participants. Circles took place between July and September of
2019; interviews followed, taking place between September and November of that
same year. All six participants self-identified as adult Indigenous women, who had
experiences with violence, living in the Chicago metropolitan area. Rather than tak-
ing photos, Davis asked participants to provide their own images throughout the
entirety of the project—each circle focused around a “theme,” chosen each week by
participants with minimal input from Davis. Doing so put the power of narrative-
shaping squarely in the hands of the women who took the photographs and encour-
aged them to take ownership of how they were portrayed.
Breaking Frames and Shaping Narratives
Introducing photographs into research has many benefits for data collection and for
empowering participants. One of the most powerful benefits of using photographs is
that it can lead to people seeing their lives and experiences in new ways (Harper,
2002). This seeing in new ways is known as “breaking frames” (Harper, 2002;
Samuels, 2004). When people see parts of their lives and environments (or that of
others) from different perspectives, it can lead them to new insights or interpreta-
tions of their lives and experiences. The insights brought on by breaking frames is
important for researchers, participants, and audiences alike (Samuels, 2004). Each
of these groups can gain important insights from seeing the concerns and lives of
others with a new lens.
Researcher Frame Breaks
Many scholars who use visual methods to study marginalized groups start out with
a broad goal of providing a complex, empathetic portrayal of the participants in the
research. This was certainly the case for our projects. However, these aims are not
always easy to realize. Once photographs are released to the public, researchers can
lose control over how people view the images. This concern arose with Copes and
Ragland’s study, who approached the project with a clear intent—to offer empa-
thetic, yet not romanticized depictions of those who use methamphetamine.
However, after a few months doing fieldwork and taking photographs, they realized
that many of the photographs did not break stereotypes of the rural meth user.
Instead, the decontextualized images could be seen as furthering stigma. By show-
ing participants and other academics the photographs and talking about them, Copes
and Ragland became aware that they needed to change their approach. Looking at
the images in a detached way showed how they were not depicting participants as
they had initially hoped. These insights led to a change in the way they collected
data, interpreted data, and presented photographs in their final products. The frame
breaks led them to better contextualize the photographs with the stories of partici-
pants and their own experiences. The frame breaks also led them to incorporate
participants into the photo-making process.
In addition to changing their approach to the research, the photographs also led
to new insights into the lives and experiences of their participants. For example, one
of their participants, Alice, provided them with numerous photographs. She sent
images of triggers, self-portraits, and various seemingly mundane items. The photo-
graphs of triggers were not the types of situations or events most would assume.
Alice indicated that triggers for her were not major life events. Instead, they were
seemingly simple events. Seeing her veins, hearing a song that reminded her of a
using experience, or finding seemingly unrelated items with references to needles
were triggers for her. For example, when asked to send a photograph representing a
trigger, she sent a photograph of a Pokémon card with an attack called “knockout
needle.” On another occasion she sent a photograph of her arms with a large vein
showing (see Fig. 1.1). Even after being free from meth for over a year, she said that
seeing her veins would often trigger the desire to use. As she said, “I saw my veins
and that brought curiosity as if I could still do it. I’m definitely not going to try and
see, I just wanted to share the scary thought.” Seeing images reflecting these triggers
led to a frame break for us and helped us to better understand participants’ drug use.
Fig. 1.1 Alice (21) sent a

photograph of her veins in
response to a question
about triggers for meth use
Perhaps the biggest frame break for Copes and Ragland came from a series of
photographs that Alice sent of seemingly mundane items. These photographs
included homemade pancakes, a set dinner table, and newly purchased Tupperware.
Initially they questioned why she would send these photographs. Reflecting on this
led them to develop ideas about the desire to return to a normal life that is common
among many who use drugs chronically, what they called the “normality quest.”
Alice’s life, like many who use meth, became increasingly disrupted due to her drug
use. Her life became unstable and filled with chaos and instability. This instability
fueled drug use for her. At times Alice spoke about how she might as well continue
using because things were already so bad. However, the desire to regain a sense of
control and stability can facilitate desistance. Many who use meth do not give up the
idea of having a normal life and embark on a normality quest. Alice actively engaged
in such a quest. Ultimately, with each new step towards stability, she began to
abstain. After securing a safe place to live, getting a stable job, and reconnecting
with family, her drug use stopped. Her showing us images of mundane events and
items was a way she showed her life was becoming “normal” as she slowly desisted
from using meth. Photographs of food cooked, a place to eat, and a means to store
it represented normality for her and were the impetus for our own frame break.
Participant Frame Breaks
Photo-elicitation research, when conducted with marginalized communities, can be

adapted to better suit the community using the method, which can then encourage
more “authentic” participation. For example, Bennett et al. (2019) “Indigenized”
the photovoice process with an Anishinaabe (also known as Ojibwe) community in
Northern Ontario, choosing to turn away from the “prescriptive, rigid, and investi-
gator–driven” (p. 3) standard method of collection—discussion—analysis and
towards a method that better suited the community’s cultural methodologies.
Bennett and colleagues coined the Gaataa’aabing (meaning “looking or searching
in a circular fashion”) method by one of the participants; this approach to PEI calls
for an increased focus on participant aspirations and definitions, community immer-
sion of academic partners, and a final session of reflection. By incorporating
thoughts from the communities, participants can express their own ideas and hear
those of the community. This approach can create an environment that is therapeutic
or life changing for participants. Creating images and photographs to express emo-
tions, for example, has been shown to be therapeutic for women who experience
sexual assault (Rolbiecki et al., 2016). Hearing the stories of others can lead to
frame breaks by seeing new perspectives or identifying commonalities.
Davis used a strength-focused community collaboration strategy to explore the
experiences of urban Indigenous women’s experiences of violence and of resilience
through photo-narrative storytelling. Their work departed from “original” photo-
elicitation methods (which were depicted as being too restrictive and oppressive) by
encouraging flexibility in what imagery was shared. They encouraged participants
to take new photos and to bring photos/artwork from before the start of the study.
The use of “hybrid circles” is an additional departure from “original” photo-
elicitation methodology or even “conventional” academic qualitative methods.
Bennett et al. (2019, p. 5) note that: “The Indigenous methodology of the learning
[aka hybrid] circle ‘is not easily understood from a Western research perspective. ...
It is not oriented to extracting data but rather to acts of sharing’” (Nabigon et al.,
1999). By choosing to present photos and stories in a circle rather than a focus
group, the women who participated in this study had ownership in the process as
well as in the data that was shared.
This sense of ownership allowed for the parallel construction of both shared and
individual spaces to feel, process, or listen. In the final circle, time was reserved for
reflection on the study to date. The women described the circles and sharing of pho-
tographs and stories as important for their personal growth. That is, frame breaks for
participants allowed them to relate to others and see commonalities among them,
which was therapeutic for some. As one participant, Cecelia, said:
It’s not necessarily about you sharing it, it’s about who’s hearing it. So sometimes I’ve been
in spaces where if somebody has shared it helps me feel better about what I’ve gone through.
It’s not always about the point of me, like, rehashing it or bringing it up. Sometimes it’s
about the receiver of it. I mean, you don’t, you never know one of the words you say or the
story you share how it will impact somebody else’s life.
Another participant, Nora, echoed this sentiment:

Even with the talking circles style, it’s not like anybody’s verbally responding to you but
you are like giving that for all of us to help carry for you at least for while we’re in that
space together. … Saying things, too, can be powerful because ... your mind might be racing
really fast where like you’re not even really capturing how you feel, but when you’re forced
to throw it up or slow it down enough for, in the hopes that someone will receive it in a
coherent or slightly coherent way. You’re also slowing it down for yourself to kind of reflect
on what it is you’re feeling.
Nora also shared a photo she had taken in her office, where she hung various phrases
of affirmation and support (see Fig. 1.2).
Davis’ participants highlighted how the circles reminded them of their intercon-
nectedness; although “we all have our own sort of individual … pathways” (Cecelia),
they were also connected through shared traumas and similar stories. Cecelia lik-
ened the process to a spiderweb; although the pieces of the web are all connected to
each other, there are any number of individual paths from one side to the other.
Fig. 1.2 Nora shared a

photograph of an art print
hanging in her office. The
print is of a purple circle
with white flowers
inscribed in a white square.
In the middle of the circle,
thin dark purple capital
letters say, “Support each
other”
Ultimately, the shared experiences of being in the circle provided a therapeutic

aspect to the work that many did not expect (i.e., a frame break).
Copes and Ragland also saw the therapeutic aspect of photo-based research from
participant frame breaks. Interviews with some participants were sometimes emo-
tional. At times participants appeared sad and guilt-ridden, even crying during them. At
other times they were excited and happy about their accomplishments (e.g., getting a
job, reconnecting with family). These emotions shaped how participants told their sto-
ries and their self-perceptions. After the project was completed, Alice told us that the
interviews, especially those with photographs, were therapeutic for her. She said that
part of the reason she desisted from using meth was because of the self-realizations she
experienced during interviews. She sent us a photograph representing her break from
using (see Fig. 1.3). She told a story of how she now believed that she was able to move
forward. She represented this with a self-portrait with her goals, including the state-
ment “something stable”—a phrase that harkens back to her normality quest.
Misty, a participant in Copes and Ragland’s project, also discussed a frame break
that occurred due to being a part of the research and how it helped her. In discussing
what made her eventually stop using meth, Misty told us:
I guess, really, doing all these interviews and you and Jared would show up and I would see
what it looked like. I would be like, “I’m so disgusted by this.” … After all these interviews
I’ve done with you and Jared and me taking you to Chico’s house and then interviewing all
these people and it’s like, “Do I live like that? Do I look like that?” You know? ‘Cause I’m
just like, it’s disgusting me.
Although reminiscing on trauma can be painful and difficult, narrating photographs

has been shown to enhance self-reflection and provide an additional outlet to express
fears and trauma (Frohmann, 2005). Oftentimes, in the pursuit of protection, we
shield the vulnerable from telling their own stories thus leaving their voices largely
Fig. 1.3 After participating in the photo project, Alice (21) said she began taking active steps to
have a “normal life.” She sent a self-portrait with her goals
absent in research (Clark & Walker, 2011). This reifies the false idea that survivors
of trauma are powerless victims, instead of seizing the opportunity to use feminist-
informed research methodologies to empower participants and highlight their voices
(Burgess-Proctor, 2015; Wahab, 2003). We believe that using photographs to elicit
dialogue enhances participants’ abilities to reflect on and share their personal narra-
tives, leading to the potential for frame breaks and positive personal change (Birch
& Miller, 2000; Frohmann, 2005).
Audience Frame Breaks
As stated earlier, the introduction of photographs into research can potentially con-
tribute to additional stigma or harm surrounding marginalized groups if photographs
are not adequately contextualized (Becker, 2007). We believe this is particularly
true in criminological research, as the “meaning of both crime and crime control
now resides, not solely in the essential – and essentially false – factuality of crime
rates or arrest records, but also in the contested processes of symbolic display, cul-
tural interpretation, and representational negotiation” (Hayward & Presdee, 2010, p.
i). The spectacle of crime and victimization is ever apparent in present-day soci-
ety—one only has to click a few buttons or links to find endless YouTube videos,
television shows, movies, mug shots, or surveillance videos, meant to shape our
understandings of “criminals,” “victims,” and “justice.”
These understandings impact how we view the subject of such media, and photo-
graphs are no exception. Jones and Wardle (2010, p. 54) note, “Whereas processing
text requires time and dedicated mental consideration, a visual, or collection of visu-
als can be read instantaneously, allowing the viewer to draw immediate conclusions.
However, these conclusions, though seemingly logical in construction, can often be
entirely false.” Photographs used in the criminal justice system, whether used for
surveillance or for evidence, encourage conclusions regarding “criminals” and “vic-
tims” that may be false. The popular Faces of Meth campaign illustrates the power
of images in shaping public perceptions of those who use meth (Linnemann & Wall,
2013). The use of photographs in research, while having the potential to introduce
or further stigma, may also have the potential to offer alternative ways of thinking
about the photographs’ subjects or creators, which could alleviate some stigma
(especially that surrounding marginalized groups). Davis’ project sought to do so by
encouraging participants to take photographs related to violence and related to resil-
ience, recognizing that “the capture of images … is a political act” (Moore & Singh,
2018, p. 118). They purposefully asked about the experiences of Indigenous women
living in an urban area, as a majority of the research—and imagery—on Indigenous
peoples focuses on “damage-centered” (Tuck, 2009) narratives of reservation life.
One participant, Diana, described her ability to live in a space containing both
manmade and natural characteristics (thus contradicting the stereotype of Indigenous
people as solely reservation—or rural—dwelling) with a photo she took of the
Chicago skyline (see Fig. 1.4):
Fig. 1.4 An eastward view of the Chicago skyline at night, taken by Diana. The full moon is
clearly visible in the upper right side of the photo, and the skyline is small, indicating Diana is
some distance away from downtown
And so the one thing that we’ve been talking about a lot is that we live in this urban area, in
this big city. And, then just to have our own cultural identity in this type of space. Um, most
of the time it’s invisible. And, so, I like the skyline, I admire it. Um, but you know, I also
like nature and I love mountains and brown earth. So, I took the picture because I just kind
of used it as a narrative: city Indian, trying to be Native in an urban area.
Diana’s acknowledgement of her cultural identity as “invisible” in the city is repre-

sentative of the “invisibility” of Indigenous people as a whole. By “trying to be
Native in an urban area,” Diana, like the other participants, resisted against that
invisibility—and against foregone conclusions about Indigenous women—simply
by existing as she was. Such insights help foster frame breaks in outsiders, which
can lead to better understandings of Indigenous people.
The photographs made by Ragland often included the daily lives of the partici-
pants. These images included them in their homes, preparing food, watching televi-
sion, and using methamphetamine. The photographs provided an intimate look into
the lives of those who use meth. Such images certainly can lead to further stigma
and can easily be interpreted as voyeuristic. However, the photographs coupled with
the stories of participants and the theoretical insights from the researchers can offer
more. In describing Ragland’s photographs for the project, Wilkins (2017, p. 26)
highlighted the “foreign domestic” effect of the work. According to Wilkins, the
photographs and stories offered:
viewers opportunities for identification, empathizing, and increased understanding. … The
individuals pictured and the interior settings they inhabit are at once immediately recogniz-
able and completely strange. Like the “photographic commentary” of the Victorian Age, the
ephemera of everyday life, notions of family, and mundane domestic practices such as eat-
ing, sleeping, and watching television provide a point of contact and connection between
viewers and the people portrayed in Ragland’s work.
Fig. 1.5 Misty (32) takes her “nerve pills” as she prepares to find a new place to live after fighting
with her sister. The cross-stitching behind her says, “Sisters are for caring and sharing.” Photo by
Jared Ragland
In one photograph by Ragland, Misty stands in a doorway taking prescription drugs,

what she called her “nerve pills” (see Fig. 1.5). In the background we see the décor
common among those in the rural South. A cross-stitched image declaring “Sisters
are for caring and sharing” stands out. The image shows a woman who is struggling
with anxiety and who is about to confront the reality of losing her place to stay after
a fight with her sister. Although we may not have these particular struggles, viewers
can relate to the broader anxieties of uncertainty in their lives. As such, the photo-
graphs aid in cultivating viewers’ “empathy, critical analytical skills, and cultural
awareness—aptitudes advantageous for students and the general public alike”
(Wilkins, 2017, p. 27). Wilkins’ words highlight the potential frame breaks viewers
can experience when they see and interact with photographs and imagine similari-
ties between themselves and those in the photographs.
Conclusion
Whether criminologists are interested in studying those who offend, who are vic-
timized, or who enforce legal statutes, the use of photographs in data collection and
presentation offers a powerful addition to the more standard data collection and
presentation techniques most often adopted in criminology. In terms of data collec-
tion, the use of photographs enhances the retrieval of memories, helps participants
to demarcate change over time (in self-identity, lifestyle, or personal circumstances),
and allows for the more active participation of the researched in the research process
(Clark-Ibáñez, 2004). In terms of data presentation, photographs help bring to life
for the reader-viewer, the multilayered experiential reality of participants’ lives—in
both narrative and visual form. With proper contextualization, photographs can
make what once seemed foreign seem relatable. Indeed, the benefits of visual meth-
ods in the study of crime and justice are many (Copes et al., 2018a, b). Here we
focused on one primary benefit—breaking frames.
The introduction of photographs at different stages of the research process aids
in promoting new insights or breaking of frames. For researchers, photographs,
especially those offered by participants, can help them to “see new and different
patterns” that emerge from the data (Samuels, 2004, p. 1547). This data is important
for ethnographers as it is sometimes difficult to break from preconceived notions
about those being studied. For participants, photographs, especially those made by
researchers, can help them see unexplored or ignored parts of their lives. It is some-
times difficult seeing the harm we are experiencing or causing. Photographs can aid
in this process. For viewers, photographs can help humanize the people under study
by showing shared experiences. It is easy to rely on stereotypes when thinking about
those who engage in and/or are victims of crime and deviance. Using statistics and
abstract data makes it easy to ignore the complexity and pain in people’s lives, even
among those who cause harm. Photographs make it harder to ignore the complexity
in people’s lives. We see them and their surroundings. We can empathize and con-
nect with them.
We believe that the use of photographs in our research has allowed us to better
understand the lives and experiences of those we studied. Perhaps more importantly,
we think the introduction of the photographs provided a therapeutic component to
the research and helped viewers empathize with participants. That said, we recog-
nize the potential harm introducing photographs in public work can cause. Indeed,
decontextualized photographs can reinforce negative cultural stereotypes (Becker,
2007). When people are presented photographs without context, they bring their
own narratives and assumptions into interpreting them. Despite this potential, we
believe that visual research can help all involved see the people and problems under
study in new ways, which can prompt social action.
References
Bach, H. (2012). Composing a visual narrative inquiry. In D. J. Clandinin (Ed.), Handbook of nar-
rative inquiry: Mapping a methodology (pp. 280–307). SAGE Publications.
Barthes, R. (1978). Image-music-text. Hill & Wang.
Becker, H. (2007). Telling about society. University of Chicago Press.
Bennett, B., Maar, M., Moeke-Pickering, T., Trudeau-Peltier, D., & Trudeau, S. (2019). The
Gaataa’aabing visual research method: A culturally safe Anishinaabek transformation of pho-
tovoice. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 18, 1–12.
Birch, M., & Miller, T. (2000). Inviting intimacy: The interview as therapeutic opportunity.
International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 3(3), 189–202.
Bourgois, P., & Schonberg, J. (2009). Righteous Dopefiend. University of California Press.
Brown, M. (2014). Visual criminology and carceral studies: Counter-images in the carceral age.
Theoretical Criminology, 18(2), 176–197.
Burgess-Proctor, A. (2015). Methodological and ethical issues in feminist research with abused
women: Reflections on participants’ vulnerability and empowerment. Women's Studies
International Forum, 48, 124–134.
Campbell, R., Adams, A. E., Wasco, S. M., Ahrens, C. E., & Sefl, T. (2010). What has it been like
for you to talk with me today?: The impact of participating in interview research on rape survi-
vors. Violence against women, 16(1), 60–83.
Castleden, H., Garvin, T., & Huu-ay-aht First Nation. (2008). Modifying photovoice for community-
based participatory Indigenous research. Social Science & Medicine, 66(6), 1393–1405.
Clark, J. J., & Walker, R. (2011). Research ethics in victimization studies: Widening the lens.
Violence Against Women, 17(12), 1489–1508.
Clark-Ibáñez, M. (2004). Framing the social world with photo-elicitation interviews. American
Behavioral Scientist, 47, 1507–1527.
Collier, J., & Collier, M. (1986). Visual anthropology: Photography as a research method.
UNM Press.
Copes, H., & Lunsford, D. (2018). Shadow people: A counter visual of those who use metham-
phetamine. Deviant Behavior, 6, 694–701.
Copes, H., & Ragland, J. (2016). Considering the implicit meanings in photographs in narrative
criminology. Crime Media Culture, 12, 271.
Copes, H., Tchoula, W., Brookman, F., & Ragland, J. (2018a). Photo-elicitation interviews with
vulnerable populations: Practical and ethical considerations. Deviant Behavior, 9, 475–494.
Copes, H., Tchoula, W., Kim, J., & Ragland, J. (2018b). Symbolic perceptions of methamphet-
amine: Differentiating between ice and shake. International Journal of Drug Policy, 51, 87–94.
Copes, H., Tchoula, W., & Ragland, J. (2019). Ethically representing drug use: Photographs and
ethnographic research with people who use methamphetamine. Journal of Qualitative Criminal
Justice and Criminology, 8(1), 21–36.
Copes, H., Ragland, J., & Forrester, A. (2021). Caught in between: A video essay of masculine
identity and meth use in the rural south. Journal of Qualitative Criminology and Criminal
Justice, 10(1) https://www.qualitativecriminology.com/pub/v10i1p1/release/1
Copes, H., Brookman, F., Ragland, J., & Beaton, B. (2022). Sex, drugs, and coercive control:
Gendered narratives of methamphetamine use, relationships, and violence. Criminology, 60(1),
187–218.
Frohmann, L. (2005). The framing safety project: Photographs and narratives by battered women.
Violence Against Women, 11(11), 1396–1419.
Griffin, M. G., Resick, P. A., Waldrop, A. E., & Mechanic, M. B. (2003). Participation in trauma
research: Is there evidence of harm? Journal of Traumatic Stress, 16, 221–227.
Harper, D. (2002). Talking about pictures: A case for photo elicitation. Visual Studies, 17(1), 13–26.
Hayward, K., & Presdee, T. L. M. (Eds.). (2010). Framing crime: Cultural criminology and the
image. Taylor & Francis Group.
Johnson, L. E., & Benight, C. C. (2003). Effects of trauma‐focused research on recent domes-
tic violence survivors. Journal of Traumatic Stress: Official Publication of The International
Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, 16(6), 567–571.
Jones, P. J., & Wardle, C. (2010). Hindley’s ghost: The visual construction of Maxine Carr. In
K. Hayward & T. L. M. Presdee (Eds.), Framing crime: Cultural criminology and the image
(pp. 53–68). Taylor & Francis Group.
Lemelin, R. H., Wiersma, E. C., Trapper, L., Kapashesit, R., Beaulieu, M. S., & Dowsley,
M. (2013). A dialogue and reflection on photohistory: Engaging indigenous communities in
research through visual analysis. Action Research, 11(1), 92–107.
Linnemann, T., & Wall, T. (2013). ‘This is your face on meth’: The punitive spectacle of ‘white
trash’ in the rural war on drugs. Theoretical Criminology, 17(3), 315–334.
Moore, D., & Singh, R. (2018). Seeing crime, feeling crime: Visual evidence, emotions, and the
prosecution of domestic violence. Theoretical Criminology, 22(1), 116–132.
Nabigon, H., Hagey, R., Webster, S., & MacKay, R. (1999). The learning circle as a research
method: The trickster and windigo in research.
Rolbiecki, A., Anderson, K., Teti, M., & Albright, D. L. (2016). Waiting for the cold to end: Using
photovoice as a narrative intervention for survivors of sexual assault. Traumatology, 22(4), 1–7.
Samuels, J. (2004). Breaking the ethnographer’s frames: Reflections on the use of photo elicita-
tion in understanding Sri Lankan monastic culture. American Behavioral Scientist, 47(12),
1528–1550.
Sentilles, S. (2017). How we should respond to photographs of suffering. August 3, 2017. The
New Yorker.
Tuck, E. (2009). Suspending damage: A letter to communities. Harvard Educational Review,
79(3), 409–428.
Wahab, S. (2003). Creating knowledge collaboratively with female sex workers: Insights from a
qualitative, feminist, and participatory study. Qualitative Inquiry, 9(4), 625–642.
Wilkins, C. (2017). Foreign domestic: Identification and differentiation as pedagogical strategy in
Good Bad People. Focal Plane, 1(1), 22–27.
Worley, R. M., Worley, V. B., & Wood, B. A. (2016). ‘There were ethical dilemmas all day long!’:
Harrowing tales of ethnographic researchers in criminology and criminal justice. Criminal
Justice Studies, 29(4), 289–308.
Heith Copes is a professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Alabama at
Birmingham. His primary interest is in understanding how narratives aid in identity construction
and behaviors among people who engage in crime and drug use.
Alex Davis (they/she) is a Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Justice Studies at Eastern
Washington University. Their research interests are in understanding the unique experiences of
gender-based violence in American Indian/Alaska Native communities. Their teaching focuses on
the incorporation of critical, intersectional understandings of crime and justice into the university
classroom.
Chapter 2
Breaking the Shackles of Academic
Capitalism: Academic Life, Liberation
and Ethnographic Innovation
Daniel Briggs
Gap in the Market
When I embarked on a PhD, I was sure that what I was to do would change the
structure of support for drug offenders. I was 25 years old at the time in 2004, and
prior to stumbling on the idea, I had managed to accumulate 4 years of experience
as a contract researcher, working on UK national, regional and local projects around
drug-using offenders. So, from 2001 to 2003, my life revolved around managing
research projects’ fieldwork, analysis and report writing and perpetual research pro-
posal submission: the latter was necessary to keep me in a job. I found out early on
during these studies, particularly those funded by the Home Office (HO) and the
Youth Justice Board (YJB), several things which disturbed me as a young man eager
to make life better for disadvantaged people using drugs and involved in crime. The
first was that when we were awarded some money to do a project, it was on the
premise that the data collection methods revolved around closed questions which
wouldn’t let the participant stray into why they were in that position or even detail
much more than how much crime they committed and the quantity of drugs they
consumed. The projects were supposed to be gathering knowledge to help reconfig-
ure existing support for these people, so they didn’t reoffend. Instead, it felt like a
tickbox exercise to just find out how ‘bad’ they really were.
Second, and because of the nature of the cold and abrupt questioning, we didn’t
develop any relationships with them because the information they shared seemed to
be reluctantly disclosed rather than openly volunteered. Essentially, I was going into
prisons and random lists of prisoners were generated for me. Those people were
summoned to a place where I interviewed them for about 20 min before they were
taken back to their cells. We were asking drug offenders, in hindsight, how much
D. Briggs (*)
Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y de la Comunicación, Universidad Europea, Madrid, Spain
e-mail: daniel.briggs@universidadeuropea.es

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18401-7_2
20 D. Briggs
crime they had done and how much they had spent on drugs when, for many, such
intense periods were just one continuous blur of scoring, smoking and hustling for
the next hit. When it came to the submission of reports, our funders had strong criti-
cisms. They edited out many failings about the current provision we wrote about
and seemed to give extra emphasis to the few cases which seemed to be successful –
even though in reality it was the reverse: that almost nothing was working for these
people. They went to prison, did a shitty programme about reoffending which did
nothing for them and were released back into the community and faced the same
uphill battles that had put them there in the first place: poverty; lack of housing; lack
of education, training and employment; lack of mental health support; and the ever-
present pressures around them to return to drug offending.
Essentially, we were asking the right people the wrong questions in the wrong
place. Even in the short space of a few years, I remember handing in final reports to
the HO and YJB only to see almost nothing change in the years that followed. I
remember then approaching my university ethics committee with an idea to ethno-
graphically study these drug offenders in their home environments: outside prison.
I wanted to understand the daily life experience of these people and the pressures
surrounding them which, for example, prevented them from seeking help or missing
social work or mental health support appointments. I wanted to know how they fell
into debt and collaborated to commit crime to score drugs as well as see for myself
the risks they took to do all this. At the time, such a study hadn’t been done.
However, my university ethics committee said such a study would not be possible
as it would violate many ethical codes around the potential covert roles I would have
to assume in some environments, such as crack houses, and that I would be exposed
to risk as well as witness the potential for violence and dangerous drug taking. I
approached another ethics committee in another institution and got a similar answer.
Shortly after, I left the university and took up work in a private drug and alcohol
company where, once again, I returned to working and managing HO and YJB proj-
ects. I was told by my boss at the time that the only way I could embark on such a
study was to get research funding. So over the summer of 2003, I worked up a pro-
posal to examine crack cocaine users – who at the time were considered to be the
most criminally active and most dangerous of the drug-offending group – and sent it
to a London borough council. The proposal was denied. Given that crack cocaine
had become embedded in every nook and cranny of London at the time (2000–2005),
I resubmitted it to another local government department in another borough. No
interest, even though at the time crack-cocaine-related crime, was soaring.
‘What I was to find out would surely change things’ I thought as I submitted it to
another borough council also suffering from high levels of crack cocaine consump-
tion and related violence. Rejected and so too were the next five submissions until,
at the ninth attempt, one south London borough council took forward my proposal.
This was now the summer of 2004 and by the autumn I was to start a 12-month
project in which I would use ethnography with crack cocaine users. The private drug
and alcohol company I worked for, however, didn’t want to be responsible for me if
something went wrong so I signed an insurance liability waiver which was also
countersigned by the local government. I even moved to the area in which the study
was to take place and rented a cheap studio flat to make the most of the experience.
2 Breaking the Shackles of Academic Capitalism: Academic Life, Liberation… 21
I had never undertaken ethnography but found myself deviating many times
from the scripted quantitative questions approved by the HO in previous studies
and loved exploring the prison wings when I wasn’t interviewing. I had taken the
role seriously because I believed I could get information which would change
things for these people. I believed that, on reading what I would produce, there
would be such dismay and concern that political action and investment would
quickly appear in the aftermath. Instead of the pre-designed questions and time
limit to interview participants (mainly because those HO studies required large
samples), I had a list of themes to discuss with the people I would try to get to
know. I was free, I could roam and find out things. I didn’t need to worry about
finishing the survey in 20 min because I could spend all day hanging around with
crack cocaine users, begging, talking, hustling or spending all night with them as
they smoked crack in drug dens. However, I massively underestimated the chal-
lenges that I faced as I started to insert my presence in and around what they did to
try to make contacts.
Along the way, I found my own way of managing my research identity according
to the context I was researching – no doubt in a way that I would not have been able
to foresee without actually embarking on the study. The study I concluded exposed
the drastic consequences of austerity-hit drug services, housing and mental health
support and how, combined with an active ‘crack scene’ in which the social pressure
to take drugs and commit crime was incessant (Briggs, 2012a). ‘Surely things would
change’ I thought when I handed in the report. How naïve I was. Several years
passed and, largely because I continued to live in the area I researched, I saw no
changes apart from the continued stripping back of drug support services and the
frequency of homelessness increase. Social policy research was failing. It did noth-
ing to change things for these people.
Sixteen years later, I still believe the same: funded research with some sugges-
tion that it contributes to policy change to improve the lives of the most vulnerable
really does almost nothing. I don’t believe this because this early experience tar-
nished me forever but because in the years since I have continued to try and put my
faith in social policy research but, time after time, became disappointed when
research I had undertaken was not acted upon by the stakeholders and, even on
occasions, the findings were manipulated. This chapter is about how and why there
are these failings and is about the reality perhaps none of us as social science aca-
demics want to face up to: that aside from meeting some decent motivated students
here and there, much of our research does nothing to improve the social status quo
and goes almost nowhere to changing the lives of the people we study and represent.
While the chapter digs deep into this awkward area of contention, it offers a way
forward by encouraging researchers and academics to withdraw from the machinery
of ‘academic capitalism’, cease the research proposal writing and instead embark on
and initiate their own self-funded research projects on the many pressing issues of
the twenty-first century. I want to show that, in doing this, a more authentic yet
uncomfortable human reality can be found and suggest that this is our challenge for
the future at a time when critical thinking is being squeezed and the pressure to
obtain research funding has quadrupled.
22 D. Briggs
Our Current Context: Academic Capitalism
Over the last two decades across the UK, USA and Europe, many different sectors,
organisations and institutions – such as higher education – has increasingly become
neoliberalised (Blacker, 2015; Giroux, 2014). In this respect, I should not be sur-
prised that this was my initial experience during my early career as a contract
researcher since I was in the midst of a process which had ensnared the academy in
neoliberal principles of marketisation and profit maximisation. Ever since, ‘aca-
demic capitalism’, to which Munch (2014) would refer, had been gradually trans-
forming the nature of academic life and work. Indeed, the concept of ‘academic
capitalism’ (Jessop, 2018; Munch, 2014; Slaughter & Leslie, 2001) posited that the
modern university adopted principles of neoliberal capitalism to become an eco-
nomic entity, driven by income generation, maximising revenue streams and eco-
nomic competition.
In the UK, we saw this evident from the introduction of tuition fee increases
enacted and the removal of caps on student numbers, thus creating an ‘internal mar-
ket’ whereby institutions compete for ‘clients’ or ‘students’ as we may more com-
monly know them. The neoliberalisation of the university also came with marketing
strategies around ‘value for money’ and ‘customer service’, both of which have had
significant implications for students who, perhaps understandably, believe they are
buying a service rather than getting an education. This was crudely made clear to
me when, after failing a student for an assignment recently, she approached me
publically in front of a class and said, ‘it was worth a pass, come on, I pay
your wages’.
To ensure value for money and quality service, a range of nationally and locally
imposed metrics were designed to ‘student satisfaction’, teaching and research
excellence, student retention, graduate outcomes and quality of degree classifica-
tion. More and more, the university as a revenue-generating entity increasingly
acted as a business and was required to annually secure and grow its customer base
to survive in a competitive market measured by national league tables (see Cribb &
Gewirtz, 2013). At the time, for academics, this meant satisfying both employer and
customer with an array of administrative tasks, marketing activities, pastoral care
and support, classroom teaching, grant applications and publications, as well as
striving for ‘real-world’ impact (see Briggs et al., 2018).
This placed significant demands on time that were often prioritised over research
and scholarship, because it channelled researchers into constrained forms of funded
research to advance careers. The ‘income generation’ agenda pervaded discussions
of research, with academic time increasingly only allotted to research activity where
external funding is provided. Academic research was recast through a corporate or
governmental lens whereby funding priorities established intense competition to
study discrete and preordained challenges or issues, often at the expense of indi-
vidual research interests and agendas (Edwards, 2020), or even those most pressing
to society like myriad forms of social and economic marginalisation (Briggs, 2020;
Briggs & Monge, 2017). Indeed, with the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic and its
associated restrictions, we have seen how this institutional machinery grind to a

halt, seemingly waiting for the funding calls around the virus and its impact to
appear (Briggs et al., 2021).
All this has had several effects, not least on the role of academic researchers in
the social sciences (Winlow & Hall, 2012). For example, the landscape for social
science research funding became both extremely narrow and highly competitive.
This was because universities placed emphasis on grant accumulation as a means to
demonstrate their ‘excellence’ and use it as a means of institutional marketing.
Moreover, researchers were encouraged to maximise their human capital and act as
entrepreneurs by building a ‘brand’ through high-profile projects, social media
tweets and updates and media appearances. This, in turn, resulted in increased per-
sonal kudos (Briggs et al., 2018). As with teaching, all of this is measured and
quantified by ‘impact’: what ‘impact’ does a research project or output have on the
issue addressed? This often directs academics towards collaborative projects with
external stakeholders such as government, local authorities, the NHS or criminal
justice agencies. Of course, this work can be hugely beneficial and generate findings
and recommendations that make real and lasting change. However, the funding
requirement for research often forces researchers into competition to convince a
stakeholder that more can be delivered with a minimal contribution from the funder.
In any case, much of this landscape is skewed according to the economic, social and
cultural dominance of elite institutions that have the reputation, resource and track
record to chase large research grants.
Throughout my career, I have always worked in low-ranking universities, which
is probably why though I was successful with some small grants, but many, many
more were rejected. Those institutions were trying to prove they could compete with
the likes of the Oxford and Cambridge but, in reality, never came close and never hit
the jackpot with the prestigious grants or produced the research which resulted in
high-profile media coverage. This was probably because institutions tended not to
favour researchers or academics who studied social reality in a particular way, par-
ticularly within the social sciences. This is because the demand for research impact
has also come to affect the methodological choices of researchers. In this same
period, a study using quantitative methods became more favourable than its qualita-
tive counterpart because the requirement for quantifiable success to demonstrate
impact and meet a range of metrics created a pressure to prioritise quantity over
quality. This almost automatically sidelined the longer-term, in-depth qualitative or
ethnographic research that may produce a fascinating account of cultures and expe-
riences because it reduces the speed at which projects and publications can be com-
pleted (Armstrong, 2020). Remember institutions functioning in a context of
‘academic capitalism’ are only concerned on outputs, ‘excellence’ image and new
market opportunities – either for more students or in knowledge economy. Research
projects which produce numbers, statistics and graphs are comfortable for funders
as well as the wider public to digest.
Importantly, methodological choices also shape research outputs. Buzzwords
and phrases such as ‘co-production’ took centre stage in research agendas and indi-
cated the inclusion of stakeholders and beneficiaries in a project from the beginning,
24 D. Briggs
helping to set objectives and shape the project’s direction according to the needs of
the stakeholders and, at times, require them to undertake elements of the research
(Newbury-Birch et al., 2016). This aligned with the impact agenda as stakeholders
shaped the research from the outset to address a particular problem or challenge
they faced. Essentially, the impartiality of independent academic research was com-
promised. So once the project offered a recommendation and helped enact positive
change, impact was supposedly achieved. On the surface this is fine, but it is limited,
and to address this we must return to methodological choices and the epistemologi-
cal and ontological foundations of social research.
Co-production is ultimately a positivist method in that it assumes a quantifiable
and identifiable reality that can be empirically verified; a critical realist perspective
recognises multiple ‘domains of reality’ that include an actual realm of experiences,
an empirical realm of events and a real that exists beyond observation (Bhaskar,
2008). The domain of the real is an intransitive realm beyond empirical verification
but includes the depth structures of ideology and political economy. In this sense,
there arguably remains a role for the researcher to seek findings and analysis beyond
the narrow context of ‘stakeholder need’ but that which can also penetrate and
access the depth structures. What happens if stakeholders don’t think there is a
need? However, co-produced funding proposals that include research objectives
designed to analyse the oppressive structures of neoliberalism are unlikely to win
approval. It’s not that there is no value in co-produced research but rather income
generation and impact agendas inherently favour certain types of research and
increasingly push out others that should still be valued within the academy. These
types of research also have significant potential in developing our understanding of
social, cultural, political and economic conditions.
Furthermore, over the last 20 years, much of sociological and criminological
research has also continued to be underpinned by theoretical frameworks that were
increasingly resistant to challenge or critique (Hall, 2012). For some time, sociol-
ogy has continued to rely on a handful of theorists – Marx, Durkheim, Weber,
Goffman, Bourdieu, Foucault and Butler – to make sense of that world. Criminology
continued to draw on labelling theory, strain theory and moral panics. While those
theories represent important and valid attempts to explain social reality at different
times, they were arguably becoming increasingly unsuitable to explain our current
juncture (Horsley, 2017) and the range of issues emerging in twenty-first-century
society (see Ellis, 2019). Even ‘radical’ perspectives such as the left realism of the
1980s (Lea & Young, 1993), which did much to ground criminology in ‘reality’,
have ossified into rigid beliefs that cannot be challenged. Recent attempts to kick-
start criminological inertia in the study of aetiology (Hall & Winlow, 2015) have
been fended off by a praetorian guard less interested in theoretical development than
protecting the bastion of accepted wisdom.
These days critical commentators have suggested furthermore that, over time,
social scientists increasingly favoured the examination of cultural issues and now
instead negate the political economy (Hall, 2012; Streeck, 2016), yet a critical
understanding of how the economic system works is vital to social science research
(Horsley, 2015; Mitchell & Fazi, 2017). When I think back to the early part of my
career – when undertaking that ethnographic study with crack cocaine users – it
now seems clear why when presenting my findings to local government institutions,
they looked uncomfortable when I recommended structural changes and invest-
ment. They didn’t want to hear that part.
More Gaps in the Market
After obtaining my PhD in 2010, I moved to another deprived part of London and
started teaching in another low-ranking university. From an institutional point of
view, they wanted to compete and recruit academics who could boost their league
table ranking, improve student satisfaction and get in research funds as proof that
their institution was active in the knowledge economy and changing society of the
greater good. From day one, there was pressure on me to write research proposals,
yet I had moved to a department where almost no one did any research. When I
started knocking on doors and introducing ideas, there were only polite declines
mixed with tense and awkward exchanges.
I was, however, more content to work by myself even if my activity created fur-
ther problems for me during my 4-year term there. In my first year, I submitted two
proposals for research both of which were rejected and had ten papers and a book
published. The dean, much to my dismay, used to forward around my new publica-
tions as a means of incentivising and inspiring my colleagues but it actually had the
reverse impact and I was subject to some difficult treatment. Some staff complained
about me and, 6 months in, I had my first official warning from the Dean and my
probationary period was extended. More tension arose when I proposed changes to
the course structure and student support system to enable students with basic
English and/or learning difficulties to have greater assistance. The resistant force of
the institution, which was in part blocking it from achieving reasonable standards in
teaching and research, came forward once again and my changes were denied.
To be completely honest, I remember feeling lonely and disorientated but instead
tried to distract myself in my research. To ensure I passed my probationary period,
I applied for some ‘seed funding’. This was a new concept which the Research
School had set up to contractually incentivise researchers into submitting big
research proposals worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. The idea was they
would receive a meagre sum from the university but then contractually be bound to
submitting a research proposal for a far larger sum. I just did it so I looked busy and
keen and to ensure I completed the probationary period. I was given a sum of £3000
to examine the risky and deviant behaviour of British tourists abroad.
Before I did the fieldwork, which was to be ethnographic, I had to complete an
ethics application and remember being very careful about how I declared how I was
going to research the issue. The scant previous research had surveyed these tourists
in airports and were asking them in hindsight how much they had drunk, how many
drugs they had taken and if they had been injured or threatened on holiday. While
there is no perfect research methodology, I remember thinking at the time that there
26 D. Briggs
was a high chance most of the people participating in those studies wouldn’t even
be able to remember what they had done on the whole holiday.
I wanted to learn about the subjective injunction to abandon all inhibitions and
embrace the plastic heaven laid out for these tourists in the resorts. I was interested
in finding out how and why they engaged in such excessive consumption and ended
up in debt, sometimes hospitalised and, in some cases, in the morgue. I could only
do this by going out with them to party and no other study had attempted such an
approach. So my seed funding was enough to start this research which, because of
its flexibility, extended over three summers (Briggs, 2013). I never did complete the
larger funding proposal to do the research because halfway through the summer
holidays of 2011, mass rioting, looting and disorder broke out across English cities.
I emailed the Dean at the time about a potential study, and she recommended I seek
funding. But I was watching the disorder live on TV and thought I couldn’t wait
around for 6–12 months for a funding call and then in hindsight analyse these break-
ing events. I began asking around to speak to rioters and looters in London and, even
during the peak of disorder in Athens the same year, left a conference to attend a
protest, which turned into a riot in the city centre (see Briggs, 2012b).
For me, it became clear that the funding mechanisms combined with academic
expectations attached to my employment were preventing me from innovatively fol-
lowing these events ‘as they happened’. I sought a new challenge, thinking that
perhaps a change in institution may favour this new approach I seemed to be culti-
vating to social problems. After a promotion in 2012, I started applying for
Professorships and had nine interviews. On all nine occasions, I was rejected,
mostly because I didn’t emphasise or convince the panel of my intentions to slog
myself over writing research proposals and commit to the never-ending grind of
grant accumulation.
reaking the Shackles from the Spanish Inquisition…I Mean

B
the Spanish Institution
I broadened my job search and took the first position offered to me at a private
Spanish university and a wage which was half what I was receiving in the UK. The
12 h of teaching a week I had had in the UK seemed like a dreamworld compared to
the 18 h I was to receive in Spain. When coupled with the relative administrative
tasks, lost time answering emails and the pressure to write proposals, I found myself
quickly sinking. The university made it clear that my employment came with a high
expectation of me to generate research funding. At the time, the university was on
the verge of losing its licence to offer PhD programmes and required significant
external funding to argue a case for its continued existence. I was to commence
work immediately with the Research School, in identifying calls, writing proposals
and devising methodologies, budgets and everything related to the whole process.
Like previous institutions, there seemed to be no research culture and not much
idea about research. My colleagues used to seem to just come in, drink coffee with
others, answer emails, do a class, drink more coffee, have a long lunch, answer a
few more emails and then go home. My personal time disappeared as the class
preparation and research proposal writing drifted late into the evenings. My time to
actually do research disappeared from 2013 to 2015, as I churned out proposals for
the university. What bothered me was that the Research School would contact me
with literally any funding call – no matter what its topic and expect me to design a
study around it. No wonder they were all rejected because my experience or meth-
odological approach, on many occasions, didn’t match the funders criteria/require-
ment – perhaps for fear that it may reveal a more awkward reality for them.
The only proposals I believed may have had a chance of success were the ones I
wrote to study Europe’s largest ghetto, Valdemingómez, on the outskirts of Madrid.
Valdemingómez was a violent space occupied by organised drug mafias, where
5000 people turned up each day to buy heroin and/or cocaine to feed their addiction.
Hundreds of other addicts lived and survived in the rubbish, working for the mafias
in exploitative conditions. It fascinated me that such a place even existed and was
permitted to function. The first proposal I wrote was to the Spanish Ministry of
Equality; it took 4 months to compile and was rejected because it was felt the meth-
odology – ethnography – was not an appropriate mode of studying this reality.
Strange, I thought, because I could not see how such a violent, excluded group of
people would respond to a survey, particularly when most could not actually read. I
revised the proposal over the next few months and toned down the approach, pro-
posing to instead undertake interviews with people in this area. Again, after another
3 months, the proposal was rejected because it was even felt that ‘ethically speak-
ing’ even the interviews would also be inappropriate. After further revision and
proposing to work in collaboration with the harm reduction team to reduce the risk
in the study, the proposal was submitted to another call from the Ministry of Health.
To my amazement, the project was accepted for funding – only to fail to go ahead
because the Ministry had spent the allocated project money.
Freedom and Ethnographic Innovation
I’d say in life there are few moments that one can remember when the landscape of
things changes so significantly so suddenly. I can safely say that on 31 June 2015,
such a change occurred. That day, my line manager at the time was fired for finan-
cial misdemeanours and bullying: indeed, on many occasions, I had to console col-
leagues who had been reduced to tears by her. I came in early because she had asked
to see me at 9 am because for 2 days straight I had not been sitting at my desk work-
ing. Such was the control she had over people, that she even worked in collaboration
with others to spy on other colleagues and their whereabouts. I was due for disci-
plinary action, but to my relief she was packing things up and soon after escorted
from the university. Within a few hours, a new manager had been appointed and the
whole faculty were summoned to meet for 10 min about our roles and responsibili-
ties in the university. I leapt at the opportunity, requested a part-time contract so I
28 D. Briggs
could return to researching and distanced myself from the formal procedures of the
Research School. Guess what? I haven’t looked back.
In the City Shadows: Drug Addiction and Violence
In the autumn of the same year, I was given a list of my undergraduate dissertation
tutorials. One of them was Rubén Gamero Monge who wanted to study police oper-
ations in Spain’s largest drug market Valdemingómez. He had read my crack cocaine
book and was fascinated by the idea of observation. Indeed, I organised for our first
tutorial to be in the very place he wanted to study. This was the only way I thought
it could happen: if we completely threw ourselves in at the deep end and meet indis-
criminately with the reality in which we were to try to study. We met at McDonalds,
on the outskirts of the drug market, and discussed a brief strategy of where we
would enter, how long we would drive around and where we would exit. Neither of
us had actually been there so more than anything this was about mapping the area,
studying the terrain we would eventually come to know and start the long process of
getting our faces known.
I came to describe the area in Dead End Lives: Drugs and Violence in the City
Shadows as a place ‘where the third world meets the wild west’ (Briggs & Monge,
2017). I remember it vividly now. Any recognisable signs of conventional life disap-
peared as we left the asphalt road and drove slowly on the muddy, potholed terrain
passing drug den after drug den which went between sandwiched together but then
separated by derelict sites where the police had raided, arrested and then left the
building in tatters. Young runners, often children, came up and banged on our win-
dow offering us a ‘quick hit’ to entice potential business. The organised crime oper-
ations were run by a series of powerful and violent gypsy families who had most of
the people in the local area working for/with them to sustain the local drug market.
Many kept a low profile and instead contracted some of the thousands of drug
addicts who ended up in the area to act as lookouts and guards to the establishments.
During the day, outside the drug dens these people hang around in a state between
deep sleep and drug withdrawal, aimlessly passing the time until their shifts start
and their wage payments of heroin and cocaine resume.
The road continues for about 1 km like this before it breaks off into a square
which is surrounded on one side by a series of larger drug dens and on the other a
sort of rubbish tip where many of the drug addicts have erected their own forms of
improvised housing. For these people, surviving in this area means abandoning trust
and anticipating inevitable violence; living and sleeping among rubbish, rats, dis-
ease and random piles of excrement; and navigating the minefield of thrown-away
syringes. But such is the state of these peoples’ addiction that despite these glar-
ingly obvious deterrents to us, for them it had simply become the way of life.
Our study, over the course of 2 years, sought to understand how such a place had
assembled itself, how it worked and how people arrived at these situations of
personal abandon and destitution. We had no big funding grant and did it only armed
with some cigarettes and our patience. There had been no study in Spain like it since
no social science researcher had even set foot in the drug market. We were doing the
very study which the government didn’t seem to want to fund or find out about. We
spent 2–3 days a week, turning up at the drug market in the same clothes and the
same battered-out car and, for the first 9 months, simply walked around and made
conversation with people. During that time, we had managed to get the trust of the
harm reduction team who turned up there to give out low-quality food and basic
medical provision and because of that came to know some of the key figures in the
functioning of the area.
With their trust, we navigated new spaces and went into the drug dens, gypsy
homes and supermarkets where the gypsies mingled: to them, we were potential
clients as our appearance was akin to the people with whom we had been speaking
to for months. We sat for hours at a time listening to the lives of the drug addicts,
slowly piecing together their downward journeys which, more often than not, were
borne from systemic poverty and unemployment as a consequence of deindustriali-
sation, poor education, limited employment opportunities and the active presence of
drug markets in various areas of Madrid which propelled many into petty criminal
careers. As the prison time stacked up for many of these people, we learned how
they frequented other places like Valdemingómez – which also used to be run by
gypsy families – in other parts of the city to deal drugs as local neighbourhood deal-
ers were flushed out by increased surveillance. When these locations were also
closed down to make way for regeneration and commercial investment projects, all
the local drug markets conglomerated in one mega drug market that we know now
as Valdemingómez.
As Valdemingómez grew, so too did its clientele, as damaged people already
locked out of labour markets and drug recovery journeyed further to the outskirts to
purchase their drugs. Spending valuable amounts of small change on the journeys,
which would otherwise make up a ‘hit’, caused many to instead camp up in the area
and assume rank in the evolving and expanding illicit opportunities open to them.
As they left, they abandoned access to local healthcare, any meagre housing they
may have had, following only the false remedy they had come to know which, as it
had done in the past, would only exacerbate their circumstances: excessive drug use.
These people turned up in the area, sometimes disappearing for short periods, before
returning often to trade sex or someone else’s rubbish for a ‘hit’. Others tolerated
violent beatings from the gypsies only to have a steady income of drugs to numb the
heavy weight of failure these people had come to subjectively assume. That is, until
their time was up. Indeed, during our study, we literally watched these people slowly
kill themselves as they completely closed the door on their own recovery. Had we
not persevered to do this study, self-funded, nothing would have happened. Perhaps
no politician or government wants to hear about these stories because there is no
‘quick fix’, economical solution, but one thing certain was that we were giving
voice to people who had literally no stake in society.
30 D. Briggs
etween the Nooks and Crannies of Western Democracy:

B
The Plight of Europe’s Swelling Refugee Population
Concurrently, time in Valdemingómez also became complemented with another

unfunded project with a wider remit late in 2015. During my first 2 years in Spain,
in the little time allotted for holidays, I had travelled extensively and in many of its
coasts and tourist resorts were tall, lean black men selling cheap false designer
goods, from clothes to handbags to sunglasses to DVDs. I often watched on as these
people seemed to appear from nowhere and attempt to make a meagre wage, before
returning to the somewhere from where they appeared. I scanned the literature about
these people in the hope of finding out why they – of all people – were beachcomb-
ing potential business with the sale of fake goods. I called a friend in the National
Police who said to me ‘you should come to see how they get into Spain in the
first place’.
So I did. I went to visit him in Melilla, a Spanish city enclaved in Moroccan ter-
ritory on the north of Africa. Between his thirst for hanging out in bars and drinking
heavily, he showed me around the small city which day after day was breached from
attempts made by thousands of people fleeing political persecution, war, terrorism
and general uncertainty in their home countries. At the time, 2015 marked the mass
exodus of refugees into Europe and this was difficult to ignore because the media
that year had the issue on continual playback. There was cause for alarm as I visited
the local asylum seeker centre in Melilla – a place built for 400 people but at the
time of my visit holding 2000 people. Men, women, the elderly, children and babies
all living in appalling conditions waiting months for a decision on if they would be
allowed into Europe. Such was the situation that in the time I was in the asylum
centre, I watched fights break out over the lack of food and robberies of refugees
leaving the centre.
Over the course of 1 week, I had managed to interview 25 refugees and had been
taken across the border into Morocco and along the high, intimidating fence which
divided Africa from Europe. What was producing this mass exodus of people? Why
did they leave, where did they hope to go and where did they end up? My project
went from being curious inquiry to something transnational which could measure,
over time, how and why refugees made decisions to leave, settle or move on. No
study had tried to track refugee movements in Europe nor attempted to link geopo-
litical interests and conflict to people displacement and the warming climate. Not
that these were things I had initially considered to be important to the study but over
the course of trying to follow via WhatsApp messaging and social media what hap-
pened to these 25 people, I learned that these issues were fundamental to the ambi-
tion for a new life in Europe (Briggs, 2020).
Abbas and Ibrahim, who I initially met in Melilla, were the principal people who
helped me broaden my sample. They put me in contact with others they knew in
transit, arriving in Europe, and with that I built up a network of potential contacts in
different countries. Every time I was invited to a conference or to give a plenary, I

would deviate as soon as possible to meet these contacts and further broaden my
sample and learn about their experiences and the conditions under which they were
now surviving in a different political and social climate. All I knew at the time is that
I wanted to reach as many people as possible, and over the course of 3 years and
snowball sampling with as many people as I could, I managed to interview a sample
of 110 refugees across 14 different European countries and to have visited a range
of refugee camps, sink housing estates, NGO and other helping agencies in the
process.
Stipulating what a study should do or how it should be designed from incep-
tion can often inhibit the depth and reach of a project, more so if one must indi-
cate the ethics and establish protocols of where and when a researcher visits. I say
this because when I commenced this project, I never imagined it would take me
as far as it did. How did I interview so many refugees and manage to follow them
around Europe? I connected with them and, between the visits I could make, I
maintained my relationships via social media such as Facebook and WhatsApp.
Indeed, had it not been for the way in which this methodology evolved – which
was very much according to the transient and unpredictable nature of the refu-
gees’ situations – much of my access to the muddy ghettos of the Calais ‘Jungle’,
which thousands of refugees use as a hub to cross to the UK, the old world war II
hospital operating as an asylum processing centre in Oslo, the poor, forgotten
neighbourhoods of Istanbul and the Refugee Housing services on the outskirts of
Paris, would have not happened.
I was speaking to people who had slipped through the cracks of ‘democratic
societies’ and who were surviving in the precarious nooks and crannies of the
‘European dream’. People who had filed for asylum, given up and moved on. People
who were too afraid to present themselves officially to the state and, instead, were
forced into exploitative conditions of labour. Even those who had some relative
‘success’ by learning the host language and slotting into the confines of precarious
work opportunities in the service sector were subject to social rejection and stigma-
tisation – even these people felt a sense of disillusion, solitude and regret that they
had made the journey.
Why might that be we might ask? Surely a life in Europe is better than one where
the daily risks compose of being robbed, kidnapped, shot or bombed? No. Because
my study revealed how these people had accumulated so many traumas and abuses
and, in the process, been stripped of their dignity, self-confidence and autonomy
that for many lives in Europe was simply about ‘silently existing’. It should be no
surprise that a few of my participants contemplated suicide and even another few
even returned to their home countries where they were then killed by the very vio-
lent modes of life which forced their escape. These stories neither reach media
websites nor academic articles or books and thus fail to reach policymakers or enter
public consciousness because, as it stands, the structure of research in academic life
does not permit us to study it in this way.
32 D. Briggs
Cultural Underbelly: Working in a Luxury Brothel
Going part-time meant my wages were reduced, and in the first 6 months of 2015,
this took its toll. To balance it out, and alongside these projects, early in 2016 I
started teaching English to children. I had a friend who set up an afterschool group
and, once a week, where I would engage in conversational classes to improve their
English. Such was the success that I was recommended by one of the children’s
parents to his friend. The ‘friend’, I was told, was interested in learning English but
also had some work for me as an English speaker. Intrigued, I agreed to meet his
‘friend’ at the hotel he owned. One week later I parked up and walked past the tall
iron doors; I started to realise that I was entering quite a different ‘hotel’. Relaxing
jazz music was playing while I walked onto the silky-red-colour carpet, and as I did,
I was approached by several tall, scantily dressed women. They led me through to a
separate bar area and one lingered to make me a drink. She smiled as she poured me
a rum and coke before leaving: all the while the relaxing jazz music putting me ‘in
the mood’ as it were.
A shorter woman then entered and asked if I needed anything else before the
‘presentation’ as she described it. I looked confused and said I had come to see
‘Will’ (the ‘friend’) who had an appointment with me. ‘Oh no, sorry, we all thought
you were a client! Sorry, come with me’, she said as she led me back across the open
reception area and into a security office where she sat me down and asked me to
wait. In front of me were an array of security cameras recording activity in every
possible ceiling corner of the establishment, and to my right sat a very wide, strong
Russian man who was smoking a cigarette; he just glared at me as he puffed away
slowly before occasionally glancing at the security cameras.
This was my introduction to the luxury brothel which was what ‘Will’ later
called a ‘hotel’. When he finally did turn up, he agreed a sum of money for me to
teach him English as well as review the porn forums twice a week: in the latter, I
was required to make up fictitious client names and leave positive feedback on my
experiences in the ‘hotel’. This was too good to be true for someone like me, an
ethnographic researcher, put in a situation where they have instant and unadulter-
ated access to the workings of a luxury brothel. I started to document my observa-
tions and informal conversations, getting to know not only the 30 women who lived
and worked from the establishment but the cleaning ladies and Russian security
staff and the manager himself, Will, and his close circle of associates.
In Spain, it is illegal to sell sex in the street and it is also against the law to sell
it from an establishment, but if a client comes to a ‘hotel’ and pays for the room,
there is nothing to say in law that some private agreement cannot take place
between woman/women and a client or clients. So, in this case, a potential client
comes in, is led into a bar, chooses from a selection of women, goes upstairs to a
room, pays the rent of the room and also a fee for the service he desires from the
woman or women.
Over a period of 18 months, I followed the lives and listened to the stories of
these women – many of whom were in circumstances of disadvantage and poverty –
about how they did their work and what were their aspirations. The women spent on
average 3–4 weeks at the time of ‘living in the hotel’, working most nights for
10–12 h and then sleeping long. They barely saw the light of day. They did these
long shifts to ‘keep their spot’ as it were yet much of the money they earned, which
was often between €10,000 and 15,000 a month and was used to fund body or facial
operations and cosmetic surgery, branded clothing and the rare long weekend away.
They spent this money because there was an incessant pressure to compete for cli-
ents among the women so ‘looking young and beautiful’ was a requisite investment.
Money also went on supporting their heavily reliance on drugs and alcohol, both of
which assisted in coping with the traumatic labour. By comparison, the clients com-
ing in, which were men of all ages and sizes, did not all only come in to pay for sex.
Some wanted to talk to the women, hug them or just be in their company.
Managing all this was Will, an ex-military veteran who had found a gap in the
sex market for high-end, celebrity-like customers. His earnings were about €50,000
a week and much of it went on new cars, property, yachts, fine wines and dinners
and luxury holidays. During my undercover study, I got to know Will well and was
invited to expensive restaurants where he ran up to thousand-euro bills even after
ordering lavish dishes only for him to pick at them and fine wine only to sample it
with a few sips. I was even invited to family events and met his ‘inner circle’ of
contacts in the political elite and upper echelons of the police hierarchy. He had
these people close to him so that if there were problems, he only had to simply call
them for them to be forgotten. Running a high-stakes business, however, came with
its risks and similar establishments in the area were regularly raided and robbed.
This was why Will had such an extensive security network of cameras and vigilante
guards in the hotel. He also had an array of weapons which ranged from pistols to
rifles to shotguns to riot gear which he showed me from his third-floor bunker in the
hotel. He even carried a gun around with him after a high-profile contact in the Civil
Guard got him a gun licence no questions asked and 1 day handed me a firearm to
look after. It was to later be a joke.
All the while, I did this study under the guise of being an English teacher (Briggs,
2018). All but one had no idea I was a researcher in a university or that I had under-
taken these kinds of studies as a normal feature of my career. Academics, research-
ers and budding postgraduate students will know that getting such a study off the
ground through the formal avenues via funding streams that require ethical clear-
ance with the incumbent risks of substance abuse, robbery and violence amplified
by its covert execution would be all but impossible. Yet, with patience, open-
mindedness, curiosity and some experience in the field, self-funded ethnography
opens the door to new forms of knowledge about how the numb drudgery of the
luxury sex industry and its commercial emptiness are incestuously enveloped by the
social and political tentacles of corruption and nepotism.
34 D. Briggs
Discussion. Broken Shackles and Ethnographic Freedom
Some of my colleagues with whom I studied criminology are now lauded by the
marketing structures of their university for the impact they have had in society
which has stemmed from their grant-getting activity and the projects they have
worked on in the quest to ‘make society better’. Yet, in reality, many of the causes
for which they research have deteriorated as we have drifted further into an insecure
and unequal world. Similarly, they are already distinguished for their ‘research
excellence’ by their relentless ambition to publish in high-impact-factor journals.
Yet it gets harder and harder to penetrate and get affiliation in these elite citation
clubs. The same colleagues also appear in commercially driven tweets as the new
academic year starts, their photos testament to the world-class student experience
their new prospective clients will receive because of all this. Yet as I found written
on a derelict car park sodden with bullet holes from the war in Bosnia, ‘a like doesn’t
change the world’. And it doesn’t.
In my opinion, the only thing ‘cutting edge’ related to what these colleagues do
is perpetuate the demands and expectations imposed on them by Academic
Capitalism. These very colleagues have not ventured into the field since the comple-
tion of their PhDs. They now manage research teams and spend more time in meet-
ings, answering emails and undertaking administrative tasks related to their grant
ventures. They rely on the same tried and tested theoretical perspectives they pro-
duced then and stay close to the same research area having become an ‘expert’ in it.
Many now seem slightly tired of it all, a few almost burnt out. I think this is because
these colleagues have lost touch with the essence of why they studied in the first
place. I think the drive and motivation to undertake unusual, risky projects and think
about how methodologies can adapt to the quickly changing terrain of the twenty-
first century have been commercially stunted and then sedated and instead these
very capable professionals have been cornered into following a career which relies
on the nourishment of their own personal kudos and academic status.
It sounds like I’m criticising them but I’m not. I’m trying to reach out to them
because I want to show them it’s not too late. All they must do is break the shackles
of academic capitalism by stepping out of their offices into the world, looking
around, and thereafter look for inspiration. The injustices are everywhere, staring
them in the face. As criminologists, sociologists and social science academics, this
is where we should be, and this is what we should be doing: using our gumption and
know-how to loudspeaker the true picture of suffering in the world. As I have done
in these research studies, we should seek to penetrate the veneer of social policy,
rummage around and delve into the depth structures‚ for it is the organisation of
these that generate the increasing levels of inequality, poverty, violence and unrest
and misery. Here we will find the real answers to society’s problems which the poli-
cymakers need to hear, and they will have to listen if more people are doing it. My
shackles are broken, and it is liberating because, more than anything, I feel I retain
my moral purpose as a researcher and fundamental raison d’etre. There is no time
like the present. Who knows, if more of us did it, something might change.
References
Armstrong, E. K. (2020). Political ideology and research: How neoliberalism can explain the pau-
city of qualitative criminological research. Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 45(1), 20–32.
Bhaskar, R. (2008). A realist theory of science. Verso.
Blacker, D. J. (2015). The falling rate of learning and the neoliberal endgame. Zero.
Briggs, D. (2012a). Crack cocaine users: High society and low life in South London. Routledge.
Briggs, D. (2012b). The English riots of 2011: A summer of discontent. Waterside Press.
Briggs, D. (2013). Deviance, risk and the holiday: An ethnographic study of British tourists in
Ibiza. Palgrave Macmillan.
Briggs, D. (2018). Commodifying intimacy in ‘hard times’: A hardcore ethnography of a luxury
brothel. Journal of Extreme Anthropology, 2(1), 66–88.
Briggs, D. (2020). Climate changed: Refugee border stories and the business of misery. Routledge.
Briggs, D., & Monge, R. (2017). Dead end lives: Drugs and violence in the city shadows.
Policy Press.
Briggs, D., Cordero, R., & Pérez Suárez, J. (2018). From crime science to the crime of science.
Safer Communities, 17(1), 22–32.
Briggs, D., Ellis, A., Lloyd, A., & Telford, L. (2021). Researching the Covid-19 pandemic: A criti-
cal blueprint for the social sciences. Bristol University Press.
Cribb, A., & Gewirtz, S. (2013). The hollowed-out university? A critical analysis of changing
institutional and academic norms in UK higher education. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural
Politics of Education, 34(3), 338–350.
Edwards, R. (2020). Why do academics do unfunded research? Resistance, compliance and iden-
tity in the UK neo-liberal university. Studies in Higher Education. Online first, Accessed from
https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2020.1817891
Ellis, A. (2019). A De-civilizing reversal or system Normal? Rising lethal violence in post reces-
sion austerity UK. British Journal of Criminology, 59(4), 862–878.
Giroux, H. A. (2014). Neoliberalism’s war on higher education. Haymarket Books.
Hall, S. (2012). Theorising crime and deviance. Sage.
Hall, S., & Winlow, S. (2015). Revitalizing criminological theory. Routledge.
Horsley, M. (2015). The dark side of prosperity. Ashgate.
Horsley, M. (2017). Forget ‘moral panics’. Journal of Theoretical & Philosophical Criminology,
9(2), 84–98.
Jessop, B. (2018). On academic capitalism. Critical Policy Studies, 12(1), 104–109.
Lea, J., & Young, J. (1993). What is to be done about law and order? Pluto.
Mitchell, W., & Fazi, T. (2017). Reclaiming the state. Pluto Press.
Munch, R. (2014). Academic capitalism: Universities in the global struggle for excellence.
Routledge.
Newbury-Birch, D., McGeechan, G. J., & Holloway, A. (2016). Climbing down the steps from the
ivory tower: How UK academics and criminal justice practitioners need to work together on
alcohol studies. International Journal of Prisoner Health, 12(3), 129–134.
Slaughter, S., & Leslie, L. L. (2001). Expanding and elaborating the concept of academic capital-
ism. Organization, 8(2), 154–161.
Streeck, W. G. (2016). How will capitalism end? Verso.
Winlow, S., & Hall, S. (2012). What is an ethics committee? Academic governance in an epoch of
belief and incredulity. The British Journal of Criminology, 52(2), 400–416.
Daniel Briggs Ph.D. works part time as a Professor of Criminology at the Universidad Europea in
Madrid, Spain. As a researcher, writer and inter-disciplinary academic who studies social prob-
lems, he has undertaken ethnographic research into social issues from street drug users to termi-
nally ill patients; from refugees to prostitutes; and from gypsies to gangs and deviant youth
behaviours. He also lectures across the social sciences and has published widely. His book, Dead
36 D. Briggs
end lives: Drugs and violence in the city shadows (Policy Press, 2017), won the Division of
International Criminology’s Outstanding Book Award 2018 (selected by the American Society of
Criminology). His most recent single-authored book is titled Climate changed: Refugee border
stories and the business of misery (Routledge, 2020) and he has co-authored Researching the
Covid 19 pandemic: A critical blueprint for the social sciences (Bristol University Press) and
Lockdown: Social harm in the Covid-19 era (Palgrave MacMillan). Hotel Puta: A hardcore eth-
nography of a luxury brothel is due for publication soon (RJ4All Publications) and he is currently
writing up a book on social life post-covid-19 (Palgrave MacMillan).
Chapter 3
Mixed Methods: A Justification,
Explication, and Example
Diana Sun and Michael L. Benson
Why Use Mixed Methods?
As novelists, painters, poets, and song writers never tire of pointing out, reality is
complex and multifaceted. This comes as no surprise to social scientists, who have
long been both fascinated and perplexed by the complexity of social reality, which
is the world of human beings, communities, and cultures (Johnson & Gray, 2015).
Because of this irreducible complexity, it is difficult if not impossible to fully under-
stand some aspects of the social world by relying solely on either quantitative or
qualitative data. In these situations, some form of mixed methods research design
can often be a useful way of illuminating at least one small piece of social reality.
By mixed methods research design, we simply mean a design that incorporates at
least two different forms of data or data collection, such as, for example, quantita-
tive survey data and qualitative interview data. As other chapters in this handbook
show, however, there are other forms of data collection besides surveys and inter-
views, which may be included in a mixed methods study. In this chapter we focus
on what is known as a concurrent nested research design in which quantitative
survey data and qualitative interview data are collected simultaneously (Creswell
et al., 2003; Mathison, 1988).
Within the disciplines of criminology and criminal justice, there are numerous
examples of mixed methods research designs. For instance, in their classic reanalysis
and extension of the Glueck’s data, Laub and Sampson (2003) skillfully combined
quantitative arrest data on desistance from crime with qualitative interviews with
D. Sun (*)
Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL, USA
e-mail: sund@fau.edu
M. L. Benson
University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA
e-mail: Michael.benson@uc.edu

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18401-7_3
38 D. Sun and M. L. Benson
former offenders as they aged through the life course. The quantitative analysis docu-
mented the decline in crime commission and eventual desistance from crime among
some members of the sample, and the qualitative interviews shed light on how and why
these changes had occurred. In addition, the qualitative interviews allowed the research-
ers to understand why other members of the sample had not desisted from crime.
In criminal justice, an outstanding example of a mixed methods design can be
found in Klinger’s and Brunson’s (2009) study of police officer shootings. In this
study, officers who had been involved in job-related shootings completed a survey
in which they reported on the circumstances surrounding the shootings, especially
in regards to perceptual distortions that they may have experienced. Perceptual dis-
tortions include, for example, such visceral experiences as tunnel vision, diminished
sound, or a sense of time slowing down. After the survey the officers were then
interviewed about the various experiences that they had reported in the survey to
enhance and flesh out their levels of recall. These findings allowed the researchers
to address such questions as how the perceptual distortions were experienced and
the order in which they occurred. For example, what did it mean to say that time had
slowed down or sounds were diminished? How were these effects manifested? Did
the distortion occur before shooting started or after it had commenced?
These two examples illustrate one of the primary advantages of a mixed methods
design. To wit, the mixed methods design helps researchers understand why two or
more variables are associated with one another. Via their quantitative data, Laub and
Sampson (2003) were able to document that marriage was associated with desis-
tance, and their interview data enabled them to develop a theory of how marriage
promotes desistance under certain circumstances. Likewise, Klinger and Brunson
(2009) used the data from their qualitative surveys to show how perceptual distor-
tions evolved over time in deadly force incidents. By suggesting reasons why vari-
ables are related to one another, these studies also open up avenues for future
quantitative work, because the concepts and ideas uncovered qualitatively can now
be converted into measurable variables themselves. Thus, mixed methods studies of
this sort can help build theory and spur additional research.
A Concurrent Nested Design Example
In a concurrent nested design, the researcher gathers data via quantitative and quali-
tative methods simultaneously. Typically, the quantitative data is survey based, but
it does not have to be. For example, the quantitative data could come from system-
atic social observation of urban neighborhoods (Sampson & Raudenbush, 1999) or
from an analysis of tweets posted on Twitter (Budhwani & Sun, 2020). The qualita-
tive data in a concurrent design usually comes from interviews that are conducted
more or less simultaneously with the quantitative data collection activities, so that
the quantitative activities can inform and direct the qualitative interviews.
In what follows, we use a study of prison adjustment and reentry experiences to
illustrate how a concurrent nested design works in the field. The basic research
3 Mixed Methods: A Justification, Explication, and Example 39
question that motivated the study was: How do gender, race/ethnicity, and social
class influence adjustment to life in prison and reentry into a community? Specifically,
the researcher was interested in what is known as the special resiliency hypothesis
developed by Benson and Cullen (1988), which hypothesizes that white-collar
offenders adjust better in prison and reentry than other types of offenders because of
advantages that inhere in their social class background. The special resiliency
hypothesis can be contrasted with the special sensitivity hypothesis, which posits
that white-collar offenders do worse in adjustment precisely because of their social
background and their limited experience with the criminal justice system. Although
there have been several quantitative studies of these hypotheses that have found
some differences between white-collar offenders and other offenders (Logan et al.,
2019; Stadler et al., 2013), the results have been mixed with some favoring the spe-
cial resiliency hypothesis and others the special sensitivity hypothesis. More impor-
tantly, the studies shed little light on why any observed differences in adjustment
exist. The researcher hoped to make comparisons between women versus men,
whites versus racial and ethnic minorities, and individuals of lower- versus middle-
or upper-class standing. In this particular study, the researcher was especially inter-
ested in people who had committed white-collar type crimes, because prior research
has documented that such people come from different social and class backgrounds
compared to people who commit ordinary street offenses (Benson & Moore, 1992;
Weisburd et al., 1991; Wheeler et al., 1988). As noted above, prior research has docu-
mented differences in prison adjustment and reentry between white-collar offenders
and other types of offenders (Logan et al., 2019; Payne, 2003; Stadler et al., 2013).
However, it remains unclear why these differences exist. Hence, the researcher rec-
ognized that this gap in the knowledge base might be addressed using a mixed meth-
ods study. Because gender and race/ethnicity are such powerful influences on all
aspects of social life, these variables were also included in the design and analysis.
With cooperation from a local federal probation office, the researcher identified a
sample of persons convicted of white-collar type crimes and a comparison sample of
persons convicted of other non-violent federal offenses, such as drug violations.
Unlike many quantitative studies which have the luxury of a known sampling frame
from which to sample respondents at random, the sample for this study was built up
purposely over time as the researcher worked with personnel in the probation office to
identify potential respondents, that is, those convicted of white-collar type crimes,
and those convicted of other types of federal offenses. As respondents became avail-
able, the researcher initiated data collection and analysis (described below) on an
individual basis. The sample eventually included 9 females and 17 males convicted of
white-collar offenses, compared to 1 female and 10 males convicted of other offenses.1
1
The definition of white-collar crime has been contested since Sutherland (1940) first introduced
the term. In this study, the researcher used what is known as an “offense-based” definition (Benson
& Simpson, 2018), because this definition is easier to apply with official record data. Using this
definition also ensured that the sample would contain an adequate number of middle- and upper-
class individuals, which was an important consideration because one of the prime objectives of the
study was to investigate whether adjustment varies by social class.
The researcher used two data collection strategies simultaneously. First, respon-
dents completed a fixed-choice questionnaire on prison adjustment. The question-
naire included a series of fixed-choice and open-ended response questions drawn
from prior research on prison and post-prison adjustment (Kruttschnitt & Gartner,
2004; Morris & Sclocum, 2010; Porcellato et al., 2016; United States Bureau of
Justice Statistics, 2004; Warren, 2006). Second, after the questionnaire was com-
pleted, the researcher reviewed it and used the information gleaned from the survey
as a basis for semi-structured interviewing of the respondents. The goal was to per-
mit respondents to clarify their answers and explain the context behind them. For
example, if a participant reported that they needed mental health services while
incarcerated, the researcher could ask them to explain in their own words what the
problem was and perhaps how it was handled.
There are several advantages to using a semi-structured interview format. First,
it allowed the researcher to ask initial open-ended questions that served as prompts
for the interviewee (Charmaz, 2014; Charmaz & Belgrave, 2012). For example, the
researcher could ask a general question such as, “If you can recall, could you
describe what was going on in your life then?” This question serves two purposes.
The question is general enough to cover a wide range of experiences and the ques-
tion leans on symbolic interactionism to identify what events are meaningful for the
participant (Charmaz & Belgrave, 2012). The open-ended nature allows the partici-
pant to provide subjective meaning to the question asked and to answer beyond a
fixed response. In other words, the participant can describe in detail any outside
events (e.g., a death in the family and what that death meant to the person) that may
have been missing in the questionnaire.
A second advantage to using a semi-structured interview format is that it permits
probe questions. Probe questions are frequently used to follow up on emerging
themes or answers (based on the interview or questionnaire) that need more context
or clarification. For example, a respondent might say something such as “When I
got out of prison and back home, I really didn’t want to leave my house ever.” In this
case, a follow-up probe might be “Can you explain a little bit about the reasons you
felt that way?” Probe questions are guided by interviewee statements and memos
taken in vivo (Charmaz, 2014; Miles & Huberman, 1994). Moreover, probe ques-
tions give participants the opportunity to tell their story (Charmaz & Belgrave,
2012). Charmaz and Belgrave (2012) contend that fixed interview questions may
decrease the comfort level of the interviewee and have abrupt endings. To develop a
positive rapport, interviewers should err on keeping the interview conversational to
gain more trust and detail (Charmaz & Belgrave, 2012).
A final advantage to using a semi-structured interview is to allow for real-time
modifications in the interview questions that fit the interviewee (Charmaz, 2014;
Charmaz & Belgrave, 2012). Each individual responds differently to questions, and
the interviewer must be aware of the language they use, the potential meanings
behind questions, and each participant’s personal reaction. For instance, in one
interview, a participant stated that she did not like the term “offender” or “guilty.”
To address her concerns, the researcher avoided using both terms throughout the
interview portion. Other techniques can also be used to gain more detailed answers,
such as slow pacing, repeating key points, and gently turning interviewee’s words
into open-ended questions (Charmaz & Belgrave, 2012).
In sum, the interviews were directed in the sense that the questions in the survey
served as prompts for the interviews, but the interviews were also open-ended in
that respondents were able to explain in detail what their answers really meant. The
interviews then served as a reliability check on the questionnaire responses, and
yielded details that were not available from the questionnaire alone by giving
respondents a chance to describe their experiences in their own words. Thus, the
mixed methods study design created a more comprehensive picture of prison and
post-release adjustment that went beyond a prison survey or lone interview.
In this study, the quantitative data were nested within the qualitative data. This
enabled the researcher to corroborate findings across the different methods, but also
to address different research questions based on the data. For instance, the researcher
could test whether the white-collar sample and control sample are the same quanti-
tatively on some dimension through the questionnaire, but also explore any adapta-
tions in detail with the qualitative data. Thus, the researcher could assess differences
between the samples while gaining a broader understanding of how adults navigate
the prison system and reentry to civilian life. This concurrent nested design also
permits the two methods to be mixed during the analysis phase. This is a key advan-
tage because the researcher was able to follow leads in the data and apply a grounded
theory approach to the qualitative data analysis.
The mixed methods concurrent nested design allowed the researcher to answer
different questions than those that could be addressed with the quantitative data.
The researcher was interested in the participants’ narratives in the qualitative data
and, to that purpose and following Charmaz’s (2014) qualitative techniques, they
used a grounded theory approach for the qualitative data analysis to move between
data collection, data analysis, and theorizing. This process was aided using elabo-
rate memos that permit reflexivity of the data. Typically, reflexivity refers to the
researcher, rather than the data. It calls upon the researcher to be reflective about
their role in the study and be aware of how their biases might influence their find-
ings (Alvesson, 2003; Alvesson & Sandberg, 2011). According to Alvesson (2003),
this angle toward data assumes “working with alternative lines of interpretation and
vocabularies and reinterpreting the favored line(s) of understanding through the sys-
tematic involvement of alternative points of departure” (p. 14). This approach per-
mits the opportunity to apply different theoretical lenses and interpretations of the
interview data. Overall, reflexivity provides two advantages in data analyses. First,
it prevents naive assumptions based on simple reality. Second, it allows the
researcher to challenge interpretations of the data by suggesting more than one
interpretation of the data can exist. In short, ambiguity is acknowledged.
After the interviews were completed, they were transcribed and then coded in a
three-step process using the qualitative software, NVivo (Locke, 2002; Miles &
Huberman, 1994). The first step in the coding process involved first-order codes
(Charmaz, 2014). In this study, first-order codes identified quotes related to the
crime of which the informants were convicted, their role in the offense, and what
they experienced during the adjudication process and in prison. All first-order codes
were assigned using a line-by-line coding technique and then documented and
defined in a “data dictionary” (Gibson, 2017; Locke, 2002; Miles & Huberman,
1994). The data dictionary was constantly revised following each interview to
reflect emergent codes from the data. The second step in the coding process involved
aggregating the first-order codes into second-order codes. Second-order codes
allowed the researcher to reevaluate and reorganize the data and to categorize find-
ings into larger themes or groups (Charmaz, 2014; Locke, 2002).
This second cycle of coding can be accomplished in several ways. For example,
in focused coding, themes are grouped together based on initial first-order codes and
general comparisons made across codes. Focused coding may reveal processes or
shared definitions among participants that were not otherwise formally conceptual-
ized. In this chapter’s study example, the researcher used a focused coding structure
when identifying and defining prison slang terms (Charmaz, 2014; Locke, 2002).
For instance, when participants discussed solitary confinement, they would often
refer to the special housing unit as the “SHU,” “shoe,” or “solitary.” Every time a
participant discussed their experience in the “SHU” or “shoe,” this signaled to the
researcher that the participant was referring to an isolation experience within a spe-
cial housing unit but is using a slang term for the housing unit. Here, all mentions of
these first-order codes were then grouped to a larger theme of “the isolation experi-
ence in solitary confinement” so that the researcher can better understand adaptation
techniques while in solitary confinement compared to other housing arrangements.
Some techniques included dividing the day between mealtimes and shower to gain
a sense of time. Thus, in focused coding, the researcher works with a defined code
list and categorizes terms and experiences to fit that established defined list.
Another type of second-order coding researchers can use is axial coding, in
which larger categories are synthesized into subcategories (Charmaz, 2014; Strauss
& Corbin, 1998). In axial coding, the researcher searches for connections and rela-
tionships across first-order codes to better understand a phenomenon (Corbin &
Strauss, 1990; Strauss & Corbin, 1998). The causes of the phenomenon, the reac-
tions of the phenomenon, and the surrounding context for the phenomenon to occur
are revealed based on this type of close analysis. Axial coding also can identify any
outside or intervening conditions that might impact the phenomenon identified
(Corbin & Strauss, 1990; Strauss & Corbin, 1998). In the example study, the
researcher relied on the techniques of axial coding to uncover how participants
adjusted to social stigma upon reentry. For instance, when participants discussed
meeting strangers for the first time post-incarceration, participants discussed feel-
ings related to “anxiety,” “nerves,” and “feeling scared” in a new environment (e.g.,
at a work party or at a job interview) with strangers. Statements that shared a similar
sentiment to these first-order codes were then grouped together to reveal a more
general feeling of public stigma that participants experienced based on their fears of
being seen as an “ex-convict” or “criminal” to people they did not know. Moreover,
some participants expressed having panic attacks prior to social engagements or
would leave the room to avoid meeting new people altogether. In this example, the
axial coding allowed the researcher to better understand how formerly incarcerated
individuals felt meeting new people, how they reacted, and the settings that elicited
such a response. In summary, these are only some examples of second-order coding
techniques that researchers can employ in their research. For a more comprehensive
list of second-order coding strategies, see Charmaz (2014) and Strauss and
Corbin (1990).
The final step in the coding process was the aggregation of second-order themes
into broader dimensions or themes. Emerging themes were then examined to see
whether they brought new perspectives to the special resiliency hypothesis. For
example, the researcher found that female offenders who commit white-collar
offenses were more likely to seek mental health services following their incarcera-
tion experience as they reentered society. Female participants viewed mental health
services, such as talk therapy and medication, as key support systems in managing
their anxiety. By comparison, male participants did not seek mental health services
even though they also experienced heightened levels of anxiety post-incarceration.
Though small by modern social research standards, the sample of 37 participants
still offered a few advantages. First, the researcher was able to establish a baseline
as to how generalizable the study sample is to the adult prison population. Second,
the researcher was able to conduct chi-square and ANOVA comparisons across
select demographic groups, including men versus women, white-collar offenders
versus other types of offenders, and across race and ethnic identities to determine
statistical relationships between the groups. Third, the sample size was large enough
to permit logistic regression analysis of the impact of white-collar status on prison
maladaptation (see Jenkins & Quintana-Ascencio, 2020, for a discussion on mini-
mum sample size for regressions). Because of the purposive sampling strategy that
was used in this study, the generalizability of the findings was limited; however, by
conducting the analyses described above, the findings could be compared to past
tests of the special resiliency hypothesis (e.g., Logan et al., 2019; Stadler et al., 2013).
An Unexpected Disruption: The Global COVID-19 Pandemic
As a researcher, one must be cognizant that unexpected things sometimes happen.

For quantitative data, data might be miscoded, or the survey items may not accu-
rately capture the phenomenon in question. For qualitative data, attrition is normal
and there may be audio distortions in transcription tapes. Although these mistakes
and oversights can present challenges, these issues are fairly common. In the exam-
ple study used here, however, the researcher faced an unprecedented challenge that
not only impacted the research, but also the participants as well as the lives of mil-
lions of other individuals: the COVID-19 pandemic. The following section details
how unexpected events can arise during a research endeavor and several steps that
can be taken to ensure successful completion of a project.
In March 2020, the United States declared a national emergency with statewide
stay-at-home orders to prevent the spread of COVID-19 (CDC, 2022). Universities
across the nation abided by public health guidelines to ensure the safety of both
researchers and participants (Fernandez Lynch et al., 2020; Meagher et al., 2020;
Taylor et al., 2021). Most studies that involved interactions with human subjects
came to a halt, and researchers had to develop creative research design solutions that
permitted data collection while maintaining ethical protocols set forth by their gov-
erning Institutional Review Board (IRB) (for example protocols, see Johns Hopkins
University, 2020). In a research facility, this may mean restricting the number of
team members working on site at any given time. In a clinical lab setting, this may
entail self-administered tests or outcomes collected by telephone or mail (McDermott
& Newman, 2020). However, what about social and behavioral studies that rely on
in-person participant interviews? How does one recruit, conduct study activities,
and establish rapport with participants during a pressing global health pandemic?
The first step to addressing any unexpected research challenge is to keep open
avenues of communication across all research team members. To do so requires
keeping abreast of IRB requirements outlined by the administrative body oversee-
ing the study (Fernandez Lynch et al., 2020; Taylor et al., 2021). In the example
study, the researcher had to submit IRB modifications to request an entirely virtual
process. This included a virtual consent process via telephone or mail; activities
conducted via telephone, mail, or email; and an interview via telephone. A virtual
process (and the use of technology more generally) offers several benefits to the
researcher (Block & Erskine, 2012; Fernandez Lynch et al., 2020; Novick, 2008;
Sipes et al., 2020). One key benefit includes greater flexibility in meeting times
between the participant and the researcher. For example, with online methods, par-
ticipants can provide consent and complete study activities remotely and at a time
convenient for them without the need to meet in person (Block & Erskine, 2012;
Novick, 2008; Sipes et al., 2020; Sturges & Hanrahan, 2004). In addition, a remote
process reduces potential biases that may impact the participant’s response, such as
biases based on physical appearances or nonverbal cues (Novick, 2008; Sipes et al.,
2020). A final key advantage for using a remote data collection process includes the
ability to address “sensitive topics” that may present discomfort in a face-to-face
interview situation (Sturges & Hanrahan, 2004; Sipes et al., 2020). Sensitive topics
refer to topics or experiences that may elicit emotional, physical, or psychological
distress for the participant or researcher (Sipes et al., 2020). The use of a remote
process provides a shield or a perception of anonymity for respondents that may
offer comfort when discussing sensitive issues such as illegal behavior or traumatic
events (Sturges & Hanrahan, 2004; Sipes et al., 2020). As such, these are a few
examples of how mixed methods studies can pivot to ensure that participants are
safe during a global health crisis while participating in research activities.
The second step when faced with an unexpected research disruption is to main-
tain clear communication with participants. Clear communication with study par-
ticipants can help ease concerns participants may have about their safety in the
study. Additionally, this allows the researcher to reinforce established protocols set
in place should participants or any of the parties feel distress or discomfort (Sanjari
et al., 2014). Moreover, some participants may begin their study activities and may
later change their minds. Opening a dialogue between the researchers and the par-
ticipants provides a safety net for participants to express their feelings about partici-
pant expectations (Charmaz, 2014; Sanjari et al., 2014). Due to the unexpected
timing of COVID-19, some participants in the example study were in the process of
completing parts of their research activities. To ensure that participants were safe
and felt safe in continuing in the study, research team members kept participants
informed of the study’s status and shifted to remote study activities. Because in-
person interviews were no longer viable, the researcher explained the temporary
discontinuation of in-person meetings. In general, the open dialogue between both
parties allowed the research team to address any concerns participants felt surround-
ing the impact of COVID-19 and provided the team an opportunity to discuss
adjusted protocol measures approved by their IRB. In sum, the open communica-
tion between the parties allowed the study to move forward in a manner comfortable
for both the researcher and the participants.
A final step to consider when faced with an unforeseen interference is to be
aware of the researcher’s role in the study. As mentioned earlier, challenges and
pitfalls of research are normal (Charmaz, 2014). To overcome these challenges, it is
important to consider and predict how these disruptions may impact the results of
the study (Aquilino, 1994; Sipes et al., 2020). For instance, will results be biased
due to modifications in data collection procedures? How will participants respond
to changes implemented during their study activities? Although not comprehensive,
these are some example questions researchers might consider in the event they have
to modify their study.
Returning to this chapter’s example, one key concern that the researcher consid-
ered was how the virtual consent process may impact rapport with participants. In
general, establishing rapport with participants is important to obtain but difficult to
achieve (Aquilino, 1994; Charmaz, 2014; Novick, 2008; Sipes et al., 2020; Sturges
& Hanrahan, 2004). In mixed methods research, especially research designs that
rely on participant interviews, participant relationships are invaluable. So, while a
shift toward technology offers greater flexibility with data collection during a global
pandemic, there are challenges to moving to an entirely virtual process. Attrition,
for example, remains a key concern for interview research (Charmaz, 2014). A pivot
toward technology-based data collection can potentially exacerbate the attrition
problem by isolating select disadvantaged groups who may be less comfortable
with its use (Marhefka et al., 2020; Santana et al., 2021). For example, individuals
who do not have reliable communication forms such as a telephone or stable hous-
ing may have greater difficulties completing study tasks by telephone or mail (Block
& Erskine, 2012; Santana et al., 2021). In addition, individuals with low technologi-
cal literacy may also be disproportionally affected (Irani, 2019). Likewise, some
individuals may not respond well to structural, status, and psychological distance
such as silence over the telephone that may interfere with the quality of data being
collected (Block & Erskine, 2012). Rather than elaborating on responses, partici-
pants may provide brief or short answers to minimize any perceived distance
between the researcher (Block & Erskine, 2012). Although these are potential prob-
lems that researchers may face, it is important to be mindful of the study’s overall
research design. Every design decision must be given careful consideration of how
it will impact the study’s overall outcomes and whether it is the best solution given
the research question.
Discussion
In summary, mixed methods study designs offer several advantages for addressing
research questions. However, researchers need to recognize that there are challenges
in this approach. Depending on the research question, a mixed methods approach
may illuminate social processes that can only be understood by combining a quan-
titative and qualitative approach to data collection. For example, the works of Laub
and Sampson (2003) and Klinger and Brunson (2009)—two seminal pieces in crim-
inal justice literature—demonstrate how pairing the two types of research methods
can lead to theory development and theory testing. Of course, every research ques-
tion should be given careful thought as to what the most appropriate research design
is to answer any particular question. The mixed methods approach works well for
some questions, but either strictly quantitative or qualitative methods may work bet-
ter for others.
In this chapter, we focused on the benefits of using a survey paired with partici-
pant interviews in a concurrent nested design. Specifically, the researcher used a
concurrent nested design to better understand the special sensitivity and special
resiliency hypotheses among a sample of formerly incarcerated individuals. This
mixed methods design offered two main advantages. First, the survey allowed the
researcher to ask specific questions as it related to the two guiding theories and to
prior quantitative research on prison adjustment. Second, the survey answers pro-
vided a baseline for the researcher to develop an interview protocol catered to each
participant. This was important because the study was designed to investigate the
assumption that adjustment is diverse and varies by gender, race/ethnicity, and
social class. Findings from the study will offer insight into how adults from different
social backgrounds navigate the prison system and their reentry into civilian life.
Although the example study that was discussed throughout this chapter is not yet
completed, preliminary analyses already indicate that the mixed methods design
will enable the researcher to accomplish two important objectives: (1) identify dif-
ferences in adjustment based on gender, race/ethnicity, and social class and then (2)
provide a tentative explanation as to why these differences exist. In other words, the
researcher may be able to develop a theory of adjustment that advances what is
already known about reactions to prison life and to the reentry experience. This
process of going back and forth between analysis and theory building is one of the
prime advantages that flows out of this form of mixed methods design. Assuming
the best of all possible worlds, the theory developed by the research will then moti-
vate additional quantitative studies to ascertain its validity and hopefully science
will progress.
As with all research, challenges and disruptions may arise at any time regardless
of one’s particular research design, and it is important to be aware of this likelihood
and to consider the potential problems that may develop during the research pro-
cess. Unfortunately, in mixed methods studies, things can go wrong in a couple of
ways, that is, with either or both the quantitative and qualitative data collection and
analysis. For example, a mixed methods researcher might be faced with a series of
systematic coding errors in their quantitative data. Likewise, in the qualitative data
audio distortions in a participant interview recording may lead to a whole interview

being rendered unusable. Regardless of what the issue is, the researcher should
demonstrate flexibility and have a clear plan in place to overcome these challenges.
Moreover, researchers should always keep in mind that no research design is per-
fect. They all have weaknesses and shortcomings that need to be acknowledged in
publications, but they are rarely completely fatal to any given project.
In conclusion, the authors strongly hope that the COVID-19 pandemic that
impacted the example study will be a once-in-a-lifetime event. However, even if the
world never faces another global crisis such as the pandemic, future researchers will
undoubtedly confront equally troubling challenges to their projects. Thus, we spent
some time discussing how the researcher responded to the totally unprecedented
interruption to the project caused by the pandemic. There are several important les-
sons to be learned here. The first and most significant lesson is this: do not give up.
Despite the bleak days of the spring of 2020, the researcher kept trying to figure out
how to arrange the data collection so that the project could continue and eventually
after some delays the project did continue. Second, keep lines of communication
open, especially with the local IRB. As a regulatory body, the IRB is duty-bound to
follow and enforce regulations regarding research with human subjects, but IRBs
also have an interest in seeing that research progresses in their institutions. Finally,
do not forget about your participants. They have invested time and emotional energy
in you and your project. Be sure to acknowledge their contribution and keep them
informed about where things stand with the study. Even if a study has to be com-
pletely abandoned for some reason, the researcher has an obligation to let the par-
ticipants know what has happened and why and to be open to continuing
communication with them if they want to do so.
References
Alvesson, M. (2003). Beyond neopositivists, romantics, and localists: A reflexive approach to

interviews in organizational research. Academy of Management Review, 28(1), 13–33.
Alvesson, M., & Sandberg, J. (2011). Generating research questions through problematization.
Academy of Management Review, 36(2), 247–271.
Aquilino, W. S. (1994). Interview mode effects in surveys of drug and alcohol use: A field experi-
ment. Public Opinion Quarterly, 58(2), 210–240.
Benson, M. L., & Cullen, F. T. (1988). The special sensitivity of white-collar offenders to prison:
A critique and research agenda. Journal of Criminal Justice, 16(3), 207–215.
Benson, M. L., & Moore, E. (1992). Are white-collar and common offenders the same? An empiri-
cal and theoretical critique of a recently proposed general theory of crime. Journal of Research
in Crime and Delinquency, 29(3), 251–272.
Benson, M. L., & Simpson, S. S. (2018). White collar crime: An opportunity perspective (3rd ed.).
Routledge.
Block, E. S., & Erskine, L. (2012). Interviewing by telephone: Specific considerations, opportuni-
ties, and challenges. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 11(4), 428–445.
Budhwani, H., & Sun, R. (2020). Creating COVID-19 stigma by referencing the novel coronavi-
rus as the “Chinese virus” on Twitter: Quantitative analysis of social media data. Journal of
Medical Internet Research, 22(5), e19301.
Centers for Disease Control. (2022, January 5). CDC museum COVID-19 timeline. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention David J. Sencer CDC Museum. https://www.cdc.gov/museum/
timeline/covid19.html
Charmaz, K. (2014). Constructing grounded theory (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications.
Charmaz, K., & Belgrave, L. (2012). Qualitative interviewing and grounded theory analysis. In
The SAGE handbook of interview research: The complexity of the craft (Vol. 2, pp. 347–365).
https://doi.org/10.4135/9781452218403.n25
Corbin, J. M., & Strauss, A. (1990). Grounded theory research: Procedures, canons, and evaluative
criteria. Qualitative Sociology, 13(1), 3–21.
Creswell, J. W., Plano Clark, V. L., Gutmann, M. L., & Hanson, W. E. (2003). Advanced mixed
methods research designs. In A. Tashakkori & C. Teddlie (Eds.), Handbook of mixed methods
in social and behavioral research (pp. 209–240). SAGE Publications.
Fernandez Lynch, H., Dickert, N. W., Zettler, P. J., Joffe, S., & Largent, E. A. (2020). Regulatory
flexibility for COVID-19 research. Journal of Law and the Biosciences, 7(1), lsaa057.
Gibson, C. B. (2017). Elaboration, generalization, triangulation, and interpretation: On enhancing
the value of mixed method research. Organizational Research Methods, 20(2), 193–223.
Irani, E. (2019). The use of videoconferencing for qualitative interviewing: Opportunities, chal-
lenges, and considerations. Clinical Nursing Research, 28(1), 3–8.
Jenkins, D. G., & Quintana-Ascencio, P. F. (2020). A solution to minimum sample size for regres-
sions. PLoS One, 15(2), e0229345.
Johns Hopkins University. (2020). April 4. Johns Hopkins University Research. https://research.
jhu.edu/covid-19/hsr/
Johnson, B., & Gray, R. (2015). A history of philosophical and theoretical issues for mixed meth-
ods research. In A. Tashakkori & C. Teddie (Eds.), SAGE handbook of mixed methods in social
and behavioral research (pp. 69–94). SAGE Publications.
Klinger, D. A., & Brunson, R. K. (2009). Police officers’ perceptual distortions during lethal
force situations: Informing the reasonableness standard. Criminology & Public Policy, 8(1),
117–140.
Kruttschnitt, C., & Gartner, R. (2004). Women in prison in the 1990s: A temporal and institutional
comparison [Data set]. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distribu-
tor], 2011-10-27.
Laub, J. H., & Sampson, R. J. (2003). Shared beginnings, divergent lives: Delinquents boys to age
70. Harvard University Press.
Locke, K. (2002). The grounded theory approach to qualitative research. In F. Drasgow &
N. Schmitt (Eds.), Measuring and analyzing behavior in organizations: Advances in measure-
ment and data analysis (pp. 17–43). Jossey-Bass.
Logan, M. W., Morgan, M. A., Benson, M. L., & Cullen, F. T. (2019). Coping with imprisonment:
Testing the special sensitivity hypothesis for white-collar offenders. Justice Quarterly, 36(2),
225–254.
Marhefka, S., Lockhart, E., & Turner, D. (2020). Achieve research continuity during social dis-
tancing by rapidly implementing individual and group videoconferencing with participants:
Key considerations, best practices, and protocols. AIDS and Behavior, 24(7), 1983–1989.
Mathison, S. (1988). Why triangulate? Educational Researcher, 17(2), 13–17.
McDermott, M. M., & Newman, A. B. (2020). Preserving clinical trial integrity during the corona-
virus pandemic. Journal of the American Medical Association, 323(21), 2135–2136.
Meagher, K. M., Cummins, N. W., Bharucha, A. E., Badley, A. D., Chlan, L. L., & Wright,
R. S. (2020). COVID-19 ethics and research. Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 95(6), 1119–1123.
Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook.
SAGE Publications.
Morris, N. A., & Slocum, L. A. (2010). The validity of self-reported prevalence, frequency, and
timing of arrest: An evaluation of data collected using a life event calendar. Journal of Research
in Crime and Delinquency, 47(2), 210–240.
Novick, G. (2008). Is there a bias against telephone interviews in qualitative research? Research in
Nursing & Health, 31(4), 391–398.
Payne, B. K. (2003). Incarcerating white-collar offenders: The prison experience and beyond.
Charles C. Thomas Publisher Ltd.
Porcellato, L., Carmichael, F., & Hulme, C. (2016). Using occupational history calendars to capture
lengthy and complex working lives: A mixed method approach with older people. International
Journal of Social Research Methodology, 19(3), 269–286.
Sampson, R. J., & Raudenbush, S. W. (1999). Systematic social observation of public spaces: A
new look at disorder in urban neighborhoods. American Journal of Sociology, 105(3), 603–651.
Sanjari, M., Bahramnezhad, F., Fomani, F. K., Shoghi, M., & Cheraghi, M. A. (2014). Ethical
challenges of researchers in qualitative studies: The necessity to develop a specific guideline.
Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine, 7, 14.
Santana, F. N., Hammond Wagner, C., Berlin Rubin, N., Bloomfield, L. S., Bower, E. R., Fischer,
S. L., Santos, B. S., Smith, G. E., Muraida, C. T., & Wong-Parodi, G. (2021). A path forward
for qualitative research on sustainability in the COVID-19 pandemic. Sustainability Science,
16(3), 1061–1067.
Sipes, J. B., Mullan, B., & Roberts, L. D. (2020). Ethical considerations when using online
research methods to study sensitive topics. Translational Issues in Psychological Science, 6(3),
235–239.
Stadler, W. A., Benson, M. L., & Cullen, F. T. (2013). Revisiting the special sensitivity hypothesis:
The prison experience of white-collar inmates. Justice Quarterly, 30(6), 1090–1114.
Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. M. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures
and techniques. SAGE Publications, Inc.
Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for
developing grounded theory (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications.
Sturges, J. E., & Hanrahan, K. J. (2004). Comparing telephone and face-to-face qualitative inter-
viewing: A research note. Qualitative Research, 4(1), 107–118.
Sutherland, E. H. (1940). White-collar criminality. American Sociological Review, 5(1), 1–12.
Taylor, H. A., Serpico, K., Lynch, H. F., Baumann, J., & Anderson, E. E. (2021). A snapshot
of U.S. IRB review of COVID-19 research in the early pandemic. Journal of. Clinical and
Translational Science, 5(1), e205–e205.
United States Bureau of Justice Statistics. (2004). Survey of inmates in state and federal cor-
rectional facilities [Data set]. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
[distributor], 2019-12-12.
Warren, J. I. (2006). Women coping in prison at the Fluvanna correctional center for women in
Virginia, 1999-2000 [Data set]. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
[distributor], 2006-03-30.
Weisburd, D., Wheeler, S., Waring, E., & Bode, N. (1991). Crimes of the middle classes: White-
collar offenders in the federal courts. Yale University Press.
Wheeler, S., Weisburd, D., Waring, E., & Bode, N. (1988). White collar crime and criminals.
American Law Review, 25, 331–337.
Diana Sun is an Assistant Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida
Atlantic University. Her research interests include the effects of incarceration on white-collar
offenders, the drug overdose epidemic, and macro-level patterns of crime across race/ethnic-
ity. Her work has been published in outlets such as Race and Social Problems and Socius:
Sociological Research for a Dynamic World and Deviant Behavior.
Michael L. Benson is Professor Emeritus and Senior Research Associate in the School of Criminal
Justice at the University of Cincinnati. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Criminology and
has published extensively on white-collar and corporate crime.
Part II
The Growing Relevance of the Online
World
Overview
COVID-19 and the repeated lockdowns in several countries worldwide have con-
tributed to accelerating the growing trend of living, performing, consuming, com-
municating, learning, offending, suffering, harming, and so much more in the online
world. While the ways the online and the offline intersect are complex and cannot
be considered mere juxtapositions, nor alternative ways of being and doing, crimi-
nology has devoted growing attention to them. Online crime and victimization and
the way social control has adapted to the Internet context have been widely studied
and promise to continue to be hot topics of research. And the way surveillance tech-
nologies are permeating online activities to, for instance, support money laundering
compliance by red-flagging suspected financial operations, are commonly recog-
nized as relevant objects of criminological inquiry.
Moreover, in the last two years, in conferences, papers, or informal talks, schol-
ars have been discussing the impact that lockdowns and social distancing have had
on their research. Access to participants and places was seriously harmed due to the
recent restrictive measures, especially to those people and sites usually approached
by criminologists. Just consider the difficulties of accessing prison settings, child
protection services, courts, or police stations or of trying to talk to people who are
incarcerated or even people without homes, migrants and refugees, or domestic
violence victims. The hard-to-reach population became even harder to recruit, and
many others were restricted in their participation. Researchers had to quickly adapt
their methodologies and techniques to unprecedented lockdowns and ongoing stud-
ies had to come up with alternative plans to data collection (via zoom interviewing,
for instance). Simultaneously, new research looked elsewhere for data, searching
for ways to collect data using nonintrusive techniques and data sources, such as
online platforms and databases of existing, secondary data, social media, and
the like.
The chapters that follow go beyond the purpose of discussing cybercrime or
online offenses and victimization. They offer updated incursions on the uses of the
52 II The Growing Relevance of the Online World
Internet in qualitative criminological research, through thought-provoking essays

about the growing autonomy of online activities. What is innovative in the chapters
that follow is not only how authors reason and discuss methods to conduct research
on social phenomena happening online (either simultaneously or alternatively on
and offline) but also how research itself moves online – from the recruitment stage
to the data gathering phase and everything in between.
These chapters also help navigate some of the most pressing ethical and method-
ological challenges of conducting research online. Contributions found below pin-
point the benefits of using digital platforms and Internet-facilitated research to study
crimes of the powerful, particularly in countries traditionally averse to freedom of
information (Pontell & Ghazi-Tehrani); offer a step-by-step approach on how and
why to recruit participants from youth subcultures using hyped social media plat-
forms (Sidoti-Pasquazi); and lay down an extensive reflection on the benefits and
challenges of doing sound, rigorous, and reliable research benefiting from all the
potential uses of online tools and data sources (Mardones-Bravo).
While this is not the first time that the uses of the Internet for research have been
discussed, it is likely that methodological, ethical, and practical debates such as the
ones offered here will continue and grow. Likewise, the relevance of reflecting and
pondering how to conduct qualitative research online is likely to intensify due to the
increasing time people spend on the Internet. Online living and existing, avatars,
simulated and augmented reality, filters and TikTok’s, scrolling, liking, following,
inviting, doing lives, swiping – all this and much more is only surfacing as research-
able phenomena and qualitative researchers will probably need to adapt and come
up with new or improved methodologies to fully grasp such online “realities” and
the way they are influenced by and further impact offline experiences.
Chapter 4
Smart Researching in Criminology: Virtual
Ethnography at the Edge
Cosimo Sidoti
Introduction
As I was stuck at home during a global pandemic, I found myself in a situation

where I needed to readapt my research according to the vicissitudes of the moment.
My plan and enthusiasm for doing fieldwork for the very first time were gradually
fading away towards what I thought to be a less adventurous and exciting approach
more compatible with a lockdown. When thinking about how to access my subjects
of study, my intentions were to find an alternative field site that allowed me to keep
an ethnographic gaze equally immersive despite the physical distance between
myself and them. From one of the worst experiences a field researcher may face
while conducting research, I was able to turn adversity into an advantage which
unexpectedly improved my methodology and now leads me to write about new
methodological insights within the field of criminology.
The importance of digital qualitative methods has long been established among
criminologists and there has emerged a growing body of literature on how to
approach crime and deviance online within the past 20 years. In particular, virtual
ethnography has represented an important source of epistemological knowledge to
the criminal world and its evolving shapes with the advent of the Internet (Ferrell
et al., 2015). A prerogative of ethnographic methods, be it on- and/or offline, relates
to the emotions and subjectivity with which field researchers deeply connect with
the lives of those being studied (Ferrell, 2018). These aspects, as valuable sources of
insight, have been hard to develop in ethnographies – and even more
The title is inspired by Ferrell, J. & Hamm, M. (1998). Ethnography at the edge. Northeastern
University Press.
C. Sidoti (*)
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore and Transcrime, Milan, Italy
e-mail: cosimo.sidoti@unicatt.it

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18401-7_4
54 C. Sidoti
virtually – where relationships are characterised by a social disengagement and

emotional detachment, especially if approaching with unknown users (Twenge,
2013). The online barrier between the researcher and the researched can reflect nega-
tively on the research accuracy of findings. Most of the criminological field research
resulting in studies that claim to be virtual ethnographies often have misperceived
the context of ‘liveness’ intrinsic to such methodology. Through my early experience
in virtual fieldwork but long years ‘inhabiting’ the Web, I intend to provide strategies
for other criminologists to better build and live online relationships and reveal the
methodological nature of the Internet as an emergent emotional public space.
This chapter is based on an intensive online field research inside a deviant youth
subculture on Instagram.1 It attempts to explore my personal experiences, chal-
lenges and discoveries in the area of criminological fieldwork tracing down the
current shifts in the methodological, theoretical and political implications of con-
ducting ethnography with deviant and criminal subcultures in our late modern
mediascape. The argument is on the experiential framework of virtual ethnography
and the entanglement of emotions attached to the lived immersions of field research-
ers into criminal subjects, often neglected by online field researchers. The crimino-
logical verstehen does not only fit within traditional ethnographies, but it is possible
to achieve in the virtual world too. For this reason, field researchers in criminology
need to consider the risks, fears, pleasures and excitements attached to the processes
of online ethnographic methods when accessing, interacting and engaging with
criminal phenomena online.
First, a brief overview of the changes in the Internet is afforded to show the rel-
evance of social media as an optimal research tool for virtual ethnography in crimi-
nology compared to other computer-mediated communications. Then, my research
on the meanings of crime in Italian trap culture is introduced from a methodological
perspective as a case study to support the practicality of access and engagement
with the use of Instagram and its algorithm and to provide important guidance for
other online field researchers. It follows personal considerations on the subjective
understanding of deviance’s situational meanings and emotions in trap culture in
Italy through Instagram with the achievement of criminological verstehen. Finally,
the extent through which online interactions are carried out is analysed to denote
further emotive components when doing online qualitative research.
he Criminological Relevance of Social Media

T
in Virtual Ethnography
Even more during these problematic times, the academic innovation of virtual eth-
nography is fundamental in the understanding of new insights into the dynamics of
crime within our contemporary society in which most of the social action and
interaction in people’s everyday life takes place in online environments (Garcia
1
Sidoti (2021).
4 Smart Researching in Criminology: Virtual Ethnography at the Edge 55
et al., 2009). Such method design proposes a new anthropological space, no longer
geographically localisable, which does not give much importance to residing
intensely – alone and immersed in another world often romanticised in ethnographic
reports – as an activity but rather as a practice that requires frequent online accesses
and to ‘inhabit’ personal relationships over time and in everyday places (Mann &
Stewart, 2000). The conception on the role of the notion of fieldwork is severely
tested by virtual ethnographies where the current epistemological rethinking repre-
sents an opportunity to reconsider the construction of the ethnographic subject and
reformulate the very notion of the field (Hine, 2000).
As crime has adapted to technological developments over time, researchers have
attempted to innovate the use of digital methods in the different contexts of online
environments. The first virtual ethnographies carried out during the 1990s were
consequential to the primordial versions of the Internet (Hine, 2017). The first
advantages brought by computer-mediated communications to researchers were
supported by the creation of a virtual space or anonymised blogs and forums (Postil
& Pink, 2012). At the time of Hine’s book on Virtual Ethnography, she was writing
about a Web 1.0 context encompassed by ‘email, the World Wide Web, bulletin
boards and many other applications’ (2000, p. 2). Such cyberspaces were structur-
ally leading to a mere observation, either overtly or covertly, of text exchanges
among virtual actors. While before such ethnographic methods could be justifiable
by a lack of advanced computer technologies, now the emergence of the Web 2.0
with other organisational forms online such as social media (e.g. Facebook, Twitter
and Instagram), rather than experimental, classroom and niche groups, have offered
opportunities for field researchers in criminology to better be part of the situated
meanings by which criminals and crime victims make sense of their experiences in
the real and virtual world. Methodological innovation has not always kept pace to
do so, with the result of virtual ethnographies which are not the product of authors’
immersion in the lives of their subjects. Howard (2002, p. 52) affirmed that ‘research-
ers who read email correspondence or participate in chatrooms conduct a kind of
participant content analysis that is sometimes labelled virtual ethnography’. Even
though partially agreeing, I would rather use a less provocative – yet critically rel-
evant – tone to discuss the use of online environments as social media, not yet taken
advantage of, that better allow virtual ethnographers to justify their methods and
explore further data.
Drawing a line where a content analysis ends and a virtual ethnography begins
may seem mainly a matter of terminology rather than one of methodology. However,
the main difference between forums, bulletin board systems and newsgroups com-
pared to social networking sites as research tools lies in the level of engagement
ethnographers have during their immersion because of the architecture of respective
virtual places (Holt, 2020). The grants of anonymity and confidentiality guaranteed
by the formers for both participants and researchers are commonly thought to be
optimal for observing interactions, but it does not go further than an analysis of texts/
images/videos which live in a vacuum under the ‘subject’. On the other hand, the
latter provide content feed where the people who produce/share the content are what
makes it valuable to the readers, and personal connection is the first reason their post
gets engaged with (Holt, 2020). A post on social media means that it can be ‘fed’
56 C. Sidoti
into an infinite number of other feeds as people continue to engage with it by making
it potentially viral and reaching vastly more viewers (Kozinets, 2015). The feed
becomes a viral ecosystem of content and conversations on many different subjects,
and the user is compelled to read through the feed to access the content and the con-
versations within it, rather than relying on their ability to search for it themselves
(Kietzmann et al., 2011). Therefore, in a forum, the subject matter is the context,
whereas in social media the person and his/her relationships become the context.
The benefits that follow digital ethnographers are both in terms of observation
and engagement. The dynamism characterising social networking sites allows one
to observe and document the everyday life of its users including all nine dimensions
of an observation as described by Spradley (1980, p. 78), that is ‘spaces, actors,
activities, objects, acts, events, time, goals and feelings’. Not only do these dimen-
sions guide the fieldwork, but also the engagement to the feed content produced and
consumed in social media is crucial to the way meanings are ascribed by particular
online communities. Throughout the history of virtual ethnography, criminological
researchers obtained access to many Internet subcultures within forums such as
hacker communities (Holt, 2007, 2009; Mann & Sutton, 1998; Taylor, 1999), digital
pirates (Holt & Copes, 2010), paedophiles (Durkin & Bryant, 1999; Holt et al.,
2010; O’Halloran & Quayle, 2010) or self-injurers (Adler & Adler, 2007). Social
media propose a more accessible and approachable online field of research where to
live these subcultures, as many others, through the feed content architecture gov-
erned by algorithms (i.e. hashtags) which facilitates the process of reaching the
target (Holt, 2020). Further, whether ethnographers decide to identify themselves as
researchers or not, social media gives them space and time to progressively immerse
in the field and engage in ‘impression management’ – as Goffman (1959) calls it –
through the creation of an online profile (Van Hellemont, 2012). The deception of
field researchers as insiders is a key factor for gaining trust and interacting with
research subjects on social media. However, the approach in forums has proved to
be challenging for some ethnographers where only the use of gatekeepers guaran-
teed positive results in the interactions (see Potter, 2017).
Having said that, I am not advising to no longer use forums or other similar
organisational forms of online spaces as research tools; rather I am promoting to
take advantage of other Internet-based resources which are better suited for an online
ethnographic immersion in which the proliferation of illegal activities and deviant
subcultures are more and more increasing nowadays. In this way, online field
researchers can be able to recapture the emotional essence of ethnographies and bet-
ter merge their immersive practices with the researched, thus benefiting the research.
Some Notes on Researching Deviance Online
The particular case study I am referring to throughout the chapter relates to my

online field immersion exploring Italian trap culture, a youth subculture that
emerged in Italy beginning in 2014 with shared interests in a music genre known as
trap – born in the Southern USA during the 1990s – with specific ways of slang
talking, aesthetic, behaviours and attitudes (Pagano & Severino, 2019). The catch-
ing sounds; the incredible attention to appearances; the constant references to
money, crime, drugs and fashion; and a hedonistic conception of existence are the
main general traits of trap (Kaluža, 2018). The spread of such musical and cultural
indicators has been progressively revolutionising the life of many new youth gen-
erations around the world, including in the Italian context. The criminal imaginary
proposed by Italian trap culture with its portrayals of violence, drugs and gang and
mafia affiliations seems to be so spread out and instilled in youth identities that
deserved an in-depth and critical analysis in the current panorama of cultural crimi-
nological studies. Doing so, I decided to conduct an exploratory and qualitative
research with the following research questions: What are the meanings of drugs,
violence and gang and mafia affiliation in Italian trap culture? And how and why has
trap culture become a commodity for the youth in Italy?
The extant literature on the topic is mainly based on the US and UK experiences
where the phenomenon of trap, or similar sub-genres as drill, have been studied
through content analyses of YouTube trap rap videos (see Storrod & Densley, 2017;
Ilan, 2020). Despite the empirical accuracy of the studies, YouTube did not allow
the researchers to interact with these cultures and to analyse them in their everyday
life as much as Instagram worked for this research through the conduct of a virtual
ethnography and ethnographic content analysis combined with 57 online semi-
structured interviews with trappers, producers, followers and drug dealers. The
democratisation of new media and the use of social networks such as Instagram
among young people have enabled such culture to exist in the virtual world where
most of the interactions take place and foster collective identities and collective
actions. As such, Instagram represented the main object of investigation to reveal
not only the dynamics of production and consumption of Instagram artefacts as
images, videos and songs, but also how online interactions incur consequences
offline and vice versa. The criminological relevance of this study is based on the
methodological approach that was carried out entirely on Instagram giving me the
opportunity to be more in strict contact with the subjects of research and to immerse
more deeply in the subtleties and nuances of Italian trap culture and their relation-
ship with digital media, unlike the prevalence of the studies in the matter that used
YouTube as their means of knowledge.
My familiarity with the interface language of Instagram especially due to my
previous personal experience with this online platform has helped me to investigate
and find my way in the trap culture in Italy. One of the benefits of the virtual ethnog-
raphy was to progressively introduce me to the culture and allow me time to know
more and more about it without arousing any suspicion of being an outsider.
Immersing myself online, without yet having precise ideas in mind about the type
of behaviour of the participating subjects, was useful to me to start to understand
some dynamics, norms, meanings and shared values of the culture (Pink et al.,
2016). The beginning of my virtual ethnography dates to the beginning of March
2020 when I first created an Instagram account from scratch. The period of this
immersion lasted 7 months. During this time, I spent approximately 3 h per day on
Instagram in which I contacted more than a thousand trappers, producers and
58 C. Sidoti
followers for my following method design of interviewing and scrolled down my

Instagram home to watch the many Instagram stories produced by them (at least five
per day) and to react with likes to some of the posts they were sharing (more or less
two per day). Their interactions depended on the proximity of their song releases;
the more the date was closer, the more their Instagram activities increased by even
reaching more than 10 Instagram stories and 3 posts per day shared to promote their
songs and increase the curiosity in the audience. Overall, this long-term immersion
was enough to create my web of contacts and build mutual trust in the members of
the virtual community (Mann & Stewart, 2000).
Once on Instagram, I needed to figure out one of the most challenging problems
with online qualitative research in social science, which is sampling (Ritichie et al.,
2003). I was able to overcome this process by taking advantage of the algorithm of
Instagram. The first steps into the construction of my trap network have been by add-
ing famous trappers that I already knew the existence from friends and television.
From there on, it was crucial not to add or follow back any friend or acquaintance of
mine in order to not contaminate both the contents of the Instagram home and, most
importantly, the suggestions of friends provided by Instagram. Indeed, my number
of following users grew exponentially through the adding of people from the friend
suggestion. When Instagram realised my follower/following base, I was starting to
get friend suggestions according to my research interests. In this way, I increased my
following users from a hundred people to over a thousand in just a matter of a few
months and sampled an incredible number of participants for my study, there-
fore strengthening one of the main limitations of qualitative research which is the
generalisability of findings.
The access to the research sampling for the interviews has been consequential to
the parallel method of virtual ethnography. The target was ample and gave me the pos-
sibility to choose wisely the respondents that I considered more interesting after a first
glance at their Instagram profile and listening to their music. I carried out 57 semi-
structured online interviews with trappers, producers, followers and drug dealers. The
recruitment followed specific criteria that I developed over time once I was able to find
the most efficient approach and after several failed attempts. If the initial approach
was facilitated by computer-mediated communications that allowed me to privately
message whoever I wanted, the process of building trust needed a lot of attention due
to the virtual barrier that made people more sceptical to keep going a conversation
with a stranger whom identity is almost unknown on Instagram (Curasi, 2001).
First, my targets of respondents had no more than 30 thousand followers as over
that kind of number the possibilities of replies decreased remarkably. I approached
all my respondents with a message of appreciation for their music, letting them
know that I was a fan. Most of the time, this kind of approach guaranteed me an
answer back by the participants who thanked me for my nice words towards their
work. Once the trust was starting to build, I informed them about my research proj-
ect and asked if they were interested in doing an interview. The interviews took
place on Instagram through video calls, as a virtual face-to-face approach facilitated
the building of trust and the commitment of the respondent throughout the interview
that could have already been limited by the absence of a real approach as in-person
interviews (Curasi, 2001).
Each interview had been previously prepared by searching for as much informa-
tion as possible about the respondents mainly through looking at their Instagram
profiles that usually said a lot about their personal life on their Instagram description
and the kind of contents they produce (i.e. their provenience, friends, gang/mafia
affiliation, music and other trap-related activities) and through the listening of their
music to understand their song’s themes. In this way, I was able to build trust more
easily and better direct the interviews by focusing on the topics that I thought were
more inherent to the kind of person I was interviewing. Therefore, as well as the
time-space advantages, the interviews being on Instagram had an incredible impact
as facilitators of communication among my respondents; the personal details I could
get from their profiles proved to be very useful in terms of trust for the interviews.
The findings collected through these methods gave me a lot of space for interpre-
tation and provided valid and reliable data for the study. However, the space of
Instagram cannot be separated from real-world life, especially in relation to my
research topic considering the impact it has on young people’s lives in so many dif-
ferent contexts such as school, play, work, family and so on (Kendall, 1999). Hine
(2000, p. 60) affirms that:
Concentration on a single geographic location could end up focusing on Internet as technol-
ogy at the expense of Internet as a cultural context. For my purpose, I am drawn away from
holism and toward connectivity as an organising principle. […] This may involve viewing
the field, rather than a site, as being a field of relations.
Even the online field of virtual communities under study cannot be limited only to
relationships via computer-mediated communications, but it needs to extend
towards those places and moments of interaction that prove to be significant to
understand the complexity of the social group that is being observed (Mann &
Stewart, 2000). The ethnography of a virtual community, based solely on an online
immersion, provides information on subjects physically distant from the researcher,
but it cannot be the only source of data collection, since it would allow obtaining
only a partial description and not an overflowing description (Geertz, 1973). In this
regard, Hine (2000) talks about a multi-sited ethnography that combines the online
immersion with the investigation of also those contexts of use and access to the
Internet as a cultural artefact. Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 restrictions, I
only had the possibility to conduct a single-site ethnography, but I was able to focus
on the mediated interactions and complexities of the influences between the online
and offline world by conducting the interviews in which I attempted to dig more into
those environments beyond Instagram.
Criminological Verstehen Within Italian Trap Culture
I was born into a family where music represents the main passion and – at better
times – was also a source of income. Considering my third name Miles as in Miles
Davis, jazz music has accompanied most of the life of my father, my mother and my
brother. Even though I was well-educated, I did not ‘inherit’ the same love for jazz.
60 C. Sidoti
Instead of the hypnotic sound of a trumpet, I grew up with the rumbling sound of
boots hitting a football on a green pitch. Getting older and crossing different peri-
ods, I never felt identified with any music genre – be it from the past as my parents,
or from more current trends as my friends, most of them whom I have seen enjoying
a multitude of genres over the years and belonging to the corresponding youth sub-
cultures of the time from house and techno music, psytrance, rap and more recently
trap. During my high school period, I suffered the most looking at the socially cohe-
sive power of rap acting upon my friends. I was feeling left out, but I kept rejecting
rap music no matter how excluded I was and how hard I tried to like it. It was not
for me. If the cultural distance could have made me recognised my disinterest in
jazz, the attempts of understanding the reasons for my same attitudes towards forms
of expression – which belonged to my cultural milieu and united so many friends –
were troubling and interesting to me at the same time.
As I started to approach the discipline of criminology, the need to answer these
inquiries increased and coincided with the emergence of a new music genre in Italy,
in 2014, known as trap and that made me soon forget about rap. While rap had
always been more anchored to an aesthetic and narrative of keeping it real, trap is
about showing off at its maximum extents a consumeristic and criminal lifestyle,
regardless of reflecting the truth of the artists’ experiences. The impact that trap
music had on the whole young population in Italy was incredible. They all went
crazy for it, including my friends and excluding myself. Why would I want to listen
to people who only brag about their supposed money and criminal behaviours? If I
could understand rap and everything related to its culture – even though not feeling
part of it – trap songs did not make sense at all, and I considered trappers pure idiots.
One of the first encounters that made me desire to dig more into trap culture in
Italy relates to my holidays in Sicily during the summer of 2019. While I was relax-
ing with my friends down the beach, we started hearing a group of kids singing out
loud a song by a famous Italian trap artist known as Sfera Ebbasta. Besides the
noise, the striking aspects that left us mildly between a laugh and a mouth open
were the extremely young age of the people involved and the following lyric they
were singing: ‘Syrup rains down like MDMA’. Again, why would such young kids
sing about lyrics that have no meaning? The appealing power of trap music through
its exclusive talks of crime and money – extended to so many young people – was
fascinating to me. One year later, I decided to start an exploratory research on the
meanings of crime in Italian trap culture as part of my master’s thesis.
As abovementioned, the setting of the fieldwork was Instagram. I had no idea
what to expect. I knew very well how Instagram worked as I had been a previous
user for five consecutive years, but never followed any trap-related content whatso-
ever. I hoped I was going to find something interesting; otherwise, my research
would have been compromised. And from that thought, I started following the first
trapper on my new profile created ad hoc for the research: Sfera Ebbasta. I was one
of his three million followers. Any access to him was impossible, but I knew that
within those three million users there were many people I could follow who were
much more accessible and potentially also more interesting than him. Going through
each user, though, was going to be too time-consuming. Therefore, I remembered
the time when I used Instagram to find random girls to flirt with and approach them:
I was using the suggestion of friends so that when I added a girl, another similar
profile was appearing to follow. Relieved on how one of my lowest points of life
resulted to be useful, I went to look in my suggestion of friends provided by the
algorithm of Instagram, and after I added few more trappers, I had a list full of par-
ticipants to follow for my research. This type of sampling, applicable to all sorts of
social media such as Facebook and Twitter, is called ‘algorithmic sampling’2.
In a month, I was completely projected into a new world that I had no idea
existed where thousands of people engage and interact together every minute of the
day. I was witnessing even more than I could have ever imagined during a physical
ethnography. I knew most of the private and public aspects of my following people
on the platform, including their provenience, age, group of friends, everyday on-
and offline activities (legal or illegal), places to hang out, music and habits. I was
fully immersed and was starting to understand more and more their cultural dynam-
ics. The risks of going too native and over rapport were limited by my physical
social distance. Indeed, I decided to strategically divide my time on Instagram being
aware of the addictiveness of social media that could have led me to lose objectivity
in my immersion. Time management is fundamental when doing research online.
During my fieldwork, I was spending 3 h per day on Instagram divided throughout
the day. I was connecting online during the morning for an hour so that I could
watch the events of the night before, a half an hour before dinner time in Italy
(19:30) to interact with people as that time frame is when they are more active and
the remaining time around 23:00 where most of the activities take place, including
Instagram lives.
I was excited about how my online relationships were built and how meaningful
my interactions were. A virtual face-to-face engagement was crucial for going
beyond the saturated content produced and consumed on Instagram. I had spent
enough time looking at self-portrayals of trappers with fake guns, excessive acces-
sories such as gold chains, money, drugs, expensive brand clothes and flashy tattoos.
People constantly asserting their supposed criminality over others to be socially
recognised and construct their credibility. When I conducted interviews, I was start-
ing to understand the negotiated meanings of such content production and con-
sumption on Instagram. I realised the actual role of Instagram. Paradoxically, it was
the same as mine: impression management. As much as I had found my way to ‘sell’
myself as an insider, Instagram represents young people’s natural setting to perform
a DIY type of self-mediation for being seen under the inspirational shapes, aestheti-
cally and linguistically, of criminal characters as gangsters and Mafiosi. Through
music and Instagram, trappers express not who they are and what they have and do,
but who they would like to be and what they would like to have and do.
As crime had become central in the entertainment industry through films, TV
series, tourism, shopping and art (Binik, 2017), new generations of young people
2
This specific term was not invented by me but was actually coined by the criminologist Dr. Van
Hellemont as one of her comments following the presentation of my master’s thesis during a vir-
tual conference
62 C. Sidoti
within Italian trap culture have been able to perform a DIY violence as a form of
entertainment through the will-to-representation provided by Instagram (Yar, 2012).
The experiences of Instagram process self-representations of criminality as a com-
modifiable tool to turn young people’s creativeness, passion and willpower into job
careers and thus sources of income by taking advantage of the opportunities opened
up within the trap youth market to aspire to more than a mediocre life with a normal
and monotonous job. The emergence of such culture gave ambitions for many young
people to achieve this new Italian dream which motivates them to look for monetary
success and a luxurious lifestyle brought by the fame of a trap career.
In this regard, it was interesting to see how trappers use criminalisation instances
against them by mass media, politicians and public opinion to their advantage as
positive catalysts for their careers. Crime becomes instrumentalised as a commercial
asset on Instagram to acquire visibility, fame and money in proportion to the hate
and criminalisation socially constructed around them. I was surprised by how most
respondents confessed to me that their self-mediations of crime were actually not
reflecting their reality but was something used for creating their criminal characters
as trap artists. The title of my research, Not All that Glitters is Gold, corresponding
to one of the most recurrent answers by the participants in the study, is representative
of this confusion underlying the portrayal of crime in Italian trap culture: crime’s
folklore and transversality work for the culture as a style of both production and
consumption (‘prosumption’) in which young people stage, record, post, watch,
share and react to the imitative products of existing mediated crime based on the
cultural imaginary of famous TV crime fiction series and the American trap scene.
My negative prejudices turned into empathic understanding once I was starting
to reflect on the mediatic context of conspicuous consumerism within which young
people have been included in mainstream Italian’s mass market, but, at the same
time, culturally and economically excluded over the past years. Italian trap culture
captures and reflects on the profound socio-economic changes that are undergoing
in the country. Changes that are affecting mostly young people who are subjected to
one of the highest rates of youth unemployment in Europe (Clark, 2021) and lack
the kind of vibrant collective culture that has existed for young people in past gen-
erations (Berloffa et al., 2014). As a response to these pressures, many young people
have found their own way of expressing and achieving the cultural and economic
consumption surrounding them. Instagram and the doors opened by the trap market
represent the means to achieve the Italian dream. If in my personal experience I do
not share the same consumeristic desires and a quality of life based merely on
money, I can certainly relate to their aspirations of success carrier-wise which have
for long been repressed in Italy. I know something of it having left the country at
18 years old to pursue a degree in criminology with the ambition of creating a career
in something I was passionate about. An opportunity that I have always perceived so
distant to reach growing up in Italy. While I found my way to escape my trap of
insecurity and uncertainty abroad, many young people escape their trap by includ-
ing themselves into a culture that finally allows them to adapt ‘to the rules of glo-
balisation in order to earn and become famous’ as mentioned in the Spotify
biography of Dark Polo Gang (n.d.), one of the most famous trap groups in Italy.
During the summer 2020, in the middle of my fieldwork, I went to Sicily with my
friends again. This time I was not the one killing the mood when a trap song was
turned on the stereo; rather I was the one who was putting those same songs and
singing them. I was gossiping with my friends about new releases and dissing/beefs
that were happening in the trap scene. They were all amazed by my sudden change
of perspective and behaviour: ‘Cosimo, one year ago you hated this music… What’s
up with you, bro?’ Through my virtual and emphatic understanding of the culture, I
was able to identify myself with them in a way that I never felt before and that prob-
ably will never be able to fully convey in words. The researcher had become the
researched. My change of perspective not only made me understand trap culture in
Italy, but also enjoy its music and entertainment around it. Instagram was pivotal for
this process and gave me the time and the right tools to immerse into the immediacy
of deviance and its situated emotional meanings.
Interacting Through Instagram
Online interactions are completely different from face-to-face encounters with

research subjects. Researchers may lack the necessary sensibility when approaching
virtually, especially if in the field of criminology dealing with possible vulnerable
people. If one is expecting the adventurous stories of Lyng’s fieldwork crashing
with his motorcycle when doing edgework research (1998), virtual ethnography
embraces a whole different type of adventures and emotions which, despite that, are
equally meaningful in terms of research findings.
The social distance on Instagram was useful for my engagement with my research
subjects as it created the perfect balance of immersion. During my interactions with
trap singers and producers, I introduced myself first as a fan instead of starting the
conversation with a boring ‘I am a criminologist who is doing research…’ and then
as a researcher intended to give trappers a space where to correct faulty impressions
of trap music constantly criminalised by outsiders. I was making them feel under-
stood, but not too much, so that they could yet feel empowered to open up to me
about their experiences with someone who is not a trapper or directly involved in the
culture. My type of approach was successful following their incredibly high avail-
ability and trust placed in me during the interviews.
The first time I felt actual responsibility about the consequences I could have had
by interacting with my participants online was exactly when one of them, prior to
the interview, confessed to me in private messages that he was not feeling being
interviewed as he had attempted suicide and to self-harm himself a few days before.
At that moment, I wondered how a person – who had no absolute idea of who I was
and how I looked like – could possibly share such personal and delicate informa-
tion. I have never found myself in a situation like this – either professionally or
privately – and certainly I was not expecting it to be while I was doing that research.
Even though no longer accessible for my research, I reassured him that there was
no problem and understood his reasons for not doing the interview. After we ended
64 C. Sidoti
our conversation with the hope of keeping in touch in the future, such text exchanges
did not result to be useless as I reflected more on his words and looked for other
similar patterns of depression within the culture. In terms of my research, it is
indeed interesting to see how this interaction helped me in further exploration of my
findings. His condition made me realise that also other young people had similar
negative feelings conveyed in songs and Instagram profiles which I tended to neglect
before. Therefore, the sense of loneliness and sadness needed to be situated within
a broader picture of meanings which related to the processes of conspicuous con-
sumerism and the constant search for success. Moreover, I noticed how such mani-
festations of depression were also related to the use of antidepressants and sedatives
(i.e. codeine-based cough syrups and Xanax) whose increasing recreational use
among young people proved to be common within Italian trap culture. The effects
of these nonmedical prescriptions – the emotional flattening and deceleration of the
nervous system together with endogenous feelings of well-being – are the perfect
solution to cope momentarily with this ‘cultural sadness’ prevailing on the youth
nowadays (Sidoti, 2021).
From my young personal experience conducting online research, I found incred-
ibly astonishing how my respondents opened up to me in a way that probably would
not be as much as effective in physical interactions. For instance, among my respon-
dents, there were several drug dealers – or plugs as better known in the culture –
whose interactions with me were not so granted. Their illegal activities are carried
out on Instagram advertising the sale of their products. Unlike the classic spaccia-
tore (as it has always been called a drug dealer in Italian), the role of plugs relates
to trap culture in Italy by satisfying the needs of young people for exclusive and
refined products in the trap market which rarely can be found on the streets. Plugs
resemble the street lifestyle of trap where conspicuous consumerism holds sway
over the culture and justifies economic-driven crimes (Ilan, 2015). The choice of
being a plug represents the will to detach completely from the boredom and monot-
ony of a normal daily timeline (Cohen & Taylor, 1976) in which any legal employ-
ment limits the possibilities of undertaking a career as a trapper in terms of time,
profit and even experiences. Indeed, plugs are not only the supplier of trappers, but
most of the time they are also emerging trappers themselves. As opposed to an aver-
age job, the occupation of plugs is very profitable and not time-consuming allowing
them to use their money and time entirely for making music and focus on their
ambitions of climbing the trap ladder (Sidoti, 2021).
Plugs do not act on the underground of the Internet as it could be on the Dark
Web; they are easily accessible and approachable on Instagram with public or pri-
vate accounts under a random nickname. The advanced information retrieved from
just looking at Instagram profiles allows researchers to always find a common
ground as a conversation starter. I approached most plugs after observing their
activities on Instagram and looking for a topic to connect with (most of the time it
was about trap songs). Once I raised interest in the conversation, then I was able to
explain my research and ask for an interview. Even though they were aware of the
research I was doing for the university, all of them were keen to answer all my ques-
tions and confided in me almost every secret about their illegitimate businesses.
Plugs’ illegal activities are public on Instagram. Thus, it may represent a risk for
researchers as well as themselves. Some plugs may be under investigation by
authorities and their interactions, including with researchers’, and might be tracked
by the police. The care researchers must have on respecting anonymity is increas-
ingly important on the Internet as their list of respondents – that as in my case cor-
responded to the following users on Instagram – may be easily found by looking at
the profile account. Researchers on social media must have private profiles and their
accounts deleted after publication. The repercussions could not only be for the drug
dealers and the other interviewees, but also for myself because all my respondents
knew my real name, my provenience and my university affiliation. As much as I
could know everything about them, they could easily know where I was in case
things go badly for them and accuse me of leaking information, for instance.
Something similar occurred during Roks’ research on gangs in the Netherlands
where one of his former respondents showed up in his university workplace after a
heated discussion which got resolved eventually.
The interactions and the risks that followed during my experience on Instagram
are just a few of those that could occur when doing criminological online research.
Field researchers need to think thoroughly before they immerse and interact with
their participants and take necessary precautions during virtual ethnographies like
those just mentioned. These experiences – that I was taking for granted – can
increase the understanding and knowledge of methodological and ethical challenges
due to the constant development of computer-mediated communications platforms
as social media.
Conclusion
One of the major purposes of this chapter has been to encourage other field research-
ers in criminology to be more critically aware of their considerations on the episte-
mological and ethical dimension of virtual field sites as social media to conduct
online ethnographic studies. The benefits from the use of online data generated from
such organisational online forms of computer-mediated communications have been
shown throughout the chapter. Compared to other architectural online spaces such
as forums, blogs and bulletin boards through which most criminological online field
research has been conducted, social media (i.e. Instagram, Facebook and Twitter)
facilitate more access to hidden criminal online populations and the researcher’s
engagement and interaction with particular samples of the study. By illustrating my
methodological approach on Instagram with trap culture in Italy, the use of sugges-
tion of friends governed by the algorithm within the platform has proved to be piv-
otal to reach the target and construct the network around my research subjects of
interest. Such algorithmic sampling has facilitated me the progressive immersion
into the culture and my constructed identity as an insider through my Instagram
profile to have better interactions and engagement with them by using strategies that
can be applicable to other sorts of criminological inquiries as well. My argument on
66 C. Sidoti
the achievement of verstehen without physically being there has emphasised ways
to rethink ethnographic practice. From the excitement and enjoyment to the risks
and concerns underlying virtual ethnography on social media, this chapter has
intended to reappropriate the emotional depth characterised by an immersive field-
work into an online environment as Instagram and other social media platforms.
With this, I hope to promote and increase the acceptance of such online field sites as
epistemological possibilities of knowledge in qualitative research and the analysis
of criminological phenomena.
References
Adler, P. A., & Adler, P. (2007). The demedicalization of self-injury: From psychopathology to
sociological deviance. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 36(5), 537–570.
Berloffa, G., Modena, F., & Villa, P. (2014). Changing labour market opportunities for young
people in Italy and the role of the family of origin. Rivista Italiana degli Economisti, 19(2),
227–251.
Binik, O. (2017). Quando il crimine è sublime: La fascinazione per la violenza nella società con-
temporanea. Mimesis.
Clark, D. (2021). Unemployment rate in selected European countries as of June 2021.
Statista. Retrieved August 14, 2021, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/1115276/
unemployment-in-europe-by-country/
Cohen, S., & Taylor, L. (1976). Escape attempts: The theory and practice of resistance to everyday
life. Allen Lane.
Curasi, C. (2001). A critical exploration of face-to face interviewing vs. computer-mediated inter-
viewing. International Journal of Market Research, 43(4), 1–13.
Dark Polo Gang. (n.d.). About Dark Polo Gang. Retrieved September 7, 2020, from https://open.
spotify.com/artist/4CuMwzDzEdlUJMEna38VQ0
Durkin, K. F., & Bryant, C. D. (1999). Propagandizing pederasty. A thematic analysis of the online
exculpatory accounts of unrepentant pedophiles. Deviant Behavior, 20, 103–127.
Ferrell, J. (2018). Criminological ethnography: Living and knowing. In S. Rice & M. Maltz (Eds.),
Doing ethnography in criminology (pp. 147–161). Springer.
Ferrell, J., Hayward, K., & Young, J. (2015). Cultural criminology: An invitation (2nd ed.). Sage.
Garcia, A., Standlee, A., Bechkoff, J., & Yan, C. (2009). Ethnographic approaches to the internet
and computer-mediated communication. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 38(1), 52–84.
Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. Basic Books.
Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Doubleday Anchor.
Hine, C. (2000). Virtual ethnography. Sage.
Hine, C. (2017). Ethnographies of online communities and social media: Modes, varieties, affor-
dances. In N. G. Fielding, R. M. Lee, & G. Blank (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of online
research methods (2nd ed., pp. 401–415). Sage.
Holt, T. J. (2007). Subcultural evolution? Examining the influence of on- and off-line experiences
on deviant subcultures. Deviant Behavior, 28, 171–198.
Holt, T. J. (2009). Lone hacks or group cracks: Examining the social organization of computer
hackers. In F. Smalleger & M. Pittaro (Eds.), Crimes of the internet (pp. 336–350). Pearson.
Holt, T. J. (2020). Assessing traditional and nontraditional data collection methods to study online
phenomena. In C. Melde & F. Weerman (Eds.), Gangs in the era of internet and social media
(pp. 1–19). Springer.
Holt, T. J., & Copes, H. (2010). Transferring subcultural knowledge online: Practices and beliefs
of persistent digital pirates. Deviant Behavior, 31, 625–654.
Holt, T. J., Blevins, K. R., & Burkert, N. (2010). Considering the pedophile subculture online.
Sexual Abuse, 22(1), 3–24.
Howard, P. N. (2002). Network ethnography and the hypermedia organization: New media, new
organizations, new methods. New Media & Society, 4(4), 550–574.
Ilan, J. (2015). Understanding street culture: Poverty, crime, youth and cool. Palgrave Macmillan.
Ilan, J. (2020). Digital street culture decoded: Why criminalizing drill music is street illiterate and
counterproductive. The British Journal of Criminology, 60(4), 994–1013.
Kaluža, J. (2018). Reality of trap: Trap music and its emancipatory potential. IAFOR Journal of
Media, Communication & Film, 5(1), 23–42.
Kendall, L. (1999). Recontextualizing ‘cyberspace’: Methodological considerations for online
research. In S. Jones (Ed.), Doing internet research (pp. 57–74). Sage.
Kietzmann, J. H., Hermkens, K., McCarthy, I. P., & Silvestre, B. S. (2011). Social media? Get
serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media. Business Horizons, 54,
241–251.
Kozinets, R. V. (2015). Netnography: redefined. Sage.
Lyng, S. (1998). Dangerous methods: Risk taking and the research process. In J. Ferrell &
M. Hamm (Eds.), Ethnography at the edge (pp. 221–251). Northeastern University Press.
Mann, C., & Stewart, F. (2000). Internet communication and qualitative research: A handbook for
researching online. Sage.
Mann, D., & Sutton, M. (1998). Netcrime: More changes in the organisation of thieving. British
Journal of Criminology, 38, 201–229.
O’Halloran, E., & Quayle, E. (2010). A content analysis of a “boy love” support forum: Revisiting
Durkin and Bryant. Journal of Sexual Aggression, 16, 71–85.
Pagano, U., & Servino, B. (2019). Inside the trap: Incursione sociologica nel mondo “trap”.
Youcanprint.
Pink, S., Horst, H., Postill, J., Hjorth, L., Lewis, T., & Tacchi, J. (2016). Digital ethnography:
Principles and practices. Sage.
Postill, J., & Pink, S. (2012). Social media ethnography: The digital researcher in a messy web.
Media International Australia, 145(1), 123–134.
Potter, G. R. (2017). Real gates to virtual fields: Integrating online and offline ethnography in
studying cannabis cultivation and reflections on the applicability of this approach in crimino-
logical ethnography more generally. Methodological Innovations, 10(1), 1–11.
Ritchie, J., Lewis, J., & Elam, G. (2003). Designing and selecting samples. In J. Ritchie & J. Lewis
(Eds.), Qualitative research practice (pp. 77–108). Sage.
Sidoti, C. (2021). “Not all that glitters is gold”: An exploratory research on the meanings of crime
in Italian trap culture. LAP Publishing.
Spradley, J. (1980). Participant observation. Waveland Press, Inc..
Storrod, M., & Densley, J. (2017). ‘Going viral’ and ‘going country’: The expressive and instru-
mental activities of street gangs on social media. Journal of Youth Studies, 20(6), 677–696.
Taylor, P. (1999). Hackers: Crime in the digital sublime. Routledge.
Twenge, J. M. (2013). Does online social media lead to social connection or social disconnection?
Journal of College and Character, 14(1), 11–20.
Van Hellemont, E. (2012). Gangland online: Performing the real imaginary world of gangstas
and ghettos in Brussels. European Journal of Crime, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, 20,
159–173.
Yar, M. (2012). Crime, media and the will-to-representation: Reconsidering relationships in the
new media age. Crime, Media, Culture, 8(3), 245–260.
Cosimo Sidoti is a young criminologist. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Criminology

from the University of Sunderland and a Master of Arts in Global Criminology from Utrecht
University. He is now conducting research on nonmedical prescription drug use and supply within
Italian trap culture which can be considered a continuum of his master’s dissertation
Chapter 5
Researching Political Corruption
and White-Collar Crime on the Internet
Henry N. Pontell and Adam K. Ghazi-Tehrani
The Internet has created vast opportunities for committing an array of new offenses,
accelerating older ones, and for studying them as well. Regarding the single crime
of embezzlement, for example, Rosoff et al. (2020, p. 502) note, “…computers have
done for it what the microwave did for popcorn.” The statement is not simply hyper-
bole. Between 1983 and 1992 during the formative years of the Internet and com-
puter revolution, arrests for embezzlement rose 56% (Touby, 1994). Scams may be
old, but new technology continues to change, and that can greatly accelerate their
occurrence. In addition, altogether new forms of crime accompany the proliferation
of the Internet worldwide, including phishing, hacking, ransomware, and cyberat-
tacks through viruses and worms, among other types of Internet offending. The
Internet and related technology can be used to compromise personal and business
computers, steal smartphone data, collect personal details from social media to
commit identity theft, engage in both business and political espionage, and to
enhance activities related to traditional crimes such as prostitution, financial fraud,
intellectual property theft, harassment, child pornography and solicitation, and drug
trafficking. The Internet also serves as an unprecedented mechanism for deviance
and crime by providing widespread accessibility to alternative justifications and
normative viewpoints regarding cybercrime itself. There is little question that com-
puter crimes using the Internet are ubiquitous and increasingly global in nature.
Many scholars have suggested that within a short time that virtually all business
crime will also correspond to what is now widely considered as computer crime
(Rosoff et al., 2020, p. 497).
H. N. Pontell (*)
University of California, Irvine, CA, USA
e-mail: Pontell@uci.edu
A. K. Ghazi-Tehrani
John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York City, NY, USA
e-mail: aghazi@ua.edu

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18401-7_5
70 H. N. Pontell and A. K. Ghazi-Tehrani
The proliferation of traditional and new forms of criminality is made possible by

the extension of opportunities and methods, new offender types including computer-
savvy juveniles and organized criminals, and the ease of recruiting willing victims
internationally. Criminal behaviors on the Internet can be accounted for through
explanations having to do with motivated offenders, widely accessible targets, ano-
nymity, a lack of adequate guardianship, and numerous strategies for violating trust
(Stalans & Finn, 2016).
While the ease of technology has allowed criminals a means of carrying out ille-
gal activities online against others, that same technology has been leveraged by the
criminal justice system to help prevent and control crime. It also provides a power-
ful tool for researchers who can readily access data, both quantitative and qualita-
tive, to engage in academic studies involving various criminological and policy
issues. This is particularly the case regarding the study of corruption and white-
collar crime, where usual sources of primary data on offending are not readily avail-
able. Where such information is extremely limited, the Internet can greatly facilitate
collection of useful secondary data from various databases and particularly the news
media, when investigative journalists report on suspected criminal activities. This
access is an important element in studying white-collar criminality, as not all cases,
particularly the largest and costliest ones, are likely to ever reach the point of pros-
ecution and entry into official databases. Examples (among many others) include
cases that were uncovered during the savings and loan crisis (Pontell et al., 1994;
Tillman & Pontell, 1995) and the major financial frauds causing the 2008 US mort-
gage industry meltdown, which led to the largest global economic crisis in history
(Pontell et al., 2014).
Indeed, there are cases where the Internet was instrumental for a disclosure to
occur, such as the Pandora Papers in late 2021. The Pandora Papers “leak” consisted
of nearly 12 million documents totaling almost 3 terabytes which exposed the secret
offshore accounts of 35 world leaders, including current and former presidents, prime
ministers, and heads of state as well as more than 100 billionaires, celebrities, and
business leaders (Miller et al., 2021). As per laws of tax, some of the activities were
legal but could not be justified. The U.S. Department of State announced that it would
review the documents published in the Pandora Papers. According to the leak, trusts
in several US states, including South Dakota, Florida, Delaware, Texas, and Nevada,
were sheltering at least US$1 billion for offshore clients (Pegg & Rushe, 2021).
Researching on the Internet
The most useful information from mass media sources comes from major respected
outlets in terms of standard reporting and in some cases opinion (“op-ed”) pieces,
which provide various analyses of the news itself. More recently, distrust of legiti-
mate news sources complicates such matters to some degree. There are few retrac-
tions of statements in major news outlets, and the usual sources of complaint,
whether they are on the right or the left side of the political spectrum, have
5 Researching Political Corruption and White-Collar Crime on the Internet 71
ideological motivations that are tied to larger social agendas. When “trusted sources”
including highly credentialed professional journalists are attacked for no longer
seeming to abide by the norms and rules of their own profession, there is immediate
reason for suspicion of that mistrust itself. Professional credentials still make a dif-
ference regarding reliable sources of information, just as they do in other occupa-
tions. This is not to say that mistakes never occur, or that there may not be some
degree of bias in certain cases, but clearly observable and verifiable events remain
as unimpeachable “facts.” We have recently entered an era where even facts them-
selves are questioned, as in politically motivated arguments that are akin to asking
“whether the sky is blue.” For example, in the case of corruption in the United
States, narratives designed to deconstruct facts, including those involving spurious
claims of a “deep state,” and presentations and insistence of “alternative facts” have
become increasingly widespread through pronouncements of those associated with
right-wing conspiracy groups, the past Trump administration, and the former presi-
dent himself. Intentionally misleading, these attacks on reality and facts constitute
a potent source of misinformation on social media sites and the Internet that serve
to cloud the veracity of news based on trusted professional analyses and empirical
realities. Interpretation of such data is a separate matter altogether, but these two
sources have been intertwined through purposeful actions that appear designed to
confuse consumers of information and deny major wrongdoing by powerful politi-
cal actors. The question becomes, “Why?” The boundaries of reasonable arguments
and public debate are now expanded to the point that an observable, empirical real-
ity no longer matters to a significant portion of the population, including many
elected officials themselves. Left unabated, this current trend would ultimately lead
to the conclusion that science itself is insignificant, including its usefulness in
designing evidence-based policy.
The sowing of doubt and confusion to the point of negating observable reality is
a highly meaningful and identifiable social pattern that directly follows an authori-
tarian playbook that not only remains a remnant of the Trump era but is also consis-
tently found in far right-wing movements throughout the world. For example, in
Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro has been described as “the most misogynistic, hate-
ful elected official in the democratic world” (Greenwald & Fishman, 2014) and “an
open admirer of U.S. President Donald Trump” (Evans, 2018). During Bolsonaro’s
campaign, some observers saw similarities between the Brazilian president-elect
and the US president’s ideals, hardline attacks, and a reputation for incendiary rhet-
oric usually disseminated online via social media presence. Similarly, the state-
controlled and censored medias of China, Turkey, Hungary, and Russia among other
authoritarian regimes can only contain highly suspect data regarding the actual
reporting of real events. These are issues of major importance and deserve signifi-
cant attention when attempting to study crimes of relatively powerful actors and
others as is the case with corruption and white-collar crime. The Internet provides a
potent tool to accomplish such research.
In this chapter, we illustrate how the Internet can be used in qualitative research
on corruption and white-collar crime using past studies conducted by the authors.
The Internet provides increasing access to data that would otherwise be partially
hidden, hard to locate, or perhaps altogether unknown in different geographic loca-

tions and in various countries throughout the world. Such information is more valu-
able in the study of white-collar crime and corruption given the paucity and
drawbacks of existing official data. Moreover, the Internet allows a greater chance
of producing in-depth case histories on corruption and white-collar crime as richer
detailed historical data may be found there. The case study method is valuable not
only in criminology, particularly comparative criminology (J. Liu, 2007), but in
comparative white-collar crime and corruption research specifically (Kawasaki,
2019), as we discuss below.
Medical Fraud
In some research Internet-based data can be used in conjunction with primary infor-
mation collected through personal interviews with offenders and/or law enforce-
ment experts and others. This information can provide a more comprehensive and
accurate picture of reality where one source alone cannot. For example, in one study
which was part of a series of others on medical fraud conducted by Jesilow et al.
(1993), both official data and interviews with experts gave credence to the idea that
psychiatrists were more likely to engage in fraudulent billing than doctors practic-
ing in other medical specialties. The quantitative data produced by enforcement
agencies showed a higher number of psychiatrists who were found guilty of fraud,
which policing agencies (whose activities created these patterns) took for granted as
being the case. However, on further inspection and using other information about
how providers billed, it was found to be more likely the case that these providers
were targeted more frequently by law enforcement, as their time with patients could
be more easily verified resulting in a higher number of psychiatrist offenders com-
pared to their numbers in the general population of doctors.
Political Corruption
The example of medical fraud alone shows the importance of using different sources
and methods in obtaining an accurate picture of reality, which is rarely the case
when using limited sources of official data to make conclusions regarding patterns
of corruption and white-collar crime. Taking official criminal justice data at face
value can be extremely problematic as shown in numerous studies on crime and
punishment. The Internet is a source of data that significantly expands the possibili-
ties for studying forms of corruption and white-collar crime that are at best only
partially captured in such official data and which present unique challenges to
researchers. It is particularly useful not only for finding new potential cases to fol-
low at varying stages of investigation, but for illuminating social patterns and pro-
viding broader theoretical contexts for fully adjudicated ones as well.
Moreover, the Internet provides a broad canvas for discovering key incidents that
may offer greater political context to suspected corruption and lawbreaking, some-
times at the highest possible levels where “smoking guns” and other data are par-
ticularly sparse. When researching white-collar crime and especially corruption, the
approach initially argued by Thorsten Sellin (1938) is likely to bear the best results.
He correctly noted that the law (as well as its enforcement) is the product of power,
lobbying, whim, and other idiosyncratic inputs that often lack logical coherence.
That is, some harmful acts are never outlawed because those who commit them or
contemplate doing so see to it that they are not. Strict adherence to legal definitions,
according to Sellin, “violates a fundamental criterion of science” (1938, p. 31), in
that the freedom to define specific characteristics and properties under study is con-
fined. This relates directly to studying many forms of white-collar crime, which is
not a legal term, although specific laws define offenses that can be included under
this socially constructed label.
An example of using data collected from the Internet in order to provide a useful
context for understanding major corruption is provided in the case of the Trump
Administration and, among numerous other scandalous events, its ties to Russian
meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. A major difference between the his-
toric Watergate scandal which took down the presidency of Richard Nixon in a
cover-up of a burglary that was determined at the end of congressional hearings
with the disclosure of secret edited tapes and the Trump administration’s multiple
cover-ups is that the latter occurred in full public view and in real time through
vehement denials, pardon dangles, and other overbearingly defiant acts, including
vilifying accusers, all in the face of damning material evidence. These data were
included in media broadcasts and reports that were available on the Internet, includ-
ing direct quotes from the president and those around him, which allowed greater
contextualization of Special Prosecutor Mueller’s investigation into the election
which Trump relentlessly decried as a “witch hunt.” A single, yet highly significant
and early response to his position (among many others) could also be found on the
Internet, offered by former prosecutor and southern conservative Republican
Congressman Trey Gowdy, who presided over the controversial Benghazi Hearings
in a Republican-controlled Congress, that despite numerous and dogged attempts
by his political party, which was in power at the time, were ultimately unsuccessful
in tying Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to any official wrongdoing. Gowdy
appeared in a Trump-friendly Fox News interview at the beginning of Mueller’s
investigation offering the indignant president’s attorney at the time, John Dowd,
nothing less than common sense advice: “When you are innocent, act like it. If
you’ve done nothing wrong, you should want the investigation to be as fulsome and
thorough as possible” (Cheney, 2018). In responding to these friendly and overtly
sound suggestions, Trump did exactly the opposite, which was to continue to
amplify his victimization through the “witch-hunt” analogy, which would at best
strongly suggest a fully irrational reaction to Gowdy’s common sense idea and, at
worst, indicate an intentional calculated diversion or smokescreen designed to cover
and distract from potentially criminal behavior. This initial piece of information
places later incidents and reactions to the investigation in clearer social and political
contexts (Pontell et al., 2021).
Financial Fraud: The Savings and Loan Crisis
Another example of research that substantially benefitted from Internet-based

research was that conducted during the savings and loan (S&L) crisis by Calavita,
Pontell, and Tillman in a series of articles, chapters, and a book on the topic (Calavita
et al., 1997; Calavita & Pontell, 1990; Pontell et al., 1994). As the S&L disaster was
finally coming to public attention in the late 1980s, members of Congress and the
media began to urge bringing culprits involved in the debacle to justice. Mounting
evidence of massive frauds involving the loss of billions of dollars was investigated
by the press and Congress in addition to demanding answers to questions including
who was responsible, why were they not being prosecuted, and if the funds could be
recovered. It was a complicated story, and government officials often pleaded igno-
rance, claiming they lacked adequate information to answer these central questions.
Some observers saw these as evasive tactics for their own irresponsibility in
overseeing government-insured funds. The US government had spent billions of
dollars developing sophisticated reporting systems to monitor street crime, yet there
were virtually no comparable data for major financial and other white-collar crimes.
In the 1940s, Edwin H. Sutherland (1940, 1945) explained that members of the
lower class were overrepresented in official crime statistics because those numbers
excluded economic crimes committed by high-status individuals. Some 80 years
later we still lack systematic information on the nature of white-collar crime, as well
as official reporting and tracking procedures designed to capture its incidence and
the government’s response.
In addition to secondary sources such as government documents, regulators’
reports, and other published accounts of the crisis, researchers gathered two sorts of
primary data—interviews with key officials and statistical information on the gov-
ernment’s prosecution effort. The Internet was used to collect names of officials
from various agencies who were involved in policy-making, regulation, prosecu-
tion, and/or enforcement, both in Washington, DC, and in offices around the coun-
try. Even with the collection of statistical data from official sources, the full picture
was incomplete, and the data were inevitably imperfect, requiring matching various
cases from different sources and using reports and documents gathered from the
Internet to make better sense of their usefulness and validity.
A major issue concerned undetected crimes, a problem in all criminological
research, but a particularly acute one regarding corruption and white-collar crime,
where frauds are often disguised, neither reported nor investigated, and where elab-
orate paper trails can serve to cover up responsibility and motivations for illicit acts.
Moreover, unlike immediately recognizable common crimes, major white-collar
crimes in the thrift industry involved financial frauds that only became apparent
after careful and detailed investigations by task forces made up of numerous
enforcement and regulatory personnel in different regions of the country. The gigan-
tic wave of endemic frauds seriously strained the government’s capacity to accom-
plish this in a comprehensive manner. When investigating street crime, investigators
typically begin with a report that a crime has been committed; in contrast, white-
collar crime investigators often begin with a suspected fraud and must determine
what exactly was done and whether they can prove it in a court of law. As one thrift
investigator reported, “We pretty much know who the players are here, but we don’t
know exactly what they did” (Calavita et al., 1997, p. 5). Given the difficulties of
detecting and prosecuting sometimes complicated financial crimes, much of it was
likely to be unrecorded.
The Internet was available as a means to assist in securing data from agencies to
mitigate this problem by allowing access to large databases on “criminal refer-
rals”—that is, official reports of suspected misconduct—that could serve as a rough
indicator of fraud. These referrals represent the first official step in which suspected
thrift fraud is investigated and, in some cases, prosecuted.
The politics surrounding the research at that time were substantial, as were the
problems of obtaining reliable data sources. Online sources provided key data in
terms of reports and major news stories that were used to tackle ideological debates
and to place sensitive information and findings into broader theoretical and policy
perspectives and conclusions. As the researchers note: “The politics of our research
and the implications for data quality are worth mentioning here. One reason we
found it so difficult to obtain reliable data for this study was the highly politicized
environment in which the S&L crisis unfolded. Many of the details of the S&L
scandal were kept from the public until after the presidential election of 1988. Once
the enormity of the problem became clear, politicians from both parties were eager
to minimize the estimated costs of the thrift crisis as well as their own responsibility
for creating the conditions that allowed the crisis to escalate. From the perspective
of many of these politicians, the less the public knew, the better. Thus the obstacles
we faced were unusually formidable” (Calavita et al., 1997, p. 7). Given the enor-
mity of the political and research obstacles, the use of online sources was invaluable
in the ultimate success of the study.
Corruption and White-Collar Crime in China
Research in China on corruption and white-collar crime, as in most countries, has

been sparse due to the lack of large and systematic data sources and a related gen-
eral unwillingness to fund major studies (Cheng & Ma, 2009). Governments typi-
cally do not like to broadcast an image of their country as riddled with upper-class
law-breaking and corruption. In addition, various officials themselves may well be
involved in illegal schemes and they have no desire to alert the public to wrongdoing
in other high places. Corruption is especially pervasive in developing and transi-
tional societies (Zimring & Johnson, 2007). As an emerging superpower and the
most populous country in the world, China has experienced both unprecedented
economic development and attendant rampant corruption at all levels of government

and the private sector (Guo, 2008; Liu, 1983).
One study (Ghazi-Tehrani & Pontell, 2015) explored issues of corruption and
white-collar crime in China through an examination of case studies and the applica-
tion of theories and findings of past research on white-collar and corporate crime in
other countries, primarily the United States, using largely Internet-based resources.
Since Edwin H. Sutherland’s landmark book on the topic (1949), qualitative case
studies are found in most research on white-collar crime. Geis (1991) argued that
the case study method is particularly well-suited for such research because white-
collar crime remains largely hidden from published reports and official databases.
Extreme cases can therefore be particularly helpful as they are reported on more
frequently by various sources and can highlight underlying processes more clearly
than do ordinary, everyday circumstances, where those processes may be less obvi-
ous, or investigations are more sparse (Geis, 1991).
The China study gathered much of its data from the Internet, including govern-
ment documents, statutes, congressional reports, news reports, and legal cases that
were viewed as the most serious and reported on in the media. These were catego-
rized into those involving general bribery and corruption, unsafe products, and
intellectual property crimes.
Although the case study method may be well-suited to the study of white-collar
crime, it is not without limitations. The number of cases that can be examined is
limited to those that gain enough media notoriety to provide reasonable amounts of
data for detailed analysis. This aspect, however, relates well to the major goal of the
case study method, which is depth, and not breadth. A relatively small number of
cases might fail to fully describe or be representative of all white-collar crimes in
China, but they nonetheless represent major publicized cases that allow for an
examination of patterns that can inform theory through comparisons to those else-
where. Equally important, they may characterize in important ways those cases that
are never officially recorded due to the “structural cloak” that covers many white-
collar and corporate crimes, rendering them as “nonissues” (Goetz, 1997).
Moreover, obtaining reliable data on corruption and white-collar crime in China,
as it generally is elsewhere, presents several significant challenges. Finding unbi-
ased accounts of upper-world criminal activities is even more difficult in countries
such as China without a free press. There also remains an ever-present bias against
the case study method among social scientists who sometimes claim that it can only
provide only “anecdotal evidence” in the study of crime. While this is certainly
arguable, the case study method may be the best tool available for providing broad
insight and explanation regarding various social phenomena and especially for
white-collar crime which would otherwise remain unexamined altogether (Vaughan,
2007). While overgeneralizing from “sensational cases,” which are more likely to
appear on the Internet and elsewhere, is a major concern that should rightfully be
avoided, this does not preclude their use in examining patterns of offending that
they present. Without these cases, it would be nearly impossible to gather detailed
information, as most major cases fly well below the radars of government investiga-
tors and the media (Vaughan, 2007).
Another series of studies on China, at the time the largest emerging economy in
the world, also relied heavily on Internet-based resources (Ghazi-Tehrani & Pontell,
2015, 2020). With both a state-controlled press and authoritarian political system,
useful sources of data on white-collar crime and corruption are extremely limited
and their validity and reliability are highly questionable. This makes broader inter-
national sources available on the Internet necessary for studying these phenomena.
One such study that drew heavily from Internet sources for news articles, schol-
arly works, and commentaries involved the melamine milk scandal in China (Ghazi-
Tehrani & Pontell, 2015). It was a highly visible event that, despite state secrecy on
such matters, was so large it defied a prolonged official cover-up. The case involved
the intentional dilution of milk used in infant baby formula with the industrial
chemical melamine, to produce protein levels that would meet regulatory standards
that would allow increased profits for manufacturers. The practice poisoned,
maimed, and killed large numbers of children, which eventually brought the case to
light throughout the world, including numerous reports, official responses, and
news articles appearing on the Internet.
The melamine scandal was not only one of the largest known food-adulteration
cases at the time it was discovered, but it was determined that the case was not an
isolated incident; industry-wide crimes had occurred over a number of years (Ghazi-
Tehrani & Pontell, 2015). It was one of a few Chinese cases during that time period
to receive enough news coverage both within and outside China that information
was widely available. It was simply too large for a state cover-up and provided
much more information than what might be ordinarily obtained from the Chinese
media. Moreover, milk is one of the most regulated foods as it is the primary source
of nutrition for babies.
Qualitative data sources included widespread journal and newspaper articles.
Three main newspapers were Xinhua, South China Morning Post, and various out-
lets in New Zealand. The size of the scandal was so large that state-controlled
Xinhua not only published frequent stories on the topic but also provided some of
the most useful statistics, including the number of victims. The South China
Morning Post, a Hong Kong-based newspaper, also provided a great deal of infor-
mation and had employed former managing editors from The Wall Street Journal.
While the paper was accused of being pro-Beijing (Wiebrecht, 2018), it also cov-
ered topics banned on the mainland such as Tiananmen Square (Xie & Ding, 2016).
News reports from New Zealand provided data with little to no apparent bias as the
country was not directly affected by the scandal.
The study employed 112 news articles appearing over 4 years (2008 through
2012) as secondary data to study corruption and fraud in the Chinese milk industry.
Despite the limitations regarding the effects of state-controlled media on the accu-
racy of reporting, it is not an unresolvable problem. One would presume that the
bias would be pro-regime, and therefore, negative statements would necessarily be
“best-case scenarios” that clearly underestimate criminality and the nature of physi-
cal damage, especially as these relate to larger roles played by various forms of
government corruption (Ghazi-Tehrani & Pontell, 2015).
There are several limitations that result from using Chinese media. Most signifi-
cant among these is the potential effect of the state-controlled media on the accuracy
of newspaper reporting in China. While state-supervised Chinese journalists are
likely to paint a biased picture (Xie & Ding, 2016), this does not present an unre-
solvable problem, since the bias is presumably pro-government, or, at the very least,
a bias that will not blame the regime. One might therefore presume that reported
negative information provides scenarios that underestimate the extent and nature of
the damage resulting from actual criminality, especially as it relates to the role
played by higher levels of government corruption.
Beyond the use of media sources is the conceptual limitation of readily identify-
ing intentions of the state which may be difficult to discern solely from its actions,
especially when it is fragmented into local and national levels, as is the case in
China (Tang & Huhe, 2014). Since the melamine milk scandal was publicized
throughout the world and information and commentaries existed from a wide vari-
ety of sources both within and outside of China, this limitation was less of a prob-
lem, as it allowed a much better description of events at both local and national
levels than might ordinarily be the case.
Another study on China also allowed access to more meaningful data than might
otherwise be the case regarding corruption (Pontell et al., 2017). The Wenzhou
high-speed train crash also was reported on by the international press whose stories
and commentaries were widely available on the Internet. It allowed an in-depth case
study using multiple sources of evidence and qualitative data on how corruption was
related to the disaster (Pontell et al., 2017). The study was not only able to describe
the facts regarding the crash itself, but how certain societal processes (i.e., corrup-
tion, the cultural tradition of guanxi, and state censorship) currently operate within
China which allowed a more comprehensive criminological understanding of the
inner workings of the Chinese government that were connected to the train disaster.
Data were collected from a wide range of public sources on the Internet, includ-
ing Chinese newspapers (both state- and privately run), American newspapers, aca-
demic articles, and public accounts. Combing through these disparate sources
allowed the construction of an accurate timeline and portrayal of the Wenzhou
crash. Again, while the Chinese government is well known for its secrecy, this event
was large enough that some official reports had been released due to widespread
public and international outrage. This release of information allowed for a correct
sequencing of events and general conclusions regarding the effects that corruption
had on the incident, and that fit with results from other studies on corruption (Ghazi-
Tehrani & Pontell, 2015; Song & Cheng, 2012; Yu, 2008). Using Internet sources,
this case study of the Wenzhou train crash produced a rich understanding of the
mechanisms behind corruption and censorship and how they are related to the likeli-
hood of additional white-collar criminal activities.
White-Collar Delinquency
Adults can commit computer crimes of great consequence. Individual offenders and
organized crime rings regularly operate on the Internet, and an increasingly interna-
tional component to such crimes has been noted. Computer delinquency involves a
wide variety of offenses, from the most harmless pranks to the most damaging
crimes. A hacker, for example, who does not steal from or damage a system but
merely breaches security has not caused any major economic harm. When a virus is
unleashed that affects millions of computers and systems worldwide, however,
computer delinquency takes on an entirely different meaning, just as it does when a
perpetrator intentionally misleads investors, steals passwords, or loots financial
accounts.
Financially motivated crime committed by underage offenders on the Internet, or
what has been termed “white-collar delinquency” (Pontell & Rosoff, 2009), repre-
sents a hybrid crime form of economic offending by juveniles that lies beyond tra-
ditional criminological boundaries of delinquency that have typically concentrated
on lower-class perpetrators and their acts, including gang behavior and illegal drug
use. Meanwhile, white-collar crime studies have concentrated on adult behaviors,
since juveniles neither occupy positions of relative power nor serve in major occu-
pational roles; that is, they are still youngsters. But when youthful offenders mimic
the economic crimes of adults with computers and cause significant financial and
personal damage, they are engaging in behavior that essentially falls within the
rubric of white-collar crime.
One study used US Department of Justice data, accessed through the Internet in
addition to various case studies for which information was also obtained online, to
assess the extent of and damage caused by white-collar delinquency (Pontell &
Rosoff, 2009). These data necessarily comprised conservative estimates of the phe-
nomenon, as they were based on official data on known cases and press releases
related to a single federal law, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 U.S.C. §1030)
which focuses on crimes against government and financial interests. The law pro-
hibits unauthorized access or exceeding authorized access to computer systems,
defrauding and/or recklessly damaging information systems, or causing harm to
individuals that involves government resources, such as critical infrastructure or
military systems, institutions dealing with credit card and bank information, and
any acts that affect interstate or foreign commerce. To fall under the purview of this
law, the value of information obtained, or the actual losses, must exceed $5000.
Between March 1998 and July 2005, a total of 91 individuals, some with multi-
ple offenses, were prosecuted under this law. The most serious violation was
recorded for each individual, based on a combination of reported and potential
financial and physical harm to businesses, computer systems, and people (Pontell &
Rosoff, 2009). Twenty-four individuals (28%) were identified as 20 years or younger
out of 86 cases where age and offense data were available. When classified by the
most serious offense type, 22% of the offenders committed fraud or theft, 22% were
responsible for viruses or denial of service attacks, and 56% hacked into computers
or networks. None of the cases involved exceeding authorized access or telecom-

munication/phreaking offenses, which is not surprising since younger individuals
are not likely to hold occupational positions that allow them ready access to net-
works and sensitive personal information. Despite their lack of access, however,
they still found ways to reach networks, indicating either weak security or ingenious
youths, or some combination of both.
The total financial loss from 18 of these cases where such data were available
was approximately US$39 million. The average financial loss per case amounted to
just under $2.2 million, and the median was almost $59,000 (Pontell & Rosoff,
2009). The large difference between median and average dollar loss figures high-
lights the significant impact that one or two costly computer offenses had on
attempting to aggregate such crimes. Regardless of the measure used, youthful
offenders would not have been capable of crimes of this magnitude before the
advent of computers and the Internet.
Cracking, hacking, denial of service attacks, the dissemination of worms and
viruses, and various financial scams are impossible to enact without skills and phys-
ical resources. Thus, white-collar delinquency describes both a more economically
privileged class of juvenile offender and significant economic crimes. What distin-
guishes white-collar delinquency from computer delinquency, which includes hack-
ing, trespass, and system violations, is that it entails relatively large financial crimes
and crimes of great cost to society (e.g., server shutdowns and related system costs).
Phony scams, pump and dumps, unleashing viruses onto the World Wide Web,
denial of service attacks, and large-scale piracy are all committed through the
Internet and can cause massive economic damage and loss. When perpetrators of
such acts are juveniles, such crimes could be considered forms of white-collar
delinquency. As described above, they can be effectively studied through Internet-
based data, including official statistics, discussion forums, and chat rooms, plus
qualitative and historical information gleaned from major incidents that can alone,
or in conjunction with other data such as that gained from interviews, provide
detailed case histories.
Conclusion
Social science research on sensitive topics such as corruption and white-collar

crime remains difficult to conduct, but the use of Internet sources provide data for
their examination, especially in the form of detailed case studies. The Internet
allows for more frequent studies of related concepts and theories, and their cumula-
tive findings can lead to more meaningful observations and conclusions that can
contribute to the scientific understanding of these phenomena. The studies described
above on the savings and loan crisis, medical crimes, political corruption in the
United States, corruption and white-collar crime in China, and white-collar delin-
quency are examples where the Internet was effectively used for obtaining informa-
tion in constructing detailed case studies that are useful in describing and explaining
various forms of offending. The study of corruption and white-collar crime is often-
times best done for a variety of reasons having to do with reliable data sources and
the hidden nature of offenses through qualitative research methods that involve
detailed case histories. This is particularly the case in comparative research on these
subjects, where different laws, categorizations of offenses, politics, enforcement
mechanisms, and collection and recording differences preclude direct comparisons
of quantitative data. The Internet has proven to be an increasingly valuable tool in
qualitative and other data collection for use in constructing case histories of corrup-
tion and white-collar crime that can advance criminological understanding in both
domestic and comparative studies.
References
Calavita, K., & Pontell, H. N. (1990). “Heads I win, tails you lose”: Deregulation, crime, and
crisis in the savings and loan industry. Crime & Delinquency, 36(3), 309–341. https://doi.
org/10.1177/0011128790036003002
Calavita, K., Pontell, H. N., & Tillman, R. (1997). Big money crime: Fraud and politics in the sav-
ings and loan crisis. University of California Press.
Cheney, K. (2018, March 18). Gowdy to Trump: ‘When you are innocent… act like it.’ Politico.
http://politi.co/2pkV4sc
Cheng, H., & Ma, L. (2009). White collar crime and the criminal justice system: Government
response to bank fraud and corruption in China. Journal of Financial Crime, 16(2), 166–179.
https://doi.org/10.1108/13590790910951849
Evans, C. (2018, October 29). Why Brazil’s president-elect Jair Bolsonaro really is the
“Trump of the Tropics.” The Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/10/29/
brazils-president-elect-jair-bolsonaro-really-trump-tropics/
Geis, G. (1991). The case study method in sociological criminology. In J. R. Feagin, A. M. Orum, &
G. Sjoberg (Eds.), A case for the case study (pp. 200–223). University of North Carolina Press.
Ghazi-Tehrani, A. K., & Pontell, H. N. (2015). Corporate crime and state legitimacy: The 2008
Chinese melamine milk scandal. Crime, Law and Social Change, 63(5), 247–267. https://doi.
org/10.1007/s10611-015-9567-5
Ghazi-Tehrani, A. K., & Pontell, H. N. (2020). Corruption in the United States and China:
Codes of conduct vs. crackdowns. Crime, Law and Social Change, 73(1), 73–92. https://doi.
org/10.1007/s10611-019-09848-3
Goetz, B. (1997). Organization as class bias in locallLaw enforcement: Arson-for-Profit as a
“Nonissue”. Law & Society Review, 31(3), 557. https://doi.org/10.2307/3054046
Greenwald, G., & Fishman, A. (2014, December 11). The most misogynistic, Hateful Elected
Official in the Democratic World: Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro. The Intercept. https://theinter-
cept.com/2014/12/11/misogynistic-hateful-elected-official-democacratic-world-brazils-jair-
bolsonaro/
Guo, Y. (2008). Corruption in transitional China: An empirical analysis. The China Quarterly, 194,
349–364. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305741008000416
Jesilow, P., Pontell, H. N., & Geis, G. (1993). Prescription for profit: How doctors defraud
Medicaid. University of California Press.
Kawasaki, T. (2019). Review of comparative studies on white-collar and corporate crime. In
M. L. Rorie (Ed.), The handbook of white-collar crime (1st ed., pp. 437–447). Wiley. https://
doi.org/10.1002/9781118775004.ch27
Liu, A. P. L. (1983). The politics of corruption in the People’s republic of China. American Political
Science Review, 77(3), 602–623. https://doi.org/10.2307/1957262
Liu, J. (2007). Developing comparative criminology and the case of China: An introduction.
International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 51(1), 3–8. https://
doi.org/10.1177/0306624X06295774
Miller, G., Cenziper, D., & Whoriskey, P. (2021, October 3). Billions hidden beyond
reach. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2021/
pandora-papers-offshore-finance/
Pegg, D., & Rushe, D. (2021, October 4). Pandora papers reveal South Dakota’s role as
$367bn tax haven. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/oct/04/
pandora-papers-reveal-south-dakotas-role-as-367bn-tax-haven
Pontell, H. N., & Rosoff, S. M. (2009). White-collar delinquency. Crime, Law and Social Change,
51(1), 147–162. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-008-9146-0
Pontell, H. N., Calavita, K., & Tillman, R. (1994). Corporate crime and criminal justice system
capacity: Government response to financial institution fraud. Justice Quarterly, 11(3), 383–410.
https://doi.org/10.1080/07418829400092321
Pontell, H. N., Black, W. K., & Geis, G. (2014). Too big to fail, too powerful to jail? On the
absence of criminal prosecutions after the 2008 financial meltdown. Crime, Law and Social
Change, 61(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-013-9476-4
Pontell, H. N., Ghazi-Tehrani, A., & Chang, T. (2017). Economic crime and China’s high-speed
railway: A case study of the Wenzhou crash. Asian Journal of Criminology, 12(1), 1–22. https://
doi.org/10.1007/s11417-016-9242-5
Pontell, H. N., Tillman, R., & Ghazi-Tehrani, A. K. (2021). In-your-face Watergate: Neutralizing
government lawbreaking and the war against white-collar crime. Crime, Law and Social
Change, 75(3), 201–219. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-021-09954-1
Rosoff, S. M., Pontell, H. N., & Tillman, R. (2020). Profit without honor: White collar crime and
the looting of America (7th ed.). Pearson.
Sellin, T. (1938). Culture conflict and crime. American Journal of Sociology, 44(1), 97–103.
https://doi.org/10.1086/217919
Song, X., & Cheng, W. (2012). Perception of corruption in 36 major Chinese cities: Based on
survey of 1,642 experts. Social Indicators Research, 109(2), 211–221. https://doi.org/10.1007/
s11205-011-9896-4
Stalans, L. J., & Finn, M. A. (2016). Understanding how the internet facilitates crime and deviance.
Victims & Offenders, 11(4), 501–508. https://doi.org/10.1080/15564886.2016.1211404
Sutherland, E. H. (1940). White-collar criminality. American Sociological Review, 5(1), 1–12.
https://doi.org/10.2307/2083937
Sutherland, E. H. (1945). Is “white collar crime” crime? American Sociological Review, 10(2),
132–139. https://doi.org/10.2307/2085628
Sutherland, E. H. (1949). White collar crime. Dryden Press.
Tang, M., & Huhe, N. (2014). Alternative framing: The effect of the internet on political sup-
port in authoritarian China. International Political Science Review, 35(5), 559–576. https://doi.
org/10.1177/0192512113501971
Tillman, R., & Pontell, H. (1995). Organizations and fraud in the savings and loan industry. Social
Forces, 73(4), 1439. https://doi.org/10.2307/2580454
Touby, L. (1994). In the company thieves. Journal of Business Strategy, 15(3), 24–35. https://doi.
org/10.1108/eb039634
Vaughan, D. (2007). Beyond macro- and micro-levels of analysis, organizations, and the cultural
fix. In H. N. Pontell & G. Geis (Eds.), International handbook of white-collar and corporate
crime (pp. 3–24). Springer US). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-34111-8_1
Wiebrecht, F. (2018). Cultural co-orientation revisited: The case of the South China Morning Post.
Global Media and China, 3(1), 32–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/2059436418778306
Xie, X., & Ding, Y. (2016). Framing iPhone consumption by Chinese mainlanders: Critical dis-
course analysis on news coverage of China daily and South China morning post. Procedia –
Social and Behavioral Sciences, 236, 39–45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2016.12.014
Yu, O. (2008). Corruption in China’s economic reform: A review of recent observations and
explanations. Crime, Law and Social Change, 50(3), 161–176. https://doi.org/10.1007/
s10611-008-9133-5
Zimring, F. E., & Johnson, D. T. (2007). On the comparative study of corruption. In H. N. Pontell
& G. Geis (Eds.), International handbook of white-collar and corporate crime (pp. 456–473).
Springer US). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-34111-8_22
Henry N. Pontell is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice
at the City University of New York and Professor Emeritus of Criminology, Law, and Society, and
of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine. His work in criminology spans the areas of
white-collar and corporate crime, criminal deterrence, identity theft, cybercrime, and comparative
criminology. He is a former vice president of the American Society of Criminology and a past
president of the Western Society of Criminology, and is a fellow of both organizations.
Adam K. Ghazi-Tehrani is an assistant professor in the Criminology and Criminal Justice

Department at the University of Alabama. Adam holds a PhD degree from the University of
California at Irvine. He is interested in regulatory, compliance, governmental, and societal factors
on cyber and white-collar offenses. His most recent publication is Wayward Dragon: White-Collar
and Corporate Crime in China (Springer, 2022).
Chapter 6
Online Methods in Qualitative
Criminology
Daniela Mardones-Bravo
Introduction
Online resources have become a “go-to” for criminological researchers that devel-
oped in the evolving advancement of technology and adaption to global events.
Even before the pandemic, using the Internet to support any research was well-
established. Looking for bibliography and reference materials or contacting partici-
pants through email or social media are common practices. However, researchers
who tend to focus on the in-person part of their methodology may fail to acknowl-
edge or accept the use of online methods and materials. Quinton and Reynolds
(2019) noted that doing research entirely online still produces doubts among aca-
demics that these methods are reliable or valid. Despite the relative novelty of online
methods, researchers have used them in practice since the 1990s. The Association
of Internet Researchers has developed significant procedures and processes for
some time. In fact, their ethical guidelines (Franzke et al., 2020) are essential for
any researcher who wants to use online methods and, in general, for anyone who
collects data from the web.
Researchers may be convinced to use online methods but still must face the scep-
ticism of others involved in the research, such as colleagues, ethics review boards,
funding sources and peer reviewers. Consequently, many researchers find them-
selves being forced to defend their decisions on data. For example, if you decide to
do interviews online, you will likely be questioned about not conducting them in
person, but the opposite situation is unlikely to happen.
Recently, many researchers were forced to move their research online, creating a
growing need to become familiar with online or Internet-mediated methods (Lupton,
2020). Despite this unknown environment, unless the researcher is already involved
in the digital realm, many scholars still consider that in-person methods are the
D. Mardones-Bravo (*)
University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18401-7_6
86 D. Mardones-Bravo
“gold standard” (Johnson et al., 2019). Moreover, some academics may view online
research methods (also known as Internet research or web-based methods) as a poor
replacement for traditional methods. It is a mistake to believe that the researcher can
directly transfer classic methods to the digital version. The idea that any digital
method will be a copy of a classical method may result in disappointment: they are
not the same, but that does not imply that they are of lesser quality or reliability. We
must replace that expectation and see online methods for what they are: new, differ-
ent and helpful with their advantages and disadvantages. This chapter focuses on
how criminologists and qualitative researchers, in general, can take advantage of
new research techniques while also recognising their limitations.
Phenomenon and Method
As I mentioned earlier, it is a mistake to think that qualitative methods and tech-

niques are directly transferable to the digital world.
The first distinction in digital research is the object of study: the research may be
about the Internet and online environments. That is, the object of the study belongs
to the digital domain. In that case, we face the digital world as a phenomenon
(Quinton & Reynolds, 2019, p. 5). Significant works have been developed in this
category, giving rise to the emergence of cybercriminology, for instance. Obviously,
when employing methodological phenomena that only exist in the virtual world, the
use of online tools and methods is essential.
Much of the discussion regarding Internet use arises from a second category:
digital as a method or instrument. This is investigating an object outside the digital
world but using digital tools to get the participants’ data (Quinton & Reynolds,
2019, p. 6). In this category, all research uses virtual tools or transfers classic tools
to the online version without referring to the digital world. Without a doubt, since
the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, it became necessary to move to the online
world many times without option.
Any online research (qualitative or quantitative) will fall into one of these two
categories and can be reviewed separately.
Online as a Phenomenon
Many phenomena related to crime can be found online. Some of them are classic
criminological topics like prostitution, paedophilia and frauds that evolved to be
part of the digital realm and many new forms of crime-related attitudes that can only
exist online, such as computer hacking, some types of sex trafficking and a great
deal of child pornography.
6 Online Methods in Qualitative Criminology 87
In the cases in which cybercrime is studied, it is more likely that the information
is found entirely or, largely, online. Nevertheless, in the cases of studies of criminal
conduct that have been partially transferred online, there is the probability that the
researcher fails to detect part of these behaviours since they are being developed
outside the digital medium. Holt (2015), for example, points out that when research-
ing a forum where sexual services and the negotiation process are discussed, it is not
clear if these conversations represent the majority of consumers. Since many may
not participate in the forums because they do not know them or fear being identified,
this would also leave out certain forms of sex work like street workers. For this
reason, it is relevant to consider the transferability of the research to the non-virtual
context and the limitations that can cause certain target groups not to have access to
the Internet, which is discussed more in-depth later in the chapter.
The field of cybercriminology and the study of cybercrime has expanded enor-
mously. This growth is partly associated with the increase in reports and the diver-
sity of criminal behaviours that have been created or transferred to the virtual world.
Among them are hacking, fraud, sexting, bullying and identity theft. Defined by
Jaishankar (2007) as “[t]he study of causation of crimes that occur in the cyberspace
and its impact in the physical space” (Jaishankar, 2007, p. 1), the field of cyber-
criminology has contributed immensely to the development of online research;
however, there is little information about methods. Holt (2017) and Payne and
Hadzhidimova (2020) discussed the interdisciplinary nature of cybercriminology.
They acknowledge that two different fields have focused on the study of cyber-
crime: on one side, computer science and engineering and, on the other side, social
sciences. This split in disciplines has caused a gap between the study of technical
aspects and the study of the actors involved, which ultimately causes greater diffi-
culty when studying such diverse methods. Additionally, this interdisciplinary
nature may overlook methods from the technical knowledge of social scientists
(qualitative or quantitative), which is why Holt (2017, p. 9) concludes that “multi-
disciplinary research is needed, drawing guidance from theories and methods from
both fields so researchers can address cyber-crime in a more complete fashion”.
Any criminologist embarking on cybercrime research must consider this inter-
disciplinary approach. In addition, it is necessary to acquire technical knowledge.
An excellent example of this is the research conducted by Décary-Hétu and Aldridge
(2015). They created custom software to gather online data related to hidden mar-
ketplaces to monitor online drug cryptomarkets while giving a qualitative account
of the challenges and ethical considerations.
A recent study by Payne and Hadzhidimova (2020) examined trends in cyber-
crime research. A sample of 593 cybercrime journal articles showed that 52.4% had
a criminologist as the primary author. They also discovered that most research was
done using two methods: 37.4% of them used existing online records and websites,
and 31% used surveys. Overall, interdisciplinary cybercrime studies were rare
(Payne & Hadzhidimova, 2020). Therefore, there is an opportunity for criminolo-
gists to use innovative research methods to explore cybercrime.
Table 6.1 Online data sources

Type of online data Online data sources
Text Twitter, Facebook, other social media, webpages, blogs, news, documents,
books, instant messaging, forum, email
Audio Voice messages, music, audio calls, audiobooks, podcasts, audio
recordings
Video YouTube, TikTok, Vlogs, GIFTS, live streams, webinars, video calls
Pictures Instagram, online galleries, memes
Multimedia files Archives, databases, GIS
Interactive formats 3D, Maps, Games, virtual reality, augmented reality, rich media ads, polls
Online as a Method
The second category of online research is using it as a method, but the object of
study is not necessarily part of the digital realm. Many methods have been adapted
from in-person interviews, focus groups, questionnaires, content analysis and even
ethnography (known as netnography or cyber-ethnography). Using online methods
to support offline research is a common practice. However, social scientists are still
wary of moving their research methodology entirely online, thinking that the stan-
dard might be lower than traditional in-person research. Nonetheless, considering
that most traditional methods can be adapted to the online setting and new methods
are emerging directly from the online environment shows substantial gains in quali-
tative work. The applications for criminological research are countless. Also, online
data sources are vast and diverse. The combinations of image, text and audio go
beyond regular video. Online media includes many interactive features that the
researcher can use to develop further understanding of the topic of interest (see
Table 6.1).
An incredible amount of data can be gathered from these sources, but the
researcher must choose the appropriate method to collect them in advance. In the
following section, I offer a brief overview of the opportunities and limitations that
qualitative online methods offer, which might assist in making choices related to
online data.
Using Qualitative Online Methods in Criminology
Methods are understood here as “the techniques used to conduct the collection and
analysis of data” (Salmons, 2018a, p. 31). The main online methods are adaptations
of traditional approaches to the online environment (e.g. interviews, surveys, focus
groups), but some specific methods emerged directly from the use of technology.
Below, I describe some of the most common methods and how they were adapted or
created to be used online.
Online Interview (Synchronous and Asynchronous)
In a face-to-face interview, the interaction is real-time in an onsite venue and with

oral and kinetic interaction. In an online interview, on the other hand, these distinc-
tive characteristics are not necessarily part of the interaction. First, the interview can
be asynchronous, sometimes referred to as epistolary interviews online (Code of
Ethics, 2020; Debenham, 2007). These interviews can be conducted through diverse
platforms, such as email, blog, discussion boards, or forums. This situation means
that the interaction is not live or in real time. There are some advantages of asyn-
chronous interactions, such as freeing up time constraints or allowing more time to
think about the responses or even to complement them later. This approach can be
handy when dealing with specific populations, for instance, people with disabilities
or long-term conditions that need more time to share their thoughts (Debenham,
2007). Also, it is valuable when interviewing elites and people who tend to have
busy schedules or vulnerable populations without continuous access to the Internet
who can only connect sporadically (e.g. prisoners). It is essential to consider that
asynchronous interviews in a context of vulnerability or low Internet access can take
a long time to be completed. For instance, the interviews in a study with participants
with disabilities had an average duration of 42.6 days, with the longest extending
over 75 days (Seymour, 2001).
Second, the interaction is not necessarily oral. Usually, the communication is
through text. Although it is possible to send voice messages, video, images and
other forms of media on asynchronous platforms. This adds another layer of possi-
bilities to the online interview, which is unavailable during a real-time interaction.
Finally, a kinetic element may or may not be present. If the interview is through
video, some kinetic information can be gathered, but it is not possible to obtain the
proxemics (Salmons, 2018b, p. 48).
Synchronous interviews have evolved incredibly in recent years (O’Connor
et al., 2008). Real-time interviews mediated by technology started with the use of
the telephone during the 1980s. When the Internet arrived, researchers started doing
online interviews mainly in a written form through chat rooms. Now, video calls are
the norm. Online synchronous interviews also have become popular. Platforms for
videoconferencing such as Skype, Zoom or MS Teams have facilitated this form of
interaction to research online and offline topics. Video calls offer many advantages
because they include at least some kinetic information and body language so the
researcher can read the room despite being kilometres away, and they are easy to
record. In the study conducted by Archibald et al. (2019), using a synchronous plat-
form was better than alternative systems like email, but the participants preferred to
meet in person whenever possible.
Online Focus Group
Focus groups have been used for marketing research long before academia adopted
the technique (Reid & Reid, 2005). The same happened with online focus groups.
However, online focus groups exist as a data collection method since the end of the
1990s (Murray, 1997). Like online interviews, they were structured using different
technology and were primarily text-based through email correspondence, discus-
sion boards (asynchronous) or chat rooms (synchronous) (Stewart & Williams,
2005). Recently, researchers have started to use web conference technology (e.g.
Zoom, Skype) and it quickly became the default platform for online focus groups.
Using such technology for this method is helpful to get good-quality data because
“verbal and nonverbal utterances, postures, facial expressions, voice tones, and
other behavioural nuances depicted in the AV recordings revealed and preserved the
context of participants’ contributions, cultivating richness in the meaning of the
data” (Tuttas, 2015, p. 130).
However, many focus groups are still conducted through online discussion plat-
forms and, more recently, even by using smartphone-based mobile messaging. For
example, in a recent study, Chen and Neo (2019) conducted two in-person focus
groups and two via group chat using a messaging application (WhatsApp). The
results were mixed: “the WhatsApp focus groups represent the two most extreme
cases in terms of quantity and quality of response, with the fewest average number
of responses per participant, both the fewest and the highest average number of
words per response, and the least and most elaborated responses” (Chen & Neo,
2019, p. 6). However, they acknowledge the potential, considering that this platform
allowed them to receive a mix of audio, text and images (emojis). Also, the partici-
pants built upon each other’s response and the presence of a dominant participant
did not disrupt the flow of the discussion, which tends to be a usual problem while
conducting in-person focus group.
Online Questionnaires and Surveys
Online surveys are prevalent in several scientific fields. This growth is because they
have the advantages of “facilitating data processing, collecting data faster from more
participants, having less data loss, supporting data collection tools through multime-
dia and different types of questions, increasing voluntary participation, and being
able to research sensitive and confidential matters” (Kılınç & Fırat, 2017, p. 1479).
Online surveys are normally presented in one of two ways. One is email-based,
where the researcher sends the survey to the participant (it could be attached or in
the email body), and the participant must complete it and return it. The second
method is using online survey platforms or web-based surveys. This approach has
become increasingly popular because the researcher only needs to share the link
with the participants. There are several free platforms (e.g. Survey Monkey, Google
Forms, So Go Survey). It is essential to check beforehand the data security in the
platform you want to use, especially considering that some of these platforms may
have ethical problems related to using personal data. This method proved to be use-
ful when dealing with marginalised and hard-to-access populations with Internet
access, like LGBTQ youth (McInroy, 2016). However, it poses new methodological
challenges such as difficulties to measure attrition rates or recruitment rates, or in
developing a representative sampling. There are other disadvantages such as “low
response rates, external validity dangers, lack of explanations, and being bother-
some/boring” (Kılınç & Fırat, 2017, p. 1479), but the possibility of targeting a large
part of hard to access population even if it is geographically widespread at a low
cost is appealing for criminologists.
Online Participant Observation and Ethnography
There are different variations and names for online participant observation: ethnog-
raphy online (Beneito-Montagut, 2011), virtual ethnography (Caliandro, 2018), net-
nography (Costello et al., 2017), digital ethnography (Hughes & Walter, 2021) and
social media ethnography, (Postill & Pink, 2012) among others. However, the prin-
ciple is the same with different variations: a researcher (ethnographer) collects data
directly from observation by participating (overtly or covertly), listening and watch-
ing people’s daily life for a certain amount of time. In this case, the daily interac-
tions are online. That is why some researchers refer to “field events” instead of field
sites to reconceptualise the space in an online environment (Ahlin & Li, 2019).
Early works in virtual ethnography were developed in platforms such as email,
newsgroups or bulletin boards (Hine, 2000). However, as the Internet evolved,
recent studies tend to focus their work on social media (Postill & Pink, 2012) and
other more interactive platforms like video games and mobile media (Hjorth
et al., 2017).
Ethnography has always been an appropriate method for criminologists, and they
are not exempted from exploring virtual ethnography. For example, Zaith and De
Leeuw (2010) used virtual ethnography to study how football supporters construct,
recreate and experience violent and masculine identities. In their methodological
reflections, they stated that “through the analysis of images, we found more insights
into the subconscious meaning of violence as well as unearthing a specific aesthet-
ics of violence. The internet provided a rich environment for analysing different
dimensions of this aesthetics, a detail that would not be detected by only using more
traditional (textual and face-to-face) qualitative methods of research” (Zaith & De
Leeuw, 2010, p. 184).
Similarly, Banks (2014), who studied online gambling, concludes that “virtual
environments certainly offer new opportunities for criminologists to engage in eth-
nographic fieldwork. However, they also require a considered and reflexive approach
to the research process” (Banks, 2014, p. 299). These experiences gave clear exam-
ples of how virtual ethnography is successfully applied to criminology and the end-
less possibilities for innovation.
Mobile and App-Based Methods
So far, I have discussed methods that are adapted from non-virtual settings. In a
traditional sense, mobile methods refer to methods that involve mobility like bio-
graphical walking or crime walks (O’Neill et al., 2021). However, as technology
evolved, new methods appeared. Some mobile methods were created within the
online setting. These are “how mobile communication technologies are used to
study social phenomena. Most prominently, this involves various smartphone apps
such as texting, cameras, and maps, but also custom-made apps for data collection”
(Boase & Humphreys, 2018, p. 154).
The use of app-based methods is recent. A systematic review (Zhang et al., 2018)
found that researchers started using them for field experiments in 2013, and most of
them were conducted in health research topics. In criminology, another systematic
review of app-based and crowdsourcing studies that measured fear of crime
(Solymosi et al., 2020) identified some strengths of these methods. For example, to
“capture the transitory and geographically-specific nature of fear of crime”
(Solymosi et al., 2020, p. 12) or that “policymakers and security planners can use
precise geocoded data to design environments less likely to produce fear” (Solymosi
et al., 2020, p. 17). However, they also mentioned some limitations, particularly
regarding sampling and selection bias: male and young citizens were overrepre-
sented. This means that a small group of participants tends to be the source of a
large part of the data. In addition, most of the research done using these methods are
quantitative.
Despite limitations, there is enormous scope for innovation in qualitative
research. For instance, qualitative research following the lives of football fans in the
UK (García et al., 2016) created an app where participants could upload qualitative
data to a photo album, an audiovisual diary and an anytime activity record. They
stated that “the clearest benefit to using a smartphone is that participants can be
spontaneous with what they record. This has great potential for qualitative research
into people’s lives. Smartphone users have (almost) permanent access to their
device, so can report multiple times a day, resulting in less recall problems” (García
et al., 2016, p. 520).
Video, Photo or Audio Elicitation and Diaries
Visual elicitation and diaries as data collection techniques do not have to occur
necessarily online. However, they can incorporate information and communication
technologies and be transferred to the online environment (Lupton, 2020). Moreover,
the participants can use a camera and/or a voice recorder to record their daily life
and interactions. Digital diaries, used in online platforms or apps, can collect all
sorts of data, including text, or sound and image. Currently, this can be done with
the participant’s smartphone using the phone features or an app that can be a
standard commercial or an app specially created for the research. The video, pic-
tures or audio recording can be posted online too. However, if the researcher uses a
commercial app or plans to post all or some of the data online, they need to address
possible security and ethical problems.
Copes et al. (2018) used photo-elicitation interviews to study people who use
methamphetamine in rural Alabama. They used a mixed approach to complement
their ethnography, and they conducted interviews showing pictures on an Ipad. The
pictures were taken by the researchers and the participants (including self-portraits).
The participants sent the images through texts, Snapchat and Facebook messages
and the images included photographs and screenshots of Facebook and text mes-
sages. They firmly concluded that “whether criminologists are interested in study-
ing offenders, victims, criminal justice agents or particular events, the use of
photo-elicitation techniques offers a powerful addition to the more standard data
collection and presentation techniques most often adopted in the discipline” (Copes
et al., 2018, p. 492).
However, it is not enough to understand the basic principles behind these qualita-
tive online methods and how criminologists can use them in their research projects.
It is also important to acknowledge their advantages and be aware of their
limitations.
Advantages for Criminologists in the Use of Online Methods
I already mentioned some advantages in the use of specific methods and techniques.
However, there are some general benefits that criminologists can obtain by using
online methods.
Asynchronous Possibilities
The greatest particularity and advantage of online methods is the possibility of

using them asynchronously. This can be, for example, through email, messaging or
forums. In this way, participants can respond or participate when it suits them. It is
advantageous if you have participants with different time zones and for expanding
the number of participants. One of the advantages of accessing forums and other
asynchronous platforms is that it is possible to minimise “contamination or bias that
might arise through participant observation or other naturalistic research methods
that are traditionally used offline” (Holt, 2015, p. 174). James and Busher (2006),
who conducted a review of previous studies, found that participants who took part
in email-based research considered that it was an advantage that they could control
when to respond and that they had time to elaborate more thoughtfully reflective
answers. Nevertheless, there were some setbacks, like discontinuous responses or
difficulty getting clarifications (James & Busher, 2006, p. 407).
Particularly, using email-based communication can be useful. Since email is one

of the earliest technologies, it is widely used even by people unfamiliar with other
forms of Internet interaction, like social media. Most people have an email address
so they can be approached this way: “Email, for example, is likely to reach a broader
and more diverse user group compared with online chat or social networking spaces
where the user demographic is likely to show greater bias toward younger, more
technologically proficient and highly computer literate users” (Hewson, 2014,
p. 434). Also, in terms of technical requirements, email interviews are one of the
simplest online interactions (O’Connor et al., 2008), and they can be convenient
when working with some vulnerable populations, with people with only basic
online skills or without easy access to the Internet. However, as mentioned before,
they can take a long time to complete.
Other techniques can also be used asynchronously, like focus groups (Tuttas,
2015). However, synchronous technology has improved in recent years, and
researchers tend to prefer real-time communication, but the potential for asynchro-
nous use is still there and it is an essential component of online interactions. In
addition, it is useful to work with specific participants.
Recruitment, Costs and Logistics
Recruiting participants is often one of the most exhausting parts of research.

Recruiting online offers the advantage of finding defined groups with specific inter-
ests in some form of online community (O’Connor et al., 2008). In addition, there
is a tendency for people to search for others on the Internet with whom they have an
affinity, and social networks are particularly useful for this purpose. Thus, research-
ers can search, for example, for groups on Facebook (Fileborn, 2016) or hashtags on
Twitter that allow them to identify virtual communities with potential participants.
Also, the number of participants you have access to is usually much higher than
what you could get in person. Prospective participants can even be geographically
remote to the point that it would be impossible or challenging to access them in any
other way. Buchanan and Hvizdak (2009), in their survey of universities’ Human
Research Ethics Boards, found that respondents considered a common strength of
using the Internet is the easy recruitment, which allows many participants from any
part of the world.
In addition, other aspects of the research along with recruitment can benefit from
this cost- and time effectiveness. Using online methods can facilitate the whole
research process, including data collection and analysis. Solymosi et al. (2020) dis-
covered in their study that 11 of the 27 papers reviewed mentioned the reduced cost
of data collection while generating large samples by using app-based and crowd-
sourcing methods. However, if the research includes developing a tailored software
or app, it can be expensive to work with a software company (García et al., 2016),
but most of the time it is not necessary to create a new app or tool. Many available
software programs are safe to use for research and can be obtained generally by
paying a fee. The researchers should consider this cost when they create the
research design.
In general terms, it is possible to simplify most of the logistics. Without the need
to travel to move equipment or data, the cost can be considerably cut, and the risk
for the researchers is low. Also, it is more flexible, for instance, in terms of interview
time. It is even possible to offer a mixed approach and an online approach to partici-
pants who are hesitant to take part in person (Deakin & Wakefield, 2014). For exam-
ple, Chen and Neo (2019) recruited for in-person focus groups and those who were
unable to attend were given the option to participate in the WhatsApp focus group.
Similarly, Hanna (2012) gave the interviewees the option to choose between face-
to-face, telephone or Skype interview: 10 chose face-to-face, three telephone and
three Skype.
Accessibility
Regarding access, several researchers describe that online methods allow access to
communities that are hard to reach or have less physical mobility, like people in
prison or hospital (Gough, 2017; McInroy, 2016). Moreover, people with disabili-
ties or problems with mobility can find it easier to communicate through the elec-
tronic system (Debenham, 2007). However, this approach can happen only if they
have access to the Internet, which is not the case in most places where vulnerable
populations are located. So, there is an access paradox: the same groups that would
be easier to access online than offline are the same ones that have less access to the
Internet.
Also, the number of households with Internet access is constantly increasing
around the world. However, there is a large variability. There are countries with
access in almost every household such as, for instance, Korea (99.7%), Iceland
(98.5%) or the United Kingdom (97.3%), while there are other countries where only
half of the households have access. Such is the case of Mexico (56.4%) or Colombia
(52.2%) (OECD, 2021). Despite this difference, the numbers look favourable for
researchers. Never have researchers had access to half of the world population while
sitting at their desks.
The use of smartphones has proven to be effective to work with certain hard-to-
reach groups. For example, a study researching men recently released from prison
found out that “Smartphones also facilitate the collection of detailed behavioral
measures that are often not possible to obtain with other methods, such as measures
of everyday geographic mobility and social networks. Moreover, they enable the
collection of frequent self-report answers, which is a particular benefit for research-
ers studying groups, topics, or contexts that are characterized by irregular or change-
able experiences” (Sugie, 2018, p. 479). There is no doubt that the accessibility will
continue to increase with the development of new technologies.
isadvantages for Criminologists in the Use

D
of Online Methods
Now that the benefits and advantages have been discussed, we need to address some
of the problems, challenges and disadvantages that the researcher can face if they
decide to use online methods.
Ethics and Consent
First, ethics must be considered with the same emphasis that is required in offline
research. Also, new ethical challenges arise from online research methods. For
instance, if you are collecting data by observing a closed online community (closed
means that the user needs to access with a password or it is behind a paywall), it is
essential to consider if the researcher will reveal their identity to the community or
if it will remain anonymous. Concealing the researcher identity or objective must be
adequately assessed by the ethics committee. This issue seems obvious when you
are researching people; however, there has been some discussion about how to pro-
ceed in online research to minimise the researcher contamination (Holt, 2015,
p. 175). Also, there is a difference between public posts in forum or blogs, where
publicity and global access is considered part of it, and information posted in per-
sonal social media or discussion group spaces, where the participants expect some
level of privacy (Hewson, 2014, p. 444).
The ease with which it is possible to keep anonymity online is not necessarily a
problem. On the contrary, it usually is very beneficial because it helps ensure par-
ticipants’ anonymity. Especially in criminology, considering that we usually deal
with sensitive matters and vulnerable populations, it is harder to link the participants
if they are never in the same place with the researcher. Furthermore, it makes it
easier to reach participants who can be reluctant to participate in person because
they fear being identified. Of course, this anonymity is not intrinsic to online
research. The researcher still needs to design a proper research and data manage-
ment plan to ensure ethical standards.
In general terms, the main ethical problems that arise within online research are
data security, getting consent online and online identity because it can differ from
the corporeal identity (Deakin & Wakefield, 2014). Data security is a crucial part of
any research. Even if the research is not online, at least some of the data will likely
be stored online. Therefore, creating a good data management plan beforehand is
essential. I strongly recommend using DMPOnline (n.d.) to create a plan that meets
the standard required.
Getting informed consent from participants also poses some specific challenges.
Without their physical presence, the process may not be straightforward because,
for instance, it is harder to get a signature. Unless the participant is willing to (and
knows how to) print and scan the document, the researcher must look into other
ways to get the consent. A common approach is to include consent through an online
survey. Another way is to get the verbal consent recorded if the method includes a
conversation with the participants. In addition, as we mentioned before, a large
quantity of data is public, and the researcher does not need consent to use it.
However, the person posting the information may be expecting some privacy or
anonymity in specific settings like private forums or personal social media profiles.
Another problem arising is that it is harder for participants to withdraw from the
data collection, especially if the method used has no direct contact with the
researcher (e.g. surveys, questionnaires). So the researcher must include a visible
withdraw option at different stages (Snee et al., 2016, p. 210).
In addition, there are some cases where people pose as someone else or create
new personalities and roles online. Also, bots can manipulate data (like creating
fake trending topics on Twitter), so the researcher must consider strategies to assure
that the participant’s identity is somehow reliable. One way is to increase the num-
ber of participants. Another is to use methods that include a closer interaction with
at least some of the participants. Still, this is a challenge for online research, and the
researcher should consider that some of the participants might not be who they say
they are.
For best ethical practices, I encourage researchers to check the General Data
Protection Regulation GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) –
Official Legal Text, n.d.) and the ethical guidelines created by the Association of
Internet Researcher AoIR (Franzke et al., 2020).
Transferability
Data and research validity represent one of the main concerns since the introduction
of online methods, and it has been hard to remove the idea that face-to-face methods
are “the gold standard” in qualitative research (Deakin & Wakefield, 2014, p. 604).
Several issues arise in establishing contextualisation.
Transferability is the degree to which qualitative research can be shifted to
another setting, and it is one of the criteria to assess the validity of qualitative
research. So the problem of transferability in qualitative research is a crucial issue
to consider in every study. However, when doing online research, this aspect is even
more relevant. Researchers must not only ask themselves if it is possible to transfer
the results to other contexts but must also clarify whether or not these results can be
transferred to the non-digital sphere. Although the study is being carried out on ele-
ments that do not belong to the digital world, we cannot lose sight that we will only
have participants who have access to and can use digital tools. This situation can
produce a bias excluding participants who cannot or do not want to participate in
online activities for reasons such as Internet access, education, culture or age.
Meanwhile, we find the opposite phenomenon: those who participate in the
Internet research may fail to divide their lives between real and virtual. So “the issue
no longer is how much of society and culture is online, but rather how to diagnose
cultural change and societal conditions by means of the internet. The conceptual
point of departure is the recognition that the internet is not only an object of study
but also a source” (Rogers, 2013, p. 21). Therefore, the researcher must identify the
differences between both identities (corporeal and virtual) while identifying the
harm that can be caused by confusing them (Deakin & Wakefield, 2014) and simul-
taneously acknowledging that participants do not separate their on- and offline lives.
Methodological and Technical Challenges
In general, the researcher must have some technical knowledge to use any method,
but in the case of online methods, a certain level is also required of the participants
since they must be able to use technology and avail themselves to adequate equip-
ment and Internet access (Sullivan, 2012). Even if the participants have the neces-
sary skills and access, there is the possibility of various technical failures. Archibald
et al. (2019) describe the challenges involved in working with a videoconferencing
platform (e.g. Zoom). Among them, 25% of the participants reported problems with
the audio or video quality during the call. They also had set-up problems caused by
unreliable Internet connections, software incompatibilities, low battery or trouble
listening without headphones. However, most participants blamed these problems
on their lack of skill in using technology rather than the technology itself. These
issues could delay or postpone the investigation. For example, Hanna (2012) had to
suspend and reschedule an interview due to a faulty webcam.
Another problematic aspect is that there were some interruptions caused by the
setting of the participants (Archibald et al., 2019). It is essential to consider that the
researcher has no control over the participants’ environment and location.
Criminologists must address this, especially when dealing with a vulnerable popu-
lation. A situation could arise in which the person does not have the privacy neces-
sary to give their answers honestly, as it would be in the case of a victim of domestic
violence responding to an interview from home or a prisoner who is being moni-
tored by the prison service.
Finally, another recurring problem is that there is a larger number of absentees
than in face-to-face methods. Tuttas (2015) believes that the cause is that they have
distanced themselves from “a compelling sense of commitment to attend” (Tuttas,
2015, p. 129). This lack of sense of commitment may be because participants know
it is easier to reschedule an online meeting and because there is a lack of familiarity
with the researcher. There are two ways of overcoming this problem: first, to
increase previous communication (Deakin & Wakefield, 2014) to create a closer
rapport with the participants and, second, to anticipate an attrition rate up to 50%
(Tuttas, 2015). Despite these difficulties, we must not forget that conducting online
research allows recruiting a more significant number of people at a low cost, making
it easier to overcome this situation by inviting more people than necessary.
Concluding Comments
The increased use of online methods is inevitable, bringing with them endless pos-
sibilities for criminological research. Such possibilities include not only the devel-
opment of cybercriminology but also of all areas of research in which traditional
methods can be adapted or emerging digital techniques can be used. Of course, like
any method, limitations and ethical questions exist and the researcher must solve
them or, at least, acknowledge them before embarking on a study. However, in many
cases, advantages of online methods make them an ideal option due to lower costs,
easier logistics and data analysis and increased possibility of recruiting a greater
number of participants or geographic areas, among other benefits. Researchers need
to familiarise themselves with these methods before starting a project since it is a
common mistake to think that the classic methods are directly transferable to the
digital medium. For example, if the researchers are adept at conducting in-person
interviews, that does not mean they can immediately conduct online interviews. In
addition, technology is constantly evolving and improving, so researchers should
include new methods created especially in the online environment.
References
Ahlin, T., & Li, F. (2019). From field sites to field events. Medicine Anthropology Theory, 6(2),
1–24. https://doi.org/10.17157/mat.6.2.655
Archibald, M. M., Ambagtsheer, R. C., Casey, M. G., & Lawless, M. (2019). Using zoom vid-
eoconferencing for qualitative data collection: Perceptions and experiences of research-
ers and participants. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 18, 1–8. https://doi.
org/10.1177/1609406919874596
Banks, J. (2014). Online gambling, advantage play, reflexivity and virtual ethnography. In
K. Lumsden & A. Winter (Eds.), Reflexivity in criminological research (pp. 289–300). Palgrave
Macmillan UK. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137379405
Beneito-Montagut, R. (2011). Ethnography goes online: Towards a user-centred methodology to
research interpersonal communication on the internet. Qualitative Research, 11(6), 716–735.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794111413368
Boase, J., & Humphreys, L. (2018). Mobile methods: Explorations, innovations, and reflections.
Mobile Media & Communication, 6(2), 153–162. https://doi.org/10.1177/2050157918764215
Buchanan, E. A., & Hvizdak, E. E. (2009). Online survey tools: Ethical and methodological con-
cerns of human research ethics committees. Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research
Ethics, 4(2), 37–48. https://doi.org/10.1525/jer.2009.4.2.37
Caliandro, A. (2018). Digital methods for ethnography: Analytical concepts for ethnographers
exploring social media environments. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 47(5), 551–578.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0891241617702960
Chen, J., & Neo, P. (2019). Texting the waters: An assessment of focus groups conducted via
the WhatsApp smartphone messaging application. Methodological Innovations, 12(3),
205979911988427. https://doi.org/10.1177/2059799119884276
Code of Ethics – Preamble for conducting epistolary (Asynchronous) interviews | Virtual
Ethnographic Methods | Class Research Portfolio. (2020). https://voices.uchicago.
edu/202003sosc20224/2020/06/25/code-o f-e thics-p reamble-f or-c onducting-e pistolary-
asynchronous-interviews/. Accessed 15 Sept 2021.
Copes, H., Tchoula, W., Brookman, F., & Ragland, J. (2018). Photo-elicitation interviews with vul-
nerable populations: Practical and ethical considerations. Deviant Behavior, 39(4), 475–494.
https://doi.org/10.1080/01639625.2017.1407109
Costello, L., Mcdermott, M.-L., & Wallace, R. (2017). Netnography: Range of practices, misper-
ceptions, and missed opportunities. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 16, 1–12.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406917700647
Deakin, H., & Wakefield, K. (2014). Skype interviewing: Reflections of two PhD researchers.
Qualitative Research, 14(5), 603–616. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794113488126
Debenham, M. (2007). Epistolary interviews on-line: A novel addition to the researchers’s palette.
Inclusion Technology Advice, 44(February 2007), 1–7. http://www.jisctechdis.ac.uk/techdis/
resources/detail/learnersmatter/Epistolary_Interviews_On-line
Décary-Hétu, D., & Aldridge, J. (2015). Sifting through the net: Monitoring of online offender by
researchers. The European Review of Organised Crime, 2(2), 122–141.
DMPonline. (n.d.). https://dmponline.dcc.ac.uk/. Accessed 25 Sept 2021.
Fileborn, B. (2016). Participant recruitment in an online era: A reflection on ethics and identity.
Research Ethics, 12(2), 97–115. https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016115604150
Franzke, A. S., Bechmann, A., Zimmer, M., Ess, C. and The Association of Internet Researchers.
(2020). Internet research: Ethical guidelines 3.0. https://aoir.org/reports/ethics.pdf. Accessed
16 June 2020.
García, B., Welford, J., & Smith, B. (2016). Using a smartphone app in qualitative research:
The good, the bad and the ugly. Qualitative Research, 16(5), 508–525. https://doi.
org/10.1177/1468794115593335
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – Official Legal Text. (n.d.). https://gdpr-info.eu/.
Accessed 22 Sept 2021.
Gough, B. (Ed.). (2017). The Palgrave handbook of critical social psychology. Palgrave Macmillan
UK. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51018-1
Hanna, P. (2012). Using internet technologies (such as skype) as a research medium: A research
note. Qualitative Research, 12(2), 239–242. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794111426607
Hewson, C. (2014). Qualitative approaches in internet-mediated research. In P. Leavy (Ed.), The
Oxford handbook of qualitative research (1st ed., pp. 422–452). Oxford University Press.
https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199811755.013.020
Hine, C. (2000). Virtual ethnography. SAGE Publications Ltd. https://doi.
org/10.4135/9780857020277
Hjorth, L., Horst, H. A., Galloway, A., & Bell, G. (Eds.). (2017). The Routledge companion to
digital ethnography. Taylor & Francis.
Holt, T. J. (2015). Qualitative criminology in online spaces. In H. Copes & J. Mitchell Miller
(Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Qualitative Criminology (pp. 173–188). Routledge.
Holt, T. J. (2017). Situating the problem of cybercrime in a multidisciplinary context. In
Cybercrime through an interdisciplinary lens (pp. 15–28). Taylor & Francis. https://doi.org/1
0.4324/9781315618456-8
Hughes, G., & Walter, A.-M. (2021). Staying tuned. Social Analysis, 65(1), 89–102. https://doi.
org/10.3167/sa.2021.650105
Jaishankar, K. (2007). Editorial cyber criminology: Evolving a novel discipline with a new journal.
International Journal of Cyber Criminology, 1(1), 1–6.
James, N., & Busher, H. (2006). Credibility, authenticity and voice: Dilemmas in online interview-
ing. Qualitative Research, 6(3), 403–420. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794106065010
Johnson, D., Scheitle, C., & Ecklund, E. (2019). Beyond the in-person interview? How interview
quality varies across in-person, telephone, and skype interviews. Social Science Computer
Review, 39, 1142. https://doi.org/10.1177/0894439319893612
Kılınç, H., & Fırat, M. (2017). Opinions of expert academicians on online data collection and
voluntary participation in social sciences research. Educational Sciences: Theory & Practice,
17(5), 1461–1486. https://doi.org/10.12738/ESTP.2017.5.0261
Lupton, D. (Ed.). (2020). Doing fieldwork in a pandemic (Crowd sourced document). https://
docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/1clGjGABB2h2qbduTgfqribHmog9B6P0NvMgVuiHZCl8/
mobilebasic#heading=h.am6e9k1kpbda
McInroy, L. B. (2016). Pitfalls, potentials, and ethics of online survey research: LGBTQ and
other marginalized and hard-to-access youths. Social Work Research, 40(2), 83–94. https://doi.
org/10.1093/swr/svw005
Murray, P. J. (1997). Using virtual focus groups in qualitative research. Qualitative Health
Research, 7(4), 542–549. https://doi.org/10.1177/104973239700700408
O’Connor, H., Madge, C., Shaw, R., & Wellens, J. (2008). Internet-based interviewing. In
N. Fielding, R. M. Lee, & G. Blank (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of online research methods
(2nd ed.). Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9780857020055
O’Neill, M., Penfold-Mounce, R., Honeywell, D., Coward-Gibbs, M., Crowder, H., & Hill,
I. (2021). Creative methodologies for a mobile criminology: Walking as critical pedagogy.
Sociological Research Online, 26(2), 247–268. https://doi.org/10.1177/1360780420922250
OECD. (2021). Internet access (indicator). https://doi.org/10.1787/69c2b997-en
Payne, B. K., & Hadzhidimova, L. (2020). Disciplinary and interdisciplinary trends in cybercrime
research: An examination. International Journal of Cyber Criminology, 14(1), 81–105. https://
doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.3741131
Postill, J., & Pink, S. (2012). Social media ethnography: The digital researcher in a messy web.
Media International Australia, 145, 123–134.
Quinton, S., & Reynolds, N. (2019). Digital research as a phenomenon and a method in:
Understanding research in the digital age introduction and scope. Sage. https://doi.
org/10.4135/9781529716573
Reid, D. J., & Reid, F. J. M. (2005). Online focus groups: An in-depth comparison of computer-
mediated and conventional focus group discussions. International Journal of Market Research,
47(2), 131–162.
Rogers, R. (2013). Digital methods. The MIT Press. http://ludwig.lub.lu.se/login?url=http://
search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat01310a&AN=lovisa.004318916&site=
eds-live&scope=site. Accessed 27 Aug 2021
Salmons, J. (2018a). Choosing methodologies and methods for online studies. In Doing qualita-
tive research online (pp. 17–39). Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781473921955
Salmons, J. (2018b). Choosing information and communications technologies that fit the
research design. In Doing qualitative research online (pp. 41–51). Sage. https://doi.
org/10.4135/9781473921955
Seymour, W. (2001). In the flesh or online? Exploring qualitative research method-
ologies. Qualitative Research, 1(2), 147–168. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/
pdf/10.1177/146879410100100203. Accessed 12 June 2020
Snee, H., Hine, C., Morey, Y., Roberts, S., & Watson, H. (Eds.). (2016). Digital methods for social
science. Palgrave Macmillan UK. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137453662
Solymosi, R., Buil-Gil, D., Vozmediano, L., & Guedes, I. S. (2020). Towards a place-based
measure of fear of crime: A systematic review of app-based and crowdsourcing approaches.
Environment and Behavior, 1–32. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916520947114
Stewart, K., & Williams, M. (2005). Researching online populations: The use of online
focus groups for social research. Qualitative Research, 5(4), 395–416. https://doi.
org/10.1177/1468794105056916
Sugie, N. F. (2018). Utilizing smartphones to study disadvantaged and hard-to-reach groups.
Sociological Methods & Research, 47(3), 458–491. https://doi.org/10.1177/0049124115626176
Sullivan, J. R. (2012). Skype: An appropriate method of data collection for qualitative interviews?
The Hilltop Review, 6(1), article10. http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/hilltopreview, http://schol-
arworks.wmich.edu/hilltopreview/vol6/iss1/10. Accessed 19 June 2020
Tuttas, C. A. (2015). Lessons learned using web conference technology for online
focus group interviews. Qualitative Health Research, 25(1), 122–133. https://doi.
org/10.1177/1049732314549602
Zaith, D., & De Leeuw, T. (2010). Fighting with images: The production and consumption of vio-
lence among online football supporters. In K. Hayward & M. Presdee (Eds.), Framing crime
(pp. 184–200). Routledge-Cavendish. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203880753
Zhang, J., Calabrese, C., Ding, J., Liu, M., & Zhang, B. (2018). Advantages and challenges in
using mobile apps for field experiments: A systematic review and a case study. Mobile Media
& Communication, 6(2), 179–196. https://doi.org/10.1177/2050157917725550
Daniela Mardones-Bravo is a Chilean criminologist and lawyer. Daniela holds an MSc in crimi-
nology and criminal justice from the University of Edinburgh. She is a PhD researcher in criminol-
ogy at the University of Edinburgh. Daniela is a founder member of the Chilean Society of
Criminology and a lecturer in criminology in Chilean universities. She specializes in online quali-
tative research. Her research interests are media and crime, older people in prison, and the sociol-
ogy of punishment.
Part III
Methodological Innovations
Overview
Edge ethnographies represent an exciting approach to qualitative methods, though

the potential risks to the researcher and participant may outweigh the benefits. Edge
work, according to criminologists and experts in methods, is “the qualitative social
science approach that emphasizes the depth of understanding of socially marginal
and stigmatized populations and settings wherein the researcher undergoes danger-
ous and potentially threatening (personally, socially, professionally) exposures”
(http://criminal-justice.iresearchnet.com/criminology/research-methods/edge-
ethnography/). Major ethnographic work emerged from the Chicago School as early
as 1925 (The City, Burgess). Miller and Miller (2015) offer a comprehensive list of
qualitative books that altered perspectives in meaningful manners and multiple
comportments: Skid Row, Tally’s Corner, The Jack-Roller, The Narc’s Game, Aging
Criminals, and The Felon. Edge ethnographies depend on establishing close rela-
tionships and risky situations (Fitzpatrick, 2019) that most universities’ internal
review boards may object to because of the possibilities of serious problems, for
example, in planning and implementing the research. Consequently, the minutia and
length of the approval process may dissuade researchers. Some of these issues have
receded over time, and new technologies have opened access to unexpected groups.
When Laud Humphreys (1970), for instance, author of the Tearoom Trade:
Impersonal Sex in Public Places, presented initial details of his proposed study,
which in some respects was an edge ethnography, he allegedly lied to the disserta-
tion committee on how he planned to conduct his work to receive permission (per-
sonal communication with committee member).
The evolution (and even some limitations) of this method is readily apparent in
the extant literature. Engaging in graffiti, interviewing burglars, participating in ille-
gal drug deals, or chasing felons across the world are exciting ventures that add
substantial substantive information to the field of criminology. Ethnographies are
essential amid world crises including increased political deviance, higher rates of
violent crime, a surge in mass shootings in the United States, and global COVID
104 III Methodological Innovations
recovery efforts. Ethnographies that examine crime are a crucial area of research as
civil unrest spreads throughout the world, though gaining access is difficult and, in
some cases, impossible. The risks associated with edge ethnographies, previously
mentioned, are often noted in considerations of methods. According to Miller and
Tewksbury (2010), edge work “represents a strain of qualitative inquiry employing
atypical qualitative fieldwork” linked to social, deep involvement, and potential
risks. Miller and Miller (2015) identify three distinct qualities of edge ethnography:
“intentionally situated in risky situations; beyond the real reach of institutional
review; and sometimes conducted covertly” (p. 89).
In 1998, Jeff Ferrell and Mark Hamm published Ethnographies at the Edge. The
edited book was lauded as an indispensable work in criminology that finally
addressed the true nature of fieldwork. Ferrell and Hamm’s work offers first-person
accounts that include illegal, immoral, and dangerous behavior by pimps, people
without homes, sex workers, and drug dealers. In some cases, access to elite people
or groups was essential to the narratives such as the United States paramilitary units
and Timothy McVeigh, who engaged in a terrorist act when he bombed a federal
building in the USA and was executed in 2001 by lethal injection. The authors in
many of the chapters were quick to note the difficulties and challenges they faced
internally at the university level and externally. The culmination of the work, how-
ever, challenges researchers, for lack of a better idiom, to get their hands dirty. One
might also recall Atticus Finch’s remark in To Kill a Mockingbird: “You never really
understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…Until you
climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”
Arguably, however, edge work can go beyond what was mentioned in the previ-
ous paragraphs. The emotional impact of qualitative research, for instance, can be
risky for researchers, but is seldom considered in methods classes, supervisions, or
ethical procedures, and is rarely discussed in the literature. The emotional labor of
qualitative research can have a serious impact not only on the research itself but also
on the researcher and, ultimately, if not properly addressed, can negatively influence
results. Reflexivity, care towards participants and ethics, as well as the researcher’s
self-care, may prove crucial to conduct in-depth rich research in close proximity to
the activities, contexts, and individuals being researched.
The current section presents a series of chapters advocating for the growing use
of visual and sensory approaches to the study of crimes, harms, and justice. Deeply
rooted in the theoretical and empirical analysis of the social world, particularly of
social interaction, meaning making and co-construction of symbols, and sharing of
individualities, the chapters show new venues for criminology to approach social
realities in meaningful ways by combining structural and cultural analyses with
individual and subjective stories embedded in inequal social structures and power
relations.
The use of sensory landscapes and sensorial tools has been discussed and used to
produce data that are generated from more than words, and observation has taken a
whole new shift when tapping into the researchers’ and participants’ emotions, sen-
sations, and senses. Opening knowledge up to data that are not only spoken or writ-
ten but also olfactive, palpable, sensory, and visual. The papers offered in this
III Methodological Innovations 105
section show that criminology is prepared to offer new ways to reconnect with the
social world in a physical and experiential proximity that, somehow, may be the
much-needed balance with the virtual and online trending social processes that the
twenty-first century brings us. Acknowledging the wholeness of human beings in
contact with their sensorial, emotional, and symbolic contexts (be it a prison facility
or a polluted riverbank) allows qualitative criminology to access new levels of rich
and meaningful accounts of social processes, of lived experiences, and of meaning
making. It also reveals how, in an era of algorithms, artificial intelligence, and meta-
verses, the human experience of reconnecting and recollecting may be achieved by
the simplest yet most complex system of all: the human sensorial, visual, and cogni-
tive structures and processes.
References
Ferrell, J., & Hamm, M. (1998). Ethnographies at the edge. Northeastern University Press.
Fitzpatrick, K. (2019). The edges and the end: On stopping an ethnographic project, on losing the
way. In Smith, R.J. and Delamont, S. (Ed.) The lost ethnographies: Methodological insights
from projects that never were (Studies in qualitative methodology, vol. 17) (pp. 165–175).
Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1042-319220190000017004
Humphrey, L. (1970). Tearoom trade: Impersonal sex in public places. Aldine.
Irwin, J. (1970). The felon. Prentice Hall.
Lee, H. (1960). To kill a mockingbird. J.B. Lippincott & Co.
Liebow, E. (1967). Tally’s corner: A study of Negro streetcorner men. Rowman & Littlefield.
Miller J. M., & Miller, H. V. (2015). Edge ethnography and naturalistic inquiry in criminology. In
The Routledge handbook of qualitative criminology (pp. 104–118). Routledge.
Miller, J. M., & Tewksbury, R. (2010). The case for edge ethnography. Journal of Criminal Justice
Education, 21(4), 488–502.
Shaw, C. R. (1930). The Jack-Roller, a delinquent boy’s own story. University of Chicago Press.
Chapter 7
Trigger Warnings, Feeling Rules and Other
Lessons from the Inside: The Emotional
Labour of Qualitative Prison Research
Jennifer M. Kilty and Rachel Fayter
Introduction
The prison is a sociopolitical, geographic, interpersonal and institutional space that

evokes complex emotions amongst those who are incarcerated and who work within
its walls. Staff are trained to mobilize risk logic to evaluate every request, scenario
and interaction and are generally risk adverse, which results in deference to security
and control measures that maintain an emotionally tense and often punitive atmo-
sphere (Crawley, 2004; Crewe, 2011; Crewe et al., 2013; Fayter et al., 2021;
Haggerty & Bucerius, 2020; Kilty, 2018; Moran, 2015). As Drake and Harvey
(2014, p. 497) write:
Distress, anger and frustration often trouble those amongst the prisoner population. Fear of
violence between prisoners or between staff and prisoners can bubble under the surface.
There may be high levels of self-harm amongst prisoners, suicide attempts, unanticipated
disturbances or assaults. The emotional extremes that characterise the prison environment
can be difficult for researchers to witness and to process.
Despite the heightened emotions wrought from incarceration and the abuses that
frequently occur in these settings, prison staff report the need to remain emotionally
distant and detached from prisoners, which means they avoid showing care or empa-
thy – even when engaging in emotionally damaging practices like segregation, or
the use of force or restraints (Crawley, 2004). Maintaining a degree of emotional
detachment is part of the cultural practice of both prison staff and prisoners and thus
the feeling and display rules of the space even though this is at odds with the institu-
tion’s mandate to provide care (Humblet, 2020). Humblet (2020, p. 6) found that
prison staff express care by surface acting, for example, by making small talk or
saying hello or good night; this facilitated their work but was not prompted by
J. M. Kilty (*) · R. Fayter

Department of Criminology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada
e-mail: Jennifer.Kilty@uottawa.ca; RachelFayter@uottawa.ca
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18401-7_7
108 J. M. Kilty and R. Fayter
actual care for prisoners. The prisoner population is similarly guarded with their
emotions as a protective measure to avoid unwanted attention, criticism or ridicule
(Crewe, 2011). As sites of examination, the prison and the carceral experiences of
those who are detained against their will are inherently emotional and affective
(Kilty, 2018). Prisons and the deprivation of liberty they engender conjure feelings
of loneliness, despair, anger, resentment, frustration, anxiety, depression and fear.
However, even within the hostility of the carceral system where mental and emo-
tional well-being are challenging, prisoners have reported experiencing ‘positive’
emotions and feelings, including patience, strength, hope, solidarity and compas-
sion – especially from their imprisoned sisters (Faith, 2011; Law, 2012; Pollack,
2019; Maier & Ricciardelli, 2021). This chapter reflects on the emotional legacies
of incarceration for formerly incarcerated people who become qualitative research-
ers in the field of critical prison studies.
Wakeman (2014, p. 4) contends that we need to identify and analyse the ‘connec-
tions between the researcher, the researched and the wider structural settings both
are situated within’ in order to consider how one’s history and biography impact the
research process, which involves developing a deep sense of biographic–emotive
awareness (p. 8). For the present discussion, we begin by noting that both authors
identify as critical prison scholars; while Kilty is an allied researcher, Fayter has
lived experience of incarceration, having spent close to 4 years in a federal prison in
Canada. We met in 2015 at the Grand Valley Institution for Women, a federal peni-
tentiary in Kitchener, Ontario, during the week-long pedagogical instructor training
for the Walls to Bridges (W2B) prison education program, which is a Canadian
offshoot of the American Inside-Out program. W2B instructors deliver post-
secondary education inside prison spaces by bringing small groups of college- or
university-enrolled ‘outside’ students into a prison site to hold weekly classes with
a group of ‘inside’ students.1 At the time, Rachel was a W2B inside student, and
over the course of the training, she revealed that she was working toward a doctorate
in community psychology when she was arrested. By the end of the intensive train-
ing, Jennifer invited Rachel to apply to the doctoral program in criminology at the
university where she was a tenured professor and where there is a long-standing
history of critical prison studies. After the training ended, the two maintained con-
tact via written letters and Rachel contributed a paper regarding her experiences as
a W2B inside student to a 2016 special issue of the Journal of Prisoners on Prisons
that Jennifer was co-editing, which focused on transforming carceral agendas
through education. In fall 2018, one year after Rachel’s release on parole, she
1
W2B students earn college or university course credits and tuition fees are covered by the school.
W2B engages students’ whole selves (i.e. body, mind, emotions and spirit) and differs from the
parent program in a few key ways (Davis, 2013, p. 259). Reflecting the sociopolitical, economic
and cultural differences in Canada, including a much smaller prisoner population, shorter average
sentences and a disproportionate number of Indigenous prisoners, W2B’s pedagogical approach
integrates Indigenous teachings into the training and pedagogy. W2B also works with community-
based alumni groups who participate in workshops and training and engages in advocacy related
to prisoner justice, access to education, employment, housing and community re-entry (Davis,
2013; Fayter, 2016; Pollack, 2019). For more information about W2B, see www.wallstobridges.ca
7 Trigger Warnings, Feeling Rules and Other Lessons from the Inside: The Emotional… 109
commenced her PhD in criminology at the University of Ottawa with Jennifer act-
ing as primary supervisor for her doctoral research.
The impetus for this chapter emerged from a series of discussions regarding the
emotional nature of and the emotional toll that in-depth qualitative interviews were
having on the research assistants Jennifer hired to work on her nationally funded
project,2 entitled Feeling the Carceral (FtC). Notably, by the time Rachel com-
menced work on the FtC project, she and Jennifer had been working together for
nearly three years; they had published together and had developed a sense of trust in
their relationship over time, which is essential for collaborative work with former
prisoners. The overarching goal of the FtC project is to map the emotional geogra-
phy of federal prison spaces in Canada. Using a detailed semi-structured interview
guide and photos of federal carceral spaces to stimulate reflection, we asked ques-
tions about the following: the material qualities of the different spaces in the prison
where the participant was held or worked; the different activities undertaken in
these spaces and the connection these activities had to the emergence, expression
and suppression of different feelings and emotions; how interpersonal relationships
with other prisoners and staff members shaped emotional expression in these spaces;
and how certain prison policies and practices shaped the emotional expression of
both prisoners and staff. Unfortunately, the Correctional Service of Canada (the
federal government organization that oversees federal corrections across the coun-
try) routinely denies access to federal penitentiaries for most external researchers,
which, in combination with the onset of the COVID-19 global pandemic, meant that
the research assistants were relegated to conducting interviews at a distance with
formerly incarcerated men and women and correctional staff over Microsoft Teams
or Zoom platforms. This ‘distance’ approach to interviewing former prisoners,
many of whom were on parole, presented a barrier in terms of accessing participants
and made developing emotional connections and rapport with participants more
complicated.
Given the topical and theoretical focus of the FtC project, it is perhaps unsurpris-
ing that the interviews evoked complex emotions for some participants and research
assistants. What was particularly interesting, however, was the degree to which the
research assistants without lived experience of incarceration were able to sustain a
degree of professional detachment, which served a protective function that allowed
them to conduct more interviews in a shorter period of time. In contradistinction,
Rachel’s work revealed a much more in-depth style of interviewing as well as a
more involved process of check-in and follow-up with participants – many of whom
she recruited through her personal network. Not only did Rachel’s strategy result in
significantly longer interviews (typically closer to 3 h instead of 1–2 h), but it also
required a more detailed and engaged level of emotion work to manage the inter-
view process and the feelings that emerged as a result. We begin this chapter with a
short review of the convict criminology literature, which we identify as a pathway
2
The Feeling the Carceral project is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council of Canada, Grant Funding reference number 435-2019-1152.
toward developing a more critical pedagogy for academic criminologists. We then

outline the emotional labour inherent in conducting qualitative prison research, with
an emphasis on the perspective and position of those with lived experience of incar-
ceration. While there has been some research that identifies the emotional nature of
conducting qualitative research on sensitive topics like rape and genocide, including
considerations of the vicarious trauma that this work can prompt (Fabian, 2014;
Hannem, 2014; Moran & Asquith, 2020), at present there is little discussion or rec-
ognition of the specific difficulties the formerly incarcerated experience when com-
mitting themselves to the production of critical prison research. Our discussion
examines Rachel’s experience on the FtC project, how she and Jennifer communi-
cated about this and how supervisors and allied prison scholars can better support
students (and colleagues) with lived experience of incarceration.
onvict Criminology and the Value of Inclusive

C
Prison Research
Following the edict ‘nothing about us, without us’, we identify the central tenets of
convict criminology (CC) as a pathway toward developing a more critical pedagogy
and to engaging in research as praxis amongst academic criminologists.3 Convict
criminologists include both those with lived experience of criminalization and their
‘noncon’ allies who centralize the voices of those with lived experience in their
research and advocacy work (Newbold & Ross, 2012; Richards, 2013). The genre is
founded on the idea that traditional criminological research ‘obscure[s] the people
most directly involved and reduce[s] them to a collection of variables and policy
outcomes’ (Earle, 2016, p. 116). In response, CC teaches us that it is essential for
critical prison studies to foreground the voices, views and lived experiences of those
who have endured criminalization and incarceration, for without access to the expe-
riential, we are unable to accurately conceptualize or understand the pains of impris-
onment (Earle, 2014, 2016, 2018). As Richards (2013, p. 384) contends:
For those of us that have suffered the prison, there is no intellectual debate about the relative
merits of mainstream versus critical criminology. We know what side we are on. The jour-
ney to prison and back informs our ontological understanding of the horror of imprison-
ment. Our collective disgust and resentment with a justice system that locks up millions of
people in cages and boxes may fade over time, but it does not relent. The memories remain,
as we are the witnesses. Mainstream criminology is not innocent. Our discipline and profes-
sion is both compliant and actively complicit in the penal damage visited upon millions of
Americans. Thankfully, there are critical criminologists that have the courage to defy the
prison, and support the witnesses to share what they recall.
Heeding Geertz’s warnings, critics of CC suggest that it risks devolving into

confessional writing, although scholars of this tradition maintain that you must
3
The vast majority of the CC literature has been produced by men; this chapter helps fill a gap in
this literature by providing women’s voices in this field.
remember ‘that you are not the story, you are the storyteller’ and that the goal is to
use your experiences as a critical and reflexive lens to interpret prison cultures and
practices (Earle, 2016, p. 120). Critical prison scholars have taken up this charge
primarily via qualitative research that incorporates fieldwork, interviews, observa-
tion, autoethnography and, where possible, ethnography (Earle, 2018). That said,
prioritizing ‘privileged knowledge’ should not lead us to assume that ‘prisoners
experience incarceration in the same way’ (Newbold & Ross, 2012, p. 7). Similar to
the feminist standpoint theory (Hill Collins, 2004; Harding, 1991, 2004), CC
accepts that knowledge is socially situated, the social positioning of differently
located individuals and groups sensitizes them to power relations in ways that
makes them more inclined to ask different questions than do outsiders, and research
that examines power relations should centre the experiences of marginalized people.
As reflected in the above quote from Richards, CC echoes the historic insider/
outsider debate that stresses that we must consider Becker’s (1967) call to identify
‘whose side we are on’ and the different hierarchies of credibility that shape how
information and knowledge are presented as legitimate or biased. While it is impor-
tant not to romanticize insider views (Liebling, 2001), we must remember that lan-
guage and the power to name and define ‘is a glue that keeps a community together,
allowing its members to identify themselves, express their feelings and emotions.
Whoever controls the language controls a people’s means of self-definition’
(Asgharzadeh, 2008, p. 355). Mainstream criminology has historically failed to
consider such hierarchies of credibility in favour of presenting a seemingly objec-
tive position that often adopts official state language – for example, describing pris-
oners as ‘offenders’ or solitary confinement cells as ‘structured intervention
units’ – which primarily functions to sanitize penal language so as to make the
horrors of incarceration more palatable.
Adopting an outsider-within (Hill Collins, 2004) or insider-perspective (Tietjen,
2019) facilitates the researcher’s ability to challenge conventional criminological
knowledge and to create a more diverse understanding of ‘otherwise unilluminated
spheres’ (Tietjen, 2019, p. 109). This approach, therefore, dovetails with Freire’s
(2006) critical pedagogy which emphasizes the need to create non-hierarchical rela-
tions that uphold the value of learning through the experiences of others – especially
those who are differently located in terms of power relations. For ‘in the absence of
critical thinking and reflection, undemocratic notions of identity, essentialist think-
ing, and reactionary ideologies will continue to flourish’ (Asgharzadeh, 2008,
p. 336). Freire (2006) suggests that it is only through critical reflection and dialogue
that we can develop a critical consciousness, which he describes as
‘conscientization’.
While the academy tends to encourage professional detachment, critical scholars
note that this can lead to dehumanizing methodological effects that ‘reproduce a
non-reflexive construction of knowledge which, in turn, perpetuates systemic
harms’ (Smith & Kinzel, 2021, p. 98). CC emphasizes the importance of reflexivity
in conducting critical prison research, which not only helps to dismantle dichoto-
mous characterizations of victims and prisoners, but also enables us to incorporate
a systematic consideration of emotions, feelings, affects and memories in our
analytic work. Emotions do not invalidate, but rather enhance criminological knowl-
edge by providing nuanced and situated contextualization of policy issues that
address moral questions (Hannem, 2014; Smith & Kinzel, 2021). Mobilizing and
arousing emotions can also engender compassion and concern about the morality of
carceral practices amongst the public (Jewkes, 2011; Kilty, 2018). Next, we con-
sider what it means to incorporate an emotion lens in critical prison studies and the
emotional labour involved in conducting qualitative prison research.
The Emotional Labour of Qualitative Prison Studies
While Arlie Hochschild’s (1983) notion of emotional labour has been widely mobi-
lized by scholars in the humanities and social sciences, few have considered the
specificities of how emotion work unfolds and is experienced by formerly incarcer-
ated scholars doing qualitative research in the field of critical prison studies. The
failure to consider the emotional impacts of researching prison experiences is a
glaring absence in both the qualitative methods and critical prison studies litera-
tures, especially given the well-documented and lasting impacts of the pains of
imprisonment (Crewe, 2011; Hancock & Jewkes, 2011; Haggerty & Bucerius,
2020; Haney, 2006; Sykes, 1958/2007). Moreover, as Jewkes (2011) contends,
prison scholars fail their graduate students by not documenting their emotional
responses to conducting research in or about this site – especially as young scholars
are likely to approach this field with elevated levels of anxiety.
Hochschild (1983, p. 7) coined the term emotional labour to describe ‘the man-
agement of feelings to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display’; ‘this
labour requires one to induce or suppress emotions in order to sustain the outward
countenance that produces the proper state of mind in others’. This notion of emo-
tion work is particularly relevant for the carceral context, where it is not uncommon
to feel ‘haunted’ (Garrihy & Watters, 2020; Kilty, 2018) and emotionally paralyzed
(Yuen, 2011) by the prison environment and the practices (e.g. isolation, use of
physical and chemical restraints, strip searches) that go on in these spaces.
Challenging the traditional view of prisons as steadfastly aggressive, Crewe et al.
(2013) describe carceral spaces as constituted by a series of emotion zones that
enable the performance and display of a range of feelings, dependent upon who is
in the space at the time and the relationships between those actors. Moran (2015)
likewise found that the shifting spatial arrangements of the prison shape the feeling
rules of these spaces. Researchers learn these feeling rules via fieldwork, but for the
formerly incarcerated scholar, these rules are already a part of their carceral habitus
and therefore inform the way they engage with, pose questions to and respond to
participants in the context of an interview. As Earle (2014, p. 434) contends:
A researcher can feel the prison’s draining force; however, it is but a quantum of the real
soul-sapping tendencies of serving time as a prisoner. It is not exactly “touching the void”
but an existential chill is palpable in prison fieldwork and remains under-theorized and
under-examined.
The emotion work involved in conducting research on sensitive topics can lead
to a variety of different physical and psychological health symptoms (e.g. exhaus-
tion, stress, insomnia, ulcers, stomach pain – amongst others) (Dickson-Swift et al.,
2009; McGowan, 2020; Yuen, 2011). These symptoms are born from all the differ-
ent things one must contend with to try to maintain an ‘emotional balance’ while
negotiating access, building rapport and relationships and navigating a series of
institutional and interpersonal boundaries with differently located participants
(Bergman Blix & Wettergren, 2015, p. 693), for example, prisoners versus prison
staff. While the literature on emotion work highlights the emotional dissonance that
is engendered when the researcher engages in surface acting as a part of their effort
to develop trust and rapport with participants (Drake & Harvey, 2014; Hochschild,
1983; Humblet, 2020; Wakeman, 2014), this presumes that the researcher does not
share key identity or experiential similarities with their participants and must there-
fore engage in ‘quick adaptive deep acting’ in order to shape their persona to meet
that of their participants (Bergman Blix & Wettergren, 2015, p. 698). But what
about projects where the researcher has experienced the same form of harm or
trauma as their participants?
For those with lived experience of criminalization, the emotion work of conduct-
ing critical prison research is less likely to cause emotional dissonance, but it cer-
tainly holds the potential to evoke feelings of shame, anger, anxiety and even
depression, as well as disturbing memories of the trauma endured while incarcer-
ated. If scholars experience vicarious trauma from conducting and transcribing
interviews and coding data on sensitive subject matter like rape and genocide
(Fabian, 2014; Moran & Asquith, 2020), we must also consider the emotional
impacts of conducting research that requires the investigator to remember and
recount traumatic first-hand experiences. For these scholars, there is a risk that one’s
‘true sense of self’ that is typically associated with deep acting ‘takes the full blow
of work-related conflicts, a risk that a separation from the self in the surface acting
mode prevents’ because there is ‘consistency between felt and expressed emotion’
(Bergman Blix & Wettergren, 2015, p. 698). While allied researchers may be able to
role-conform and perform as an empathic listener to develop trust and rapport
(Drake & Harvey, 2014), there is not such a clear role separation for the formerly
incarcerated researcher for whom trust and rapport emerge organically from the
shared experience of incarceration (see Walby & Coleb, 2019, for a discussion of
this with respect to peer support teams in prison).
For allied researchers, active listening requires that you consistently perform the
role of an ‘open, positive, accommodating, empathic and non-judgemental’ listener,
‘to act as a “sponge” – absorbing stories and narratives, divergent opinions and
beliefs and providing a safe space for people to be heard and to share their pains and
frustrations’, which can be exhausting, frustrating and emotionally taxing and can
lead to ‘identity fragmentation’ (Drake & Harvey, 2014, p. 496; Hannem, 2014;
Yuen, 2011). For the formerly incarcerated, feelings of exhaustion, frustration and
depression can be amplified, although in Rachel’s experience the interview process
did not result in identity fragmentation because of her shared experience of incar-
ceration. Instead, she experienced a sense of solidarity and sisterhood with
participants, which she links to her ability to bring in aspects of her ‘whole self’ into
the research process, a perspective she gained via her participation in the W2B pro-
gram. There were challenges with conducting the interviews at a distance, however,
particularly in terms of (re)building trust and rapport with participants.
In their fieldwork on judges and judging, Bergman Blix and Wettergren (2015,
p. 689) engaged in strategic emotion work to secure access to the field, emotional
reflexivity to monitor emotional signals in relation to their position in the field, and
emotion work to cope with the emotive dissonance between their research persona
and sense of an ‘authentic’ self. Given the hyper-routinized nature of carceral
spaces, prison practices become familiar over time meaning allied researchers in
particular risk becoming desensitized to their effects. It is for this reason that Jewkes
(2011) contends that maintaining a reflexive journal is central to the task of emo-
tional reflexivity, as it allows the researcher to consider their feelings as they have
them, rather than waiting until they are writing up their findings to consider how
those potentially now forgotten feelings and sensations impacted them and the
research. Reflexive journaling also helps us recognize the co-constituted nature of
knowledge construction and the fact that the researcher is not ‘outside’ the research
(Yuen, 2011, p. 78).
McGowan (2020) suggests that ‘ethically important moments’ in research
(Guillemin & Gillam, 2004) are often emotionally fraught and require a variety of
different emotional responses depending on the situation, meaning the researcher
must remain attentive to emotional cues. For those with lived experience of incar-
ceration, critical prison research can be harrowing in that observing carceral sites
and practices and/or speaking with criminalized people can lead to a host of difficult
feelings and emotions, including frustration and emotional suppression (Dickson-
Swift et al., 2009; Hannem, 2014) or guilt and an increased sense of responsibility
toward participants (Fabian, 2014; Waters et al., 2020a). In this way, critical prison
research can trigger negative feelings as one empathizes with the plight of the par-
ticipants, which can lead to feelings of re-traumatization (Waters et al., 2020a, b).
Guilt can also arise if the researcher feels they are ‘using’ the participant, especially
if the researcher has a close relationship with the participant, which can lead to feel-
ings of indebtedness, or a sense of betrayal or relief when ending the interview or
leaving the field (Gobo & Molle, 2017, as cited in Waters et al., 2020a, p. 109).
Convict criminologists also report feeling guilt for asking participants to recount
difficult experiences, for invading their privacy, for potentially re-traumatizing them
through these discussions and for taking up their time (Waters et al., 2020b, p. 6).
Positive emotions can also arise, including a sense of ‘camaraderie, survivor soli-
darity and coping mechanisms based on humour’ (McGowan, 2020, p. 8). In
Rachel’s experience, participants expressed gratitude for her willingness to listen to
them share their stories, without judgement. Given that prisoners often feel that
their personal narratives are co-opted or silenced throughout their involvement with
criminal justice authorities (Faith, 2011; Kilty, 2018; Law, 2012), it is no surprise
that they enjoy being able to speak freely and in their own words. Showing a degree
of what we describe as mental fortitude, many of Rachel’s FtC participants said the
interview process and experience were supportive and even therapeutic.
Reflexive Account of Working on ‘Feeling the Carceral’
In this section, Rachel shares a personal narrative about her experiences as a former
prisoner engaged in critical prison research. While some convict criminologists
‘suggest that the cost is potentially greater when the researcher has a personal con-
nection with the issues being researched… this personal experience also provides
the researcher with important skills for meaning-making and developing vicarious
resilience’ (Moran & Asquith, 2020, p. 2). Rachel experienced resiliency somewhat
differently; she experienced a sense of relational resilience, which Hartling (2008)
describes as the promotion of relational development that can assist individuals in
overcoming adverse life challenges and trauma. Resiliency can be enhanced through
positive relationships with others who provide the criminalized person with a sense
of identity, community and self-worth while providing opportunities for intellectual
development. Reflecting how the gender of the researcher and participant can influ-
ence the connections made between them, Rachel found this sense of relational
interconnectedness to be especially present when interviewing other women with a
lived experience of federal imprisonment. These women spoke openly about their
experiences of violence, isolation and trauma, many of which were shared between
the interviewer and participant and enabled mutual understanding of the difficult
feelings (notably sadness, anger, shame and anxiety) recounting these memories
triggered. As Rachel wrote in her reflexive journal:
During these past few weeks, I facilitated several interviews with women who were incar-
cerated in Nova Institution, a prison I am not familiar with. I came into contact with
these participants through a snowball sample via a mutual contact. Although we had
never met and were only in contact a few times over the phone or an online platform, as
former women prisoners sharing a history of federal incarceration in Canada we con-
nected via a bond of solidarity and sisterhood. Despite this being our first conversations
of any length, we spoke for about 2–3 hours for each interview and mutually disclosed
extremely personal information. We spoke candidly about extremely sensitive topics
such as friends dying in jail, overdoses, sexual assault, miscarriages and abortions, pov-
erty, homelessness, and some of the long-term negative impacts of prison. On the other
hand, we also discussed positive experiences such as attending school, discovering
one’s passion in life, getting in touch with our personal identities and interests, and
learning how to express oneself through creative writing and artistic expression. Due to
the importance of relationship building and the sensitive nature of the topics at hand, it
was critical that we spoke on multiple occasions before and after each interview
(May, 2021).
Having to conduct the interviews at a distance proved to be a barrier for those who were on
parole, especially those with a life sentence, and for criminalized people struggling with
homelessness, poverty, and mental health issues or addictions. The technology was
inaccessible and unfamiliar for many and felt unsafe and insecure for those who were
on a long-term parole supervision order. This led to frustration and fear of who might
see or hear the interview material (May, 2021).
Despite the positive connections Rachel was able to forge with participants, there
was an emotional toll to conducting these interviews as they inevitably resulted in
reliving vivid memories of traumatic carceral experiences like strip searches and
time in segregation. Pearlman and Caringi (2009, p. 202) define vicarious trauma as
‘the negative transformation in the helper that results from empathic engagement
with trauma survivors and their trauma material, combined with a commitment or
responsibility to help them’. Similar to primary trauma, vicarious trauma often
manifests in the form of nightmares and intrusive thoughts, distressing changes to a
person’s core systems of meaning, their relationships, their sense of hope or their
feelings of safety (Barrington & Shakespeare-Finch, 2013; Hunter & Schofield,
2006; Pack, 2013; Pearlman & Caringi, 2009).
The impact of exposure to trauma material varies depending on the amount,
duration and type of exposure, as well as a person’s life history and current circum-
stances. Rachel conducted fewer interviews (15 compared to 30) than the other
research assistants as a way to manage the feelings associated with the memories
that were surfacing for her. Due to her shared experiences of incarceration, she was
able to express empathy with participants, which helped build the rapport required
for in-depth interviewing, but also required a greater degree of emotional labour
from the interviewer. Rachel reported feelings of exhaustion and fatigue due to the
amount of emotional labour she was engaging in to support participants. Empathy
facilitates authentic and effective engagement in therapeutic and research relation-
ships and can also amplify the effects of exposure to trauma material, as the hearer
connects emotionally with the survivor’s story and emotional state (Moran &
Asquith, 2020, p. 2).
For researchers dedicated to the facilitation of meaningful participant experi-
ences, the potential for healing that lies in the act of hearing or witnessing becomes
a compelling ethical (and moral) position (Sawatsky, 2018). It is important to rec-
ognize, however, that belief in the participant’s narrative cannot be performed (sur-
face acting); it must be authentic and embodied (deep acting) (Hochschild, 1983).
This kind of presence, engagement with suffering and the emotional labour of hear-
ing and witnessing cannot help but impact the researcher (Sampson et al., 2008).
Whether the legacy of this work is the generation of vicarious trauma or resilience
depends on a variety of factors – including whether or not the researcher is well-
supported and prepared to avoid mentally replaying or ruminating on the traumatic
stories they hear (Moran & Asquith, 2020, p. 3). To prevent and cope with these
harms, Rachel engaged in rigorous self-care practices that we now move to describe
in greater detail.
trategies of Coping with the Emotions of Doing Critical

S
Prison Research
Yuen (2011) suggests that students who conduct prison research require a safe space
to openly discuss their feelings and experiences in doing so. By creating a safe
space for students to have these discussions, professors can contribute to the devel-
opment of a ‘community of coping’ (Garrihy & Watters, 2020, p. 8) where emerging
scholars can reflect on their research experiences and find a sense of peer
camaraderie and mentor support, as well as a space where it is not taboo to identify
the self as an integral part of the research process. Sharing and learning from one
another’s experiences – both between students as peers and between professors and
students – are key to combatting feelings of imposter syndrome and isolation that so
many students and early career researchers report feeling (Waters et al., 2020a). By
fostering a community of coping, professors and students can debrief, self-reflect
and ‘identify the impact the emotionality has on their research’ (Garrihy & Watters,
2020, p. 8). This kind of group effort can also encourage dialogue regarding how to
respond to emotions (your own and those of your participants) that emerge during
those ‘ethically important moments’ (Guillemin & Gillam, 2004) that occur in the
field and that require ongoing reflection. Unfortunately, formal training and practi-
cal support for students regarding the emotional labour involved in qualitative
research is rare (Waters et al., 2020a), despite the fact that qualitative prison research
routinely presents emotionally complex experiences for researchers and partici-
pants (Jewkes, 2011).
If students are told that difficult emotions are simply part and parcel of doing
qualitative prison research, it sends the message that they are subpar scholars who
are not strong enough emotionally to handle researching sensitive topics. This kind
of cavalier attitude toward the well-being of our students proliferates feelings of
being out of one’s depth, encourages self-isolation and emotional suppression and
dissuades young scholars from talking about or seeking support to cope with the
ways that their research might be hurting them. Notably, a recent study found that
the lack of institutional support led young prison researchers to experience ‘feelings
of grief, depression, trauma, disgust, isolation and not wanting to appear “weak” or
“vulnerable”’ (Waters et al., 2020a, p. 115). Without the express support of senior
researchers, academic mentors and professors, scholars with lived experience of
incarceration may find it more difficult to succeed in academia.
Learning from the different experiences of the FtC research assistants, we sug-
gest that one of the most important things professors can do to mentor their graduate
students, especially those with lived experience of incarceration, is to create an
emotionally supportive research culture. For us, this involved scheduling team
meetings so that the research assistants could come together to discuss the emo-
tional difficulties they were experiencing upon hearing the distressing stories of the
formerly incarcerated participants. While this strengthened the connection between
team members, created a community of coping, fostered greater understanding of
the emotional nature of prison research and empathy for those with lived experience
by those without and helped to combat feelings that team members were alone in
this process, we cannot dismiss that there was a somewhat muted effect to this prac-
tice due to the fact that these were distanced meetings held via online platforms.
While online meetings are certainly better than not meeting at all, the online format
hindered our respective abilities to accurately ‘read the room’ and team members’
non-verbal cues. It is also important for supervisors to be available to meet individu-
ally with their students and research assistants should they want to discuss and
debrief in private following a difficult interview or experience in the field. Jennifer
provides her mobile phone number to her graduate students for this reason.
Availability and openness are key to fostering trust in the mentoring relationship as
is expressing respect toward the queries students and research assistants may have.
As professors, we must remember that it is normal for qualitative research on
sensitive topics to elicit emotions that can be difficult to manage and that our stu-
dents will likely have different reactions and abilities to cope with these experi-
ences. As Hannem (2014) describes, we must ‘grapple with reflexivity’. This is
compounded by the power relations between supervisors and students, many of
whom may fear letting down their mentors if they reveal the emotional difficulties
they are experiencing vis-à-vis their research (Waters et al., 2020b). We need to be
able to adjust the research schedule (where possible) and our expectations in ways
that accommodate, support and recognize these differences; ultimately, this means
meeting your students where they are. Strategies also include: ensuring there are
other types of work the students can perform so that they can have time away from
interviewing and transcribing, active and empathic listening, facilitating team dis-
cussion and promoting PI-RA/student support as well as peer-to-peer support that
fosters a sense of resilience and strength and combats feelings of isolation and
inadequacy.
There are also coping strategies that researchers can personally adopt to help
them deal with the stress and strain of engaging in emotion work in relation to criti-
cal prison research. Yuen (2011) emphasizes the importance of reflexive journaling
as a component of one’s fieldnotes, but also suggests that this process can include
creative writing practices that provide a helpful emotional outlet for difficult-to-
manage feelings. Rachel engaged in reflexive journal, poetry and songwriting to this
end and found that music, film and conversations with trusted confidantes helped
her cope with the feelings that emerged for her. Yuen (2011, p. 82) identifies these
everyday interactions as providing ‘disruptions’ to the ‘emotional paralysis’ she felt
doing prison research.
Indeed the consideration of babble and embracing emotionality through a reflexive practice
can be an uncomfortable, overwhelming, and sometimes paralyzing experience. Moving
beyond this experience requires researchers to continue disrupting, deconstructing and
reconstructing our selves and the research by engaging in a reflexive process. Finding safe
spaces and using CAP [creative analytic practice] to express and explore one’s self enables
the flow of creativity and a move towards a politics of hope (Yuen, 2011, p. 86).
Citing Denzin (2000), Yuen contends that a politics of hope questions how things
are in order to produce alternative visions of how they could be. This position
reflects a transformative agenda in research, which mirrors the convict criminology
ethos. CC scholars report feeling a strong sense of responsibility to ensure that their
research has a justice focus that gives voice to their participants; however, feeling
responsible to produce transformative outcomes through research has the potential
to lead to both positive and negative emotions. For example, advocacy work can
have a reparative effect, where ‘“helping” or doing something assists in restoring a
hopeful and optimistic outlook, and a person’s sense of being able to effect change
in the world’ (Moran & Asquith, 2020, p. 4), yet it can also lead to feelings of inad-
equacy and guilt for not doing more to help their participants (Moran & Asquith,
2020; Waters et al., 2020a, b). Feeling emotionally exhausted, burnt out or
desensitized can lead to such experiences as having nightmares, headaches, insom-

nia, increased substance use and even gastrointestinal problems (Waters et al.,
2020a, b).
While generating a politics of hope may be a larger goal of critical prison studies,
we must also be cognizant of the everyday practices that prison researchers may
engage to cope with the stressors of this work. Like Yuen’s disruption activities,
scholars note the importance of distraction activities and escapism, like watching
‘trash TV’, playing video games and reading novels; of course, escapism can some-
times involve substance and alcohol use (Waters et al., 2020a, b). Others note the
importance of using ‘“post-trauma humour” as a form of resilience’, for as McGowan
(2020, p. 6) writes, ‘If you didn’t laugh, you’d cry’. In addition to distraction activi-
ties, ‘shedding’ activities like showering, changing clothes and performing medita-
tive practices before and after leaving the field, as well as self-care activities like
seeking counselling support, fitness, meditation, personally fulfilling hobbies, mas-
sage and outdoor activities, help create distance from emotionally charged spaces
and experiences in the field (Moran & Asquith, 2020; Waters et al., 2020a, b).
Rachel engaged in virtually all the above-mentioned activities, which she describes
as self-care practices, and she also worked to set clear boundaries in terms of when
she would perform the research. Rachel also found it essential to avoid multitask-
ing, especially during the stages of relationship-building and data collection; by
focusing on a single activity and project at a time she was better able to ground
herself for the emotionally difficult work. In other words, it helped to prevent burn-
out. Self-care activities were essential throughout the COVID-19 pandemic as many
of us experienced heightened emotions resulting from the increased isolation, lack
of access to resources and community supports and more austere conditions of con-
finement that were invoked to curb transmission in prison (Fayter et al., 2021).
Conclusion
Emotionally difficult research requires that we create boundaries between work and
home life, often described as ‘space creation’, to protect ourselves from the emo-
tional distress that can emerge. Whether this occurs by taking a break from the
subject matter by engaging in the aforementioned shedding, disruption, distraction,
self-care and escapism activities, space creation is needed, both to provide distance
from the difficult material and field and to maintain the home as a safe space. The
risk of not engaging in these types of activities, especially for people with histories
of criminalization, is that they become increasingly isolated and withdrawn through
prison research, even while working to convince others, including research supervi-
sors and team members, that they are okay. For the majority of this project, Rachel
was housed in a single room in student housing, and she experienced the most sig-
nificant challenges in terms of recruitment and facilitating interviews during the
winter of 2021. Due to quarantine and lockdown measures instantiated to protect
public health, she felt isolated while revisiting past traumas, including carceral
segregation, and this led her to experience lack of sleep while engaging in work that
required empathizing with the suffering of others, which only increased her stress
and fatigue. For criminalized people who have experienced confinement, trauma,
isolation and feelings of being trapped, it can be extremely difficult to develop and
maintain clear boundaries. This is particularly true amongst women prisoners who
have a sense of solidarity and sisterhood and who are survivors of trauma (Davis,
2013; Faith, 2011; Fayter, 2016; Law, 2012; Pollack, 2019). Van der Kolk (2014,
p. 21) contends that ‘trauma is not just an event that took place sometime in the past;
it is also the imprint left by that experience on the mind, brain, and body. This
imprint has ongoing consequences for how the human organism manages to survive
the present’.
In this sense, Rachel’s history acted as both sword and shield – a way to connect
to the research and the participants while also requiring additional emotional labour
both to support participants and to cope with the difficult memories the project
evoked for her. Wakeman’s (2014, p. 10–11) reflections are relevant to our closing
comments:
I found accepting who I once was as an integral part of who I now am to be the very means
by which I could overcome the difficulties presented by this research. But, paradoxically,
this was only possible through dialogue with others. There is the very real potential in proj-
ects such as this for an increased focus upon the self to result in an increasingly isolated self.
In closing, we maintain that the key to managing the emotion work that is born from
critical prison studies is the development of positive non-hierarchical relationships
that prioritize openness and support and that enable the creation of a safe space to
dialogue with trusted others – including graduate supervisors, student peers and
colleagues. Building such connections takes time and should commence long before
entering the field.
References
Asgharzadeh, A. (2008). The return of the Subaltern: International education and politics of voice.
Journal of Studies in International Education, 12(4), 334–363.
Barrington, A. J., & Shakespeare-Finch, J. (2013). Working with refugee survivors of torture
and trauma: An opportunity for vicarious post-traumatic growth. Counselling Psychology
Quarterly, 26, 89–105. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515070.2012.727553
Becker, H. (1967). Whose side are we on? Social Problems, 14(3), 234–247.
Bergman Blix, S., & Wettergren, Å. (2015). The emotional labour of gaining and maintaining
access to the field. Qualitative Research, 15(6), 688–704.
Crawley, E. (2004). Doing prison work: The public and private lives of prison officers. Willan
Publishing.
Crewe, B. (2011). Depth, weight, tightness: Revisiting the pains of imprisonment. Punishment &
Society, 13(5), 509–529.
Crewe, B., Warr, J., Bennett, P., & Smith, A. (2013). The emotional geography of prison life.
Theoretical Criminology, 18(1), 56–74.
Davis, S. W. (2013). Beyond “replication”: Inside-out Canada. In S. W. Davis & B. S. Roswell

(Eds.), Turning teaching inside out: A pedagogy of transformation for community-based edu-
cation (pp. 257–265). Palgrave Macmillan.
Denzin, N. (2000). Aesthetics and practices of qualitative research inquiry. Qualitative Inquiry,
6(2), 256–265.
Dickson-Swift, V., James, E. L., Kippen, S., & Liamputtong, P. (2009). Researching sensitive top-
ics: Qualitative research as emotion work. Qualitative Research, 9, 61–79.
Drake, D. H., & Harvey, J. (2014). Performing the role of ethnographer: Processing and manag-
ing the emotional dimensions of prison research. International Journal of Social Research
Methodology, 17(5), 489–501.
Earle, R. (2014). Insider and out: Making sense of a prison experience and a research experience.
Qualitative Inquiry, 20(4), 429–438.
Earle, R. (2016). Convict criminology: Inside and out. Bristol University Press.
Earle, R. (2018). Convict criminology in England: Developments and dilemmas. British Journal
of Criminology, 58, 1499–1516.
Fabian, S. C. (2014). Reconciling the irreconcilable: Resolving emotionality and research respon-
sibility when working for the traumatizer. In J. M. Kilty, M. Felices-Luna, & S. C. Fabian
(Eds.), Demarginalizing voices: Commitment, emotion and action in qualitative research
(pp. 245–266). UBC Press.
Faith, K. (2011). Unruly women: The politics of confinement and resistance (New ed.). Seven
Stories Press.
Fayter, R. (2016). Social justice praxis within the walls to bridges program: Pedagogy of oppressed
federally sentenced women. Journal of Prisoners on Prisons, 25(2), 56–71.
Fayter, R., Mario, B., Chartrand, V., & Kilty, J. M. (2021). Surviving the pandemic on the inside:
From crisis governance to caring communities. Canadian Journal of Sociology.
Freire, P. (2006). Pedagogy of the oppressed (30th Anniversary ed.). Continuum
Garrihy, J., & Watters, A. (2020). Emotions and agency in prison research. Methodological
Innovations, May–August: 1–14.
Gobo, G. & Molle, A. (2017). Doing Ethnography (2nd ed.), London, Sage.
Guillemin, M., & Gillam, L. (2004). Ethics, reflexivity, and “ethically important moments” in
research. Qualitative Inquiry, 10(2), 261–280.
Haggerty, K. D., & Bucerius, S. (2020). The proliferating pains of imprisonment. Incarceration,
1(1), Online first. https://doi.org/10.1177/2632666320936432
Hancock, P., & Jewkes, Y. (2011). Architectures of incarceration: The spatial pains of imprison-
ment. Punishment & Society, 13(5), 611–629.
Haney, C. (2006). Reforming punishment: Psychological limits to the pains of imprisonment.
American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/11382-000
Hannem, S. (2014). Grappling with reflexivity and the role of emotion in criminological analysis.
In J. M. Kilty, M. Felices-Luna, & S. C. Fabian (Eds.), Demarginalizing voices: Commitment,
emotion and action in qualitative research (pp. 267–285). UBC Press.
Harding, S. (1991). Whose science/whose knowledge? Open University Press.
Harding, S. (2004). Introduction: Standpoint theory as a site of political, philosophic, and scientific
debate. In S. Harding (Ed.), The feminist standpoint theory reader (pp. 1–16). Routledge.
Hartling, L. (2008). Strengthening resilience in a risky world: It’s all about relationships. Women
& Therapy, 31, 51–70.
Hill Collins, P. (2004). Learning from the outsider within: The sociological significance of black
feminist thought. In S. Harding (Ed.), The feminist standpoint theory reader (pp. 103–126).
Routledge.
Hochschild, A. R. (1983). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling. University
of California Press.
Hunter, S. V. & Schofield, M. J. (2006). How counsellors cope with traumatized clients: Personal,
Professional and Organizational Strategies. International Journal for the Advancement of
Counselling, 28, 121–138.
Humblet, D. (2020). Locking out emotions in locking up older prisoners? Emotional labour of
Belgian prison officers and prison nurses. International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice,
60, 1–13.
Jewkes, Y. (2011). Autoethnography and emotion as intellectual resources: Doing prison research
differently. Qualitative Inquiry, 18(1), 63–75.
Kilty, J. M. (2018). Carceral optics and the crucible of segregation: Revisiting scenes of state
sanctioned violence against incarcerated women. In J. M. Kilty & E. Dej (Eds.), Containing
madness: Gender and ‘Psy’ in institutional contexts (pp. 119–144). Palgrave Macmillan.
Law, V. (2012). Resistance behind bars: The struggles of incarcerated women (2nd ed.). PA Press.
Liebling, A. (2001). Whose side are we on? Theory, practice and allegiances in prisons research.
British Journal of Criminology, 41, 472–484.
Maier, K., & Ricciardelli, R. (2021). “Prison didn’t change me, I have changed”: Narratives
of change, self, and prison time. Criminology & Criminal Justice, July, 1–16. https://doi.
org/10.1177/17488958211031336
McGowan, W. (2020). ‘If you didn’t laugh, you’d cry’: Emotional labour, reflexivity and ethics-as-
practice in a qualitative fieldwork context (pp. 1–10). Methodological Innovations.
Moran, D. (2015). Carceral geography: Spaces and practices of incarceration. Ashgate.
Moran, R. J., & Asquith, N. L. (2020). Understanding the vicarious trauma and emotional labour
of criminological research. Methodological Innovations, May–August, 1–11.
Newbold, G., & Ross, J. I. (2012). Convict criminology at the crossroads: Research note. The
Prison Journal, 93(1), 3–10.
Pack, M. (2013). Vicarious traumatisation and resilience: An ecological systems approach to sexual
abuse counsellors’ trauma and stress. Sexual Abuse in Australia and New Zealand, 5, 69–76.
Pearlman, L., & Caringi, J. (2009). Living and working self-reflectively to address vicarious
trauma. In Courtois, C.A. & Ford, J.D. (Eds.), Treating complex traumatic stress disorders: An
evidence-based guide (pp. 202–224). New York: Guildford Press.
Pollack, S. (2019). Transformative praxis with incarcerated women: Collaboration, leadership, &
voice. Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work, 35(3), 1–14.
Richards, S. C. (2013). The new school of convict criminology thrives and matures. Critical
Criminology, 21, 375–387.
Sampson, H., Bloor, M., & Fincham, B. (2008). A price worth paying? Considering the ‘cost’ of
reflexive researchmethods and the influence of feminist ways of ‘doing.’ Sociology (Oxford),
42, 919–933.
Sawatsky, J. (2018). Healing justice: Stories of wisdom and love. Red Canoe Press.
Smith, J. M., & Kinzel, A. (2021). Carceral citizenship as strength: Formerly incarcerated activ-
ists, civic engagement and criminal justice transformation. Critical Criminology, 29, 93–110.
Sykes, G. M. (1958/2007). The society of captives. Princeton University Press.
Tietjen, G. (2019). Convict criminology: Learning from the past, confronting the present, expand-
ing for the future. Critical Criminology, 27, 101–114.
van der Kolk, B. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma.
Random House.
Wakeman, S. (2014). Fieldwork, biography and emotion: Doing criminological autoethnography.
British Journal of Criminology, 54(5), 705–721. (1–17).
Walby, K., & Coleb, D. (2019). Beyond emotional labour: Emotions and peer support in a Canadian
prison. Emotion, Space and Society, 33, 1–7.
Waters, J., Westaby, C., Fowler, A., & Phillips, J. (2020a). Doing criminological research: An
emotional labour perspective. In J. Phillips, J. Waters, C. Westaby, & A. Fowler (Eds.), The
emotional labour of criminology and criminal justice (pp. 101–124). Routledge.
Waters, J., Westaby, C., Fowler, A., & Phillips, J. (2020b). The emotional labour of doctoral crimi-
nological researchers. Methodological Innovations, May–August, 1–12.
Yuen, F. (2011). Embracing emotionality: Clothing my “naked truths”. Critical Criminology,
19, 75–88.
Jennifer M. Kilty is a full professor in the Department of Criminology, University of Ottawa. A

critical prison studies scholar, her research examines criminalization, punishment, and incarcera-
tion – often at the nexus of health and mental health. She has published works on conditions of
confinement, carceral segregation practices, the criminalization of HIV nondisclosure, prison edu-
cation and pedagogy, and the mental health experiences of criminalized people. Her edited and
authored books include: Demarginalizing Voices: Commitment, Emotion and Action in Qualitative
Research, Within the Confines: Women and the Law in Canada, Containing Madness: Gender and
‘Psy’ in Institutional Contexts, and the Enigma of a Violent Woman: A Critical Examination of the
Case of Karla Homolka.
Rachel Fayter is a PhD candidate in the Department of Criminology, University of Ottawa, where
she holds a SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship. She completed her BA and MA degrees in community
psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University. While incarcerated at Grand Valley Institution for
Women, Rachel engaged in the Walls to Bridges (W2B) prison education program and has been
active in the alumni collective since 2014. Since her return to the community, Rachel has been
advocating for prisoner rights and social justice-oriented policy changes. Her work has been pub-
lished in the Journal of Prisoners on Prisons, Canadian Journal of Sociology, Citizenship Studies,
and Canadian Psychology, along with various book chapters.
Chapter 8
Sensory “Heteroglossia” and Social
Control: Sensory Methodology
and Method
Kate Herrity, Bethany E. Schmidt, and Jason Warr
The slightest sound had died out; time stood still; it had resolved itself into shapeless dark-
ness … the silence became so intense that it seemed to hum and sway. What were the two
thousand men doing who were walled into the cells of this bee-hive? The silence was
inflated by their inaudible breath, their invisible dreams, the stifled gasping of their fears
and desires. If history were a matter of calculation, how much did the sum of two thousand
nightmares weigh, the pressure of a two-thousandfold helpless craving? (Darkness at Noon
1940/2005, p. 146).
Introduction
Criminology is intrinsically political, concerned as it is with the processes and prac-

tices of ordering social life by controlling behaviour, which is the focus of Stanley
Cohen’s Visions of Social Control. Published in 1985, Cohen sought to identify and
examine recent changes in societal responses to deviance. ‘Critical of a society
which classifies too much’, he nevertheless acknowledged that the book itself was
‘primarily an exercise in classification, in ways of looking, in modes of making
sense’: ‘It belongs to the type of sociology which tries to make the world look dif-
ferent: a strange terrain appears imperceptibly familiar or, just as interesting, a
familiar terrain begins to look a little strange’ (Cohen, 1985, p. 1). Cohen was con-
cerned with charting recent shifts in how society tracks and classifies deviance and
K. Herrity (*)
Kings College, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK
e-mail: kzh20@cam.ac.uk
B. E. Schmidt
Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK
J. Warr
De Montfort University, Leicester, UK
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18401-7_8
126 K. Herrity et al.
the deviant. In contrast, our focus is on the ways in which we might more deeply
come to understand these social phenomena by applying a sensory rather than a
visual lens to do so. Contrary to conventional understandings of how we identify,
classify and process people defined as criminal – or ‘ways of looking’ – we draw on
wider academic literature to argue that our broader sensory palate is equally impli-
cated in social ordering (Howes & Classen, 2014). We revisit Cohen’s significant
contribution here as a means of demonstrating the methodological implications of
applying a sensory lens to this area of scholarship.
Dialogues are central to the academic project; we are always part of a broader
conversation both with one another and the legacies of ideas which shape our think-
ing. John Clarke (2019) draws from Bakhtin (1981) in referring to this as the ‘het-
eroglossia’ that characterizes academic thought. The learning process, he argues,
necessarily consists of multiple voices and languages. As a rendezvous discipline,
criminology is particularly suited to tackling the multiple strands of experience that
characterize the sensory. We begin by considering the ways in which our sensory
experience, as embodied entities, is encoded in these classification processes and
are experienced by those subject to them, those who administer them and those who
seek to understand them. In doing so we illustrate some of the ways in which the
sensory is deeply entrenched in criminal justice practices. We then go on to consider
what that means for our assumptions about how we know, before moving on to
foreground what it is to focus on the sensory as a method of inquiry. In doing so we
hope to render the strange sensory terrain more familiar and familiar criminological
terrain a little strange.
Ontological Questioning
While much of social science has witnessed a sensory turn, criminology has been
slow to do so, a reluctance which seems at odds with, but perhaps an inevitable
result of, its relative novelty (Herrity et al., 2021). Dismissing attendance to the
sensory is to overlook its potential for deepening our understanding of lived and
social realities, as the embodied entities we are. It is also to forget some of the
empiricist legacies upon which our contemporary social science is based (see, e.g.
Simmel, 1907/1997). Further, it is to overlook a disjunct between criminological
theory and its practical application. There is much academic conversation to be had
about the value of attending more closely to sensory experience; however, in crimi-
nal justice practice, the benefit of so doing is widely documented and long estab-
lished. Considering the role of cognitive interviewing in criminal investigation and
the award-winning work of Forensic Architecture provide illustrative examples of
the ontological implications for the utility of the sensory in research practice.
In social science, the application of cognitive interviewing (CI) is largely
restricted to triangulating survey data (e.g. Beatty & Willis, 2007), while in the field
of policing, it is commonly reserved for investigating crime of a more serious, vio-
lent nature. Rolled out nationally in England and Wales in 1993, it comprises
8 Sensory “Heteroglossia” and Social Control: Sensory Methodology and Method 127
memory-enhancing techniques utilizing cognitive theory to maximize memory

retrieval while safeguarding the health and well-being of the interviewee (Shepherd
et al., 1999). Its adoption has been somewhat piecemeal in Australian, American
and Canadian police services though the usefulness of encouraging interviewees to
‘rely on their senses’ has a well-established basis in practice, albeit sometimes more
focused on suspects and providing a means for speedily concluding inquiry (Alpert
et al., 2012). It has been demonstrated and is widely accepted as being more effec-
tive for information retrieval than either standard interviewing or hypnosis tech-
niques (Geiselman et al., 1985). While CI techniques have been further developed
in subsequent practice, the basic cognitive theory of memory and memory retrieval
remain at its core: in times of stress and trauma, memory is better elicited when the
broad conditions of the event are recreated, when the subject is encouraged to think
about all manner of detail and when they are encouraged to revisit the event from
different points and different perspectives (Shepherd et al., 1999). CI demonstrates
the ways in which the sensory forms fundamental components of our experience
and the ways in which the senses have the power to render the strangeness of quirks
in recollection, familiar in the forensic fashioning of narrative.
These four points of memory retrieval strongly insinuate the sensory, encourag-
ing the foregrounding of detail and perspective which might otherwise be regarded
as peripheral. In doing so CI makes use of the weaknesses and quirks of memory
which can occur while suffering trauma and/or distress. Jason Potts (2018, n.p.)
illustrates this point when he quotes Lisak (2002, p. 3): ‘Victims are often able to
recall the texture of a rapist’s shirt before being able to remember if the suspect was
wearing a hat’. Cognitive interviewing lends the participant the opportunity to relive
vivid sensory experience – the ‘flashbacks’ which characterize intrusive recollec-
tions and are a ‘hallmark’ of post-traumatic stress disorder (Clancy et al., 2017) – in
a way which emphasizes their agency and can lessen residual trauma. CI offers a
means of circumventing emotionally charged recollections by, amongst other
things, focusing on sensory detail. For example, interviewees may be asked to men-
tally reinstate the physical context present at the time of the incident, regardless of
temporal ordering: What were the noises and smells around you? What was the
temperature? Was the sun on your skin? What did you feel under your feet? (see
Aldridge, 1999). In other words, CI provides participants with modes to differenti-
ate between feeling and feelings. This approach also works as a process of distin-
guishing between our sensory experience and emotion. While foregrounding the
sensory can offer a useful metaphorical means of exploring our emotional land-
scape, senses are not emotions. It is largely an impoverished theoretical and linguis-
tic repertoire for discussing them, which obscures this distinction and obfuscates
the ontological value of attending more closely to our senses as a source of
knowledge.
Fisher and Geiselman (1992) highlight the heteroglossic origins of CI, whose
foundations are developed by incorporating ideas from a range of practices and
disciplines (e.g. in fire investigation, policing, social work, memory recall with war
veterans and child victims, public safety, medical health care). This is echoed in the
necessity of drawing from ideas beyond the parameters of criminology to theorize
effectively about the sensory components of processes of penality and social control
(Herrity et al., 2021). While this point is made to demonstrate the wide applicability
of CI to a range of fields and purposes, it also emphasizes the broad value of incor-
porating CI protocols in research practice. Foregrounding the sensory offers a
means of enhancing research participant’s agency and in so doing adds an additional
dimension of ethical care in research practice. In short, these principles of therapeu-
tic jurisprudence have bearing in the research field too, in that they lend more con-
trol to those we interact with and on whose knowledge and insight we rely (Fisher
& Geiselman, 2010). This perspective is particularly pertinent in the field of crimi-
nology, where power asymmetry characterizes the experience of many subjects to
the criminal justice system and its processes of classification.
Epistemological Grounding
In 2011, Forensic Architecture was commissioned by Amnesty International to

undertake an ongoing investigation into human rights abuses, torture and the extra-
judicial executions of thousands of people detained at Saydnaya military prison in
Syria (Amnesty International, 2017). Prisoners at this dark site were held in tortur-
ous conditions of sensorial deprivation that included being kept in constant darkness
and physically enforced silence. However, Forensic Architecture used earwitness
testimony from survivors to digitally reconstruct the architectural layout of the
prison (Ristani, 2020). As Herrity (2020) notes, when closed within a cell, what you
can see is constrained by the very walls which define your confinement, but what
you can hear is not. Your hearing range extends far beyond the locked doors and
barred windows. By focusing on the sounds of footsteps, movements, dripping
water, screams, echoes and other audible cues that survivors were able to hear, it
allowed Forensic Architecture to move beyond subjective accounts to not only map
but then accurately model the military slaughterhouse in close detail.
Forensic Architecture, a research agency based at Goldsmiths, University of
London, investigates an array of human and environmental rights abuses using a
range of innovative qualitative and sensory techniques in theory and practice
(Weizman, 2017). They demonstrate the enormous potential for incorporating sen-
sorial dimensions into criminological investigative techniques, both in terms of
enhancing understanding and practical application. They do this in two ways: first,
such methods allow us deeper access to the experiences of the individuals who were
detained, tortured and killed in this environment, and second, they highlight the
potential of ear testimonies – and by extension other sensorial witnessing – to
extend our access to knowledge by fashioning a bridge between subjective and col-
lective experience. This example demonstrates some of the ways in which sensory
methods of research – in this instance collating acoustic testimonies and sonic map-
ping – can transcend, and extend beyond, that possible with methods purely based
on observation, or vision (Duffy et al., 2016).
The innovative work of Forensic Architecture usefully captures the importance

of maintaining a dialogue between theory and practice in the field of exploring pro-
cesses and practices of criminal justice. Keeping this conversation ongoing consti-
tutes a cornerstone of methodological literacy, as C. Wright Mills (1959/2000,
p. 121) exhorts: ‘method and theory are like the language of the country you live in:
it is nothing to brag that you speak it, but it is a disgrace, as well as an inconve-
nience, if you cannot’. In traversing boundaries between personal and social worlds,
the sensory renders processes of meaning-making between people and their mate-
rial surrounds tangible (see de Souza & Russell, 2022). Another dialogic exchange
made comprehensible by the example of Forensic Architecture and their use of sen-
sory methods provided above is the relationship that exists between the symbolic
products of the material environment and our subjective understanding of it
(Malabou, 2014). Discerning and investigating this interaction between individuals
and the symbolic communications that emerge from within our environment is an
essential component of sociological thinking (Mead, 1934). Symbolic interaction-
ism can be a complex and difficult topic of study. However, in the context of sensory
criminology, an accessible illustration of this relationship is provided by consider-
ing the shifting meaning and call to action of alarms in different criminological
settings. Alarms convey a set of symbolic ideas which shift, depending on their
social context; for example, the morning alarm is understood differently to the bur-
glar alarm, which is understood differently to the one sounded in a hospital emer-
gency room (Ortiga et al., 2013). In the criminal justice context, alarms can signify
distinct meanings bound up with processes of classification. A powerful means of
elucidating this is provided by considering this recollection:
While working for a third sector organisation, I conducted a focus group with women who
had served extended periods of time in prison. We were seated in the organisation’s
offices when an alarm went off outside, over the road. It was an alarm very similar to
one that would go off in a prison when there was a violent incident, and staff were call-
ing for back-up. It did not sound like a car or house alarm. It was not immediately place-
able. I did not know where it was coming from, but it intruded, harshly, into our
focus group.
One of the group participants had been released 11 years previously, but one of the others
had been released recently. She had just got out of prison, and her probation officer had
directed her to attend this focus group. So, all of a sudden, just 48 hours of being on
road, she is in a room talking about licence conditions, complaint procedures, the usual
subject matter for exploring experiences of prison and probation. When the alarm went
off. I happened to be looking at both of these women, and their physical responses were
exactly the same. Their response was so visceral, so immediate, and so profound. Both
went rigid, watchful, wary. It was a conditioned fear response. I asked them at the time,
‘Are you okay?’ The newly released woman replied, ‘sorry, that just threw me back’.
The woman next to her, who had been out for eleven years, said ‘me too’! And suddenly
that became part of the conversation, their experience was decades-apart, but the imme-
diate sound of this alarm raised memories of the prison.
This vignette illustrates some of the symbolic meaning behind alarms in the carceral
context and their capacity to retain potency beyond the confines of the prison.
Analysing the import of the alarm/response in this vignette also indicates the depth
that a sensory investigation allows us to achieve. In prison, this type of alarm often
denotes violence and disturbance. Though a component of daily life inside, it is a

signifier of threat and danger. Despite having heard prison alarms at different times,
decades apart, both women were immediately transported back to the violence and
trauma of their carceral experiences. This alarm, with its specific resonance, timbre,
pitch and tone was not a usual sound encountered outside of the prison. Yet, in a
non-custodial setting, that alarm evinced that response in these women because its
sound communicated to them, in that instant, meanings that they had learned spe-
cifically within the prison context. Hearing it in that moment collapsed the distance
between the context of the focus group where they were safe and their previous
carceral experiences, which were marked by a deprivation of security. However, the
symbolic communication occurring here, and the response of these women, was
also more complex. That alarm not only communicated a sense of danger to these
women, it also evoked their status (or classification) as prisoners – the context in
which they had learned the meaning of that particular alarm sound. The alarm, then,
was communicating a range of different symbolic messages. The responses to its
sounding reflect both a permanence and elasticity to the meaning-making of alarms
which echoes the complexity of Malabou’s (2014) depiction of symbolic connota-
tions. Exploring sensory facets of criminal justice contexts draws attention to addi-
tional dimensions of punishment. The punitive is communicated through an array of
sensory symbols – James Parker’s (2018) consideration of the potency of the gavel
as an object of international law provides a compelling exemplar.
We can locate additional, encoded, biopolitical messaging through other prac-
tices across the penality landscape, including in the criminalization and manage-
ment of perceived ‘deviant’ populations. Russell et al. (2020), for example, have
identified forms of sensory violence produced by the ‘carceral churn’ in Australian
bail and remand courts – that is, the ‘efficient’ and forced (im)mobility in and
between spaces; in court-prison transport, holding cells, the custody dock and
through public safety orders that restrict movements around the city. These prac-
tices, which disproportionately target Aboriginal people and women are ‘variously
dull, distort, deprive or assault the senses with oppressive effects’ (Russell et al.,
p. 3). The authors contend that ‘social marginality produced by poverty, trauma and
homelessness is governed through pre-trial detention on a daily basis’ (p. 15), thus
reducing individuals and communities to ‘objects of legislation’ (Gutmann &
Thompson, 2004, p. 58) to be socially controlled (Cohen, 1985). Acts of symbolic
punitiveness, exercised through the everyday weaponization of the sensory, prolif-
erate the prison setting, as illuminated in the following passage:
We got to know Tunisian prisons and Tunisian life by watching the food baskets being
delivered and subsequently searched. Our research assistants would point out to us regional
differences in how the food was prepared – variations in ingredients, spicing, or presenta-
tion, provided geographic clues as to where the family came from. The practice of searching
the baskets varied from prison to prison, though there were standard guidelines from head-
quarters posted. Some rules were adhered to more than others, and some prisons imposed
further restrictions (though they all told us that ‘the rules are the rules’ and ‘we follow the
guidelines exactly’). In one establishment there was an ethos of respect and preservation –
do as little harm to the food as possible, despite having to cut open peppers or roasted
chicken when searching for contraband. As one officer noted, when carefully slicing open
a whole fish, ‘This is love. This food is their home. We try not to disrupt that’. In this prison,
they also made efforts to get the baskets to their respective prisoners as fast as possible so
that the warmth would be retained. In another prison, the searching process was a display
of overt power and often, punitiveness… Here, little care was taken when slicing open food
and, with regularity, the destruction of the food’s integrity was intentional (Schmidt &
Jefferson, 2021, pp. 78–79).
This vignette highlights the ways in which punishment is an embodied experience

and how exploring that through sensory methods allows us to capture the symbolic
communication of penal power. These prisoners’ food was an expression and repre-
sentation of familial bonds, identity and belonging. Preparing and transporting these
meals were a means of maintaining the commensality inherent to family life despite
the rupture threatened by incarceration (Jönsson et al., 2021). The ways food from
families was, and was not, treated with care by officers overseeing its delivery dem-
onstrated how power and its expressions are sensorially variegated and how the
classifications of prisoners are symbolically communicated. This is especially true
when the food was gratuitously tampered with. Staff deliberately intervening to
disrupt the sensory engagement with the food (destroying its integrity and waiting
until it was cold) tells us a lot about operations of power and the particular culture
of that prison (see also Earle & Phillips, 2012, p. 144). Here we can detect three
forms of penal communication: first, the ability to disrupt the food in that way with-
out recourse is evidence of the power of those staff members; second, delivering
food, late, cold and texturally destroyed to the individuals within the prison is a
mechanism by which those staff members are communicating and re-emphasizing
the ‘prisoner’ classification of those individuals; and last, there is a moral commu-
nication conveyed to the prisoners by the staff, about how their worth and that of
their families is perceived by those who watch over them. These complex symbolic
messages are represented sensorially, through the treatment of food. Such elements
of subjection to social control are only unearthed by attending to the broader range
of sensory experience, without which they remain ephemeral and elusive.
If we accept that the sensory is enshrined and encoded in criminal justice prac-
tices, what then are the implications for examining and unpacking assumptions
about how we know? The evolution of the social sciences has been shadowed by the
long-standing positivist influences of the natural sciences. This positivist haunting
established a ratio cognoscendi (how something is known) for the social sciences,
which limited social scientists’ engagement with the full spectrum of our social
realities. A similar reliance on observable phenomena as the source of scientific
knowledge has dogged its development as a means of demonstrating its value
(Wright Mills, 1959/2000). Sensory interactions with our environment necessarily
form our immediate means of making sense of our surroundings. After all, observa-
tion is the basis of empiricist science. These forms of knowledge, however, are
obscured by forms of scientific idealism which impose a visual reading of accepted
methods as well as their findings (Classen, 1997). It is not that we cannot acknowl-
edge the significance of other senses, but rather that the pre-eminence of what we
can see imposes a distorted hierarchy of importance which restricts how we can
understand their role in making sense of our social world (Maslen, 2015). The rapid
expansion of scientific inquiry focused on loss of smell – anosmia – in the wake of
the SARS-CoV-2/Covid-19 pandemic is but one contemporary example of the
extent to which sensory experience is often neglected. The social significance of
smell becomes clearer in its absence, both in terms of its role in identifying risk and
danger and the ways it is associated with identity work (e.g. signature perfume or
the scent of a dish associated with home and belonging) (see, e.g. Boswell, 2008;
Law, 2001; Pink, 2008). Anosmia presents a powerful metaphor for the complex
workings between mind and body, as well as individual and wider social worlds.
The loss of smell is bound up with complex and diverse ranges of causes from
Covid to Parkinson’s, to traumatic brain injury and epilepsy, embodying those con-
versations between parts of the body, both human and social, as well as between
fields and disciplines. Engaging with the senses as a source of knowledge then
encourages deeper and broader engagement with ideas from across fields and disci-
plines than we are traditionally accustomed to.
Dialogues shape what can be thought and talked about, within their context. The
visual framing of subjects/concepts/methods within the natural and social sciences
necessarily mould our understanding within the frame of what can be seen and in so
doing eclipses various other ways of knowing. Cohen (1985) was concerned with
examining how language had worked to increasingly obfuscate the function of
criminal justice classifications to shore up political power. He argued that euphe-
mism was increasingly harnessed as a way of obscuring the symbolic meaning of
the words used to designate criminal justice practices. One example of this being the
false juxtaposition of punishment and therapy as antonyms, which of course detracts
from the actual antonym of punishment: reward. In this way, the language of crimi-
nal justice shapes its objects of knowledge and limits what can be conceived of as
legitimate both within the operation of social control and approaches to its scrutiny.
However, the extent to which Cohen was able to uncover and examine these (sym-
bolic) practices was limited by his visual ‘mode’ of making sense. Despite his con-
cern with bridging the world of words and the world of deeds, his vocabulary limited
the extent to which he was able to accomplish this. Designating individuals as devi-
ant or criminal is not merely observable but involves a range of embodied practices:
for example, being stopped and searched, being handcuffed, being arrested and
bodily transported, being incarcerated, being segregated and being deported. Our
comprehension of processes of social control is broadened if we include ways of
engaging with, and understanding, our social world which rest on wider sensorial
experience. This is not to exclude the visual sense, but rather to place it within the
broader sensory palate of sense-making (and the symbolic interactions that exist
therein) which more closely approximates to the way we engage with our social
worlds (Serres, 2008). Empiricism is, as Serres (2008) argues, fundamentally about
the analysis of data drawn from our senses. Though for centuries this has become
narrowed to what we can see.
Methodological Inquiry
If the language of science is that of power, social scientific inquiry, in an attempt to

replicate its practice, runs the risk of reproducing precisely those structures it is
charged with scrutinizing. As Ann Oakley argues: ‘the social structure of science
[represents] an inherently sexist, racist, classist, culturally coercive practice and
form of knowledge’ (1959/1998, p. 1). The sensory then, in upending Western and
androcentric assumptions about scientific idealism (Classen, 1997), invites a more
egalitarian engagement with the social worlds we seek to understand (Herrity et al.,
2021). Sensory engagement in social research lends ‘primacy to the embodied, hap-
tic, sonic, spatial, temporal, visceral – modes of phenomenological immersion and
immediacy’ and in turn insinuates ‘methods that are in tune with the social world’
(Brown & Carrabine, 2019, pp. 202–203). In making sense of these processes of
classification and rendering these systems of hierarchy and differential power tan-
gible, the sensory can deliver on Cohen’s promise and bridge the distance between
the world of words and the world of deeds.
Having demonstrated that sensory aspects of experience are woven into ways of
making sense of social worlds more broadly and practices of social control specifi-
cally, questions remain as to how the sensory might be used as a tool for their inves-
tigation. Approaches which foreground the sensory lend themselves particularly
well to the thick description (Geertz, 1973) immersive ethnography strives for. The
senses provide us with a mechanism for not only capturing the embodied realities of
social life, but also the symbolic interactions that exist within those embodied expe-
riences. This aspect has value when foregrounding the voices of ‘those who have
been or are about to be defined as deviant’ (Cohen, 1985, p. 1; as Russell et al.
(2020) demonstrate above) and the spaces in which these processes take place.
Cohen (1985, p. 8) asserts: ‘They need locating in historical space (How did they
get here?) in physical space (the city, the neighbourhood) and, above all, in social
space (the network of other institutions such as school and family, broader patterns
of welfare and social services, bureaucratic and professional interests)’. Sensory
aspects of sense-making in social spaces allow us to comprehend more directly
what it is to be subject to criminal justice proceedings: how they feel, smell and taste
and what this tells us about the operation of criminal justice. Exploring these facets
of experience deepens our knowledge of those processes (e.g. Flower, 2021).
Incorporating the sensory into methods opens the possibility for assessing criminal
justice practice at closer quarters and in so doing adds dimensions to our under-
standing. It makes the hidden, tangible. Tomas Martin (2021) illustrates the value of
this in his consideration of the informative power of air in examining changing
cultures of imprisonment in Myanmar. Martin harnesses the ostensibly ephemeral
qualities of air by drawing on the sensory to impose tangible diagnostic understand-
ing. Air becomes a powerful means of conveying the way penal cultures are experi-
enced by the most powerless, those incarcerated within them (see also Jewkes &
Young, 2021).
While foregrounding the sensory renders aspects of experience often relegated to

the periphery more central, it also allows for greater manipulation of proximity.
Participants become co-collaborators, enquiring about the sensory textures of their
social world. For instance, when discussing food with prisoners, different emotions
and senses are evoked. Where one man connects the ‘institutional stank’ of his pris-
on’s food to visceral memories of visiting his grandmother in the hospital before she
died – ‘It made me feel sick, that smell, and it still has that impact on me’ – another
man lovingly uses his contraband mix of spices to replicate comforting smells of his
mother’s cooking. The ‘not rotten, but not clean smell’ (Smoyer, 2021, p. 197) of
institutional food, for the first man, transcended space and time to communicate a
shared status and experience: poor care, bodily deterioration and neglect, whereas,
for the second prisoner, subversive acts of kettle cooking with his mother’s spice
mix produced delight, enabling a temporary sensorial escape to relive memories of
celebration and the sharing of meals with family (Sutton, 2010). As intimated above,
this extends greater agency and control to those involved in a research project,
allowing them to circumvent or navigate emotionally sensitive subjects and relay
their story in the manner of their choosing. Just as cognitive interviewing practice
puts the interviewee’s well-being at the centre of inquiry, so too can the sensory,
prompting a more responsive approach that puts the participant in control of the
direction of communication. This not only incites different questions – those relat-
ing to aspects of experience more commonly rendered incidental to the research
agenda – but also prompts shaping of inquiry in ways which lend themselves to
traversing boundaries in audience and understanding. Martin et al. (2014) helpfully
ponder how this is better affected by drawing on ‘climate’ as a concept. They argue
that it offers a means to ‘pursue the twofold question of what persists and what
mutates within and across prison worlds’ through an ethnographic orientation aimed
at ‘deciphering the entanglements of relations, practices, and dynamics that consti-
tute particular prison climates’ (Martin et al., 2014, p. 3). By using ‘climate’ as an
orientating concept, Martin et al. (2014) sought to formulate a means of making
sense accessible in different national contexts, across cultures and languages.
Such entanglements are telling – and instructive – when examined through car-
ceral sensoryscapes. Stanley’s (2021) work on prison hospices reveals how vio-
lence, trauma, care and dignity exist and interact together in these unique spaces.
Her focus on touch and closeness during the dying process brings to light how
intimacy is communicated, regulated and subverted by staff and prisoners outside of
usual security protocols. Similarly, Herrity’s (2020), Herrity et al., (2021) work
draws attention to the aural textures of prison life, how these vary by establishment,
staff culture and in response to specific events or incidents:
The overwhelming, swirling soundscape at HMP Wandsworth presented me with a number
of puzzles: was it significant to those working and living in this environment as it struck
me, and if so, how would I approach these questions and what method might I use?
There was a process of familiarisation while getting to know the prison community, first
making sense of the soundscape and then attuning to it, recognising its finer points and
how these shifted in the prison social world. It was not that we (myself and those I spoke
with) developed a different vocabulary for talking about it, but rather that approaching
this question through aural ethnography shaped the lens of inquiry to be more attentive
to broader sensory experience. Becoming more attuned to the soundscape and more
sensitive meant my focus shifted. Things that might be dismissed as peripheral were
central to my interest and consequently were a language for those at HMP Midtown to
convey what they were feeling or trying to say to me. So often, these sensory traces are
left out of the frame – whether the topic is absence of touch, or the aching loss of inti-
macy conjured by the smell of perfume. Banging is a case in point. Exploring sound
meant that I was focused on what might otherwise be dismissed as an unremarkable
aspect of the environment, part of the soundtrack to prison life. Because of this I came
to understand the vocabulary of symbolic meaning banging served to communicate
whether conveying desperation, impatience, threat or joy.
Thomas Kuhn (1970, p. 113) famously suggested, ‘What a man sees depends
both upon what he looks at and also upon what his previous visual-conceptual expe-
rience has taught him to see’. Adopting an explicitly sensory methodology allows us
to go beyond what we have previously been taught to see and look for. The above
account of a prison aural ethnography underscores this central contention. The issue
of ‘banging’ and its role as a communicative device is a key example. Differences
in timbre, ferocity, tempo and volume of the banging, for example, can communi-
cate different messages at different times within the everyday regime. However, to
be able to translate those ‘bangs’, it necessarily involves a process of sense-making
and attunement that can only occur when one is specifically focused on understand-
ing the soundscape of the prison. This is the fundamental point, in order to under-
stand what the sensory can tell us about an environment, the focus must be reshaped
to accommodate its sensescape. We are unaccustomed to these practices in social
science. However, as the vignette highlights, going beyond what was observable,
allowed the researcher to unearth experiences, and facets of the environment, that
had been largely ignored by traditional prison research. Doing so deepened under-
standing of the prison environment and demanded new ways of theorizing the
prison. Adopting a new method, to investigate an exhaustively researched space,
produced new data that has changed our understanding of the carceral and demands
that we ask new questions. Foregrounding the sensory holds the potential for unveil-
ing rich new fields of social inquiry but demands altering our approach to current
fields of investigation (Stoller, 2004, pp. 831–832).
Conclusions
Focussing on the sensory requires a shift in assumptions about our bearing in the
world and about how we know. In turn, this shifts how we orientate ourselves to
familiar criminal justice processes, lending them a strange hue, rich in potential for
research. In this regard, adopting a sensory criminological imagination allows the
incorporation of a deeper sensibility to the building blocks of social scientific and
research practices.
The passage that opens this chapter, from Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon, is
a fictionalized depiction of his experiences as a prisoner. His earwitness accounts of
incarceration continue to offer valuable insights into historical and politicized

spaces previously hidden or overlooked. First-person sensory accounts like this, and
those collected by Forensic Architecture and others, provide important records doc-
umenting forms of (concealed) punishment, coercive control, state harms and the
lived reality of those subjected to such practices. Just as the sensory can be weapon-
ized to terrorize or deprive, so too can it be harnessed for survival and resistance.
The senses reveal dynamic features of the human condition and methods of social
ordering worthy of further attention and scholarship, as they ‘figure as both object
of study and means of inquiry’ (Howes, 2019, p. 21). Approaching the field through
the sensory enables new avenues of questioning and analysis: Why is the quiet still-
ness of a prison library experienced as safe and calming, whereas on the landing this
may be unsettling or interpreted as trouble brewing? When is prison ‘noise’ oppres-
sive, punitive or reassuring? What does (in)dignity smell like? Bull et al. (2006,
p. 5) remind us that ‘The senses mediate the relationship between self and society,
mind and body, idea and object. The senses are everywhere’.
Foregrounding our senses as a source of knowing opens enormous additional
vistas for exploration and inquiry, broadening our fields of research and insinuating
creative, innovative approaches to harness this methodology. The sensory holds the
promise to enrich the criminological conversation and beyond. In this chapter we
have sought to lay out how the sensory enriches the building blocks for social sci-
entific inquiry, imbuing ontological, epistemological and methodological assump-
tions with additional textures and dimensions with which to fashion new questions
and new methods for addressing them. While doing so, we hope we have succeeded
in evoking your imaginations in rendering the familiar ground of criminology a lit-
tle strange and the strange terrain of an emerging criminological focus on the sen-
sory a little more familiar.
References
Aldridge, N. C. (1999). Enhancing children’s memory through cognitive interviewing: An assess-

ment technique for social work practice. Child and Adolescent Social Work, 16(2), 101–126.
Alpert, G. P., Rojek, J., & Noble, J. (2012). The cognitive interview in policing: Negotiating con-
trol. Australian Research Council, Centre for Excellence in Policing briefing paper. https://
core.ac.uk/download/pdf/30678703.pdf
Amnesty International. (2017). Human Slaughterhouse: Mass hangings and extermination at
Saydnaya prison, Syria. https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde24/5415/2017/en/
Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays (C. Emerson, & M. Holquist, Trans.
and Ed.). University of Texas Press.
Beatty, J. C., & Willis, G. B. (2007). Research synthesis: The practice of cognitive interviewing.
Public Opinion Quarterly, 71(2), 287–311.
Boswell, R. (2008). Scents of identity: Fragrance as heritage in Zanzibar. Journal of Contemporary
African Studies, 26(3), 295–311.
Brown, M., & Carrabine, E. (2019). The critical foundations of visual criminology: The state,
crisis, and the sensory. Critical Criminology, 27(1), 191–205.
Bull, M., Gilroy, P., Howes, D., & Kahn, D. (2006). Introducing sensory studies. The Senses and
Society, 1(1), 5–7.
Clancy, K., Mingzhou, D., Bernat, E., Schmidt, N. B., & Li, W. (2017). Restless rest: Intrinsic
sensory hyperactivity and disinhibition in post-traumatic stress disorder. Brain: A Journal of
Neurology, 140(7), 2041–2050.
Clarke, J. (2019). Critical dialogues: Thinking together in turbulent times. Policy Press.
Classen, C. (1997). Engendering perceptions: Gender ideologies and sensory hierarchies in
Western history. Body and Society, 3(20), 1–19.
Cohen, S. (1985). Visions of social control: Crime, punishment and classification. Polity Press.
De Souza, P., & Russell, E. K. (2022). Sensing the border(s): Sound and carceral intimacies in
and beyond indefinite detention. Crime, Media, Culture, 20, 174165902210811. https://doi.
org/10.1177/17416590221081165
Duffy, M., Waitt, G., & Harada, T. (2016). Making sense of sound: Visceral sonic mapping as a
research tool. Emotion, Space and Society, 20, 49–57.
Earle, R., & Phillips, C. (2012). Digesting men? Ethnicity, gender and food: Perspectives from a
prison ethnography. Theoretical Criminology, 16(2), 141–156.
Fisher, R. P., & Geiselman, R. E. (1992). Memory-enhancing techniques for investigative inter-
viewing: The cognitive interview. Thomas Publishing.
Fisher, R. P., & Geiselman, R. E. (2010). The cognitive interview method of conducting police inter-
views: Eliciting extensive information and promoting therapeutic jurisprudence. International
Journal of Psychiatry and Law, 33(5–6), 321–328.
Flower, L. (2021). Rumbling stomachs and silent crying: Mapping and reflecting emotion in the
sensory landscape of the courthouse. In K. Herrity, B. E. Schmidt, & J. Warr (Eds.), Sensory
penalties: Exploring the senses in spaces of punishment and social control (pp. 159–174).
Emerald Publishing.
Geertz, C. (1973). Thick description: Toward an interpretive theory of culture. The interpretation
of cultures: Selected essays. Basic Books.
Geiselman, R. E., Fisher, R. P., Mackinnon, D. P., & Holland, H. L. (1985). Eyewitness memory
enhancement in the police interview: Cognitive retrieval mnemonics versus hypnosis. Journal
of Applied Psychology, 70(2), 401–412.
Gutmann, A., & Thompson, D. (2004). Why deliberative democracy? Princeton University Press.
Herrity, K. (2020). Hearing beyond the door: The cell as a portal to prison life. In J. Turner
& V. Knight (Eds.), The prison cell: Embodied and everyday spaces of incarceration
(pp. 239–259). Palgrave Macmillan.
Herrity, K., Schmidt, B. E., & Warr, J. (Eds.). (2021). Sensory penalties: Exploring the senses in
spaces of punishment and social control. Emerald Publishing.
Howes, D. (2019). Digging up the sensorium: On the sensory revolution archaeology. In R. Skeates
& J. Day (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of sensory archaeology (pp. 21–34). Routledge.
Howes, D., & Classen, C. (2014). Ways of sensing: Understanding the senses in society. Routledge.
Jewkes, Y., & Young, A. (2021). Sensory reflections on a Japanese prison. In K. Herrity,
B. E. Schmidt, & J. Warr (Eds.), Sensory penalties: Exploring the senses in spaces of punish-
ment and social control (pp. 177–193). Emerald Publishing.
Jönsson, H., Michaud, M., & Neuman, N. (2021). What is commensality? A critical discussion
of an expanding research field. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public
Health. https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/12/6235
Koestler, A. (1940/2005). Darkness at noon (D. Hardy, Trans.). Vintage Books.
Kuhn, T. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions (2nd ed.). University of Chicago.
Law, L. (2001). Home cooking: Filipino women and geographies of the senses in Hong Kong.
Ecumene, 8(3), 264–283.
Malabou, C. (2014). Can we relinquish the transcendental? The Journal of Speculative Philosophy,
28(3), 242–255.
Martin, T. (2021). The politics of prison air: Breath, smell and wind in Myanmar prisons.
Punishment & Society, 23(4), 1–19.
Martin, T., Jefferson, A. M., & Bhandyopadhyay, M. (2014). Sensing prison climates: Governance,
survival and transition. Focaal, 68, 3–17.
Maslen, S. (2015). Researching the senses as knowledge. The Senses and Society, 10(1), 52–70.
Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self, and society. University of Chicago Press.
Oakley, A. (1959/1998). Gender, methodology and people’s ways of knowing: Some problems
with feminism and the paradigm debate in social science. Sociology, 32(4), 707–731.
Ortiga, J., Kanapathipillai, S., Daly, B., Hilbers, J., Varndall, W., & Short, A. (2013). The sound of
urgency: Understanding noise in an emergency department. Music and Medicine, 5(1), 44–51.
Parker, J. (2018). Gavel. In J. Hohmann & D. Joyce (Eds.), International law’s objects
(pp. 214–224). Oxford University Press.
Pink, S. (2008). An urban tour: The sensory sociality of ethnographic place-making. Ethnography,
9(2), 175–196.
Potts, J. (2018, July 30). Enhanced interviewing techniques to improve memory recall.
National Police Foundation, OnPolicing blog. https://www.policinginstitute.org/onpolicing/
enhanced-interviewing-techniques-to-improve-memory-recall/
Ristani, M. (2020). Sound prisoners: The case of Saydnaya prison in Syria. Violence: An
International Journal, 1(2), 273–284.
Russell, E. K., Carlton, B., & Tyson, D. (2020). Carceral churn: A sensorial ethnography of the bail
and remand court. Punishment & Society, 24, 151. https://doi.org/10.1177/1462474520967566
Schmidt, B. E., & Jefferson, A. M. (2021). Sensing transition: Exploring prison life in post-
revolution Tunisia. In K. Herrity, B. E. Schmidt, & J. Warr (Eds.), Sensory penalties: Exploring
the senses in spaces of punishment and social control (pp. 71–88). Emerald Publishing.
Serres, M. (2008). The five senses: A philosophy of mingled bodies (M. Sankley, & P. Cowley,
Trans.). Continuum International Publishing Group.
Shepherd, E., Mortimer, A., Turner, V., & Watson, J. (1999). Spaced cognitive interviewing:
Facilitating therapeutic and forensic narration of traumatic memories. Psychology, Crime and
Law, 5(1–2), 117–143.
Simmel, G. (1907/1997). Sociology of the senses. In D. Frisby & M. Featherstone (Eds.), Simmel
on culture (pp. 109–119). Sage.
Smoyer, A. B. (2021). The everything else. In K. Herrity, B. E. Schmidt, & J. Warr (Eds.), Sensory
penalties: Exploring the senses in spaces of punishment and social control (pp. 195–202).
Emerald Publishing.
Stanley, D. (2021). Touching life, death, and dis/connection in a state prison infirmary. In
K. Herrity, B. E. Schmidt, & J. Warr (Eds.), Sensory penalties: Exploring the senses in spaces
of punishment and social control (pp. 53–68). Emerald Publishing.
Stoller, P. (2004). Sensuous ethnography, African persuasions, and social knowledge. Qualitative
Inquiry, 10(6), 817–835.
Sutton, D. E. (2010). Food and the senses. Annual Review of Anthropology, 39, 209–223.
Weizman, E. (2017). Forensic architecture: Violence at the threshold of detectability. MIT Press.
See also: https://forensic-architecture.org/
Wright Mills, C. (1959/2000). The sociological imagination. Oxford University Press.
Kate Herrity ’s doctoral research explored the significance of sound in a local men’s prison using
aural ethnography. She takes particular interest in researching at the edges both of criminology and
epistemology, and curates www.sensorycriminology.com, the companion blog to the book Sensory
Penalities: Exploring the Senses in Spaces of Punishment and Social Control (Emerald 2021). She
is the Mellon-King’s Cambridge Junior Research Fellow in Punishment (2020–2024).
Bethany E. Schmidt is Assistant Professor in Penology at the Institute of Criminology’s Prisons

Research Centre at the University of Cambridge. Her main research interests lie at the intersection
of democracy, citizenship, and punishment. She leads multiple international projects related to
measuring the social, moral, and political climates of prisons.
Jason Warr is Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Criminal Justice at De Montfort University
with research interests in penology, sociology of power, narrative and sensory criminology, and the
philosophy of science. His most recent book is concerned with forensic psychologists employed
within the prisons of England and Wales: Forensic Psychologists: Prisons, Power, and Vulnerability.
He is also co-editor of the book: Sensory Penalities: Exploring the Senses in Spaces of Punishment
and Social Control.
Chapter 9
Towards Visual and Sensory Methodologies
in Green Cultural Criminology
Lorenzo Natali, Nigel South, Bill McClanahan, and Avi Brisman
Introduction
Classen (1997: 401) states that in outlining the ‘fundamental premise underlying the
concept of an “anthropology of the senses”…sensory perception is a cultural, as
well as a physical, act. That is, sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell are not only
means of apprehending physical phenomena but also avenues for the transmission
of cultural values’. Criminology is only just beginning to appreciate what this means.
Criminology often has had an urban focus (see, e.g., Atkinson & Millington,
2019), and urban cultures are necessarily exposed to the manufactured and ‘un-
natural’. But what about rural and remote cultures based on close relationships with
the natural, with the intangible, and with the invisible? What methods and concepts
are needed and appropriate in under-researched spaces and cultures? Approaches to
describing various ways of working the land have often been innovative. For exam-
ple, historically, studies of mining and, more recently, of shale gas extraction have—
for obvious reasons—drawn attention to the sensory and experiential dimensions of
living or working with the noise, smell, and dust produced (e.g., Short & Szolucha,
2019). Regarding research in the countryside, Hillyard (2007: 162) has noted
‘Strangleman’s (2004) argument for greater use of visual techniques’, including
L. Natali (*)
University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
e-mail: lorenzo.natali1@unimib.it
N. South
University of Essex, Colchester, UK
B. McClanahan
Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond, KY, USA
A. Brisman
Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond, KY, USA
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18401-7_9
142 L. Natali et al.
photo-elicitation, ‘to explore previously hidden aspects of work’ and in this case aid
in the ‘understanding of rural work’. The approaches that we describe in this chapter
have been chosen with the aim of being inclusive—and can involve researchers and
participants taking a metaphorical or real ‘journey’ together. In this way, some of
these can be seen as part of a ‘participatory paradigm’, defined by Wilding (2012:
375) as ‘research with people, not on them’ (emphasis added).
This chapter offers a general discussion and specific examples of the use and
value of visual and related sensory methodologies. We do this by considering two
techniques to collect qualitative visual data: interviews-with-visual-materials and
itinerant soliloquies. Our goal is to invite criminologists to reconsider the constitu-
tive relationship between our ways of seeing and our ways of sensing and perceiv-
ing the environment in which we live.
Visual and Sensory Approach for Green

A
(Cultural) Criminology
As Rafter (2014: 129) elucidates, if criminology is the study of crime, visual crimi-
nology may be defined as ‘the study of ways in which all things visual interact with
crime and criminal justice, inventing and shaping one another’. Its aim is to develop
‘its own theoretical and methodological approaches’, suggesting new visual ways of
exploring imaginatively and analysing critically the various social and power rela-
tions, harm, suffering, and justice in the criminological field. More specifically,
visual research methods in criminology embrace both conducting research on/about
images, where the focus is on ‘visual culture’ (see also Carrabine, 2017: 32), and
undertaking research with images—‘found’ images or researcher-produced visual
data (see Pauwels, 2017), which are used as heuristic tools in order to explore in-
depth, peculiar socio-criminological contexts. Examples here include photo-
elicitation or photo-voice (see Natali, 2016b; Natali & McClanahan, 2017).
In The Poetics of Crime: Understanding and Researching Crime and Deviance
Through Creative Sources, Jacobsen (2014) highlights how important it is for crimi-
nology to experiment with creative methodologies which might represent a new
starting point for carrying out research in a ‘poetically inspired’ way and which
might contribute to nourishing and enriching the criminological imagination with
new ways of looking. In order to develop ‘verstehen-oriented’1 criminological
approaches, researchers can take advantage of methodologies that transcend disci-
plinary confines and mainstream frames and habitus. Such creative methods can
help the researcher to investigate questions of scientific relevance in different ways
from more traditional methods of observation, collection, and reading of data and,
at the same time, may help the research participants in the processes of narrating
personal experiences and expressing emotions regarding experiences of crime
and harm.
1
As Harper (2012: 159) explains, “what Max Weber called verstehen [can be] loosely translated as
understanding, and [is] usually interpreted as capturing the point of view of the other”.
9 Towards Visual and Sensory Methodologies in Green Cultural Criminology 143
This methodological pluralism draws together the area of visual and sensory
criminology (Brown & Carrabine, 2017b) and qualitative techniques that can be
framed within what Brisman and South (2014) conceptualize as ‘green cultural
criminology’—a criminological perspective that tries to imagine new modes of
critically analysing the intersection of culture, crime, justice, and the environ-
ment (see also Brisman, 2017a). In the following parts, we describe the visual and
sensory techniques used during empirical research about environmental victimiza-
tion: interviews-with-visual-materials and itinerant soliloquies.
Interviews-with-Visual-Materials
Photo-elicitation is ‘a process of organizing interviews around photographs’

(Harper, 2001: 16). The assumption is that the multiple meanings of the image rest
in the mind of the observer (Becker, 1974; Pauwels, 2011). As Pauwels (2017: 67)
remarks, ‘Many types of images may be used (still and moving, paintings or draw-
ings, etc.) and thus “image elicitation” or “visual elicitation” would be a more
appropriate term’. The visual materials used as ‘stimuli’ to obtain unique kinds of
information from respondents and informants may include pre-existing ‘societal
imagery’ […] as well as researcher- or respondent-generated materials.
Visual images as methodological tools can, in fact, elicit and probe the personal
narratives of the interviewee. This technique generates a kind of visual verstehen
through which a deeper unity between the subjects interviewed and the researchers is
created (Harper, 1988)—one that encourages the sharing and the debating of multiple
(even conflicting) visions of reality. Because photo-elicitation requires images and
words, it is particularly helpful in approaching the multiple visions of the observers,
refracted through their symbolic, emotional, and cultural ‘lenses’. Furthermore, inter-
views with images also prove useful in enhancing the active role of the social actors.
Research by Natali started in 2016a, b in different global cities, including Milan
(Italy), Madrid (Spain), and London (the United Kingdom)—as well as in some
more peripheral and rural contexts (in Andalucia, Spain, and in Northern Italy). The
goal was to explore and observe how participants interpret environmental harms and
disasters, how they narrate their relationship with the environment that they inhabit,
and how they feel about the multiplicity of environmental crimes and harms that
impact their social and natural worlds.2 More generally, when conducting such
empirical research, it is crucial to notice how social actors, with reference to ‘nature’,
broadly construed, ‘reorder their myths, images, and “monsters” (their fears, as well
as their hopes and expectations) in narratives and practices which are held together
through partial relations’ (Arce & Long, 2000: 27). Making sense of these narra-
tives, which are sometimes coherent, sometimes dissonant, means maintaining an
2
The interviews with images and the itinerant soliloquies were carried out sometimes following an
appointment, sometimes in a more unexpected way. The first author decided not to construct a
statistical sample for choosing the participants in the research (see Harper, 2001), even though,
before proceeding with the interviews, the macro-categories to which the social actors to be inter-
viewed were identified.
open mind not just about the ambivalence of our relationship ‘with nature, the envi-
ronment, and other species’ (South, 2017: 553), but about our several ways of
recounting them, even more so in contemporary times, which are characterized by
polycentric, de-centred, fragmented, and multicultural experiences.
In the first phase of the research conducted by the first author, participants were
asked to search on the internet (Google Images, YouTube, and other forms of social
media) for some images (drawings, photographs, pictures) that represented their
relationship with the environment. The gathering of the images was seen as a prepa-
ratory step to begin an interview-with-visual-materials. Sometimes the images were
obtained before the interview, sometimes during the interview, giving the researcher
the opportunity to observe the participants’ methods of searching, which were often
as useful as the result produced. In fact, this moment of ‘behind the scenes’ observa-
tion enabled the first author to see how the participants moved from one image to
another, setting aside some images and then discarding them when a more compel-
ling one caught the participant’s attention.
For example, one participant selected the following image:
In discussing her selection, the participant stated:
For me this image was really…a speaking image…. In late adolescence the image of the
tree became for me a symbol…I used to read books on the mythology of trees, this universal
element that reconnects all cultures and can be found from South America to Siberia…from
there I decided to have a tree tattooed on my body…In hindsight I tell myself ‘What a feat!’
but I am not sorry…I reconnect it to my late adolescence when within me surely was born
a critical feeling and attitude towards the world and what was wrong….
Even the choice of living here [in a rural context] with my partner…it’s clear that at the
beginning it might be ‘how lovely to live in the forest’, but surely then you realize that it is
not always easy…trying to do without, to avoid, to give up what is unnecessary…For me
permaculture is this thing I have discovered…it came to me at a peculiar time, I was a bit
lost…when something arrives just at the right moment…for the permacultural method zone
0 is your home, zone 1 is next and there you place the things you need every day…the
chicken that gives you an egg…we are speaking about a rustic environment…but then you
arrive at zone 6, the forest, where you go less, maybe once a year to collect wood but then
you take a step back and say: ‘Yes, but where is the person, the human being?’ And so you
go back to zone 0 that is a wonderful discovery…man holds this infinite…it is difficult to
keep up with this infinite but everything is there…
What permaculture mainly underlines is observation: you, human, with your tools, all your
senses – sight, smell…– observe…therefore it is not only sight. To observe is to touch, to
eat…whatever is around you, above all the natural elements, but it is you, the human…thus,
there is no divine there, there is nothing if not in perceiving that you have really around you
an open book, you are the reader but also the protagonist and the actor…
Since this philosophy is linked to the concrete, to senses that I feel strongly, not only sight,
but also the others…and to a deeper feeling…well, I felt it really within my reach…we are
humans and to humans we have to refer and arrive….
In this first example (Fig. 9.1), the participant, who lives in a rural part of
Northern Italy, chose the image as a reflection of her relationship with the natural
environment. Starting from this picture, she comes to remark the importance of all
the senses in understanding her position in the world. The excerpt above makes it
clear how visual images, far from merely ‘embellishing’ social research, were used
as a methodological and heuristic tool (Rose, 2012) to explore the sensorial aspects
Fig. 9.1 An image

selected by the participant
(a woman, thirty-three
years old). (Source:
Lorenzo Natali, 2015,
Rancio Valcuvia, Northern
Italy)
Fig. 9.2 An example of an

interview with images,
chosen by the participant
from a selection of pictures
found on the web, to
describe pollution and
climate change (a woman,
sixty years old, Madrid).
(Source: Lorenzo Natali,
2015, Madrid)
of knowledge. This approach required a particular sensitivity to the symbolic per-

spectives, narratives, and ‘ways of seeing’ (Berger, 2008 [1972]; Rose, 2012: 13) of
the actors involved—a careful and close listening to the narratives, which were co-
constructed in a relationship of dialogic and circular exchange with the researcher (see
also Presser & Sandberg, 2015).
In the second example (Fig. 9.2), the interviewee, a sixty-year-old woman from
a global city (Madrid), selected troubling photographic pictures about environmen-
tal harms, then connected the aerial image of a wounded forest with its metaphorical
meaning and with the wider phenomenon of climate change. As we learn from read-
ing the narrative that she started developing while commenting on these photos,
even in those circumstances, as Roland Barthes (2000 [1980]: 100) argues, ‘[s]uch
is the Photograph: it cannot say what it lets us see’. The images chosen by the par-
ticipant during the visual exploration on the web were still too ‘silent’. We cannot
know, then, how the interviewees interpret the photograph—even looking at iconic
photographs where it seems that ‘no caption is needed’ (Hariman & Lucaites,
2007)—until we listen to the words with which they describe their personal reading
of that visual material.
The participant offered the following commentary on the images that she
selected:
This image of the forest from above, for example, looks like a pair of lungs…. But they are
really trees…it will be something to do with environment, the pollution and what else? It
looks like a pair of lungs, doesn't it? Damaged lungs, because here it looks as if there was a
lack of vegetation…therefore damaged even if the greenery itself is not damaged. It looks
in good condition…These images…I associate climate change to pollution…In daily life I
really perceive climate change…How? For example, here in Madrid pollution does not only
affect the daily life of the inhabitants, but produces even more extensive consequences…at
local level in the case of Madrid they are taking a series of measures so that when there is a
very high level of pollution in Madrid they might try to reduce it…and I do not know if it is
so or not, if it really goes down…I do not think that limiting the level of traffic for a day or
two will diminish pollution…I think it is something that should be adopted at government
level and with more general measures and not regarding only a specific area, in this case
cars, but at an industrial level…the CO2 emission from factories and cars have a direct
influence on climate change…this is why I associate climate change and pollution…
In the third example (Fig. 9.3), the photographs of pollution chosen by the inter-
viewee allowed the development of a personal reflection, which made him recog-
nize the ambiguous perception that the same image can evoke in the viewer and the
interpretative processes that may facilitate perceptual and cultural blindness regard-
ing environmental harms, such as atmospheric or light pollution. This process is
shown by comparing different images of the same place at different times (day or
night) and from different vantage points.
The participant offered the following commentary on the images that he selected:
Look at this photo…After all, the impression it gives is that it is a clean city…but the white
you see it’s not light…it’s pollution…This is Madrid by night, and here you have quite
evident light pollution…this is the airport…this, on the contrary, is air…look at the differ-
ence with respect to the sky…the contrast is brutal. Just today I was climbing a mountain
just outside Madrid, and looking at this landscape I told myself: ‘Well, look at Madrid, isn't
it lovely all blue like that?’ [ironic tone of voice].
The images used during interviews suggested and promoted multiple levels of
meaning. Besides representing real events where a specific context might be recon-
structed, the images also functioned as visual metaphors (Todd & Harrison, 2008)—
as in the second example—which could make one consider larger questions about
the causes, victims, and perpetrators of environmental harms. This methodological
strategy had the advantage of allowing a high degree of interpretative and narrative
Fig. 9.3 An example of an interview with images, chosen by the participant from a selection of
those found on the web, which he identified as air pollution and light pollution (a man, forty years
old, Madrid). (Source: Lorenzo Natali, 2015, Madrid)
freedom in the symbolic interaction between the iconic and the verbal levels. In fact,
by not creating a preestablished visual narrative, the researcher allowed the inter-
viewees to (re)organize the visual stimuli from their own points of view. By enhanc-
ing the multi-vocality of the images, the participants were able to create their own
narrative sequence in a personal and unique way (see also Berger, 1991 [1980]).
Thanks to these methodological tools based on the polysemy of the images
(Harper, 2002: 15; Barthes, 1978), a process of co-construction and re-negotiation
between interviewer and interviewee is enhanced. According to this theoretical and
methodological approach, it is not very important to know what the images really
represent: the main objective is rather centred upon the meanings and the imaginar-
ies that the interviewees connect to those images and to those contexts as well as to
their transformations. More importantly, different interpretative perspectives,
unique and sometimes unexpectedly ‘transgressive’ with respect to those of the
researcher, can also emerge (Harper, 2002: 13).
Beyond the Visual: A Sensory Criminology?
Although calls for an explicitly sensory criminology emerged most clearly in 2020
(McClanahan & South, 2020), they were preceded by a significant body of sensori-
ally attuned work that had emerged previously in visual, green, and cultural crimi-
nological traditions (see, e.g., Beirne, 2015; Brisman, 2020; Brown & Carrabine
2017a, b, 2019; Cooper et al., 2018; Garcia-Ruiz & South, 2018; Millie, 2019;
O’Neill, 2017; Presdee, 2004; Redmon, 2017; Rigakos & Frauley, 2011; Shalhoub-
Kevorkian, 2017; Walklate, 2018). Perhaps most centrally, sensory criminology has
developed as an outgrowth of visual criminology—a relationship that suggests what
is obvious: visual concerns are sensory concerns, criminologically or otherwise. It
is little wonder, then, that visual criminologists and visual criminology had already
turned their attention to the nonvisual sensorial worlds of crime, harm, and justice.
Evidence for this is scattered across the landscape of visual criminology that pre-
ceded more overt calls for an explicitly sensory orientation. The visual criminologi-
cal agenda has continued to show its influence on sensory orientations and research,
and certain critical issues it suggests have been consistent objects and sites of
inquiry in sensory agendas. Maybe the most persistent of these issues has been the
ocularcentrism—the privileging of sight and the visual above the other senses—
which has been regularly and thoroughly contested in both visual and sensory crimi-
nological streams (see, e.g., Brown, 2017a, b; Brown & Carrabine, 2019;
McClanahan, 2021; McKay, 2018; Moran, 2017; Natali, 2016a, b, 2021; Natali
et al., 2021; Natali & McClanahan, 2017, 2020;).
In just a few short years, the prominence of sensory perspectives has grown
across critical variants of criminology. Sensory Penalities: Exploring the Senses in
Spaces of Punishment and Social Control (2021), a collection of essays attuned to
the sensory dimensions of crime and justice—particularly those issues related to the
sensorial dimensions of punishment in the carceral state—provides the foundations
of an overtly sensory perspective which centres punishment in its analysis of the

ways in which power intersects with and acts on the senses. This orientation also
reflects earlier tendencies in sensory and visual perspectives in the social sciences,
arts and humanities, as well as in popular culture, to the ways in which the punish-
ments of the carceral state are experienced. Indeed, one could argue that there has
been theoretical interest in the sensory experience of incarceration since the dawn
of the carceral apparatus (see, e.g., Charrière, 2011; Genet, 1965; Solzhenitsyn,
1971, 2003). That interest is also represented clearly in criminology in the work by
Russell and Rae (2020), Russell and colleagues (2020), and Umamaheswar (2020),
among others.
Adjacent to and overlapping this burgeoning criminological investigation into
the senses and crime, justice, and punishment is research and scholarship on how
material spaces and atmospheres of human life are constituted and given meaning
through our sensory perceptions of them. Most notably, this branch includes work
by Young (2019, 2021; see also Jewkes & Young, 2021), whose concern with the
sensory and affect-making atmospheres of public and carceral spaces had already
contributed significantly to visual criminology. For Young and others (e.g., Brisman
et al., 2021; Fatsis, 2021; Lee, 2021; Lee et al., 2021), an interest in the ways in
which geographies—particularly urban geographies of crime and justice—are con-
stituted and understood by their atmospheric qualities, can usefully illuminate ‘that
which connects individuals within and to the spaces they occupy or move through’
(Young, 2019: 766). Here, non-carceral spaces become the central concern, suggest-
ing again some natural affinity shared by cultural (e.g., Hayward & Presdee, 2010),
green (e.g., Natali, 2016a, b; McClanahan, 2020), and sensory criminologies.
Finally, sensory criminology can be thought of as comprised of discrete explora-
tions of individual forms of sensual input. Like visual criminology—which, impor-
tantly, considers the experience of encounters with the visual more than the simple
inclusion of visual images in criminological research—there is a burgeoning sen-
sory criminology of sound—one that focuses on the ways in which the acoustic
landscapes of contemporary life configure crime and justice (see, e.g., the work by
Garcia-Ruiz and South (2018), Fatsis (2021), Lee (2021), Russell and Rae (2020),
Young (2019, 2021), which all attune criminological thinking towards the worlds of
sound). Likewise, other senses, such as smell (Di Ronco & Persak, 2021; Neocleous,
2011), have found a place in criminology and adjacent modes of inquiry, and so we
might imagine that, given time to continue to develop, robust sensory criminologies
of the auditory, gustatory, olfactory, and somatic might each emerge—in addition to
the already extant visual criminology.
In the following part, we describe a sensory technique which Natali used during
empirical research about environmental victimization—the ‘itinerant soliloquy’—
that adds methodological concreteness to these theoretical points.
Itinerant Soliloquies as a Sensory Methodology
The second technique employed in order to probe the individuals’ perceptions of

environmental harms and the sensory dimensions of their personal experiences of
the places where they live is the ‘itinerant soliloquy’. The ‘itinerant soliloquy’ has
been inspired, in part, by the investigations of the visual anthropologist, Andrew
Irving (2011), and is intended to explore ‘how spaces become places’ (Brisman &
South, 2014) and to understand the dynamic relationship between social actors and
living space (see Natali, 2016a). As Irving (2011: 26) remarks, ‘Conventional social
scientific methods and measures are often too static to capture the unfinished, transi-
tory, and ever-changing character of people’s interior experiences and expressions
as they emerge in the present tense…[in the] fluidity of perception, being, and
expression’.
The first author asked each participant to take him to a place that had something
to do with his/her perception of the human-environment relationship in the (urban
or rural) place where he/she lived. Participants were then asked to walk around the
place and express their thoughts or feelings about the place. The spoken soliloquies
of the participants were recorded and their movements in the space/place filmed
from a distance. In this way, ‘the issue of interiority is best addressed as a collabora-
tive, practice based, ethnographic research question, to be worked on alongside
informants in the field’ (Irving, 2011: 25).
In essence, what becomes significant and central during the itinerant soliloquy is
not only ‘seeing’ but also, and above all, ‘being in the world’—enhancing a kind of
‘democracy of the senses’ (Back, 2007 (emphasis added)). Every observer is
immersed in the disorder of the real world—in its synesthetic chaos and messiness
(see also Robins, 1996: 34). In this sense, his/her observations and narratives are
always embedded in a specific experiential context—in a real and true ‘web of life’
(Degen & Rose, 2012; Kearns, 2010)—a far cry from the ideal of a ‘detached’ and
impersonal observation, often viewed as a necessary component of traditional sci-
entific methods (Blumer, 1969; Irving, 2011).
The cognitive dimension, even if amplified using visual dimensions, is not suf-
ficient to capture the sense of our relationship with the environment (see also Brown
& Carrabine, 2017a: 8).3 If we agree that what happens depends on where it hap-
pens, it is necessary to think of methodological approaches that might help in inter-
preting the phenomena investigated in a complex and multi-sensorial way (Ingold,
2000; Pink, 2008; Peyrefitte, 2012; Shortell & Brown, 2014). More precisely, the
itinerant soliloquy can be defined as a technique which tries to enhance the reflexive
and experiential richness arising from the interface of walking,4 observing, inter-
preting, reflecting, and narrating—to oneself and to others.
3
Millie (2017) suggests that ‘an aesthetic criminology is possible’—one ‘that includes consider-
ation of the visual, but also broader sensory, affective and emotive experience’.
4
See also O’Neill (2017: 393) on the use of ‘mobile’ and ‘walking’ methods in criminology.
Fig. 9.4 A fragment of an

itinerant soliloquy (a
woman, forty-five years
old, Huelva, Spain).
2015)
In the example below (Fig. 9.4), which took place in Huelva (Spain)—an
Andalusian (southern) city ‘slowly’ polluted by an industrial plant built in the
1960s—the participant in the itinerant soliloquy reflected on her ‘atmospheric’
memories of the place. It is a sort of ‘atmospheric conscience’ according to which
life and breathing in the open air cannot mean the same thing as in centuries past
(Sloterdijk, 2009). By exploring others’ experiences of the ‘cumulative traumas’
that increasingly concern the relationship between humans and the environment, we
have learned that the atmospheres essential for our existence are also the medium
through which the various forms of environmental harm dissipate. In this sense,
experiences are no longer only between people, but between the ‘respiratory econo-
mies’ and each one of their inhabitants (Sloterdijk, 2009). This point helps us to
better comprehend not only the nuclear disasters of Chernobyl (1986) or Fukushima
(2011) or the death of thousands of people in Bhopal (1984) but also the slow and
creeping disasters such as the ‘historical pollution’ in Huelva.
This belvedere…with graffiti…it’s a pity…I am seeing this part, the highest part
of Huelva…the one with the widest view…when I came here as a child, I used to
think that here you would breathe the best fresh air…this is what I thought…what I
think now is another thing…this panorama is spectacular…a good part of it is main-
tained, another not much…what I say is: …there is neglect…and Huelva does not
deserve to be treated like this…I go on walking… (Fig. 9.5).
Katrina more or less brought out…what was here that we would never have known about if
the storm hadn’t brought it out….
What Katrina did, it did a lot of damage…it was a monster of a storm…whenever a storm
comes everybody comes to loot. You leaving? No. I’m not! And I never leave, I always stay,
I always stay, ‘cause I watch the neighbourhood…by September, the 28th I think, I was back
but…the whole city was still gone, everything was browned, the smell was awful, to be quite
honest…I wouldn’t like to think about it because of the mental picture I get about it…all the
area smelt bad, it just smelt awful…that was the worst part of this…coming back in
town…you could smell the dead, you know, all out there you could smell the dead…ani-
mal…people oh, God, it was bad, it was real bad, it really brought us to tears on more than
one occasion, it was, it was kind of rough but…ah…we persevered, we persevered and…here
we are. We’re still recovering though, we’re not done, we’re still recovering, as you can…If
you’ve been round the streets you can tell that we are still recovering because we still have
so many streets that are still so screwed up, and they got craters, big puddles, we got craters
Fig. 9.5 A fragment of an

itinerant soliloquy (a man,
fifty-nine years old, New
Orleans, Louisiana).
2016a, b)
now, in some of them, you know, they are just bad and…ah, we feel…coming into the city,
it was…ah…it was, it was disturbing, it was very disturbing…I can understand why some
people didn’t come back…they didn’t come back because it was very disturbing…I know
some people that…ah…saw this stuff on satellite…They couldn’t believe that everything
here was gone, specially some of the houses. When they saw that stuff on satellite and…and
they saw the devastation some people, some of them had to be hospitalized…like I said it
was brutal, it was brutal…it was sad…we lost a lot, that’s the one thing, I don’t think we’ll
get over that…the devastation is there, we got to deal with it, but people need to try and see
some of the good it did to help minimize the…perception of the devastation because the
devastation…you know, you can’t, is Mother Nature, you don’t mess with Mother Nature…
We faced the unknown, it was like the fear of death, it was the fear of the unknown…we
watched all the trees falling…and…low lying street…the trees were across low land so bad,
you couldn’t get through there with a bike, you had to walk…the storm, it did us wrong, it
did us wrong but…I mean, like I said, that’s Mother Nature, you just…you know, Mother
Nature is Mother Nature and when Mother Nature says something’s going to happen, it’s
going to happen…, we don’t need no more Katrina…these storms are bad, but these storms,
in my opinion, are just not completely normal at the rate they are happening and…they are
happening too quick, they are happening too often…now they are too devastating…I think
global warming is a very real thing and I think…I think we can do something about
it…Katrina and all these other big storms, all of these tornados we will never stop having
this stuff…I don’t know why men wait till too late…we don’t have twenty years…I respect
Mother Nature….
The recognition that our self is a space of reflexivity—comprised of mental

images, memories, soundscapes (Labelle, 2016 [2010]), smell-scapes, voices, and
visual images coming from different places and times—is well represented in the
second excerpt of an itinerant soliloquy that was undertaken in New Orleans in
2016. This example shows how walking in a place where a ‘natural’ disaster, such
as Hurricane Katrina (Nobo & Pfeffer, 2012), occurred can elicit a narrative that
recalls very different senses—including ‘smell’ memories5—that contribute to the
5
A recent study explored the perceptual process of ‘smellscape’ perceptions through a case study
in Sheffield Railway Station and Bus Interchange and using walk-along interviews to collect data
on people’s perceptions onsite and to understand how people make sense of their emotions trig-
gered by smells in a real-life context, in relation to the physical space and onsite environment as
well as their subjectivities. ‘Smells can evoke strong emotions and convey social meanings associ-
ated with people and places’ (Xiao et al., 2020).
perception and personal memory of the dramatic event. More generally, by listening
to the narrative that the participant developed, the first author was able to explore the
interviewees’ cultural, emotional, imaginative, and symbolic atmosphere—a per-
sonal environmental cosmology that, in this example, connects with ‘Mother
Nature’ and with a unique relationship with life and death, which animated and
named his ‘ways of sensing’ those places (Natali, 2016b).
As visual criminologist Brown (2017a) elucidates, ‘[t]he turn to the visual is
indicative of a larger turn to the sensory that brings back the material, physical,
affective and embodied experiences of harm, control, injustice, and resistance’.
Atmospheric and smell materialities are just an example but, notably, are a signifi-
cant way of also appreciating the sensory experiences of societies beyond the urban
and the rural of the Global North.
nderstanding Communities and Cultures That Base Their

U
Relationship with Nature on Sensory Experiences
In the Introduction, we referred to methods that aim to be ‘inclusive’. This is essen-

tial for research that is entered into in the spirit of partnership which, as Wilding
(2012: 375) puts it, might be ‘more about facilitating communities of learning’ and
‘less about individual researchers gathering data from research subjects’ and keen
to extend ‘the forms of knowledge that are acceptable as evidence’. This aspiration
does, however, raise the question of ‘who’ decides what is acceptable as a method
or evidence? Franko Aas (2012: 6) has written of the ‘seemingly context-free nature
of western social theory and its assumptions about the universality of its knowledge
production’, and it is this matter of context that methodological design needs to be
sensitive to in order to (a) gather data appropriately; (b) free theory from its northern
anchors; and (c) create new, or understand existing, knowledge that is not dependent
upon processes of appropriation, redefinition, and displacement.
We are not in a post-colonial age; the colonial and the colonizers have not disap-
peared. As Smith (1991: 1) writes, ‘The ways in which scientific research is impli-
cated in the worst excesses of colonialism remains a powerful remembered history
for many of the world’s colonized peoples”. Exploitative research has a history of
leaving various forms of devastation behind—and the legacies can linger on.
Research that aims to be careful to avoid marginalization and offence can still seem
to reflect approaches associated with European imperialism and colonialism (Smith,
1991: 1)—particularly if the chosen methods cannot engage with and appreciate the
difference and depth of symbolism and imagination in other cultures and contexts.
This challenge applies to all disciplines but perhaps most obviously to those, such
as archaeology, that are based on the investigation or indeed ‘excavation’ of arte-
facts or landscapes that represent past and present contours of Indigenous knowl-
edge. As Bruchac (2014: 3814) observed and recommended:
Over time, Indigenous peoples around the world have preserved distinctive understandings,
rooted in cultural experience, that guide relations among human, non-human, and other-
than human beings in specific ecosystems.… Archaeologists conducting excavations in
Indigenous locales may uncover physical evidence of Indigenous knowledge (e.g., artifacts,
landscape modifications, ritual markers, stone carvings, faunal remains), but the meaning of
this evidence may not be obvious to non-Indigenous or non-local investigators.
Such research needs partnership, trust, and understanding—as well as the shar-
ing of language(s) and of the sensorial ways of understanding life, death, the cycles
that join these, and the worlds of nature with which everything intertwines. The
traditional narratives of many Indigenous peoples will be based on experiences of
nature and the significance of flora, fauna, wind, rain, sun, and the sounds of the
spirits of the forest (Goyes et al., 2021). This is a way of living based on ‘making
sense’ of what is presented to the senses.
‘Ways of Sensing’6: Sensory Methods and Indigenous Cultures
Howes and Classen (1991, n.d.) provide an invaluable overview of methods for
‘doing sensory anthropology’ and point out that ‘Sensory orders are not static: they
develop and change over time, just as cultures do’ and in pursuing observational
fieldwork, a key starting point is to ask, ‘Which senses are emphasized and which
senses are repressed, by what means and to which ends?’ Several steps may be taken
to address the problem of sensory bias based on one’s culture of origin that will arise
in adopting a sensory methodological orientation—the first being to recognize this
challenge and the second being to develop openness to ‘a multiplicity of sensory
expressions’.
This kind of awareness can be cultivated by taking some object in one’s environ-
ment and disengaging one’s attention from the object itself to focus on how each of
its sensory properties would impinge on one’s consciousness were they not filtered
in any way…. The third step involves developing the capacity to be ‘of two senso-
ria’ about things, which means being able to operate with complete awareness in
two perceptual systems or sensory orders simultaneously (the sensory order of one’s
own culture and that of the culture studied), and constantly comparing notes.
Different cultures have different ways of sensing or, indeed, will express an
understanding and use of more than five senses. Becoming familiar with the sensory
profile of a culture can involve analysis based on various features of expression and
interaction. For example, in relation to language, ‘Which sensory perceptions have
the greatest vocabulary allotted to them (sounds, colours, odours)?’ and ‘How are
the senses used in metaphors and expressions?’ In a study by Majid and Kruspe
(2018: 409), the methods employed were designed to explore the ‘evolution of
6
This subtitle is borrowed from Howes and Classen’s (2014) Ways of Sensing but is also intended
as an acknowledgment of the influence of Berger’s Ways of Seeing (2008 [1972]) on our approach
to the ‘visual’.
dedicated olfactory vocabulary and the improved ability to name odours’ among
two hunter-gatherer communities in the Malay peninsula compared to English-
speaking US respondents—the former having a more extensive set of descriptors
than the latter. The researchers set up a comparison experiment based on odour- and
colour-naming and measured ‘naming performance by calculating agreement
between speakers in their descriptions’ (Majid & Kruspe, 2018: 409).
Perhaps in all cultures, it is taste that invites and stimulates imaginative descrip-
tion, but there is also a ‘sensory role’ for ‘taste (and food more widely) in creating
difference and belonging’ as shown in Walmsley’s (2005: 43) study in a small city
in northwest Ecuador with a predominantly Black population. Race, place, identity,
and taste are intertwined, and perhaps the most appropriate methodology for under-
standing this weave is ethnography.
In relation to what is visually striking or important, interpretation needs to jetti-
son the instinctive basis of a cultural reading—for example, in relation to what is
regarded as ‘beauty’—and ask, ‘What do a culture’s aesthetic ideals suggest about
the value it attaches to the different senses?’ and ‘How are the senses represented
and evoked…by a culture’s artefacts?’ (Howes & Classen, 1991, n.d.). It is also
important to be aware of ways in which ‘the natural environment’ influences per-
ception, which ‘may call for the use of some senses more than others, or in any
event in different ways from our own’. As described above, there are an increasing
number of texts and approaches that show how our senses are attuned to our natural
environment and how they can also be dulled and distorted by the damage done to
this environment—a point to which we return in our conclusion.
Conclusion
Confronting the range of issues of environmental harm (from the local to the global)
requires interdisciplinary theoretical and methodological tools to describe and
understand phenomena whose origin and extent may be difficult to grasp. The envi-
ronmental harms discussed (or not, as the case may be) in the media and in daily
conversations are often the product of conversations between people who share the
same beliefs and ideas. If such concentration and homogenization of images and
imaginaries also contribute to normalizing—with clichéd visual representations—
‘a certain anthropocentric and harmful human-environment relationship, while at
the same time…a limited account of the diversity of environmental destruction and
despoliation’ (Brisman, 2017b: 529), we might ask: How can we learn something
new? How can we meet and listen to the multiplicity of ‘images’ that people articu-
late when they negotiate such an elusive, and hard-to-visualize, issue as environ-
mental harms?
If it is true that ‘the capacity of images to affect us as viewers and consumers is
dependent on the broader cultural meanings they invoke and the social, political and
cultural contexts in which they are viewed’ (Sturken & Cartwright, 2001: 25), then
the methodology described in this chapter can help researchers and participants to
develop reflexivity and a personal narrative with respect to the multiple and multi-
sensorial images which contribute to making visible or, in some cases, invisible,
environmental harms and injustice (see also Brisman, 2014; Brown, 2017a; Natali,
2013). It is in this space that the role of the ‘visual scholar’, who studies the percep-
tions of multisensorial images of environmental harm and risk (see Brown 2017b),
can contribute to creating a reflexive and critical distance, initiating public dialogues
thanks also to visual and sensory methodologies.
Social research methodology has been for too long ill-equipped to deal with the
visual, sensory, and mobile phenomena which characterize contemporary societies
and the pace and scale of the changes that these societies face (Anzoise, 2017). As
a social science, criminology needs to reimagine itself and its methods because ‘the
social-and-physical changes in the world are—and need to be—paralleled by
changes in the methods of social inquiry’ (Law & Urry, 2004: 390). Exploring what
these multiple images and multi-sensorial experiences elicit—and undertaking such
explorations with the people who encounter them—as consumers, interpreters, per-
petrators, spectators, and victims—can be a step towards understanding the scope
and meaning of the harm to our natural world.
References
Aas, K. F. (2012). ‘The Earth is one but the world is not’: Criminological theory and its geopoliti-
cal divisions. Theoretical Criminology, 16(1), 5–20.
Anzoise, V. (2017). Introduction: Exploring new perspectives in the study of social and environ-
mental change. Visual Methodologies, 5(2), 1–7.
Arce, N., & Long, N. (2000). Reconfiguring modernity and development from an anthropologi-
cal perspective. In N. Arce & N. Long (Eds.), Anthropology, development and modernities
(pp. 1–32). Routledge.
Atkinson, R., & Millington, G. (2019). Urban criminology. Routledge.
Back, L. (2007). The art of listening. Bloomsbury.
Barthes, R. (1978). Image-music-text. Hill & Wang.
Barthes, R. (2000 [1980]). Camera Lucida. Reflections on photography. Vintage.
Becker, H. (1974). Photography and sociology. Studies in the Anthropology of Visual
Communication, 1, 3–26.
Beirne, P. (2015). Hogarth’s Art of Animal Cruelty. Satire, Suffering and Pictorial Propaganda.
UK: Palgrave Macmillan
Berger, J. (1991 [1980]). About looking. Vintage International.
Berger, J. (2008 [1972]). Ways of seeing. Penguin.
Blumer, H. (1969). Symbolic interactionism: Perspective and method. Prentice Hall.
Brisman, A. (2014). The visual acuity of climate change. In P. Davies, P. Francis, & T. Wyatt
(Eds.), Invisible crimes and social harms (pp. 61–80). Palgrave Macmillan.
Brisman, A. (2017a). On narrative and green cultural criminology. International Journal for
Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 6(2), 64–77.
Brisman, A. (2017b). Representations of environmental crime and harm. A green cultural crimi-
nological perspective on human-altered landscapes. In M. Brown & E. Carrabine (Eds.),
Routledge international handbook of visual criminology (pp. 523–539). Routledge.
Brisman, A. (2020). Immunity to environmental crime, harm and violence: An ongoing pandemic
and a possible narrative vaccine. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative
Criminology, 0306624X20970885.
Brisman, A., & South, N. (2014). Green cultural criminology. Constructions of environmental
harm, consumerism and resistance to ecocide. Routledge.
Brisman, A., Ruiz, A. G., McClanahan, B., & South, N. (2021). Exploring sound and noise in the
urban environment: Tensions between cultural expression and municipal control, health and
inequality, police power and resistance. In N. Peršak & A. Di Ronco (Eds.), Harm and disorder
in the urban space: Social control, sense and sensibility (pp. 15–29). Routledge.
Brown, M. (2017a). Visual criminology. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Criminology.
https://oxfordre.com/criminology/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264079.001.0001/
acrefore-9780190264079-e-206?product=orecri. Accessed 11 Jan 2022.
Brown, M. (2017b). The criminologist as a visual scholar in a global mediascape. In M. Brown &
E. Carrabine (Eds.), Routledge international handbook of visual criminology (pp. 486–496).
Routledge.
Brown, M., & Carrabine, E. (2017a). Introducing visual criminology. In M. Brown & E. Carrabine
(Eds.), Routledge international handbook of visual criminology (pp. 1–9). Routledge.
Brown, M., & Carrabine, E. (Eds.). (2017b). Routledge international handbook of visual criminol-
ogy. Routledge.
Brown, M., & Carrabine, E. (2019). The critical foundations of visual criminology: The state, cri-
sis, and the sensory. Critical Criminology: An International Journal, 27(1), 191–205.
Bruchac, M. M. (2014). Indigenous knowledge and traditional knowledge. In C. Smith (Ed.),
Encyclopedia of global archaeology (pp. 3814–3824). Springer Science and Business Media.
Carrabine, E. (2017). Social science and visual culture. In M. Brown, E. Carrabine, & E. (Eds.),
Routledge international handbook of visual criminology (pp. 23–39). Routledge.
Charrière, H. (2011). Papillon. Robert Laffont Publishing.
Classen, C. (1997). Foundations for an anthropology of the senses. International Social Science
Journal, 49(3), 401–414.
Cooper, E., Cook, I. R., & Bilby, C. (2018). Sex work, sensory urbanism and visual criminology:
Exploring the role of the senses in shaping residential perceptions of brothels in Blackpool.
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 42(3), 373–389.
Degen, M. M., & Rose, G. (2012). The sensory experiencing of Urban Design: The role of walking
and perceptual memory. Urban Studies, 49(15), 3271–3287.
Di Ronco, A., & Peršak, N. (2021). When the city smells: Perceptions of decay and physical disor-
der in Rome. In N. Peršak, A. Di Ronco, & A. (Eds.), Harm and disorder in the urban space:
Social control, sense and sensibility (pp. 101–120). Routledge.
Fatsis, L. (2021). Sounds dangerous: Black music subcultures as victims of state regulation and
social control. In N. Peršak & A. Di Ronco (Eds.), Harm and disorder in the urban space:
Social control, sense and sensibility (pp. 30–51). Routledge.
García Ruiz, A., & South, N. (2018). Surrounded by sound: Noise, rights and environments. Crime
Media Culture, 15(1), 125–141.
Genet, J. (1965). The thief’s journal (B. Frechtman, Trans). Penguin.
Goyes, D., Abaibira, M., Baicué, P., Cuchimba, A., Ñeñetofe, D., Sollund, R., South, N., &
Wyatt, T. (2021). Southern green cultural criminology and environmental crime preven-
tion: Representations of nature within four Colombian indigenous communities. Critical
Criminology: An International Journal, 29(3), 469–485. Online first https://doi.org/10.1007/
s10612-021-09582-0
Hariman, R., & Lucaites, J. L. (2007). No caption needed. Iconic photographs, public culture, and
Liberal democracy. University of Chicago Press.
Harper, D. (1988). Visual sociology: Expanding sociological vision. The American Sociologist,
19(1), 54–70.
Harper, D. (2001). Changing works: Visions of a lost agriculture. University of Chicago Press.
Harper, D. (2012). Visual sociology. Routledge.

Hayward, K., & Presdee, M. (Eds.). (2010). Framing crime: Cultural criminology and the image.
Routledge.
Hillyard, S. (2007). The sociology of rural life. Berg.
Howes, D., & Classen, C. (1991). ‘Sounding sensory profiles’, epilogue. In D. Howes (Ed.), The
varieties of sensory experience. University of Toronto Press.
Howes, D., & Classen, C. (2014). Ways of sensing. Routledge.
Howes, D., & Classen, C. (n.d.). Doing sensory anthropology – Sensory studies’. https://www.
sensorystudies.org/sensorial-investigations/doing-sensory-anthropology/
Ingold, T. (2000). The perception of the environment: Essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill.
Routledge.
Irving, A. (2011). Strange distance: Towards an anthropology of interior dialogue. Medical
Anthropology Quarterly, 25(1), 22–44.
Jacobsen, M.H. (Ed.) (2014).The Poetics of Crime: Understanding and Researching Crime and
Deviance Through Creative Sources. Surrey, UK: Ashgate
Jewkes, Y., & Young, A. (2021). Sensory reflections on a Japanese prison. In K. Herrity,
B. E. Schmidt, & J. Warr (Eds.), Sensory Penalities: Exploring the senses in spaces of punish-
ment and social control. Emerald Publishing Limited.
Kearns, R. (2010). Seeing with clarity: Undertaking observational research. In I. Hay (Ed.),
Qualitative research methods in human geography. Oxford University Press.
Labelle, B. (2010). Acoustic territories: Sound culture and everyday life. Bloomsbury.
Law, J., & Urry, J. (2004). Enacting the social. Economy and Society, 33(3), 390–410.
Lee, M. (2021). This is not a drill: Towards a sonic and sensorial Musicriminology. Crime Media
Culture. https://doi.org/10.1177/17416590211030679
Lee, M., Jackson, J., & Ellis, J. R. (2021). Everyday aesthetics, space, and the sensory: Fear of
crime and affect in inner Sydney. Journal of Qualitative Criminal Justice and Criminology.
https://doi.org/10.21428/88de04a1.642fcdd9
Majid, A., & Kruspe, N. (2018). Hunter-gatherer olfaction is special. Current Biology, 28, 409–413.
McClanahan, B. (2020). Earth–world–planet: Rural ecologies of horror and dark green criminol-
ogy. Theoretical Criminology, 24(4), 633–650.
McClanahan, B. (2021). Visual Criminology. Policy Press.
McClanahan, B., & South, N. (2020). ‘All knowledge begins with the senses’: Towards a sensory
criminology. The British Journal of Criminology, 60(1), 3–23.
McKay, C. (2018). Video links from prison: Court “appearance” within carceral space. Law,
Culture and the Humanities, 14(2), 242–262.
Millie, A. (2017). Urban interventionism as a challenge to aesthetic order: Towards an aesthetic
criminology. Crime Media Culture, 13(1), 3–20.
Millie, A. (2019). Crimes of the senses: Yarn bombing and aesthetic criminology. The British
Journal of Criminology, 59(6), 1269–1287.
Moran, D. (2017). Carceral geography and the spatialization of carceral studies. In M. Brown &
E. Carrabine (Eds.), Routledge international handbook of visual criminology (pp. 89–100).
Routledge.
Natali, L. (2013, Autumn). Exploring environmental activism: A visual qualitative approach from
an eco-global and green-cultural criminological perspective. CRIMSOC: the Journal of Social
Criminology. Special Issue: ‘Green Criminology’, Waterside Press, 64–100.
Natali, L. (2016a). Soliloqui itineranti e ‘green cultural criminology’. Un approccio visuale e sen-
soriale alle esperienze di vittimizzazione ambientale. Studi Culturali, 3(December), 339–368.
Natali, L. (2016b). A visual approach for green criminology: Exploring the social perception of
environmental harm. Palgrave Macmillan.
Natali, L. (2021). Visual and sensory methodologies to explore environmental harm and victim-
ization. In P. Davies, P. Leighton, & T. Wyatt (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of social harm
(pp. 139–165). Palgrave Macmillan.
Natali, L., & McClanahan, B. (2017). Perceiving and communicating environmental contamina-
tion and change: Towards a green cultural criminology with images. Critical Criminology: An
International Journal, 25(2), 199–214.
Natali, L., & McClanahan, B. (2020). The visual dimensions of green criminology. In A. Brisman &
N. South (Eds.), Routledge international handbook of green criminology (2nd ed., pp. 95–109).
Routledge.
Natali, L., Acito, G., Mutti, C., & Anzoise, V. (2021). A visual and sensory participatory methodol-
ogy to explore social perceptions: A case study of the san Vittore prison in Milan, Italy. Critical
Criminology, 29, 783–800. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-020-09508-2
Neocleous, M. (2011). The smell of power: A contribution to the critique of the sniffer dog. Radical
Philosophy, 167(May/June), 9–14.
Nobo, C. C., & Pfeffer, R. D. (2012). Natural disasters and crime: Criminological lessons from hur-
ricane Katrina. In R. White (Ed.), Climate change from a criminological perspective. Springer.
O’Neill, M. (2017). Asylum seekers and moving images. Walking, sensorial encounters and visual
criminology. In M. Brown & E. Carrabine (Eds.), Routledge international handbook of visual
criminology (pp. 389–403). Routledge.
Pauwels, L. (2011). An integrated conceptual framework for visual social research. In E. Margolis
& L. Pauwels (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of visual research methods. Sage.
Pauwels, L. (2017). Key methods of visual criminology. An overview of different approaches and
their affordances. In M. Brown & E. Carrabine (Eds.), Routledge international handbook of
visual criminology. Routledge.
Peyrefitte, M. (2012). Ways of seeing, ways of being and ways of knowing in the inner-city:
Exploring sense of place through visual tours. Sociological Research Online, 17(4), 1–17.
Pink, S. (2008). An urban tour. The sensory sociality of ethnographic place-making. Ethnography,
9, 175–196.
Presdee, M. (2004). Cultural criminology: The long and winding road. Theoretical Criminology,
8(3), 275–285.
Rafter, N. (2014). Introduction to special issue on visual culture and the iconography of crime and
punishment. Theoretical Criminology, 18, 127–133.
Redmon, D. (2017). Documentary criminology: Girl model as a case study. Crime Media Culture,
13(3), 357–374.
Rigakos, G. S., & Frauley, J. (2011). Toward a post-empiricist criminology. In A. Doyle &
D. Moore (Eds.), Critical criminology in Canada: New voices, new directions (pp. 243–268).
University of British Columbia Press.
Robins, K. (1996). Into the image: Culture and politics in the field of vision. Routledge.
Rose, G. (2012). Visual methodologies. An introduction to researching with visual materials. Sage.
Russell, E. K., & Carlton, B. (2020). Counter-carceral acoustemologies: Sound, permeability and
feminist protest at the prison boundary. Theoretical Criminology, 24(2), 296–313.
Russell, E. K., & Rae, M. (2020). Indefinite stuckness: Listening in a time of hyper-incarceration
and border entrapment. Punishment & Society, 22(3), 281–301
Presser, L. & Sandberg, S. (Eds.). (2015). Narrative criminology: Understanding stories of crimes.
NYU Press.
Shalhoub-Kevorkian, N. (2017). The occupation of the senses: The prosthetic and aesthetic of state
terror. The British Journal of Criminology, 57(6), 1279–1300.
Short, D., & Szolucha, A. (2019). Fracking Lancashire: The planning process, social harm and
collective trauma. Geoforum, 98, 264–276.
Shortell, T., & Brown, E. (Eds.). (2014). Walking in the European City. Quotidian mobility and
urban ethnography. Ashgate.
Sloterdijk, P. (2009). Terror from the Air. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e).
Smith, L. T. (1991). Decolonizing methodologies. Zed Books.
Solzhenitsyn, A. (1971). One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich. Macmillan.
Solzhenitsyn, A. I. (2003). The gulag archipelago, 1918–56: An experiment in literary investiga-
tion. Random House.
South, N. (2017). Monstrous nature. A meeting of gothic, green and cultural criminologies. In
M. Brown & E. Carrabine (Eds.), Routledge international handbook of visual criminology
Strangleman, T. (2004). Ways of (not) seeing work: the visual as a blind spot in WES? Work,
Employment and Society, 18(1), 179–192.
Sturken, M., & Cartwright, L. (2001). Practices of looking: An introduction to visual culture.
Oxford University Press. http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0612/2001021099-d.html
Todd, Z., & Harrison, S. (2008). Metaphor analysis. In S. Hesse-Biber & P. Leavy (Eds.), Handbook
of emergent methods. The Guilford Press.
Umamaheswar, J. (2020). “Changing the channel”: Hybrid masculinity in a men’s prison.
Incarceration, 1(2), 2632666320957854
Walklate, S. (2018). Criminology, gender and risk: The dilemmas of northern theorising for south-
ern responses to intimate partner violence. International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social
Democracy, 7(1), 1–14.
Walmsley, E. (2005). Race, place and taste: Making identities through sensory experience in
Ecuador. Etnofoor, 18(1), 43–60.
Wilding, N. (2012). Experiments in action-research and human ecology: Developing a community
of practice for rural resilience pioneers. In L. Williams, R. Roberts, and A. McIntosh (Eds.),
Radical Human Ecology: Intercultural and indigenous approaches, (Pp. 373–396). Farnham,
UK: Ashgate.
Xiao, J., Tait, M., & Kang, J. (2020). Understanding smellscapes: Sense-making of smell-
triggered emotions in place. Emotion, Space and Society, 37. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
emospa.2020.100710
Young, A. (2019). Japanese atmospheres of criminal justice. The British Journal of Criminology,
59(4), 765–779.
Young, A. (2021). The limits of the city: Atmospheres of lockdown. The British Journal of
Criminology, 61(4), 985–1004
Lorenzo Natali is an Associate Professor of Criminology at the School of Law, University of

Milano-Bicocca, Italy. His research focuses on violent crime, symbolic and radical interactionism,
green criminology, narrative criminology, and qualitative and interdisciplinary approaches, includ-
ing visual and sensory methodologies. He is the author of A Visual Approach for Green Criminology.
Exploring the Social Perception of Environmental Harm (Palgrave, 2016), Cosmologías violentas.
Itinerarios criminológicos (with Adolfo Ceretti) (Marcial Pons, 2016) and Green Criminology:
Prospettive Emergenti sui Crimini Ambientali (Giappichelli, 2015). Co-edited with M. de Nardin
Budó, D. Rodriguez Goyes, R. Sollund, and A. Brisman, Introdução à criminologia verde:
Perspectivas críticas, descoloniais e do Sul, Tirant Brasil (2022).
Nigel South is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex. He has made various
contributions to the development of ‘Green’ and ‘Sensory’ Criminologies including (with Brisman:
2014) Green Cultural Criminology, and (with McClanahan: 2019) ‘‘All knowledge begins with the
senses’: Toward a sensory criminology’, British Journal of Criminology. In 2022 he received the
‘Outstanding Achievement Award’ from the British Society of Criminology and in 2013 received
a ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ from the American Society of Criminology, Division on Critical
Criminology and Social Justice.
Bill McClanahan is an Associate Professor in the School of Justice Studies and Faculty Affiliate
in Appalachian Studies at Eastern Kentucky University, where he writes at the intersections of
ecology, police and police power, and contemporary visual culture. He is the author of Visual
Criminology (2021) and a coauthor of Water, Crime, and Security in the Twenty-First Century: Too
Dirty, Too Little, Too Much (2018).
Avi Brisman (MFA, JD, PhD) is a Professor in the School of Justice Studies at Eastern Kentucky
University (Richmond, Kentucky, USA), an Adjunct Professor in the School of Justice at
Queensland University of Technology (Brisbane, Queensland, Australia), an Honorary Professor at
Newcastle Law School at the University of Newcastle (Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia),
and a University Fellow at the Centre of Law and Social Justice at the University of Newcastle
(Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia). He is also Associate Editor of Crime Media Culture,
Book Review Editor of the International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, and
Immediate Past Editor-in-Chief of Critical Criminology: An International Journal. His most recent
books are Fieldnotes on a Study of Young People’s Perceptions of Crime and Justice: Scaffolding
as Structure (Routledge, 2022), and Introdução à criminologia verde: Perspectivas críticas, deco-
loniais e do Sul [Introduction to Green Criminology: Critical, Decolonial and Southern] (Tirant Lo
Blanch, 2021), co-edited with Marília de Nardin Budó, David Rodríguez Goyes, Lorenzo Natali,
and Ragnhild Sollund.
Part IV
The Connecting Power of Languages
Overview
Qualitative data and analysis are sensitive to local realities and experiences. While
analysis drawn from qualitative data cannot and should not aim at extrapolation, it
can provide nuanced accounts of how reality unfolds and is experienced by social
groups in particular linguistic, cultural, and subcultural settings. Simultaneously,
qualitative analysis is well prepared to describe how these features create frame-
works for meaning attribution and for action, eventually generated from how words
shape and deepen exclusion, stigmatization, and labelling of people involved in the
justice system or other detention and monitoring systems. Or as Cohen (1998,
p. 236) somehow suggests, the “discourse of criminology” is one of criminalization,
problematization, and social scientists play a role in such processes embedded in
power and knowledge, which have already been thoroughly discussed earlier by
Foucault when looking for answers to what is science, what are theories and con-
cepts, what are texts (1969), or, later, when making apparent the inextricable
knowledge-power relationship (1975). But growing pragmatism in twenty-first cen-
tury western countries, longing for value-for-money research, should neither hinder
reflexivity (Armstrong et al., 2017) nor the ability to critique the forming and trans-
forming power of doing Criminology.
The chapters that follow take a close look at how languages (expressed in their
widest meaning) not only shape, form, create, and generate but also bias, stigmatize,
or expel. Furthermore, they offer insights into how science, particularly criminol-
ogy, is done, offering morsels of the world by calling it result or knowledge. The
paper by Leimbach and Bögelein proposes the project of a reconstructive qualitative
approach in criminology, designed in such a way as to raise awareness of how this
field of study participates in inequal knowledge creation. Daring to offer epistemo-
logical and methodological critique, the paper is both an essay and a program to rid
criminological research of bias and stigmatization from the outset of posing a
research question and delineating a social “problem.”
162 IV The Connecting Power of Languages
The Hill and Potter chapter might be best integrated together with contributions
on visual criminology. And while it is, without a doubt, a particularly useful account
of how to use photography in research, pinpointing the multitude of ways it can be
used, it adds an extra layer of complexity. It clearly shows the epistemological,
methodological, and ethical difficulties of conducting research with active offenders
in cultural settings which are not totally familiar to the researcher. The paper dis-
cusses the relevance criminology gives to offenders and offending, how it deals with
the sensitive nature of the topics studied, and it reasons about potential negative
consequences (including stigmatization, criminal liability to participants, social
exclusion) that may arise from what can be considered, at first sight, mere technical
choices such as choosing to use or not to use a particular photo in the dissemination
of results.
Closing Part IV is a paper by Olga Petintseva that, by conceiving language as a
social practice, follows on the previous chapters and offers how to guidance for
criminologists conducting critical discourse analysis, a methodological option for
inquiring into dominant representations, silences and voices unheard, daily activi-
ties imbued in the structural order, and much more. The clarity and structure of the
paper allows readers to have a step-by-step approach on how to research dense and
complex topics, together with a practical perspective on linguistics, thus promising
a rigorous, coherent, and credible method to analyze complex data and social
realities.
As the future unfolds, a series of recent events may leave us guessing about
upcoming trends for the power of language. Recent social trends seem to encapsu-
late a dual movement. On the one hand, the silencing or de-nuancing of narratives,
stories, or opinions through actions such as cancel culture, political correctness, the
polarization of political discourse, and fake news. On the other hand, the complexi-
fication and forefront of counter-narratives born from the growing attention given to
and sought by feminist and minority social movements (e.g., LGBTQI+ or racial-
ized groups) add extra layers and more complexity to discourses about power, social
problems, harms, and victimization, while offering “new languages” to be heard,
inclusively by criminology. Add to this the recognition that some victims, such as
nonhuman species and ecosystems overall, and those regarding environmental
crimes and harms, are still looking for a forum to be heard, despite the claim that we
are living in a climate emergency. In sum, languages will continue to be for crimi-
nology, as well as for other social sciences, a rich substratum for analysis and
critique.
References
Armstrong, S., Blaustein, J., & Henry, A. (2017). Impact and the reflexive imperative in criminal
justice policy, practice and research. In S. Armstrong, J. Blaustein, & A. Henry (Eds.).
Reflexivity and criminal justice. Intersections of police, practice and research (pp. 1–30).
Palgrave Macmillan.
IV The Connecting Power of Languages 163
Cohen, S. (1998). Against criminology. Transaction Publishers (4th printing, 2009).

Foucault, M. (1969). L’Archéologie du savoir. Gallimard.
Foucault, M. (1975). Surveiller et punir. Gallimard.
Chapter 10
How to Deal with “Doing Social
Inequality” by “Doing Criminological
(Qualitative) Research”
Katharina Leimbach and Nicole Bögelein
Introduction
The connection between social inequality and criminology seems obvious if we

take a step back and examine it from a distance: Is it not one of the most apparent
findings of criminology that the lower classes commit most crimes? Is it not, then,
subsequently inevitable that criminology would concern itself with those at the
lower end of the income, wealth, and status spectrum? If things appear too obvious,
though, one should be careful, especially if one’s profession is that of a researcher.
Indeed, criminology has mostly dealt with crimes and offenses committed by mem-
bers of the lower social classes. Of course, there are major exceptions: Faria (2018),
Erp et al. (2015), and Kölbel (2018), to name but a few, but to spell out the rule
rather than pay tribute to the exceptions, we willfully and respectfully do not con-
sider those here. But there has been a great deal of discussion about whether what
we see is what we have normatively set the stage for. In other words, is the group
currently experiencing incarceration the one that has, in fact, committed the most
crimes? Or are they simply the group that has been normatively singled out for
incarceration because the offenses they commit have been inscribed into law in such
We would like to thank Nadine Jukschat for her time and discourse on this article. We would also
like to thank Nivene Raafat for proofreading an earlier version of this manuscript. Moreover, we
want to extend our gratitude to Rita Faria and Mary Dodge for their helpful comments.
K. Leimbach (*)
University of Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany
e-mail: Katharina.Leimbach@uni-bielefeld.de
N. Bögelein
University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
e-mail: nicole.boegelein@uni-koeln.de
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18401-7_10
166 K. Leimbach and N. Bögelein
a way that incarceration becomes inevitable (cf. Neubacher & Bögelein, 2021;
Wacquant, 2009)?
When considering the qualitative-criminological research history by looking at
the work of the Chicago School (Newburn, 2007), the interest in the underclass
becomes obvious. Regardless of whether deviance was framed as geographical dis-
organization (economically deprived neighborhoods) (Shaw & McKay, 1942), of
unequal opportunity structures (Cloward & Ohlin, 1960), or as a subcultural prac-
tice (Wolfgang & Ferracuti, 1967), it seemed to be the social question that guided
criminological research. The social question, in short, is a socio-philosophical con-
cept which addresses specific strains and burdens that affect the lower classes who
depend on earnings; the social question looks for an answer, so to speak a solution
for these specific problems (cf. Case, 2016). Research into deviant behavior among
the underclass includes social differences in terms of participation, status, and
agency. Foucault (1977) viewed these differences as an opportunity to sharply criti-
cize criminological research. Garland (1992) took up Foucault’s criticism of crimi-
nological research, arguing that it uses individual differentiations as a reason to
legitimize measures of disciplining and asserting that criminological research had
focused on differentiations to such an extent that this criticism could not be general-
ized. Garland was no more concerned with underestimating the normativity and
power of criminological research than we are. But he showed in detail that criminol-
ogy is not only a “disciplinary science” but also an expression of knowledge, which
represents a generally valid understanding of deviance and delinquency (Garland,
1992, p. 420). We therefore want to elaborate a (reconstructive) qualitative approach
to increase awareness of the participation of inequality structures in knowledge con-
stitution and to show how this can be dealt with methodologically. Undoubtedly,
criminological research contributes to powerful knowledge about individual differ-
entiations and thus reproduces social structures of inequality, but the question that
arises is: How should we deal with this as qualitative researchers with demands for
self-reflexive and open research processes? If the latter is the case, criminological
research is in danger of reproducing stereotypes and the very prejudices that have
led to the view of crime and criminals as it is today. To avoid falling into that trap,
we provide an analysis of the critical situations in any qualitative research process
that might lead to the reproduction of “knowledge” and not to situations being ana-
lytically approached in a more detached and less involved way.
Therefore, we introduce the concept of “doing social problems” from a sociol-
ogy of knowledge perspective and aim to point out the stages of the (qualitative)
research process that might cause researchers to fall into the aforementioned trap.
By introducing the concept of reconstructive research, we also provide an approach
that helps researchers avoid this pitfall. It will be demonstrated that a concept other
than those established in the labeling approach is needed to understand and analyti-
cally consider one’s own entanglements in the reproduction of inequality structures
by doing criminological research. Finally, our methodological suggestions will
10 How to Deal with “Doing Social Inequality” by “Doing Criminological… 167
show how we can learn from “doing” inequality by engaging in specific research
practices and what it tells us about criminological discursive knowledge.1
I ntroducing the Concepts of Social Inequality, Doing Social

Problems, and Reconstructive Sociology
Social Inequality
Scholars have long questioned the origin of inequality between people (e.g.,
Dahrendorf, 1967). People are different, yet inequality becomes social inequality –
and thereby relevant for social sciences – when people occupy different positions or
have different access to opportunities because of their position in the societal struc-
ture or certain individual characteristics. Gender, for example, is initially no more
than a difference. But when women are denied access to education or have lower
earning opportunities, it becomes social inequality.2 Thus, social inequality is pre-
ceded by a process of valuation; it is a product of social definitional processes and
thus not immutable but subject to change. Following Weber, Dahrendorf (1967)
explains the class position as one of authority, because opposing interests are, in
principle, associated with the sponsorship or exclusion of positions of authority. In
the case of the holders of authority, their interests become values. Dahrendorf sees
the concept of interest as an analytical concept. He understands it as the structurally
generated orientation of the behavior of the bearers of certain positions.
Dahrendorf (1967) relates to Marx and sees inequality because of domination; it
is coercion that holds together a group as a structural unit. In Dahrendorf’s theory,
the origin of social inequality lies in norms and sanctions. Power and authority nec-
essarily come first because authority must exist so that valid norms can be estab-
lished. First, there are an infinite number of values; those in charge select some of
the values and translate them into norms. When these values – which are mainly in
the interest of groups – become acknowledged as a common interest, this is
described as hegemony, a concept introduced by Gramsci (Struck et al. 2020, 324).
Conformity to norms is rewarded and the ability to conform depends on the social
position. Deviations from the existing norms are referred to as deviant, delinquent,
or criminal behavior and are sanctioned in various ways by “conforming” people.
Geißler (1994) states that, according to the theory of class law, the ruling class has
no interest in seeing those acts that are often committed by their own members
1
We refer with the term “doing inequaliy” to the ethnometodological approach of “doing gender”
by Garfinkel (1967), which was later further conceptualized by Kessler and McKenna (1978) with
reference to the interactionist and dramaturgical approach by Goffman. In criminology,
Messerschmidt (1995) has made a significant contribution to the relationsship between “doing
gender” and crime.
2
The same would be true for people who do not identify as man or woman or who identify as
transgender. But empirical research into this is yet missing.
sanctioned as strongly as those of the lower classes. Therefore, the ruling class prac-
tices appropriate penal legislation. So goes the theoretical argument. On closer
inspection, it becomes clear that punishment and criminal labeling are carried out
not only by the majority of society or by those who conform to values but also by
those who have the social status and thus the power to enforce sanctions
(Bourdieu, 1994).
Dahrendorf’s (1967) approach to social inequality, like Marx’s, includes two or
more aggregates in this set of positions. On the one hand, there is an aggregate of
positions that are in possession of legitimate power, which he calls “the ruling
class.” These are positive authority roles and represent coercive, controlling ele-
ments. The prevailing norms are projected onto this position as an expectation of
behavior, and conformism is enforced by sanction. On the other hand, there is an
aggregate of positions that are excluded from legitimate power, which is the lower
class. Mirroring the other aggregate, the lower class assume negative authority
roles, their orientation is to overcome the status quo, and they are expected to behave
contrary to the prevailing norms. They are in forced or dominated positions. This
division could also be called domination versus subordination or values versus
interests, and this division plays a crucial role in the participation of different classes
in crime. This is how – from our point of view – the connection between social
inequality and crime plays out. To understand how certain kinds of crimes become
a hot topic and how certain groups of criminals are singled out, we introduce the
concept of doing social problems.
Doing Social Problems
The preoccupation with social problems goes back to the beginnings of North
American sociology and Merton’s (1976, p. 7) definition: “Social problems are the
discrepancy between cultural standards, norms, or values and the actual conditions
of social life, a discrepancy between what should be and what is.” The sociology of
social problems follows Merton’s definition and tries to find an answer to the ques-
tions of who decides about the cultural standards in society, what determines the
actual conditions of social life, and who determines the discrepancy between the
two. It also questions whether such a decision is even possible – and how this is
closely related to social inequality. Different theoretical positions, such as “objec-
tivist,” “realist,” or “constructivist,” pursue varying focal points and research inter-
ests.3 The smallest common denominator of these positions is the phenomenological
comprehension of social problems. Thus, the term refers to social situations, condi-
tions, and social behaviors that are perceived as negative – or that challenge societal
standards, like crime (Groenemeyer, 2016). Two very different research styles con-
cerning the study of social problems need to be distinguished:
3
For a summary of theoretical issues in the study of social problems, see Best (2004).
1. The etiological approach explores the causes, conditions, and epidemiology of

social problems and its best practice processing methods. In this sense, social
problems are seen as harms, and theoretical and empirical models try to find the
probable causes.
2. The interactionist and constructivist approach envisions social problems as the
result of interactionist definition processes, by which a certain behavior is
defined as something deviant in relation to social values and norms (e.g., Becker,
1963; Lemert, 1967; Matza, 1964).4 The labeling approach5 (LA) in this frame-
work is not etiologically oriented. The LA sees deviance not as a fixed term but
as the process of attributing “deviance” to a certain kind of behavior and ana-
lyzes the attribution of norms to behavior.
This chapter presents a concept for understanding the construction of social
problems that is situated in the second approach. The concept of social problems
includes discourses as well as the meso- and macrolevels as units of investigation.
These levels have been notably combined by German sociologist Axel Groenemeyer,
who bases his concept of social problems on the analysis of institutions of social
control and social assistance. However, we show how the concept can be extended
to understand the role played by criminological research in shaping its object of
investigation. “Doing social problems” is a multistage process that describes the
application of rules, techniques, and knowledge to individual problems and difficult
situations in institutions of social control and social assistance (e.g., measures for
crime prevention) (Groenemeyer, 2012). Before problem categories can be success-
fully applied in everyday life, however, they must be successfully established in
society.6 Certain behaviors and situations must first be collectively identified as
problematic and then finally be addressed through political-administrative decisions
(in the following, see Groenemeyer, 2010, pp. 15). As a result, organizations are
generated to deal with such problems. Institutions of social control and social assis-
tance take on a life of their own while processing. In the everyday life of profession-
als, problem-solving requires the use of specialized knowledge and techniques and
presupposes certain orientations. In addition, professionals from social control
institutions have their own experiences with the addressees and adapt their actions
accordingly. This knowledge, along with public discourses, guides the everyday
interactions between professionals and addressees. Even though this interaction is
framed by power imbalances, the addressees are actively involved in problem cate-
gorization, for example, by positioning themselves in certain discourses,
4
Particularly radical representatives of this approach see social problems exclusively as social
constructions formed by discourses (Spector & Kitsuse, 1977).
5
This approach has several different names, that is, control paradigm, reaction approach, definition
approach, labeling theory.
6
The classics of sociology of social problems have developed various multiphase “career” models
for this purpose (see Fuller & Myers, 1941; Blumer, 1971; Spector & Kitsuse, 1977;
Schetsche, 1996).
Fig. 10.1 Levels of analysis of problematization processes. (authors’ depiction, see also
Groenemeyer, 2014, p. 155)
subjectivizing them, or incorporating them into their biographical self-interpreta-

tions. Figure 10.1 illustrates the interaction of problematization processes.
Groenemeyer (2014) explicates four interdependent levels of problematization
that can be integrated into criminological research. The first level means the discur-
sive knowledge of crime, formed, for example, by the media, academia, offenders,
and police officers. The second level addresses the institutions that are dealing with
delinquency in different ways. Groenemeyer (2014, pp. 152ff.) was referring to
institutions of social assistance and control, such as prevention projects, prisons,
and probation services. We argue that criminological research institutions must be
added to this list. In fact, this is the very purpose of this chapter. The third level
focuses on practices of delinquency, such as any act that is interpreted as deviant or
criminal (e.g., theft or dealing with illegal substances). Lastly, the fourth level con-
ceptualizes the experiences of deviant people with their interpretation of their own
deviant lifestyles. As the arrows in the figure illustrate, all levels are interrelated.
In the following section, we concentrate on the levels “Discourses,”
“Institutionalization,” and “Dispositives.” For this purpose, we briefly introduce the
idea of the sociological analysis of knowledge by Keller (2011).
The Sociology of Knowledge
This methodology is influenced by Berger and Luckmann’s (1967) sociology of

knowledge and Foucault’s discourse analysis. Its heuristic approach consists of the
discoursive production of knowledge and social reality, with simultaneous consid-
eration of power structures. This means that actors are seen as producers of dis-
courses and reality, while the social reality is prestructured by hegemonial discourses
(Keller, 2011).
The sociology of knowledge analysis of discourse is concerned with reconstructing the
processes which occur in social constructions, objectivization, communication, and the
legitimization of meaning structures or, in other words, of interpretation and acting struc-
tures on the institutional, organizational or social actors’ level. It is also concerned with the
analysis of the social effects of these processes. This includes various dimensions of recon-
struction: sense making as well as subject formation, ways of acting, institutional/structural
contexts, and social consequences. (Keller, 2011, p. 49)
Keller’s idea is rooted in a constructionist and interpretive tradition.7 The other

position understands the sociology of knowledge, within a constructivist framework
of thought, as the sociology of science and focuses on the specific processes of sci-
entific knowledge production (e.g., Knorr-Cetina, 1983).8 Keller (2010) understands
discoursive knowledge as a systematic supply of socially constructed knowledge,
which is solidified, objectified, and institutionalized to a certain degree.
From the perspective of the sociology of knowledge, we propose considering scientific
work as the basis and expression of the scientific construction of reality and investigating
both the more or less institutionally stabilized discursive structuring and the contextually
situated knowledge production of scientific action. (Keller & Poferl, 2020, p. 1539)
In other words, institutionally structured knowledge cultures prevail in empirical

practice and are intertwined with knowledge generation. Keller and Poferl (2020)
suggest distinguishing between discursive structuring and action orientation.
Unfortunately, identifying as an academic with a critical attitude does not protect
someone from reproducing the very problematizations one normally criticizes when
engaging with them. Below, we explore this relationship on different levels and
offer some thoughts on how to address this dilemma in research practice.
However, sensitized by these concepts and at various stages in our own research
practice, we came to the realization that the way we conduct criminological research
in Germany contributes to a specific knowledge of problematization. Following
these considerations, we want to show how criminological research itself contrib-
utes to the knowledge of problematization and must be seen as a part of societal
problematization processes. Therefore, we ask how social knowledge systems about
crime and deviance are constituted and how we, as criminologists, contribute to
them through our research practice. It is less a matter of explaining criminal behav-
ior in individual cases, but rather of analyzing reasons and ways of problematizing
certain practices described as criminal that go beyond micro-sociological labeling
theories.
7
For a historical overview of the overlapping developments of interpretivist and constructionist
theories regarding the sociology of deviance, see Nichols (2019). Although the sociology of social
problems in the international arena has gained a constructivist strand through Kitsuse and Spector
(1977), the otherwise far-reaching work of Berger and Luckmann (1967) on the sociology of
knowledge has hardly been received (Keller & Poferl, 2020, p. 143).
8
In the English-speaking world in particular, the sociology of knowledge is linked to feminist and
postcolonial approaches to “situatedness” (Haraway, 1988; Harding, 2003; Mignolo & Walsh,
2018) and its connection to the Marxist tradition of “Seinsgebundenheit” or “materiality,” which
means being determined by social being in a strictly determinist meaning (Keller & Poferl, 2020,
p. 143).
9
Translation by Katharina Leimbach.
Reconstructive Sociology
Now that we have worked out a social theoretical positioning in detail, the question
arises as to how to methodically deal with knowledge about the co-constitution of
social problems. For us, the solution lies in the principle of a reconstructive research
attitude. Only reconstructive methods have the potential to make one’s own entan-
glements visible, on the one hand, and to take them into account analytically, on the
other. We argue for the consistent application of a truly reconstructive approach
when doing criminological research. To our understanding, this is the way to over-
come the reproduction of stereotypical knowledge.
The common ground of the qualitative approaches explained previously is the
interpretive paradigm that social reality is not simply something that “is there” and
can be measured “as it is.” This paradigm takes social reality as constructed by acts
of interpretation. Research following this paradigm considered its task to explain
the underlying acts of interpretation, rather than objectively given facts (cf. Lamnek,
2010, p. 34). Based on a Weberian-inspired interpretive cultural sociology (Weber,
1980 [1920]), it seeks to attribute cultural realities to individuals’ social interpreta-
tions. The interpretive paradigm offers scope to the actor when interpreting his/her
everyday life. There is no cognitive consensus on “how the world is” – the interpre-
tation of symbols determines their meaning. In line with the interpretive paradigm,
researchers state the subjectivity of social realities and understand that both inter-
acting research partners (the researcher and the person who is the data giver) have
diverging backgrounds when it comes to sense making. Symbolic interactionism
understands the reciprocity of actions and how actors are never isolated beings but
entangled in intersubjective relations and contexts. Communication is based on
symbols, and the most powerful and widely used symbol is language – although it
is, at the same time, “conceivably unsuitable” (cf. Kruse, 2015, p. 2810) – as it is
never clear but usually ambiguous. Not only symbols are ambiguous, but norms and
values are too. Any kind of meaning is created in a process of interaction, which is
why qualitative researchers often speak of co-producing data rather than of collect-
ing data. Meaning is underlying change and evolves over time. Research is per-
ceived as communication (that is why we wonder how we do social inequality by
doing criminological research). Reconstructive researchers see their interviewee/
participant as a partner in the research process (Lamnek, 2010). “While qualitative
research examines what can be seen in the everyday life, reconstructive approaches
explore the foundations as the framework of these events. What structures these
approaches and what structures their manifestation as objectifications, regardless of
their aims and the intentions of those involved?” (Garz, 2007, p. 225; cited in Kruse,
2015, p. 2511).
10
Translation by Nicole Bögelein.
11
Translation by Nivene Raafat.
How Specific Criminological Knowledge Is Produced
To reconnect the concepts of social inequality and social problems with crimino-
logical research, it helps to turn to Smaus (1986), who emphasizes the unequal
distribution of power among different classes in terms of the relative power of crim-
inal justice authorities. To her, real negotiation takes place only in the middle class,
whereas criminality is simply assigned to the lower class. And morality activated in
interaction is expressed in the evaluation of a bad attitude, which is usually dis-
played by the lower class. A “bad attitude” in this context is one that “underper-
forms” the average routines that apply in a situation according to middle-class
standards. Meeting these expectations, again, has different effects; while this is
rewarded for middle-class members, it is not for a person belonging to a lower class.
In Smaus’ eyes, general morality shows the basic structure of society; for example,
the prohibition of any physical confrontation is aimed at the “class dangereuse,”
which must appear physically dangerous because it performs (badly paid) physical
labor. To untangle the interconnection between class and criminology, we scruti-
nize, in the following paragraphs, specific research examples that illustrate the pre-
viously abstract theoretical considerations. What is it that criminological research – at
least in Germany, but also in other parts of the world – typically focuses on? Here
are a few examples.
When crime is discussed and researched, the focus is usually on men – but not
male managers, male politicians, or other men belonging to the upper class. It is
mostly men from a lower class who face multiple problems in their lives. Why is
this? It might have to do with the way criminology accesses its participants. In most
cases, when researchers want to learn about drug dealing, they will head to a prison
and ask to speak to a person who is imprisoned for a related offense (as was done by
Bögelein & Meier, 2018; Dickinson & Wright, 2015; Fleetwood, 2014; Moeller &
Sandberg, 2015). The same happened in the “Radicalization within the Digital Age”
research alliance, to which both authors belonged, albeit in different sub-projects,
when wanting to find out more about radicalization processes. One of the two
authors is again involved in a new governmental research project, which aims to
conduct interviews with offenders from organized crime groups in prison. What
happens here can be criticized by drawing on the labeling approach. Researchers
make use of labels that were meted out by criminal justice agencies, and by talking
only to persons who have been tagged as “criminals,” research reproduces, and pos-
sibly reinforces, power relations and stereotypes that have long endured.
Furthermore, this definition created by others does not necessarily correspond to the
actors’ self-definition. Despite reflections on this in a chapter, it will still be written
that “research found out that…,” or “studies have demonstrated what criminal jus-
tice agencies see….” All of this happens often with the best of intentions, but when
not reflected in depth, it has serious consequences for the understanding of the phe-
nomenon and possibly for opportunities available to some to live their lives later –
maybe affecting a whole group of people.
For the longest time, the discipline reproduced gender stereotypes by studying
men and their criminal behavior. If women were looked at, it was usually to show
the otherness: to look at gender differences, at how women’s crime is different. The
legal professions did so by imagining a “reasonable man” who became a “suppos-
edly gender-neutral legal abstraction with male status” (Naffine, 2016 [1987], p. 4).
All this was accompanied by studies that simply looked at differences in female
behavior but not at differences in constructing females or at women (for criticism,
see Sharp & Haley, 2007). This has changed little over the past few years when it
comes to mainstream criminology. When studying prisons, researchers implicitly
state that there is cohesion and community among women, without making this
claim explicit (for critique, see Neuber, 2020). Due to their small numbers (regu-
larly, no more than 6% of prisoners are female in most European countries), female
prisoners are often treated as an appendix to male prisons. The path into prison is
often described as one usually connected with victimization and trauma, thus show-
ing women’s fates to be determined by circumstance and allowing for no self-
efficacy, which usually describes male prisoners’ criminal pathways (for a critical
overview, see Neuber, 2020). Qualitative research would benefit by embracing an
ethnomethodological approach (cf. Micus-Loos, 2018) that realizes that gender is
not something someone is or has, but something one does: It is the very performa-
tive dimension of gender itself that is of interest. Something that helps here is the
concept of “hegemonic masculinity” (cf. Connell, 1995), which states that mascu-
linity is a “position in gender relations” and questions the practices through which
men fulfill it. Hegemonic masculinity is a cultural concept that includes male domi-
nance, a complementary and hierarchical division of labor, and heterosexuality as
the main orientation pattern of male practices. Perhaps, male violent behavior is
best understood as one that follows this pattern, and violence occurs to secure domi-
nance. At the heterosocial level, it is to preserve the dominance of men over women.
Violence is thus a means to assure and demonstrate one’s masculinity. Consequently,
female violence often stands in opposition to traditional roles of femininity. In
stressful biographical experiences or in adolescent conflicts, it is used to ward off
powerlessness, devaluation, and humiliation (cf. Micus-Loos, 2018).
When not aware of circumstances and overarching paradigms, such as institu-
tionalized racism, studies might incorporate the very cause in their explanations, for
example, when studies on sentencing disparities between nationals and nonnation-
als explain the differences with prior convictions, which were, in fact, caused by
institutionalized racism (for a critical assessment, see Murukama & Beckett, 2010).
The same might occur in the fields of radicalization and organized crime studies:
When investigating these areas, the very prejudices leading to criminalization might
end up being factors that researchers rediscover.
The same happens when we access radicalized people in prison to better under-
stand the process. By doing so, researchers again apply concepts from others (e.g.,
researchers, policy makers, police officers, judges) to the radicalization process;
especially when speaking to people who were considered by others to be radicalized
into Islam, this proved to be quite problematic (Larsen, 2019; Leschkar, 2019).
Going via gatekeepers who work for exit programs allows us to learn what
practitioners see as they lead us to those people who have shown an interest in or
were pointed to their programs. Any definition of “radicalism” or “danger” is unfail-
ingly political and needs to be set in relation to the interests of national security
agencies (cf. this part in Meier et al., 2021). “Radicalization” can be described as a
“hegemonial paradigm” due to its normativity (cf. Jukschat & Leimbach, 2019,
p. 11). “Radicalized” individuals are constructed as a problematic group (see
Coppock & McGovern, 2014; Leimbach, 2019), and deradicalization and exit pro-
grams are often rooted in neoliberal governmentality practices (see Elshimi, 2015).
Engaging in research with people who have been labeled or who self-identify as
“radical” means having to concern oneself with this label.
Another aspect is how research often follows public calls for funding and,
thereby, a “political claim making” (cf. Bögelein et al., 2021). By doing so, research-
ers tend to focus on what policymakers identify as a “hot topic.” Examples of this
are radicalization (especially Islamist radicalization). Researchers in these situa-
tions embrace these topics and create a body of literature. This body of literature can
then be used as “proof” to co-create a reality.
To return to our argument, we understand that criminological research necessar-
ily needs to be aware of the potential harm of doing social inequality. And, as the
saying goes, the only way out is right through. Researchers will not be able to over-
come or ignore this; therefore, they need to apply a great deal of openness, reflexiv-
ity, and reconstruction to understand and learn about their field of interest. It is
crucial to not only start analysis when interview transcripts are there but also reflect
all structures that make themselves known in the process: How open or clandestine
is the field? Is it easy to learn about it or must one engage with specific experts to
understand more? Are those involved in the field reluctant to speak to researchers?
Or are they open as they have nothing more to lose? All these stages must be con-
sidered before discussions are even held with the first interviewee and need to be
part of the analysis in a reconstructively designed research project.
onclusion: The Need to Strive for a Sensitive Approach –

C
And Work on Our Limitations
As we have shown, it is impossible to fully eliminate the promotion of stigmatiza-

tion through criminological research. Nevertheless, from an ethical point of view, it
is particularly important to involve the people who have been labeled as deviants in
the discussion about crime and to thereby respect their rights and citizenship (this
argument stems from poverty research, cf. Kloss, 2021). Through the empirical
examples taken from our research practice, we have been able to show that the
reproduction of social inequality is often already inherent in the way scholars
research deviance. Hitzler and Honer (1997, pp. 23–25), in the style of SKAD’s
research tradition, pointed out: “The basic problem for the sociological researcher
when he or she is reflecting upon his/her work, is making it transparent for him- or
herself and for others how (s)he understands that which (s)he believes to
understand, and how (s)he knows what (s)he thinks (s)he knows.” As we can see, the
SKAD demands more than the usual reflexivity of qualitative research processes.
The way we problematize through our research practices is embedded in and shaped
by specific social knowledge. Starting from Groenemeyer’s (2014) concept, it is
important to understand how problematizations are successfully enforced and thus
become general social problems. If it is further assumed that criminological knowl-
edge legitimizes disciplinary measures such as incarceration (Foucault, 1977), then
this will be inevitably included in empirical investigation. Our aim is to make clear
not only that criminological research is itself a power-stabilizing practice, as
Foucault (1977) said, but also that the knowledge we seek to generate about social
deviance and delinquency is guided by established bodies of knowledge and cul-
tural and political horizons of relevance. Reconstructive methodologies, in combi-
nation with the socio-theoretical positioning proposed here, make it possible to
understand research practices as (partial) objectifications that already tell us some-
thing about the problematization and thus also about the problem itself: crimino-
logical knowledge formation and epistemologies are scientific constructions of
reality. We must ask ourselves to what extent central (in the sense of much received)
research results in the field point to hegemonic discourses, how our concrete
research practices are influenced by them, and what form of knowledge do we pro-
duce. With the core principles of interpretive qualitative methods (meaning, context,
interpretation, understanding, and reflexivity) (Keller & Clarke, 2018, p. 57), the
tools are offered to answer these questions. But a shift is needed because there are
social theoretical concepts that allow sensitization to the interdependencies of the
nature of scientific knowledge formation and social reality. Thus, if it is assumed
that problematizations are due to complex processes of construction and interpreta-
tion, then these must be reconstructed to be understood. We therefore propose an
understanding (“Verstehen”) of research practice that elevates one’s own involve-
ment in the construction of reality to the analytical object.12 Because criminological
knowledge is powerful, we consider it indispensable for researchers to become
more sensitive to interdependencies, complexities, and entanglements in future
research. We hope to generate a discourse on how an understanding of research
practice can be further elaborated into a methodological concept.
Researchers need to reflect what structures they make use of and what normative
settings have influenced their very setup. Such an approach means that, from the
beginning, even regarding the design of data collection, researchers avoid getting
stuck in reproductions and sameness. Only when applying a genuine reconstructive
approach will research be open to the problems of existing structures of knowledge
and eventually be able to look behind the scenes. One of the main ingredients for
12
There are other approaches to include marginalized voices into the debate. O’Neill (2017, p. 91)
suggests participatory research that include the taking of pictures, walking. She states that espe-
cially in research on humans who seek for asylum, “[w]alking and biographical methods together
with visual methods helped to explore the experience of ‘being in place’ (…) eliciting dialogue,
biographical remembering and relational, embodied engagement.”
this kind of research is understanding the meaning that actors attribute to their
actions or motives (“Verstehen”) in the field.
References
Becker, H. S. (1963). Outsiders. Studies in sociology of deviance. The Free Press.

Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1967). The social construction of reality. A treatise in the sociology
of knowledge. Anchor.
Best, J. (2004). Theoretical issues in the study of social problems and deviance. In G. Ritzer (Ed.),
Handbook of social problems: A comparative international perspective (pp. 14–30). Sage.
Blumer, H. (1971). Social problems as collective behavior. Social Problems, 18(3), 298–306.
Bögelein, N., Golla, S., Lehmann, L., & Leimbach, K. (2021). Wenn die Polizei vor der Tür steht und
die Interviewdaten will ... – Situierung, Ethik und Recht qualitativer Radikalisierungsforschung.
Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative. Social Research, 22(3).
Bögelein, N., & Meier, J. (2018). Drogenhandel – Typologie einer illegalen Ökonomie. Soziale
Probleme, 29(1), 15–43.
Bourdieu, P. (1994). Structure, habitus, power: Basics for a theory of symbolic power. In N. Dirks,
G. Eley, & S. Ortner (Eds.), Culture/power/history: A reader in contemporary social theory
(pp. 155–199). Princeton University Press.
Case, H. (2016). The “social question,” 1820–1920. Modern Intellectual History, 13(3), 747–775.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1479244315000037
Cloward, R. A., & Ohlin, L. E. (1960). Delinquency and opportunity: A theory of delinquent
gangs. Free Press.
Coppock, V., & McGovern, M. (2014). ‘Dangerous minds’? Deconstructing counter-terrorism
discourse, radicalisation and the ‘psychological vulnerability’ of Muslim children and young
people in Britain. Children & Society, 28(3), 242–256. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1111/
chso.12060
Connell, R. W. (1995). Masculinities. Polity.
Dahrendorf, R. (1967). Über den Ursprung der Ungleichheit unter den Menschen. Piper.
Dickinson, T., & Wright, R. (2015). Gossip, decision-making and deterrence in drug markets.
British Journal of Criminology, 55(6), 1263–1281.
Elshimi, M. (2015). De-radicalisation interventions as technologies of the self: A Foucauldian
analysis. Critical Studies on Terrorism, 8(1), 110–129. https://doi.org/10.1080/1753915
3.2015.1005933
Erp, J. V., Huisman, W., & Vande Walle, G. (Eds.). (2015). The Routledge handbook of white-
collar and corporate crime in Europe. Routledge.
Faria, R. (2018). Research misconduct as white-collar crime. A criminological approach. Palgrave.
Fleetwood, J. (2014). Keeping out of trouble: Female crack cocaine dealers in England. European
Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. Allen Lane.
Fuller, R. C., & Myers, R. R. (1941). The natural history of a social problem. American Sociological
Review, 6(3), 320–329.
Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Prentice Hall.
Garland, D. (1992). Criminological knowledge and its relation to power. Foucault’s genealogy and
criminology today. British Journal of Criminology, 32(4), 403–422.
Geißler, R. (1994). Soziale Schichtung und Kriminalität. In R. Geißler (Ed.), Soziale Schichtung
und Lebenschancen in Deutschland (pp. 160–194). Ferdinand Enke Verlag.
Groenemeyer, A. (2016). Social problems. In G. Ritzer (Ed.), Wiley Blackwell encyclopedia of
sociology (2nd ed., pp. 573–575). Wiley Blackwell.
Groenemeyer, A. (2014). Soziale Praxis – Institution – Diskurse – Erfahrung: Behinderung im

Problematisierungsprozess. Soziale Probleme, 25(1), 150–172.
Groenemeyer, A. (2012). Soziologie sozialer Probleme - Fragestellungen, Konzepte und theo-
retische Perspektiven. In G. Albrecht & A. Groenemeyer (Eds.), (Eds.), Handbuch soziale
Probleme (pp. 17–116). Springer.
Groenemeyer, A. (2010). Doing Social Problems - Doing Social Control. Mikroanalysen der
Konstruktion sozialer Probleme in institutionellen Kontexten - Ein Forschungsprogramm.
In A. Groenemeyer (Ed.), Doing Social Problems. Mikroanalysen der Konstruktion sozialer
Probleme in institutionellen Kontexten (pp. 13–55). Springer.
Haraway, D. (1988). Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of
partial perspectives. Feminist Studies, 14(3), 575–599.
Harding, S. (2003). The feminist standpoint theory reader. Intellectual and political controversies.
Routledge.
Hitzler, R., & Honer, A. (1997). Einleitung: Hermeneutik in der deutschssprachigen Soziologie
heute. In R. Hitzler & A. Honer (Eds.), Sozialwissenschaftliche Hermeneutik. Eine Einführung
(pp. 7–27). Springer.
Jukschat, N., & Leimbach, K. (2019). Radikalisierung als hegemoniales Paradigma: Eine empirie-
basierte kritische Bestandsaufnahme. BEHEMOTH: A Journal on Civilisation, 12(2), 11–23.
Keller, R., & Poferl, A. (2020). Soziale Probleme. Wissenssoziologische Überlegungen). Soziale
Probleme, 31, 141–163.
Keller, R. (2011). The sociology of knowledge approach to discourse (SKAD). Human Studies,
34, 43–65.
Keller, R. (2010). Diskursforschung. Eine Einführung für SozialwissenschaftlerInnen. Springer VS.
Keller, R., & Clarke, A. (2018). Situating SKAD in interpretive inquiry. In R. Keller,
A.-K. Hornridge, & W. J. Schünemann (Eds.), The sociology of knowledge approach to dis-
course. Investigating the politics of knowledge and meaning-making (pp. 48–73). Routledge.
Kessler, S. J., & McKenna, W. (1978). Gender: An ethnomethodological approach. Wiley.
Kitsuse, J. I., & Spencer, M. (1977). Constructing social problems. Cummings. Publications.
Kloss, D. (2021). Ethik in der Armutsforschung. In G. Schweiger & C. Sedmak (Eds.), Handbuch
Philosophie und Armut (pp. 62–74). J.B. Metzler Verlag.
Knorr-Cetina, K. (1983). The ethnographic study of scientific work: Towards a constructivist inter-
pretation of science. In K. Knorr-Cetina & M. Mulkay (Eds.), Science observed: Perspectives
on the social study of science (pp. 115–140). Sage.
Kölbel, R. (Ed.). (2018). Institutionelle Korruption und Arzneimittelvertrieb. Springer.
Kruse, J. (2015). Qualitative Interviewforschung: Ein integrativer Ansatz (2nd ed.). Beltz Juventa.
Lamnek, S. (2010). Qualitative Sozialforschung: Lehrbuch. Beltz.
Larsen, J. (2019). Talking about radicalization. Nordic Journal of Criminology, 4, 1–18.
Leimbach, K. (2019). Die kommunikative Konstruktion einer Problemgruppe: Zur Praktik
der Ausstiegsbegleitung bei rechtsextremistischen Jugendlichen. In D. Negnal (Ed.), Die
Problematisierung sozialer Gruppen in Staat und Gesellschaft (pp. 145–163). VS Springer.
Lemert, E. (1967). Human deviances, social problems and social control. Prentice Hall.
Leschkar, I. (2019). From convert to radical: Making critique illegible. In N. Fadil, M. Koning,
& F. Ragazzi (Eds.), Radicalization in Belgium and the Netherlands. Critical perspectives on
violence and security (pp. 263–267). Tauris.
Matza, D. (1964). Delinquency and drift. Wiley.
Meier, J., Bögelein, N., & Neubacher, F. (2021). A biographical perspective on processes of radi-
calisation. European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research, 2022, 28(2), 155–176.
Merton, R. K. (1976). The sociology of social problems. In R. K. Merton & R. A. Nisbet (Eds.),
Contemporary social problems (4th ed., pp. 3–43). Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Messerschmidt, J. W. (1995). From patriarchy to gender: Feminist theory, criminology and the
challenge of diversity. In N. Hahn Rafter & F. Heidensohn (Eds.), International feminist per-
spectives in criminology: Engendering a discipline (pp. 167–188). Open University Press.
Micus-Loos, C. (2018). Geschlecht und Kriminalität. In D. Hermann & A. Pöge (Eds.),

Kriminalsoziologie (pp. 219–222). Nomos.
Mignolo, W. D., & Walsh, C. E. (2018). On decoloniality. Concepts, analytics, praxis. Duke
University Press.
Moeller, K., & Sandberg, S. (2015). Credit and trust: Management of network ties in illicit drug
distribution. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 52, 691–716.
Murakawa, N., & Beckett, K. (2010). The penology of racial innocence: The erasure of racism in
the study and practice of punishment. Law and Society Review, 44(3–4), 695–730.
Naffine, N. (2016 [1987]). Female crime: The construction of women in criminology (Routledge
Library Editions: Women and crime). Routledge.
Neubacher, F., & Bögelein, N. (2021). Kriminalität der Armen – Kriminalisierung von Armut?:
Untersuchungen zu einem widerspenstigen Begriffspaar. Monatsschrift für Kriminologie und
Strafrechtsreform, 104(2), 107–123. https://doi.org/10.1515/mks-2021-0106
Neuber, A. (2020). Die Schmerzen des Freiheitsentzugs – für Frauen anders? In B.-D. Meier &
K. Leimbach (Eds.), Gefängnisse im Blickpunkt der Kriminologie (pp. 105–125). Springer.
Newburn, T. (2007). Criminology. William Publishing.
Nichols, L. T. (2019). Editor’s introduction: Constructionism as interpretive tradition and as emer-
gent deviance in sociology. The American Sociologist, 50(2), 155–159.
O’Neill, M. (2017). Studying the marginalized with mixed methods. In M. H. Jacobsen &
S. Walklate (Eds.), Liquid criminology. Doing imaginative criminological research (pp. 81–97).
Routledge.
Smaus, G. (1986). Versuch um eine materialistisch-interaktionistische Kriminologie. Kritische
Kriminologie heute, 1. Beiheft des Kriminologischen Journals, 179–199.
Schetsche, M. (1996). Die Karriere sozialer Probleme. DeGruyter.
Sharp, S. F., & Hefley, K. (2007). This is a man’s world… or least that’s how it looks in the jour-
nals. Critical Criminology, 15, 3–18. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-006-9016-y
Shaw, C. R., & McKay, H. D. (1942). Juvenile delinquency and urban areas. University of
Chicago Press.
Spector, M., & Kitsuse, J. I. (1977). Constructing social problems. Cummings Pub.
Struck, J., Müller, P., Mischler, A., & Wagner, D. (2020). Volksverhetzung und Volksvernetzung:
Eine analytische Einordnung rechtsextremistischer Onlinekommunikation. Kriminologie – Das
Online-Journal | Criminology – The Online Journal, 2(2), 310–337. https://doi.org/10.18716/
ojs/krimoj/2020.2.12
Wacquant, L. J. D. (2009). Punishing the poor: The neoliberal government of social insecurity.
Duke University Press.
Weber, M. (1980 [1920]). Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft: Grundriss der verstehenden Soziologie 5th
ed : J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck).
Wolfgang, M. E., & Ferracuti, F. (1967). The subculture of violence. Tavistock.
Katharina Leimbach is a sociologist and has a postdoctoral position at the Institute of

Interdisciplinary Research on conflict and violence at the Bielefeld University. Her main research
interests are social control and social problems, qualitative methodologies, sociology of crime, and
extremism.
Nicole Bögelein is a research associate at the Institute of Criminology at the University of

Cologne. Nicole is a sociologist and conducts research on fines, imprisonment for non-payment of
fines, sentencing, and radicalization. She is co-editor of the open access journal “Kriminologie –
Das Online-Journal | Criminology – The Online Journal”.
Chapter 11
Shooting Poachers on Site: Reflections
on the Use of Photography in Active
Offender Research
Joanna F. Hill and Gary R. Potter
Introduction
In the digital era, it is easier than ever to take, publish, and disseminate photos. Most
smartphones include a camera and the memory to store thousands of images.
Higher-quality digital cameras and high-capacity HD cards are increasingly afford-
able. The Internet makes sharing photos easy; doing so via social media is a normal
part of everyday life. Online publications can incorporate photos with ease – and
even traditional print publications increasingly allow for their inclusion. These
developments have provided possibilities for data collection, analysis, and dissemi-
nation unavailable to previous generations of researchers.
The use of visual methods in the social sciences is by no means new. Photography
was an important tool in anthropological fieldwork as far back as the 1890s
(Edwards, 2008), and photo-ethnography as a distinctive method can be traced back
to the first half of the twentieth century (Wright, 2018). But it is the digital revolu-
tion of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries that has fuelled a “resur-
gence of interest in the visual” in the social sciences (Brown & Carrabine, 2017a,
p. 1), with exploration across multiple disciplines of the many possibilities that
None of this research would have been possible without the countless friendly and helpful
Ugandans who shared their experiences, knowledge and warmth. In particular, thanks go to
Ochanda Charles (Uganda Conservation Foundation) and Oryema Edison.
Thanks also to Catherine Easton for introducing us to the concepts of and jurisprudential literature
on group privacy and demographically identifiable information.
J. F. Hill
Manchester University, Manchester, UK
G. R. Potter (*)
University of Lancaster, Lancaster, UK
e-mail: g.potter2@lancaster.ac.uk
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18401-7_11
182 J. F. Hill and G. R. Potter
visual methods offer. Such methods are particularly important for understanding
social worlds that have, on one hand, always been visual (with vision being the
primary experiential sense for most of humanity) but that are, on the other hand,
becoming increasingly so in the technologically mediated (post-)modern world
(Carrabine, 2017).
Although perhaps slower than some other disciplines, criminology has seen its
own growth in interest, in recent years, in the methodological opportunities and
theoretical insights that the image and the camera can provide (Brown & Carrabine,
2017a). Photos can be seen as documents, artefacts, or records – objects to be anal-
ysed as (visual) data. Photography is also used to generate (nonvisual) data – such
as through photo-elicitation methods. Visual ethnographies combine these (and
other) components of visual methods (Pink, 2021). Photographs can be used to dis-
play data – as a component of the dissemination of research findings. The range of
possible and actual uses of visual methods in criminology is expansive (Brown &
Carrabine, 2017b), and growing – yet there are still novel applications of photo-
methods being developed, benefits to be understood, and experiences to share.
Understanding of ethical issues relating to the use of photographic methods in active
offender research is particularly underdeveloped (Copes et al., 2018, 2019).
We took photos in Uganda as part of an ethnographic component of a larger
study of illegal hunting (poaching) (Hill, 2018). We have since been reflecting on
the utility and ethics of photography in active offender research. In this chapter, we
present some of those reflections, including some examples of how photographic
methods can generate novel research findings – and some discussion of important
ethical considerations peculiar to the photographic method. We argue that taking
photos offers so many advantages to the criminological ethnographer that photogra-
phy as a supplementary, if not main, method should be (more) widely employed.
However, publishing photos (especially in the context of active offender research)
can throw up such significant ethical concerns that researchers should proceed with
extreme caution. But let us start by introducing the project which provided the con-
text for the experiences and issues discussed in the rest of this chapter.
Context: Researching Illegal Hunting in Uganda
East Africa is famous for its wildlife, with large mammals being particularly impor-
tant both for their intrinsic (and) ecological worth and their economic value as a
major tourist attraction. Many species are becoming increasingly endangered, with
a multitude of factors contributing to declining populations. Habitat loss and hunt-
ing are two of the most important components of this anthropogenic environmental
harm (Schipper et al., 2008). While national parks, community conservancies, and
other protected areas can provide protection against the former, they can also
become hotspots for the latter, particularly in the form of poaching.
Strict laws are often in place to protect wildlife from poaching. These include
heavy fines and long prison sentences for those prosecuted for poaching or other
11 Shooting Poachers on Site: Reflections on the Use of Photography in Active… 183
aspects of the illegal wildlife trade (IWT).1 But policing and prevention of poaching
are difficult. In the criminological framework of routine activity theory (Cohen &
Felson, 1979), the value of species and their body parts makes them suitable targets
(Moreto & Lemieux, 2015); local populations facing (sometimes extreme) poverty,
with cultural traditions of hunting, or who suffer the immediate harms of human-
wildlife conflict make for a sizable pool of potential motivated offenders (Duffy
et al., 2016); remote rural and wilderness areas in which animals roam contribute to
a lack of capable guardianship (Moreto & Matusiak, 2016). In the context of poor,
developing countries, the limited resources available for protecting wildlife and the
scope for corruption that accompanies lucrative illegal markets only exacerbate the
challenge (Smith et al., 2003; WWF/TRAFFIC, 2015).
Jo (first author) went to Uganda to conduct fieldwork for her PhD (Hill, 2018).
The main thrust of her project was to develop agent-based modelling (ABM)
approaches to better understand the behaviours of hunters, animals, and park rang-
ers as a tool for developing, in turn, more effective methods to prevent poaching.
Drawing on rational actor, routine activity, and situational crime prevention per-
spectives (Wortley & Townsley, 2016), the idea here is that computer models of the
behaviours of these three groups of actors (poachers, rangers, and the animals them-
selves) can help identify more efficient ways to deploy resources to reduce opportu-
nities for poaching – and maximise the protection of endangered species (Hill et al.,
2014; Hill, 2015).
The use of photography discussed in this chapter formed a small but important
part of the overall project. ABM approaches are, at least at first glance, a primarily
quantitative approach – computer models of the movements of agents comprise of
quantifiable variables like speed, distance, and direction of travel. For animals and
rangers, such data can be gathered by mapping movements through tracking or the
use of GPS technology (Crevier et al., 2021; Perez et al., 2021). Regarding the
poachers, qualitative research became an important element of understanding – and
then, modelling – hunting behaviours.
It should be made clear that Jo was not, primarily, conducting research with or
into poachers involved in organised crime or the international IWT. While some of
the hunters she met and interviewed were involved in larger criminal networks and
poaching activities driven by the pursuit of profit, the main participants in her field-
work were those who hunted animals for meat and traditional use of animal parts –
for their own consumption, that of their families, friends, and immediate cultural
and kinship groups, or to sell locally for money to spend on other immediate needs.
In terms of the larger project, it was felt that this group would be easier – and safer –
to work with, while still providing suitable data to both build and complement mod-
els that would also be applicable to preventing poaching associated with organised
crime.2 Jo employed qualitative methods, primarily in the form of interviews and
1
For Uganda, see UWA (2021).
2
In one sense, the ABM component of Jo’s research can be seen as proof-of-concept research.
focus groups, to gain a better understanding of the motives and behaviours of these
hunters, to both develop and complement the ABM strand of her project.
Gary’s (second author) contribution here was to join Jo for two three-week field
visits to help develop the qualitative components of the research, including provid-
ing some training in qualitative methods and research ethics for Jo and her locally
recruited research assistants. In those 6 weeks we also conducted some supplemen-
tary ethnographic research to help develop a better understanding of the cultural
context in which illegal hunting occurred – and, thus, help Jo conduct and interpret
later interview and focus group work. It is this ethnographic sub-project that forms
the basis of the current chapter.
Our use of photography as a method in this ethnographic component was largely
unstructured. We visited villages where hunters lived, a national park where hunting
occurred, and key cultural sites relevant to the identities of those involved in hunting
and the social and political structures of the tribal group to which they belonged.
This included a long overland trip to a tribal ‘capital’ and the tribal King’s ‘palace’.
Across the 6 weeks of his participation, Gary took photos recording our travels, the
places we visited, and interactions with key informants and local populations.3
Although originally construed primarily as a record of our travels and interactions,
these photos became an important dataset in their own right – not just recording
information for later analysis but generating data and insights that may not have
come to light otherwise.
Using Photography in Active-Offender Research
Although historically slow to develop (Carrabine, 2017), criminology has embraced

visual research in the last few decades in a wide variety of ways (Brown & Carrabine,
2017b; Pauwels, 2017). Most individual examples fall short of ethnography, but if
one (partial) understanding of ethnography is that it draws on a multitude of (pre-
dominantly qualitative) research methods (Delamont & Atkinson, 2021), it is help-
ful to briefly outline (and, inevitably, oversimplify) three (overlapping, and
nonexhaustive) approaches within visual research (see Pauwels, 2017, for a more
detailed introduction to visual methods in criminology):
Documentary analysis. Research traditions of ‘crime and the media’ and cultural
criminology have considered images to help understand how crime and criminal
justice issues are portrayed in the media (Peelo & Soothill, 2012) and the rela-
tionship between crime and culture (Ferrell et al., 2008). Here, images are pri-
marily seen and analysed as existing documents, records, or artefacts
(Pauwels, 2017).
3
Jo also used photography and video as a component of other aspects of her fieldwork in the larger
project (Hill, 2018). We refer to these at times where useful to illustrate broader points, but it is
Gary’s photos that underpin the discussion in this chapter.
Photo-elicitation. A component of qualitative interviewing and focus groups where

images (which may be pre-existing artefacts, photos taken by the researcher, or
photos taken by research participants) are used to generate discussion in inter-
views or focus groups and, hence, interpretation, meaning, and understanding of
events, scenes, and objects captured in photos (Collier, 1957; Copes et al., 2018;
Harper, 2002).
Photo-ethnography. Researchers take photos as a component of fieldwork, as a
visual record to supplement, complement, and enhance the verbal. Ethnographic
photography has become an established method of and valuable contribution to
criminological research (Van de Voorde, 2012). Related terms and approaches
include visual ethnography (Pink, 2021) and documentary photography (Ferrell,
2018). Of particular interest to us is the use of visual methods with active offender
populations. Photo-ethnographies in criminology have included some notable
studies of those engaged in illegal behaviours as part of their everyday lives,
especially in relation to drug use (Bourgois & Schonberg, 2009; Copes et al.,
2018; 2019; Parkin, 2013).
In all the above approaches, a key component or justification of the method is that
the visual helps generate a richer understanding of crime and deviance than that
generated by traditional, nonvisual methods. Further, there is an understanding that
the visual should also be part of the communication of research findings. Publication
of pictures is not, or should not be, ‘just’ a supplement to interview quotes, field-
note excerpts, and written summaries of qualitative data (Coomber & Letherby,
2012). Rather, visual images are key to conveying information and understanding
that goes beyond what can be accomplished by the written word. On one level, this
may be seen primarily as an application of the adage ‘a picture paints a thousand
words’. But it goes further than that: the picture communicates directly to the reader
where written summaries are (potentially) prone to introducing bias or losing detail;
visual materials, correctly used, can complement the text, allowing for “a synthe-
sised outcome that lends greater value to the narrative being told” (Coomber &
Letherby, 2012 n.p., commenting on Spencer, 2012).
Our Uses of Photography
For us, photos served various purposes that only partially overlapped with the estab-
lished approaches outlined above. Only two of the ways we used photos were pre-
planned – these are discussed here only briefly. Other ways in which our photos
contributed to the research were more stumbled-upon than planned. The following
overview of our uses of photography includes not only examples documented in the
literature as established methods but also examples that are less well-known.
Photos as notetaking: Initially, the primary purpose of our taking photos was as a
form of notetaking in the field. Taking photos was quicker and easier than writing
detailed contemporaneous notes. In some situations – such as travelling in
crowded vehicles, in unsteady boats, on the back of motorbikes, or in bustling

streets and busy marketplaces – notetaking would not be possible, but photogra-
phy was. (During other phases of Jo’s data collection, she also took photos and
videos as a form of notetaking – for example, during demonstrations of hunting
practices and trap-making.) In other situations, such as having guided tours of
key cultural sites or being shown the royal trappings of a tribal king, Gary’s pho-
tos supplemented Jo’s notetaking. Photos were used as an aide-memoire to
inform more detailed written notes when reviewing and reflecting on a day’s
activities. Photos often captured details that we hadn’t noticed in the moment and
therefore would not have made it into fieldnotes – at times, photos quite literally
helped us see a (if not ‘the’) bigger picture. They were a component of the eth-
nographic fieldwork, but not originally intended to be anything more than a pic-
torial record to complement and support the written one – a documentary use of
photography intended for consumption only by us, as researchers, rather than
photodocumentary (Ferrell, 2018).
Photos as rewards for participants: Few rural Ugandans have the sorts of portrait
photos that so often adorn family homes in more developed locales. We decided
early on that being able to provide prints of photos of our research participants
and others who supported and enabled the research would be a particularly nice
way to say thank you while avoiding the potential embarrassment or ethical
dilemmas of offering financial rewards or other gifts. In one sense, this is like one
of the earliest recorded uses of photography in anthropological research
(Edwards, 2008), although we were clear (in our minds, at least) that photos were
presented as a (retrospective) thank you for participation or assistance, not a
(prospective or contemporaneous) trade for information.
Photo-elicitation: Our use of photo-elicitation was somewhat different from how
the method is normally used. As we were travelling around the country on a fast-
moving itinerary, the opportunities to discuss our photos with the people who
were in them or present when we took them were limited. And there was no
opportunity at all to get participants to provide their own photos for discussion
(although Jo did get her participants to sketch maps and draw examples of typical
environments they would see when poaching, which were used to elicit discus-
sion in interviews and focus groups; Hill, 2018, chapter 8). But we did use pho-
tos to elicit our own reflections and interpretations when we were reviewing
them, and we did discuss some images with (other) informants at later points to
see whether they had different interpretations to our own. And while photo-
elicitation was not a central part of the research, we did find the act of taking
photos elicited data in other ways.
Camera-elicitation: People reacted to having their photos taken in ways that gener-
ated some interesting extra data and analytical insights. Taking photos and then
showing them to participants helped build rapport. Asking to take photos of
objects or activities often led to conversations about why that object or activity
was interesting to us – very much in the anthropological tradition of making the
familiar strange and the strange familiar (Delamont & Atkinson, 2021; Mannay,
2010). The ways people responded to being photographed provided insights in
other ways as well: the way they posed on camera and when and how they were
and were not willing to be shot. In photo-elicitation, a key principle is that rather
than (only) seeing photos as data, photos generate data beyond what exists in the
image. We found ‘camera-elicitation’ to work in a similar way, but at a different
point in the photo-ethnographic process, and with the elicited discussion starting
from the perspective of what the researcher finds interesting – and why – rather
than from what the research participant finds interesting or meaningful (although
discussion of the latter should follow).
Taken as a whole, our photo-ethnography contributed to our understanding of why
illegal hunting (of the type our respondents were involved in, as discussed earlier)
persists in Uganda and what some of the challenges to prevention are. Presenting
these findings in detail is beyond the scope of this chapter, although the reader can
refer to the original thesis (Hill, 2018). Instead, we present a few examples to dem-
onstrate some of the ways that photography generated data and insights beyond or
supplementary to those which emerged from other aspects of Jo’s research. The
aims here are not to focus on substantive findings (mentions of these are only illus-
trative), but (a) to demonstrate the (sometimes well-known, sometimes novel) broad
utility of photographic methods in active offender research, and (b) to underpin the
discussion, in the subsequent session, of ethical issues emerging from this approach.
The following examples are based on our collective field notes but written in the
first person from Gary’s perspective as a photographer.
Example 1: The King’s Palace and the Trappings of Royalty
The King had been mentioned in numerous formal and informal conversations with
hunters from a particular tribe.4 The King was usually mentioned with affection and
respect and was an important reference point for tribal identity and traditions. It was
suggested that we go to visit the palace (the King himself was either in Kampala or
London). We did, as part of our trip across Uganda to visit key sites and communities.
The palace is not a single building, and most definitely not a palace as would be
imagined by those brought up surrounded by European history on the one hand, and
Disney on the other. The palace is a site spread over a few acres with a collection of
traditional mud huts and a couple of brick buildings. Neither of these is home to the
King – one is a modern house, still under construction when we visited, to be the
residence of the King’s mother. The other is the storehouse for the Royal trappings –
the equivalent, perhaps, of the Jewel House in the Tower of London, home to the
Crown Jewels of the British monarch. We are told that the King does not live here –
that the King is not even allowed to enter. When the King is at the palace, he sleeps
4
We are not naming the tribe for reasons that will become apparent as the chapter develops. Our
effort to maintain the anonymity of an entire social group was a key component of the discussions
that have developed into this chapter.
in a traditional mud hut or out under the trees, as have generations of tribal leaders
before him.
The first lesson here is not peculiar to our research but is worth repeating as a
fundamental component of ethnography: go and see for yourself, and ask questions,
lest your assumptions lead to fundamental misunderstandings.5
The royal caretaker brings out the royal trappings. The order in which the objects
were brought out and displayed to us was all captured through a series of photos that
accurately recorded what was brought out when, where, and how things were
placed. The King’s spears came out first – the most important symbol and trapping
of office, passed on from father to son. Various animal skins, jewellery, furnishings,
and objects made from stone, wood, and animal body parts followed. The leopard
skin came last. It was explained that, in the past, the King had to kill a leopard after
inheriting his position to prove his prowess and confirm his authority.
In terms of substantive findings, this episode gave us a deeper understanding of
the role and importance of hunting as a tribal tradition and identity – and in estab-
lishing and confirming status. In terms of illustrating the utility of photo-methods,
the accurate recording of what came out when and went where is an important
observation, but only part of the story.
The leopard skin was not the last item shown to us after all. A short while after
we had absorbed and discussed what had been presented so far, the caretaker came
out one more time – carrying a carved elephant tusk. Up to now, all those present6
had been willingly in-shot when I was taking photographs. But I was asked to only
take close-up photos of the tusk – with no identifiable individuals included. This
(and our accompanying conversation) demonstrated two important things. Firstly,
while there was a clear and open pride attached to displaying the other trophies,
there was more caution and reserve demonstrated in relation to the elephant tusk.
Seemingly it was understood that hunting elephants had a much greater stigma
attached to it than hunting the various antelope and other herbivores, or even the
leopard. Secondly, there was also a clear understanding of what it might mean to be
identifiable in ‘compromising’ photos.
As a further observation of how the camera caught detail that might otherwise
have escaped us, the photo-record showed the caretaker, counsellor, and aide to be
very much focused on the presentation and discussion of the objects throughout this
encounter (as are Jo and our translator). The army officer stands a little back, taking
in and monitoring the whole interaction. The motorcycle-taxi drivers’ lounge, some-
what bored, against the storehouse wall – watching me and the camera as much, if
not more, than the scene unfolding in front of them. Maybe they have seen it all
5
And recognise that there are still likely to be misunderstandings, especially across significant
cultural differences between researcher and researched. Ethnography can help us better understand
other people and cultures, but it can never produce objective truths.
6
The caretaker, the head of the tribal counsel and an aide, our translator, our motorcycle-taxi driv-
ers – and an armed, ranking army officer suggesting both protection and central-government over-
sight of this visit from two foreign researchers.
before, but the display of royal trappings does not seem to engage or impress them
as much as the presence and activities of the (white) researchers do.
Example 2: Growing Up in a Hunting Culture
After our trip to the palace and back to the rural town where Jo resided for some of
her fieldwork, I took a lot of pictures of daily life. One series of shots is of a couple
of men butchering an animal carcass strung up in the trees. A small boy, about
4 years old, is with them – watching and learning. This is a goat, not something
hunted illegally. But it is a clear indicator of the central role of meat in the local diet,
both nutritionally and culturally. The men are amused that I find this so fascinating
as to want to take photos – and even more amused to find out that I do not know how
to butcher my own meat.
Later that day, we are a little further out of town visiting one of Jo’s contacts in
his home. Jo is inside chatting; I am outside taking photos of the huts and outbuild-
ings and vegetable plots – all traditional stick-and-mud constructions. Two boys –
about three and 6 years old – are practicing using bows and arrows. This is play, but
it is more than play – they are learning to shoot as a hunting skill.
The substantive insights here relate to the importance of meat, in both culture
and diet. The skills of butchering and hunting are learnt and normalised from an
early age. Methodologically, in both these cases, notetaking would have been prac-
tically difficult and potentially disruptive to the dynamics of the interaction.7 The
camera seemed to facilitate rapport in both situations: it was asking if it was OK to
take photos that sparked that conversation about butchering; being able to show the
boys photos (and short films) of their prowess (especially when compared to our
significantly less-capable attempts) helped overcome their initial shyness.
Example 3: Social Dynamics
A fascination with being photographed – especially for children – generated insights

we may have otherwise missed. Whenever I stepped outside of the compound of the
guesthouse we were staying in, I was mobbed by local children asking me questions
and wanting to be photographed or to play with my phone (which I used, of course,
for checking emails and reading the news, as well as taking photos and notes). On
one occasion, we agreed that I would take a group photo of them with Jo (who they
had got to know well after her extended visits; I was still a novelty). There are 17
7
Taking photos can, of course, be intrusive or disruptive in its own right. I always asked permission
when taking photos of individuals or groups (except in crowded, public situations where to do so
would be impractical, and where there may be less reasonable expectation of privacy) – as did Jo
when using photography or video as notetaking in other parts of her research.
children in that photo. Three are in the background – passing by when the photo was
taken rather than having been part of the group playing (and pestering me) outside
the compound. Ten children are in a tight bunch, clustered around Jo. Four others
are off to one side – two together on a mound of dirt, two others each standing alone.
All four were clearly wanting to be part of the photo. But these four were also nota-
bly separate from the larger group (and, to an extent, from each other).
When I showed Jo the photo later, she pointed out that the four who were stand-
ing separately were all from one tribal group – the same group from which most of
the local active hunters that Jo interviewed were drawn. This tribal group is not
generally represented in the ruling strata of Ugandan society; it is somewhat mar-
ginalised and disadvantaged economically and politically. The other kids came from
a few different tribal groups – all less associated with illegal hunting, and all with
more status and power in broader political and economic structures. It would not
have been noticeable from watching them play – all the kids played together regard-
less of tribal identity. But when it came to posing for a photo, the children from the
one tribal group seemed to set themselves somewhat apart from the others – they
were not posing as equally integrated members of the larger group. Was this shy-
ness? Coincidence? Or an indication of something more fundamental about the way
different tribal groups related to each other? Of course, conclusions cannot and
should not be drawn from a single example (and, again, the point of this chapter is
to focus on methodological rather than substantive insights). But this observation
did lead Jo to pay more attention in the rest of her fieldwork to (a) the relationship
between illegal hunting activity and broader structural inequalities, and (b) how
identities related to these structural inequalities are passed from generation to gen-
eration. Methodologically, it was the use of the camera that brought these possible
underlying and otherwise hard-to-observe identity-based differences to the fore
after reflecting on this photo at a later point.
thical Reflections on Using Photography in Active

E
Offender Research
Originally, we wanted to write a paper about how photography gave us insights into
various political and cultural nuances that helped us better understand the role of
hunting in Ugandan society. We wanted to write this as a photo-ethnography – a
paper that would include at least some exemplar photos as both data presentation and
narrative form. But we were concerned about the ethical implications of including the
photos behind the insights, particularly in the context of discussing illegal activities.
One of the most important principles of ethical research is nonmalfeasance. In
the British Society of Criminology’s (BSC’s) Statement of Ethics, this is codified as
researchers having “a responsibility to minimise personal harm to research partici-
pants” (BSC, n.d.). Other ethical principles that contribute to this overarching duty
of nonmalfeasance include anonymity, privacy, and confidentiality. Together, these
work to protect the identity of participants to minimise any potential harm resulting
from their involvement in the research. There is an important extra dimension to this
for research dealing with sensitive topics, or ‘deviant’ or criminal activities. With
active offender research, identifying an individual as a criminal carries the risk that
they will face arrest, prosecution, and punishment. At the time of the fieldwork dis-
cussed here, poaching and wildlife trafficking carried a maximum prison sentence
of 7 years under Ugandan law. The risk of criminal justice intervention is clearly a
risk of harm to participants who may face not just loss of liberty through incarcera-
tion but other, often long-lasting, harms associated with criminalisation.
We may ask why this matters: surely those who have done the crime, should do
the time? But that is to overlook the fact that many offenders are themselves vic-
tims – if not of (other) crime, of social injustices that may explain (and even justify)
their offending, or of disproportionate criminalisation – or drawn from marginalised
or disadvantaged groups, or where offending behaviour is a product of upbringing.
There is a vast literature exploring the ethics of researching active (or past) offend-
ers and of ‘taking sides’ in research (Becker, 1967; Cowburn et al., 2013). We will
not revisit the arguments here: suffice to say that while there may be exceptions
(BSC n.d.), criminologists conducting ethnographic research with active offenders
are generally obliged to consider criminalisation resulting from their research as
one of the harms that they should seek to prevent (Elliott & Fleetwood, 2017;
Feenan, 2002; see Scarce, 1994, for a particularly stark example of where this ethi-
cal obligation can conflict with the law).
Criminalisation can cause harm not only to the offenders themselves but also to
their families and wider social groups. Loss of breadwinners puts further economic
pressure and hardship on those who may have depended on them. In our example,
this may inadvertently encourage further illegal hunting as a source of food or
income to alleviate this, potentially exacerbating the harms to the very animals and
ecosystems we were ultimately hoping to protect. Stigma and shame from being
associated with someone who has been convicted can be further sources of harm to
others (Paudel et al., 2020).8 Even without criminalisation, identifying an individual
as a ‘deviant’ can cause harm through stigmatisation – again, this can affect not just
the individual, but their family, friends, and the wider community.
With photos, as opposed to (or, at least, more so than) interview quotes or field-
note excerpts,9 there is an extra dimension to the risk of harm. A photo may include
8
As well as often causing financial hardship, incarcerated IWT offenders in Paudel et al.’s (2020)
study reported various ways that their convictions brought shame on their families, including
examples of a daughter unable to marry, a family changing their religion, and a parental suicide.
9
Many of the general ethical issues discussed here come up in the use of verbal methods as well. But
there are a number of key differences that make them more pertinent in relation to visual methods.
Verbal data – interview transcripts or field-notes – are easier to anonymise than pictures are. They
are also less direct evidence, or more diluted versions, of ‘truth’ than photos are. Researchers present
selected excerpts, not full transcripts or original voice recordings; it is accepted that neither the recol-
lections or reports of participants, nor the summaries or interpretations of researchers are likely to be
100% accurate or objective. Conversely, common wisdom is that ‘the camera never lies’ (although
this is clearly less and less so in the age of image manipulation). Photos are more likely to be (and
perhaps more easily) shared outside of the wider publication they appear in; such “[d]econtextual-
ized photographs can reinforce negative cultural stereotypes” (Copes et al. 2018, citing Becker, 2007).
an innocent person – for example, one who has never been involved in illegal hunt-
ing. But the person’s appearance in the photo, alongside the discussion of illegal
activity, may imply that the person featured has been involved in law-breaking – a
form of guilt-by-association. Ethically, having a participant treated as a criminal
when they have not committed a crime would clearly be even worse than ‘outing’ a
genuine offender.
Showing people in photos that portray or potentially imply their involvement in
poaching was, we felt, off-limits. We considered established methods for reducing
this ethical risk – such as by blurring faces or other identifying features (e.g., tattoos
or distinctive clothing or possessions), silhouetting people, or only including photos
that do not have any people in them at all. But even with these options, we had con-
cerns. Potentially, the trappings and buildings in photos can identify (and implicate)
a group, such as the tribe from which most of our respondents were drawn and
whose seat of government we visited. For example, every tribal group in Uganda
has its own distinctive styles of traditional weapons and jewellery – and even of
building construction.10 For an already marginalised group to be associated with a
particular criminal or stigmatised activity could have serious implications, such as
by drawing extra political or policing attention to them or leading to further margin-
alisation through the enforcement of law and application of policy.
Our conclusion was that to avoid any risk of criminalisation or stigma of indi-
viduals or groups, or even of drawing attention to an already marginalised popula-
tion in the context of a criminal activity, we should be very careful with how we
used our photographic records. The majority of the pictures we wanted to use in a
photo-ethnography style publication had the potential to identify or implicate
groups, even if not individuals.11 Hence our decision not to publish any photos
thus far.
eveloping an Ethical Framework for Managing the Risk

D
of ‘Group Harm’
Mitigating the risk of criminalisation (or stigmatisation) of individuals in research

into active offenders is, in principle, relatively straightforward. Established ethical
practices – both those relating to criminological research and those relating to visual
methods – exist and are clear here. Data that directly identifies or implicates indi-
viduals as criminals should be anonymised. In the case of photos, this may be
10
The grounds of the Uganda Museum in Kampala include examples of traditional mud huts for all
major tribal groups in the country. The differences are sometimes quite subtle, but often quite stark.
11
The one exception in the photos discussed in this chapter might be the photo of the group of
children. Once silhouetted, this photo would not seem to identify or implicate a particular group.
It would potentially identify the town in which the photo was taken, but that town had a largish
population drawn from a number of different tribal groups. However, there are other ethical con-
cerns here relating to consent and extra safeguards when dealing with children.
achievable through blurring, pixelating, or silhouetting – or by excluding such pho-

tos entirely.
The issues around implicating groups in illegal activities (e.g., specific tribes, in
our context) are less well-developed. The general principle of nonmalfeasance in
research extends beyond the duty of protecting research participants from harm.
Researchers should also avoid causing harm to wider populations. We have pro-
vided an example of how such harms could happen in the context of identifying a
wider group and implicating them as a population in which illegal hunting may be
a widespread activity. We have suggested that drawing attention to this group in this
context is potentially harmful not just in relation to the risk of individual members
becoming criminalised but also in relation to the existing marginalisation and vul-
nerability of the group as a whole.
In terms of the ethical dimensions of photo-ethnography, Copes et al. (2018, cit-
ing Becker, 2007) have warned that “[d]econtextualized photographs can reinforce
negative cultural stereotypes”. We echo this note of caution and take it further. Our
first point here is straightforward: researchers should be aware that even contextual-
ised photographs may reinforce negative cultural stereotypes (e.g., associating a
tribal group with illegal hunting). Our second point is more complex: researchers
should be aware of the many components of an image, beyond the portrayal of indi-
viduals, that may identify a group – and thus, potentially expose it to harm. The
complexity lies in how researchers might develop principles for assessing what
sorts of things (e.g., objects, buildings) within a photo may contribute to the identi-
fication of a group and under what circumstances might researchers need to avoid
portraying these objects (either by extending the tools of anonymisation to cover
things as well as people or by excluding these photos as well).
A useful theoretical framework for guiding the ethical considerations here can be
found in the jurisprudence of privacy law. Here, “group privacy” has long been
established as a theoretical concept (e.g., Westin, 1967), the idea being that the con-
cept of privacy should be understood to protect not just individuals, but groups to
which they belong. Floridi (2017) has argued that this approach can be applied to
“protect [among other things] cultural or religious customs”. Illegal hunting in the
context we have discussed here is a cultural (tribal) custom and would clearly fit
Floridi’s considerations. But for the purposes of both privacy law and ethical guid-
ance, this approach seems quite narrow. It has been suggested that the legal concept
of privacy should shift from an approach focused on personal identifiable data (such
as underpins data-protection law in most of Europe) to an approach focused on
“demographically identifiable information” (Taylor et al., 2017).
This seems like a potentially useful standard for ethical researchers as well. To
bring this back to the principles of nonmalfeasance (as an overarching ethical goal)
and anonymity (as an ethical tool pursuant to that goal), we would suggest that the
practice of anonymising research data should extend to cover data that identifies
populations or groups as well as that which identifies individuals. Just as we often
remove or pseudonymise the names of places or institutions as well as people in
verbal or textual data, so we should occlude components of images that clearly
identify groups as well as those that clearly identify people. To be clear, we are not
suggesting that this should happen in all (or even most) cases – but this should be
the rule of thumb when to identify a group could expose the group, or individual
members of that group, to harm. Within criminology, this would be particularly
relevant when the group is implicated (through research) in high levels of active
offending, or it is already vulnerable or marginalised.
Conclusions
Our experiences demonstrated the utility of taking photos in various ways, some of
which are well established in existing literature, others less so. Photography is a
useful way of recording data, especially in fast-moving or crowded situations, or
when notetaking would be impractical or disruptive to the flow of interaction.
Taking and showing photos are helpful for building rapport – as an icebreaker, as a
prompt, and as a reward for participation. But the utility of photography goes
beyond what is reproduced in the photo. Important insights can be generated through
the way people respond to the camera – the way they act both in and out of shot,
before, during, and after the single moment captured as a (still) photograph, and the
conversations that are sparked off the back of the act of photography. ‘Camera-
elicitation’ can generate data and insights in a similar way to ‘photo-elicitation’.
Ethical issues are important to consider in both the taking and the use of photos,
especially when dealing with sensitive topics or vulnerable groups (active offenders
often tick both these boxes). We agree with Copes et al. (2018) that “given the for-
feiture of confidentiality and anonymity unique to photography, researchers should
devote additional consideration to the potential risks and rewards before using
visual methods to study those engaged in crime and deviance” (p. 476). As with
most aspects of research ethics, there are few hard and fast rules, and there may
always be situations where deviation from ethical norms is justifiable (see, e.g.,
BSC, n.d.). But we offer a few key principles to guide the researcher.
When taking photos, sensitivities should be respected – e.g., where taking photos
might be a cultural taboo. But assumptions should not be made about what is or is
not acceptable. Permission should be sought where practical, but especially when
taking close-up or intimate shots – of people, events, and activities or of objects and
places. Consent will likely be granted more often than not, but when it is denied or
granted with caveats (as with the elephant tusk), respect the wishes of research sub-
jects. Asking is important – and not just out of respect for autonomy and pursuant to
consent. It is also valuable for the way it can open a conversation – camera-elicitation
can occur even without a photo being taken. In some cases, asking (and respecting
the response) may also be vital to the ongoing success of a research project (as a
component of maintaining trust, rapport, and access) or the safety of the researcher
(e.g., with some types of active offenders).
Ethical considerations are more important in relation to how photos are to be
used, especially if they are to be disseminated publicly. The duty of nonmalfeasance
should be paramount. Considerations of harm should extend beyond any
individual – being associated with illegal or deviant activities may be harmful to

wider groups (who may, themselves, be innocent) by association or implication,
especially if they are already vulnerable or disadvantaged. Care must be paid to
anonymity – not just of people but also of places, groups, and cultures. Consent may
be given (and there is clearly a greater duty to secure consent for publishing photos
than for taking them12) but may not be enough, however well-informed, to override
the duty to protect others from harm. Anonymity, as an ethical concept in crimino-
logical research, should not be understood simply as preventing the identification of
individuals (whether research respondents themselves or others explicitly or implic-
itly referred to) from the data we present in published (or otherwise disseminated)
findings. Where there is risk of harm to groups – especially those that are, for exam-
ple, vulnerable or powerless – anonymity should extend to cover “demographically
identifiable information”. Even established methods of anonymising photos – such
as blurring or obscuring faces – may not fully eliminate risks of identification or
harm. If in doubt, researchers should follow one final rule: err on the side of caution.
References
Becker, H. (1967). Whose side are we on? Social Problems, 14(3), 239–247.
Becker, H. (2007). Telling about society. University of Chicago Press.
Bourgois, P., & Schonberg, J. (2009). Righteous dopefiend. University of California Press.
Brown, M., & Carrabine, E. (2017a). Introducing visual criminology. In M. Brown & E. Carrabine
(Eds.), Routledge international handbook of visual criminology. Routledge.
Brown, M., & Carrabine, E. (Eds.). (2017b). Routledge international handbook of visual criminol-
ogy. Routledge.
BSC [British Society of Criminology]. (n.d.). Statement of ethics. BSC. https://www.britsoccrim.
org/ethics/
Carrabine, E. (2017). Social science and visual culture. In M. Brown & E. Carrabine (Eds.),
Routledge international handbook of visual criminology. Routledge.
Cohen, L. E., & Felson, M. (1979). Social change and crime rate trends: A routine activity
approach. American Sociological Review, 44, 588–608.
Collier, J. (1957). Photography in anthropology: A report on two experiments. American
Anthropologist, 59, 843–859.
Coomber, R., & Letherby, G. (2012). Introduction to the special issue on the use of visual methods
in social research. Sociological Research Online, 17(1), 10.
Copes, H., Tchoula, W., Brookman, F., & Ragland, J. (2018). Photo-elicitation interviews with
vulnerable populations: Practical and ethical considerations. Deviant Behavior, 39, 475–494.
12
Written, informed consent was not a standard that could be applied in the work discussed here,
for practical and literacy reasons. But many of our respondents not only consented to having pho-
tos taken and disseminated – a number expressly stated that they wanted their photos to be used
and shown. There are important discussions to be had about the limits of informed consent in the
use of photos, and the competing duties of the researcher to respect the autonomy and agency of
participants while also reducing the risk of harm. We do not have space to explore these in detail
here but see Copes et al. (2019).
Copes, H., Tchoula, W., & Ragland, J. (2019). Ethically representing drug use: Photographs and
ethnographic research with people who use methamphetamine. Journal of Qualitative Criminal
Justice & Criminology, 8(1), 21–36.
Cowburn, M., Duggan, M., Robinson, A., & Senior, P. (Eds.). (2013). Values in criminology and
community justice. Policy Press.
Crevier, L. P., Salkeld, J. H., Marley, J., & Parrott, L. (2021). Making the best possible choice:
Using agent-based modelling to inform wildlife management in small communities. Ecological
Modelling, 446, 109505.
Delamont, S., & Atkinson, P. (2021). Ethnographic engagements: Encounters with the familiar
and the strange. Routledge.
Duffy, R., St John, F. A., Büscher, B., & Brockington, D. (2016). Toward a new understanding of
the links between poverty and illegal wildlife hunting. Conservation Biology, 30(1), 14–22.
Edwards, E. (2008). Performing science: Still photography and the Torres Straits expedition. In
A. Herle & S. Rouse (Eds.), Cambridge and the Torres Strait: Centenary essays on the 1898
anthropological expedition (pp. 106–136). Cambridge University Press.
Elliott, T., & Fleetwood, J. (2017). Law for ethnographers. Methodological innovations, 10(1),
205979911772060.
Feenan, D. (2002). Legal issues in acquiring information about illegal behaviour through crimino-
logical research. British Journal of Criminology, 42(4), 762–781.
Ferrell, J. (2018). ‘We never talked about photography’: Documentary photography, visual crimi-
nology, and method. In M. Brown & E. Carrabine (Eds.), Routledge international handbook of
Ferrell, J., Hayward, K., & Young, J. (2008). Cultural criminology: An invitation. Sage.
Floridi, L. (2017). Group privacy: A defence and an interpretation. In L. Taylor, L. Floridi, &
B. van der Sloot (Eds.), Group privacy: A Defence and an interpretation (Philosophical studies
series) (Vol. 126). Springer.
Hill, J. F. (2015). A systems thinking perspective on the motivations and mechanisms that drive
wildlife poaching. In R. A. Sollund (Ed.), Green harms and crimes: Critical criminology in a
changing world. Springer.
Hill, J. F. (2018). Poaching in Uganda: A crime science and systems thinking perspective. Doctoral
thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
Hill, J. F., Johnson, S. D., & Borrion, H. (2014). Potential uses of computer agent-based simulation
modelling in the evaluation of wildlife poaching. In A. M. Lemieux (Ed.), Situational preven-
tion of poaching. Routledge.
Mannay, D. (2010). Making the familiar strange: Can visual research methods render the familiar
setting more perceptible? Qualitative Research, 10(1), 91–111.
Moreto, W., & Lemieux, A. (2015). Poaching in Uganda: Perspectives of law enforcement rangers.
Deviant Behavior, 36(11), 1–21.
Moreto, W., & Matusiak, M. C. (2016). ‘We fight against wrong doers’: Law enforcement rangers’
roles, responsibilities, and patrol operations in Uganda. Deviant Behavior, 38(4), 1–22.
Parkin, S. (2013). Habitus and drug using environments: Health, place and lived experience.
Ashgate.
Paudel, K., Potter, G., & Phelps, J. (2020). Conservation enforcement: Insights from people incar-
cerated for wildlife crimes in Nepal. Conservation Science and Practice, 2(2), e137. https://
doi.org/10.1111/csp2.137
Pauwels, L. (2017). Key methods of visual criminology: An overview of different approaches and
their affordances. In M. Brown & E. Carrabine (Eds.), Routledge international handbook of
Peelo, M., & Soothill, K. (2012). Questioning homicide and the media: Analysis of content or
content analysis? In D. Gadd, S. Karstedt, & S. F. Messner (Eds.), The sage handbook of crimi-
nological research methods. Sage.
Perez, A. Z., Bone, C., & Stenhouse, G. (2021). Simulating multi-scale movement decision-
making and learning in a large carnivore using agent-based modelling. Ecological Modelling,
452, 109568.
Pink, S. (2021 (2021)). Doing visual ethnography (4th ed.). Sage.
Scarce, R. (1994). (no) trial (but) tribulations: When courts and ethnography conflict. Journal of
Contemporary Ethnography, 23, 123–149.
Schipper, J., Chanson, J. S., Chiozza, F., Cox, N. A., Hoffmann, M., Katariya, V., et al. (2008).
The status of the world’s land and marine mammals: Diversity, threat, and knowledge. Science,
322(5899), 225–230.
Smith, R. J., Muir, R. D. J., Walpole, M. J., Balmford, A., & Leader-Williams, N. (2003).
Governance and the loss of biodiversity. Nature, 426, 67–70.
Spencer, S. (2012). Looking for Africaville: Complementary visual constructions of a contended
space. Sociological Research Online, 17(1), 6.
Taylor, L., Floridi, L., & van der Sloot, B. (Eds.). (2017). Group privacy: New challenges of data
technologies. Springer.
UWA (Uganda Wildlife Authority). (2021). Handbook on wildlife related offences and penalties
in Uganda. UWA.
Van de Voorde, C. (2012). Ethnographic photography in criminological research. In D. Gadd,
S. Karstedt, & S. F. Messner (Eds.), The sage handbook of criminological research meth-
ods. Sage.
Westin, A. (1967). Privacy and freedom. Bodley Head.
Wortley, R., & Townsley, M. (Eds.). (2016). Environmental criminology and crime analysis (2nd
ed.). Routledge.
Wright, C. (2018). Photo-ethnography. In H. Callan (Ed.), The international encyclopedia of
anthropology. Wiley.
WWF/TRAFFIC. (2015). Strategies for fighting corruption in wildlife conservation: a primer.
WWF and TRAFFIC Wildlife Crime Initiative. https://www.traffic.org/site/assets/files/9025/
wci_strategies_for_fighting_corruption_wildlife_conservation.pdf
Joanna F. Hill is an honorary research fellow at Manchester University and an analytics and
reporting manager for the Uganda Conservation Foundation. Jo has an academic background in
conservation biology and criminology, with over 8 years’ field experience in Uganda. She con-
ducted PhD research on poaching at the UCL Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science
and used crime science principles to investigate human-elephant conflict in Uganda (International
Elephant Foundation and M. Philip Kahl Postdoctoral Fellowship). Her main interests include
Systems/Design Thinking and crime prevention principles for tackling conservation problems and
exploring the intersection between academia and conservation practice.
Gary R. Potter is at the Lancaster University Law School. Dr. Potter’s research on poachers in
Ghana has been presented at numerous conferences including issues around cultural sensitivity to
the role nature, hunting, and animal trophy play in different tribes in the country. His work offers
rarely seen comparisons with cultural differences from the Global North.
Chapter 12
Language Matters: Doing Systematic
(Critical) Discourse Analysis
Olga Petintseva
Introduction
Discourse analysis has gained traction across a variety of academic fields and its
variations are numerous (see, e.g., Gill, 2000; Wodak & Meyer, 2009). It is distin-
guishable from many other methods of textual analysis, originally associated with
the discipline of linguistics: pragmatics, stylistics, argumentation analysis, literary
criticism, sociolinguistics, anthropology, conversation analysis, etc. (Blommaert &
Verfaillie, 2009; Fairclough, 2010). Many discourse analyses build upon the
Foucauldian notion of discourse and/or the discourse theory by Laclau and Mouffe
(1985). Despite differences in approaches, discourse analysts centralize text, docu-
ments, talk, visuals, and other discursive practices. In this, language is conceived of
as social practice – as an active enterprise. In that sense, discourse is not simply a
(neutral) reflection of reality, rather, discourses are sets of practices that shape
knowledge (Bacchi & Bonham, 2014).
It is then a discourse analyst’s task to get beyond explicit content and to surpass
descriptions of the use of linguistic means. One needs to attend to intertextuality,
constant exchanges between parts of the text, the whole text, and its context.
According to Gill (2000, p. 188), discourse analysis is “[…] a careful, close reading
that moves between text and context to examine the content, organization, and func-
tions of discourse.” Analyzing or interpreting discourse means entering the world of
the text, understanding it, and comprehending how it works and what it means
(Carney, 2013).
The critical variant – critical discourse analysis (hereafter: CDA) – requires spe-
cific attentiveness for naturalizing and excluding dynamics, inquiring into which
representations are dominant, which voices are (or are not) heard, how certain
O. Petintseva (*)
University of Ghent, Ghent, Belgium
e-mail: olga.petintseva@vub.be
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18401-7_12
200 O. Petintseva
preferred representations of reality become “common sense,” and how seemingly

individual/obvious/routine actions are imbued with the influences of (political or
institutional) structural order (Fairclough, 2010). Also, as cultural construals of
reality, discourses constitute knowledge (and thus power) selectively, representing
certain accounts as truth or as the norm, emphasizing some perspectives over others,
and reflecting power struggles. CDA will foreground the societal, political, and cul-
tural dimensions of discourse and delve into the ways in which discourses get (re)
produced, (re-)negotiated, and challenged. Topically, CDA mostly focuses on a
wide array of problems rooted in group-based forms of inequality, such as racism,
classism, sexism, and colonialism (van Dijk, 1990). Although “context” is central to
all discourse analysis, its importance is perhaps pronounced the most in CDA,
which engages with power struggles, negotiations, and inconsistencies in specific
(institutional) contexts. It is understood that meanings do not merely arise from
language but from institutional practices, from power relations, and from social
positions/positioning – words and concepts change their meaning and effects as
they get deployed within different discourses. Montesano Montessori et al. (2012)
describe CDA as a “research strategy/analysis of (hidden) structural relations that
are situated in discourse (written, oral, visual). These can reveal domination, dis-
crimination, power, and hegemony expressed in language” (translation OP).
CDA was developed at the beginning of the 1990s, under the impulse of Wodak,
Fairclough, and Van Dijk (Montesano Montessori et al., 2012). These scholars were
also pioneers of three major approaches within CDA: the discourse-historical
approach (Wodak), the dialectical-relational approach (Fairclough), and the socio-
cognitive approach (Van Dijk). CDA finds its base in linguistics and its philosophi-
cal elaborations are inspired by the Frankfurter Schule, the work of Habermas,
particularly, post-structuralist and neo-Marxist ideas (Montesano Montessori et al.,
2012). Other important thinkers frequently mentioned in CDA writings include
Harvey, Bourdieu, Bernstein, and Derrida (see Chouliaraki & Fairclough, 1999).
So far, and very generally, on the basic premises of CDA. But then comes the
question of doing (critical) discourse analysis, which I highlight in this chapter,
focusing on the domain of criminology. This perspective is particularly important
because it has been repeatedly stated that (C)DA entails systematic and explicit
analysis (see, e.g., Van Dijk, 1990). Nevertheless, a critique often levied at dis-
course studies is that they merely entail “impressions-based commentary.” The
prominence of such critiques is problematic not only in view of the academic cred-
ibility of (C)DA but also because of the incidence of the question of how to do
systematic and explicit analysis. It is the case that in manifold (methodological)
contributions to discourse analysis, researchers are instructed to direct their atten-
tion towards the functioning, embedding, meaning, and situatedness of discourses.
This is engaging and intellectually exciting. At the same time, I (probably alongside
many other academics) have encountered numerous students and researchers who
embark on the enterprise of conducting (critical) discourse analysis, only to eventu-
ally agonize about its practical execution and quality. With this chapter, I hope to
help enable those who conduct discourse analysis (in criminology) not only to
counter the (mostly positivist) critique of “impressionist language games” but also
12 Language Matters: Doing Systematic (Critical) Discourse Analysis 201
to address the obscursim that is often associated with doing (C)DA, making it so
that researchers sometimes get cold feet. That said, reflections and suggestions
offered in the present contribution are not meant to be a one-fits-all road map, as
discourse analysis is exactly valuable for its potential to spark creative thinking and
open-endedness.
Although the issues discussed here are applicable across a variety of fields, I
draw on examples from criminology because, as I will argue in the following sec-
tion, criminological scholarship has been relatively reluctant towards (C)DA. Our
study area is also particular because of its pronounced focus on sensitive topics and
hidden populations (see also, Petintseva et al., 2019), which makes reading between
the lines even more relevant. From a pragmatic viewpoint, the focus on criminology
allows me to discuss examples within a discipline with which I am familiar.
The chapter is structured as follows: First, based on a discussion of criminologi-
cal (C)DA, I highlight two issues that underpin the dismissal of (qualitative) DA as
“impression-based commentary”: (1) data telling and (2) commentary masked as
analysis. Next, some thoughts on how to mediate these issues are offered, namely,
(a) systematic coding and analysis, (b) attentiveness to linguistic detail, (c) connect-
ing language use to its broader context, and (d) making the analysis more rigorous
and intellectually honest (in search for a better formulation), by countering and
diversifying the analyst’s arguments.
riminology’s Murky Relationship with (Critical)

C
Discourse Analysis
The term “discourse” is often used in criminology, but studies that conduct (critical)
discourse analysis are rather scarce. To assess the extent to which (C)DA is promi-
nent within criminology, I conducted a search in the databases of the discipline’s 20
top-tier journals, searching for research articles published between 2000 and 2021
that mention (anywhere in their full-text papers) “discourse analysis.” In nine out of
twenty journals, the search rendered zero results. Five journals had less than five
“hits” and the most search results were found in: The British Journal of Criminology
(52), Crime, Law and Social Change (26), Punishment & Society (19), Policing and
Society (13), Criminology & Criminal Justice (12), European Journal of Criminology
(8). To the list of “top 20 journals,” I added two high-impact international peer-
reviewed journals that seemed like plausible outlets for discourse analysis, namely
Crime Media Culture and Critical Criminology (with hits in respectively 29 and 26
papers). These “hits” are numbers of articles mentioning “discourse analysis.” Of
course, in most cases, the phrase “discourse analysis” did not imply that the papers
concerned were publishing results of discourse analysis as such. Oftentimes, these
were cross-references to other studies or passing mentions of DA. I am aware that
top-tier journals do not reflect the discipline’s diversity to the fullest and have their
specific aims, conventions, and tendencies in publishing research (see, e.g., Copes
et al., 2016). Moreover, the nature of DA requires an eye for detail and elaboration,
202 O. Petintseva
often making it more suitable for book form or other (less conventional) types of
dissemination. Nevertheless, in the contemporary academic context, such journals
form the discipline’s “main stage” and even journals entirely dedicated to (critical)
discourse analysis, for example, Discourse and Society, do not have lengthy lists of
publications thematically linked to criminology (though the few that are available
are highly valuable, especially when it comes to detailing DA (see, e.g., Ho Shon,
2005; Johansen, 2017).
When it comes to thematic foci, there is a great variety of work. Quite prominent
are publications that identify and compare the ways in which crime is represented in
the media (e.g., Young & Allum, 2012). Aside from identifying such discourses,
scholars have focused on the underlying processes of discourse production, autho-
rial intent, and the way the audience is conceived of (e.g., Crépault, 2017). Much
work has been done on police discourses (e.g., Campbell, 2004) and their performa-
tive and functional aspects (e.g., Duncan & Walby, 2022). Equally, criminologists
have been attentive to how offenders and victims relate to certain prevailing dis-
courses and how they explain their actions and experiences (e.g., Heber, 2017;
Sandberg, 2009; Willot et al., 2001).
A good share of consulted DA had more of an individual psychological orienta-
tion, rather than CDA, discussed further, for example, identifying how fraudsters
deploy discursive means to deceive victims (Carter, 2021) or how women offenders
explain their pathways to substance abuse and crime (Gueta & Chen, 2016) or
decoding latent messages in prisoner’s discourse that point to behavioral disorders
(Timor & Weiss, 2008). Some studies engage in “fact-finding” by using DA to ver-
ify the accuracy of (offender) accounts (Dilmon & Timor, 2014).
There are, of course, studies that focus on the institutional and societal realities
(the macro context, if you will), for example, by studying how criminal justice pro-
fessionals define crime in their discourses (e.g., Gabe et al., 2001) and by taking a
“policy-as-discourse” analytical approach (e.g., Pali & Maglione, 2021; Petintseva,
2018). Particularly rich in this regard are historical accounts of the role of language
in shaping institutional practices, which constitute the rationales of policing and
punishment (e.g., Bland, 2021; Carrabine, 2004).
The attentiveness to some types of (C)DA is growing thanks to the emergence
and rapid development of narrative criminology. This framework starts from the
premise that narratives inform and motivate human action and the search for mean-
ing more generally (Presser, 2009; Presser & Sandberg, 2015). Narratives are seen
as antecedents of (potentially harmful) action, instead of merely being post-factum
justifications for decision-making (Fleetwood, 2016; Presser, 2009, 2016). Although
it is not narrative criminologists’ primary goal to offer a specific methodological
approach, their focus on narratives as specific discursive forms and, often, reliance
on socio-linguistic methods (see, for instance, the edited collection Emerald
Handbook of Narrative Criminology (Fleetwood et al., 2019)) makes it so that a
connected body of work that foregrounds language use is consolidating.
Alongside emphasizing the relevance of engaging with (critical) discourse analy-
sis more frequently, at least equally important is to enhance the quality of analysis.
One of the critiques levied at (C)DA mentioned earlier could be summarized as
“data telling.” For instance, Antaki et al. (2003) go out of their way to stress that
discourse analysis means doing analysis, “doing something” with the data. They
criticize the practice of falsely assuming that data speaks for itself when the final
analysis report sticks at the level of summaries of data. This position means not only
not doing analysis but even distorting discourses by stripping them from their con-
texts and complexity. In the same vein, these authors argue that much discourse
analysis often relies on “over-quotation,” where (now, under the banner of not want-
ing to decontextualize discourse), researchers offer a collection of diverse quotes or
pieces of discourse, without necessarily “doing” anything with them, other than
writing a good synthesis and/or making eloquent commentaries. According to
Antaki et al. (2003), “pointing things out” in itself does not equate to doing dis-
course analysis. This tendency is recognizable in some of the (already scarce) crimi-
nological publications.
Arguably, even though (C)DA is not a method in the sense of a neatly outlined
technique, systematic analysis is needed. In the remainder of the chapter, I offer
some thoughts on how to go about such systematic analysis, while connecting dis-
cursive details to their contexts. I readily acknowledge that there are different (per-
haps more sophisticated) ways to approach this, but the four strategies I outline have
been helpful for me and could inspire others experimenting with (critical) discourse
analysis.
Systematic, Rigorous, and Credible Analysis
First Steps of Coding and Analysis Critiques sometimes levied at (C)DA (but also
qualitative research in general) denote that, supposedly, “anything goes.” This
includes allusions to selectivity, anecdotism, and making grand statements based on
illustrations. Although such claims are not always well-founded, one needs to be
able to counter them, also proactively. To this end, systematic coding and analysis
(including transparency in this regard) are good weapons of choice.
Using discourse as primary data requires the analyst to stay as close as possible
to the discourse. If, for instance, interviews, photos of documents, and video or
audio recordings are analyzed, a good transcription is a crucial first step. The most
common would be traditional verbatim transcriptions, especially in nonlinguist
studies (which will be the case in much criminological work). However, different
ways of transcribing can be relevant. For instance, for interviews, you could also
resort to the “Jefferson Transcription System,” which is a conversational analysis
code. This is a useful and accessible tool for researchers looking at speech patterns
and annotating speech with details of performance, acts, texts, movement, interac-
tion between actors, content, and context.
Even though transcribing is a labor-consuming enterprise, this is a great way of
immersing oneself in the data. Once there is a transcript (in some cases, such as
analysis of online newspaper articles, this will be simply the data collected), the
204 O. Petintseva
coding starts. There are different helpful manuals (see, e.g., Saldaña, 2015), outlin-
ing a multitude of approaches to coding, I discuss one that I employed myself on
different occasions.
The first stage entails “over-reading,” attentiveness to detail, vagueness, and con-
tradictions. This differs from classical reading, where you would try to grasp the
main point, often bracketing the details. “Over-reading” resembles the anthropo-
logical practice of “rendering the familiar strange” while focusing on the construc-
tion, organization, and functions of the discourse (not necessarily immediately
looking at what is behind it – that will come later) (Gill, 2000). Whether you code
manually or use software, this first coding round means close reading as well as
marking anything relevant to the topic of interest. Mark things that may be explicit
or implicit, surprising, or mundane – it is better to code too much than to cut the data
hastily.
What happens in the next coding rounds strongly depends on the type of data and
the kind of knowledge you are after. For example, if you want to analyze how the
speakers (e.g., judges) understand and mobilize a notion (e.g., responsibility of the
offender), you could select programmatic texts and problematizations that explicitly
mention or implicitly relate to “responsibility” as data (see Petintseva, 2018). This
second coding round could be seen as a careful selection of the relevant types of
texts and statements, while further familiarizing oneself with the data.
The third round is what is known as axial coding, gradually shifting from descrip-
tive coding categories to analytic. In the example of the ways in which judges assess
offenders’ responsibility, this would mean analytically subdividing data into differ-
ent interpretations of “responsibility.” This analytic coding usually strongly shapes
the structure of the final report (Saldaña, 2015). Still, this phase is likely to be cha-
otic. The raw thematic patterns identified within the data need to be merged and
further subdivided, initially formulated typologies get revisited, and themes get col-
lapsed into a preliminary coding tree, which then changes a few times. While con-
structing the categories that eventually guide the analysis, it is important to try to
carefully untangle the underlying building block ideas and concepts of the discourse
analyzed (Rubin & Rubin, 2011), yet without striving for a clean and (too) straight-
forward narrative thread in structuring the data.
The steps outlined so far resemble the thematic analysis done in much qualitative
work, not exclusively DA. Next, comes the tricky step: analyzing the data in a trans-
parent and coherent fashion while going beyond its face value. This entails atten-
tiveness to linguistic detail and understanding the ways in which language works (in
terms of discursive strategies, but also how it relates to its specific social context –
which is the focus of the next two subsections).
How Language Works: Tracing Discursive Strategies Valuable epistemological
and methodological contributions are available that help us understand what can be
treated as discourse (e.g., objects (Ugelvik, 2019), images (Carrabine, 2019)), how
discourses relate to their recipients (e.g., the way in which audience is conceived of
(Crépault, 2017; Hourigan, 2019)). But the “how to” of analyzing linguistic detail
(what I suggest could be the fourth coding/analyzing round, in addition to those
discussed in the previous session) is often glanced over quickly. This may have to
do with Foucault’s legacy as Foucauldian discourse analysis is less fixated on lin-

guistic detail, rather, discourses are conceived of as “practices that systematically
form the objects of which they speak” (Foucault, 1969, p. 49). Consequently, such
analyses are concerned with how people, objects, and events are constituted and
positioned within discourses, considering the cultural and historical contexts in
which discourses are constructed and legitimized (Ristikivi, 2014). The immediate
text is then rarely unpacked in detail. Many discourse analysts would consciously
adhere to this approach. However, it can also be argued that studies of sociopolitical
structures that engage in language use need to engage with the language. This
approach entails not only vague/metaphorical mentioning of its importance but also
employing linguistic methods and digging into detail (Van Dijk, 1990).
Most criminologists (unless schooled in sociolinguistics) would need to rely on
self-education here and this will frequently evoke an understandable fear of linguis-
tic detail. Where to start, especially if one is working with large data sets? We are
social scientists, so what does, for instance, syntax matter? And if you get stuck in
“language games,” how to move to broader contexts from there? On the one hand, I
am mindful of overstating the importance of linguistic detail and systematic analy-
sis. On the other hand, what constitutes discourse analysis? Arguably, if you stop at
thematic analysis, it makes you more of a content analyst. If “over-reading” or intui-
tive reading between the lines is what you are doing, this makes you an attentive and
critical reader.
For example, if a researcher is interviewing a judge about her/his understanding
of an offender’s responsibility and then analyzes this data as discourse, the researcher
might add that the judge “fails to see beyond the individualist notion of responsibil-
ity.” Such an inference does not constitute discourse analysis (Antaki et al., 2003).
Discourse analysis could mean unpacking the rhetorical and discursive strategies
that the speaker deploys to avoid topics such as, for example, the social position of
the person who commits the crime. These rhetorical maneuvers would also need to
be examined in relation to the interviewer’s questions and the overall interaction
(Antaki et al., 2003).
Depending on the focus and the questions of a given research, the researcher could
dig into different discursive strategies. A helpful resource in this regard is Machin
and Mayr’s (2012) How to Do Critical Discourse Analysis? This book focuses on
discourse analysis as a research technique and details different relevant discursive
strategies, including word connotations, overlexicalization, structural oppositions,
salience, specification or genericization, nomination/functionalization, use of honor-
ifics, objectivation, anonymization, aggregation, expressions of mental, behavioral,
verbal, relational, and existential processes in descriptions of the situation and its
assessments, representing actors in abstraction, nominalization, presuppositions,
metaphors, modality, and suppression – lexical absence (Machin & Mayr, 2012).
While reading a text, we often intuitively feel that something is going on but can-
not always put our finger on it. Especially in formalized, “clean” and sophisticated
texts (for example, court rulings), overtly blunt statements are scarce. An analyst
could decide to identify several relevant discursive strategies and systematically
screen the data for their use. What counts as relevant depends on the topical focus
206 O. Petintseva
but equally on the levels of discursive strategies under study. For instance, a macro
strategy would be to transform, to justify, and to construct, whereas a micro focus
would entail closely looking at language use, grammatical shapes, active/passive,
choice of particular words, metaphors, etc. (Montesano Montessori et al., 2012)).
Alongside linguistic means, the analysis of discursive strategies can foreground the
affective and embodied meaning of discourse (e.g., by focusing on the rapidity of
turn-taking, shifts in pitch, volume, and speed (Singh, 2018)).
To make this a bit more tangible, one example of a common linguistic move
called “quoting verbs” (Machin & Mayr, 2012) is as follows: the offender claimed;
the social worker informed us. This encourages the audience to assume a particular
legitimacy. The first step it to systematically identify (“spot”) the prominence of this
discursive strategy and understand in which instances it is mobilized. Then (as will
be detailed in the next session), the analyst could reflect on what this means. Asking
questions such as what presuppositions underlie this representation? What is left
unproblematic here? Can the situation be thought about differently? Why is a cer-
tain voice (not) taken into account? (Bacchi, 2009; Petintseva, 2018).
Connecting Language Use to Its Context Tracing and unpacking discursive strate-
gies enables us to generate insightful and detailed empirical descriptions and to
move on to critical discourse analysis, such details need to be connected and
explained, considering their broader contexts.
As Van Dijk (1990) maintains in the first issue of Discourse & Society, an elegant
description of a racist political discourse, a problematic media representation, or
noting a gender-based variation in storytelling will not suffice for CDA. Rather, it is
essential to understand the functions of such discourse and its relationship to the
societal and political contexts. For instance, discourses can be shown to be ideologi-
cal, not merely faulty, or inadequate, if they appear to be “necessary” for sustaining
certain relations of power (Fairclough, 2010).
A thorough analysis entails understanding and spelling out the underlying
dynamics (not generic statements, such as “the influences of neoliberal thinking are
clearly apparent here”). If one problematizes certain shared patterns of understand-
ing, it is also important to show how and why speakers draw upon certain reper-
toires, tropes (Sandberg, 2016), or ideologies, and to substantiate this. Importantly,
be mindful of conflating empirical descriptions with statements of explanatory
value. With this, I mean avoiding circular reasoning in the vein of “speakers share
this neoliberal discourse, because this is the dominant (neoliberal) discourse,”
without trying to explain and evaluate why those discourses and beliefs are held.
Historical evidence can be referenced to trace the origins and development of dis-
courses. The language-focused analysis described in the previous section, in turn,
assists us in understanding how these wider discursive patterns get mobilized in
specific instances or pieces of discourse. The historical perspective, then, leads us
back to why particular discursive strategies are mobilized and how specific (say,
institutional) contexts foster these processes, which logics and legitimation tech-
niques underpin them, and in which circumstances are they produced. Equally rel-
evant is the question of what these discursive strategies accomplish. Overall, an
analyst needs to continually move back and forth between the general and the spe-
cific (see Antaki et al., 2003).
Countering and Diversifying Analysts’ Arguments To counter the critique of
“commenting as we go,” doing (critical) discourse analysis could and should entail
some sort of “falsification” (of course, in addition to reflexivity). Although much
depends on the theory-research relationship the project adheres to, analysts need to
find a way to avoid cherry-picking the most remarkable pieces of discourse, as well
as self-confirmation. One way would be having (parts of) the data read, analyzed,
and coded independently by several researchers – increasing the classical intercoder
validity.
However, in qualitative (C)DA, where much resistance exists against positivist
quality control criteria, perhaps a more common strategy will be retroduction, which
is a well-known analytic exercise that can be done by one researcher. Retroduction
means considering the types of qualities that must exist for something (e.g., differ-
ences in assigning responsibility depending on the offender’s gender, ethnicity, and
class) to be possible, with the aim of discovering the constitutive elements of that
“something” (Danermark et al., 2002). Practically, to proceed with retroduction,
Danermark et al. (2002) suggest several strategies, two of which are particularly
useful for (C)DA.
The first strategy is to compare different cases: selecting and contrasting cases in
which processes that are researched are assumed to be manifest but which differ in
other relevant aspects (e.g., in unpacking disparate assumptions about the responsi-
bility of certain ethnic minority offenders, one could make “within-case compari-
sons” by contrasting minority offenders who find themselves in dissimilar
socioeconomic positions) (Danermark et al., 2002). This way a researcher tries to
establish what the cases have in common, what is different, what “conditions” are
necessary, which ones are rather accidental, how differences are manifested, what
their effects are, and so on.
The second strategy entails counterfactual thinking, where the analyst tries to
imagine how things would be without a certain element (e.g., the offender’s ethnic-
ity), to find out whether it is a constitutive feature. This strategy is also known as
“replacement discourses” (Henry & Milovanovic, 2000), which means that the ana-
lyst imagines what the same piece of discourse under study would mean without
that element (e.g., replace “gypsy woman shoplifting” with “a young woman shop-
lifting”: does the overall image conveyed in the discourse change?).
A helpful strategy to structure the analysis is first analyzing similar cases (e.g.,
first all cases concerning a certain ethnic minority), formulating tentative hypothe-
ses. The next step is looking for counterexamples in the subsequent/remaining data.
This corresponds with what is called discriminatory sampling in theoretical sam-
pling procedures (Glaser & Strauss, 2006). The very first analysis then provides
more homogenous categories, it is open and exploratory, guided by raw ideas and
concepts. The goal is to elaborate and fine-tune these first ideas and concepts and
their relevance, with attention to similarities and parallels. The following phase
encompasses more of a directed analysis, maximizing the differences, actively
208 O. Petintseva
looking for rebuttal of the initial findings, contrasting different subgroups, search-
ing for atypical cases, challenging earlier findings, and making constant compari-
sons. Maximizing differences and contrasting diverse “subgroups” allows analysts
to nuance the findings and to discuss the differences in which relevant cases/catego-
ries vary.
Concluding Thoughts
Admittedly, writing up this chapter made me realize even more that no clear-cut
manuals can ever exist for doing (C)DA. The strategies I suggest here are certainly
not a cure-all. The most important ingredient, namely, critical, and creative think-
ing, is a human quality and an ever-developing skill that cannot (and should not) be
captured in any methodological procedures. Nevertheless, my goal was to share
possible steps of analysis or even just clues to help demystify the process.
It is safe to say that (critical) discourse analysis requires a close engagement with
the discourses elicited (including their content, linguistic details, and their “making
of” and “working of”). To be able to do this, especially with a larger amount of data,
a system that helps you structure and phase your work is at least a wise travel com-
panion. Moreover, systematic coding and analysis may help increase the work’s
transparency and credibility. Aside from “strategic” publishability reasoning, trans-
parency is instrumental in allowing the readers to follow the process of data pro-
cessing and enabling them to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the analysis,
and perhaps even the conscientiousness of the researcher (Rubin & Rubin, 2011).
Detailing how inferences were made reflects some form of respect for the audience,
as researchers refrain from simply imposing their comments on the reader.
I work with the hope that these clues will contribute to the consistency and coher-
ence of discourse analytical studies simply because they involve checking and con-
stantly evaluating one’s own ideas, emerging categories, and preliminary findings.
A more systematic approach might be instrumental in resisting the temptation to
present (too) smooth findings while eliminating inconsistencies. All of this certainly
does not solely serve the “technical” rigor requirements. Serious CDA can help us
uncover and address the fundamental processes beneath contemporary forms of
social harms.
References
Antaki, C., Billig, M., Edwards, D. & Potter, J. (2003). Discourse analysis means doing analysis:
A critique of six analytic shortcomings. Discourse analysis Online, 1. Available at: http://www.
shu.ac.uk/daol/articles/v1/n1/a1/antaki2002002-t.html
Bacchi, C. (2009). Analysing policy: What’s the problem represented to be? Frenchs Forest.
Bacchi, C., & Bonham, J. (2014). Reclaiming discursive practices as an analytic focus: Political
implications. Foucault Studies, 17, 173–192.
Bland, E. (2021). ‘Lurking’ and ‘loitering’: The genealogy of languages of police suspicion in
Britain. Policing and Society. online ahead of print.
Blommaert, J., & Verfaillie, K. (2009). Discoursanalyse. In T. Decorte & D. Zaitch (Eds.),
Kwalitatieve methoden en technieken in de criminologie (pp. 311–337). Acco.
Campbell, D. E. (2004). Police narrativity in the risk society. British Journal of Criminology,
44(5), 695–714.
Carney, P. (2013). Critical discourse analysis (lecture). PhD summer school on advanced qualita-
tive and legal methods in criminology. Utrecht University.
Carrabine, E. (2004). Power, discourse and resistance: A genealogy of the strangeways prison riot.
Dartmouth: Ashgate.
Carrabine, E. (2019). Reading pictures: Piranesi and Carceral landscapes. In J. Fleetwood,
L. Presser, S. Sandberg, & T. Ugelvik (Eds.), Emerald handbook of narrative criminology
(pp. 197–216). Emerald.
Carter, E. (2021). Distort, extort, deceive and exploit: Exploring the inner workings of a romance
fraud. The British Journal of Criminology, 61(2), 283–302.
Chouliaraki, L., & Fairclough, N. (1999). Discourse in late modernity: Rethinking critical dis-
course analysis. Edinburgh University Press.
Copes, H., Tewksbury, R., & Sandberg, S. (2016). Publishing qualitative research in criminology
and criminal justice journals. Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 27(1), 121–139.
Crépault, D. (2017). The rise of partisan pedagogy: How stakeholders outside of the academy are
answering the call to public criminology. The British Journal of Criminology, 57(4), 789–807.
Danermark, B., Ekström, M., Jakobsen, L., & Karlsson, J. C. (2002). Explaining society: Critical
realism in the social sciences. Routledge.
Dilmon, R., & Timor, U. (2014). The narrative of men who murder their partners: How reliable is it?
International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 58(10), 1125–1149.
Duncan, J., & Walby, K. (2022). Police union political communications in canada. The British
Fairclough, N. (2010). Critical discourse analysis. The critical study of language (2nd ed.).
Pearson Education Limited.
Fleetwood, J. (2016). Narrative habitus: Thinking through structure/agency in the narratives of
offenders. Crime Media Culture, 12(2), 173–192.
Fleetwood, J., Presser, L., Sandberg, S., & Ugelvik, T. (2019). The emerald handbook of narrative
criminology. Emerald.
Foucault, M. (1969). L’archéologie du savoir. Éditions Gallimard.
Gabe, J., Denney, D., Lee, R. M., Elston, M. A., & O’Beirne, M. (2001). Researching professional
discourses on violence. British Journal of Criminology, 41(3), 460–471.
Gill, R. (2000). Discourse analysis. In M. W. Bauer & G. Gaskell (Eds.), Qualitative researching
with text, image and sound: A practical handbook (pp. 172–190). Sage.
Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (2006). The discovery of grounded theory. Aldine de Gruyter.
Gueta, K., & Chen, G. (2016). “I wanted to rebel, but there they hit me even harder” discourse
analysis of Israeli women offenders’ accounts of their pathways to substance abuse and crime.
International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 60(7), 787–807.
Heber, A. (2017). ‘You thought you were superman’: Violence, victimization and masculinities.
British Journal of Criminology, 57(1), 61–78.
Henry, S., & Milovanovic, D. (2000). Constitutive criminology: Origins, core concepts, and evalu-
ation. Social Justice, 27(2), 268–290.
Ho Shon, P. C. (2005). ‘I’d grab the S-O-B by his hair and yank him out the window’: The fra-
ternal order of warnings and threats in police–citizen encounters. Discourse & Society, 16(6),
829–845.
Hourigan, K. L. (2019). Narrative victimology: Speaker, audience, timing. In J. Fleetwood,
L. Presser, S. Sandberg, & T. Ugelvik (Eds.), Emerald handbook of narrative criminology
(pp. 259–277). Bingley.
210 O. Petintseva
Johansen, L. V. (2017). Between standard, silence and exception: How texts construct defendants
as persons in Danish pre-sentence reports. Discourse & Society, 29(2), 123–141.
Laclau, E., & Mouffe, C. (1985). Hegemony and socialist strategy: Towards a radical democratic
politics. Verso.
Machin, D., & Mayr, A. (2012). How to do critical discourse analysis. Sage.
Montesano Montessori, N., Schuman, H., & De Lange, R. (2012). Kritische discoursanalyse. De
macht en kracht van taal en tekst. ASP.
Pali, B., & Maglione, G. (2021). Discursive representations of restorative justice in international
policies. European Journal of Criminology. online ahead of print.
Petintseva, O. (2018). Youth justice and migration: Discursive harms. Palgrave.
Petintseva, O., Faria, R., & Eski, Y. (2019). Interviewing elites, experts and the powerful in crimi-
nology. Palgrave.
Presser, L. (2009). The narratives of offenders. Theoretical Criminology, 13(2), 177–200.
Presser, L. (2016). Criminology and the narrative turn. Crime, Media, Culture, 12(2), 137–151.
Presser, L., & Sandberg, S. (2015). Narrative criminology. Understanding stories of crime. In
L. Presser & S. Sandberg (Eds.), Introduction. What is the story? (pp. 1–22). NYU Press.
Ristikivi, M. (2014). Discourse analysis workshop. Ghent University. 20 May 2014.
Rubin, H. J., & Rubin, I. S. (2011). Qualitative interviewing: The art of hearing data. Sage.
Saldaña, J. (2015). The coding manual for qualitative researchers. Sage.
Sandberg, S. (2009). Gangster, victim or both? The interdiscursive construction of sameness and
difference in self-presentations. The British Journal of Sociology, 60(3), 523–542.
Sandberg, S. (2016). The importance of stories untold: Life- story, event-story, and trope. Crime,
Media, Culture, 12(2), 153–171.
Singh, R. (2018). ‘Setting a good example for the ladies’: Example setting as a technique of penal
reform in specialized prostitution court. The British Journal of Criminology, 58(3), 569–587.
Timor, U., & Weiss, J. M. (2008). Sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic indications of behavior
disorders: Analysis of a prisoner’s discourse. International Journal of Offender Therapy and
Comparative Criminology, 52(1), 112–126.
Ugelvik, T. (2019). The tales things tell: Narrative analysis, materiality, and my wife’s old Nazi
rifle. In J. Fleetwood, L. Presser, S. Sandberg, & T. Ugelvik (Eds.), Emerald handbook of nar-
rative criminology (pp. 217–233). Bingley.
van Dijk, T. A. (1990). Discourse & Society: A new journal for a new research focus. Discourse
& Society, 1(1), 5–16.
Willott, S., Griffin, C., & Torrance, M. (2001). Snakes and ladders: Upper-middle class male
offenders talk about economic crime. Criminology, 39(2), 441–466.
Wodak, R., & Meyer, M. (2009). Critical discourse analysis: History, agenda, theory, and method-
ology. In R. Wodak & M. Meyer (Eds.), Methods of critical discourse analysis (pp. 1–34). Sage.
Young, A. B. K., & Allum, F. (2012). A comparative study of British and German press articles on
‘organised crime’ (1999–2009). Crime Law and Social Change, 58, 139–157.
Olga Petintseva is a postdoctoral fellow of the Research Foundation – Flanders, affiliated with
Ghent University and Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium. Olga’s expertise is located at the inter-
section of (critical) criminology, migration studies, and sociolinguistics. Her current research
interests are situated within the field of narrative criminology, primarily focusing on the issues of
racism, gender-based violence, and social exclusion in institutional practices (including youth jus-
tice, higher education).
Part V
Praxis: Pondering and Publishing
Overview
The transformation and expansion of qualitative methods in the last years were asso-
ciated with changes brought about by COVID-19, the rise of the extreme right and
nationalism, and the ever-expanding importance of social media in social interac-
tion, as well as the production of fake news. Transformation also comes from the
development of new ways to collect and analyze qualitative data (e.g., big data, new
market offers of transcription, and analytical software for qualitative research), as
well as new theoretical frameworks for explaining crime and deviance (e.g., cultural
criminology), social control experiences (e.g., sensory analysis of the incarceration
experience), harms stemming from capitalism and overconsumption (green crimi-
nology), victimization patterns (e.g., intersectionality), and global phenomena and
decolonization of knowledge (e.g., criminology from the global south). It is no won-
der that a synthesis of all such macro transformations would be impossible to achieve
in this book. For that purpose, readers should look elsewhere for valuable theoretical
contributions, such as Aas, 2013; Agozino & Ducey, 2020; Ferrell et al., 2008; Hall,
2015; Ferrell, 2021; Sandberg & Fondevila, 2022; Sparks, 2020, just to name a few.
The last part of the book materializes what the previous chapters had argued:
that is, criminological research happens in social and institutional contexts that,
worldwide, influence the way research is conducted. The COVID-19 pandemics
offered a real opportunity for criminologists (and other social scientists) to testify
rapidly changing conditions in social control and crime patterns, as well as in deeper
social patterns for people and institutions’ daily practices. Volatility, precariousness,
and radical and rapid changes need to be addressed by science, particularly by crim-
inology, while simultaneously, these are the same conditions that shape the scien-
tific endeavor and affect those who study crime, harm, and crime control (Briggs).
Researchers, despite changes, find themselves responding to the scientific ethos of
(co)creating knowledge and disseminating findings, aiming at raising public aware-
ness of specific social realities (e.g., drug use, climate change, corruption). The
chapter, thus, provides practical insights on how to publish qualitative (criminologi-
cal) research, when most top-tier journals prioritize quantitative rather than
212 V Praxis: Pondering and Publishing
qualitative studies (Dodge & Parker). Furthermore, it offers some reflections on

needed ethical considerations in the adaptation of qualitative methods (including
online methods, or sensory and visual methodologies) to this rapidly changing
world, arguing that, despite everything else, the principle of not harming partici-
pants needs to be relentlessly preserved (Faria).
Future endeavors should include a project aimed at providing a diagnosis of how
criminology is conducted worldwide. Using scientifically comparable and critical
approaches and methods to map out the ways criminology is done should unite the
criminological community. What are the research questions posed? How are they
being worded? Which theoretical and conceptual approaches and frameworks are
used? What methods and methodologies are being used and how? How are research
results being published and where? Which topics are being funded and in which
countries or institutional conditions is funding being awarded? What are the fea-
tures of research groups in criminology regarding gender, ethnicity, and age? Which
outputs or results are being measured (and by whom and for what purposes) as
engagement and social impact? Mapping out institutional, contextual, funding, and
working conditions for criminological research is as important as comparing meth-
odological, epistemological, and ethical approaches to criminological topics.
Results would promise to contribute to debates about the global south and global
north divide in knowledge production, as well as about working conditions and
privileges, dominant paradigms for crime and crime control, and preferred ways to
study it. Such an endeavor would likely reveal the lesser importance of qualitative
methodologies, critical approaches, and innovative ways to pose questions about
crime and harm. This book has tried to bridge those gaps by offering valuable con-
tributions to innovative methodological ways of researching criminal phenomena,
as well as thinking about and analyzing it.
References
Aas, K. F. (2013). Globalization & crime (2nd ed.). Sage.

Agozino, B. & Ducey, K. (2020). Articulation of liberation criminologies and public criminolo-
gies. Advancing a countersystem approach and decolonization paradigm. In K. Henne, &
R. Shah (Eds.), Routledge handbook of public criminologies. Routledge.
Ferrell, J., Haywrad, K. & Young, J. (2008). Cultural Criminology. Sage.
Ferrell, J. (2021). Postcards from a pandemic. Crime, Media, Culture, 17(1), 59–63.
Hall, M. (2015). Exploring green crime. Introducing the legal, social & criminological contexts of
environmental harm. Palgrave.
Sandberg, S., & Fondevila, G. (2022). Corona crimes: How pandemic narratives change criminal
landscapes. Theoretical Criminology, 26(2), 224–244.
Sparks R. (2020). Crime and justice research: The current landscape and future possibilities.
Criminology & Criminal Justice, 20(4), 471–482.
Chapter 13
The Future Is Already Here: Covid-19,
Criminology, and Crime
Daniel Briggs
Introduction: The Game Changer
If we think back to life pre-Covid-19, for many people reading this book, life was
relatively comfortable. Aside from perhaps the tragedies which are an inevitable
feature of contemporary human existence such as separation, unforeseen life-
changing accidents, and/or dying of natural causes, life was also peppered with
common inconveniences such as a missed Amazon delivery, a train being late, a
family dispute, or an unexpected illness. Then, the news revolved around a typical
mix of material which fell between the strange and sordid against the routinely
mundane; coverage of mass murdering psychopaths who shot and butchered people
would be followed by a story about how a group of local people clubbed together to
fund a new cuckoo’s nest for an otherwise flailing community. Between this, farci-
cal reports of political corruption and incompetence were mixed with renewed
reminders about climate change, widening inequality, and an increasing agenda
related to identity politics.
Yet, prior to 2020, the next looming crisis was certain to be financial or related to
manmade climate change. It had certainly started to dominate the new media, while
in the background, there were peppered reports of the things we have come to know
as the grave infractions of twenty-first-century neoliberal life: sharpening inequal-
ity, increasing unemployment, and poverty, and swelling youth disadvantage and
disaffection. All of this just seemed to be oscillating between a simmering and boil-
ing point, ever more regularly suppressed by asymmetrical politics and thus appear-
ing as sporadic and disconnected issues in the swirl of 24/7 news media reporting.
Yes, politics seemed to deliver everything in terms of circumstance but nothing in
terms of substance. Already powerful billionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and
D. Briggs (*)
Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y de la Comunicación, Universidad Europea, Madrid, Spain
e-mail: daniel.briggs@universidadeuropea.es
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18401-7_13
214 D. Briggs
Mark Zuckerberg doubled their wealth, new billionaires were created, while
114 million people lost their jobs in 2020 (Briggs et al., 2021c). In summary, life
was exceptional for a small group, pretty good for some, perhaps even getting bet-
ter, and getting harder for others.
At university, perhaps every now and then there was some new institutional mea-
sure implemented which, generated more administration and general bureaucracy.
This was an added complication to the classes we delivered. There was also that
other increasing pressure of grant submission and, tied in with it, the importance of
demonstrating ‘impact’ as a consequence and making public the proof of all this in
university marketing vehicles as well as high-impact factor journals. Funding calls
were beckoning us to get money to recommend changes to social policy for the bet-
ter. Yet real change needed to come from something systemic rather than from
tweaks to already flawed social policies which, even with the ‘recommended
tweaks’, would do little to alter the trajectory of the world’s poor and society’s most
vulnerable. Taken together, our critical freedom to do innovative and important
research on society’s most pressing issues was diminishing into the empty acco-
lades presented to us by academic capitalism: online conference plenaries, unread
blogs, or ‘likes’ from a ‘tweet’. Like the rest of the world, as criminologists and
sociologists, we were therefore also drastically ill-equipped to respond to a major
event of global proportions which could inadvertently and suddenly change the
praxis of life as we know it.
This chapter looks first at how the Covid-19 virus unravelled, governmental and
scientific responses, and the initial solidarity it first generated towards the potential
for a new and better future. When such ‘change’ failed to materialise and the
resumption of corruption, injustice, and special liberties were exercised by the pow-
erful, people lost interest, and this was accompanied by an increased attachment to
digital industries and entertainment across the West. Developing nations, eager to
perhaps display global compliance towards Covid-19 management, equally imple-
mented the restrictions with devastating consequences. Crucially, citizens were
endowed with a ‘personal responsibility’ to evade infection to mask the inadequacy
of crumbling health systems, and this facilitated the new tensions and divisions in
the ‘new normal’, much of which was then exacerbated by the offer of a vaccine to
‘end the pandemic’. As the chapter shows, this was not necessarily the case and
points to the immediate as well as long-term neglect of the impact of the restric-
tions. Lastly, the chapter questions why criminology as well as social science in
general was so slow to follow and document this.
ockdown and the Ideological Merger of All

L
Social Institutions
Little did we know how the trajectory of the twenty-first century was to change so
rapidly with the arrival of a new deadly infectious coronavirus. Supposedly originat-
ing from the wet markets of Wuhan in China where questionable things were taking
13 The Future Is Already Here: Covid-19, Criminology, and Crime 215
place between bats and humans, the new virus spread quickly in the local area. While
it was later transpired such an outbreak may have been a consequence of a ‘lab leak’,
the laboured subsequent ‘independent’ investigation undertaken by the World Health
Organisation (WHO) and written in collaboration with no fewer than 17 Chinese
scientists concluded there was no foul play. Then it was alleged that the USA had
been funding Wuhan labs to develop viruses. This was thought to have taken place
through Gain of Function (GOF) research, which, although discussed openly in an
almost empty American congress and vibrantly among social media platforms, didn’t
make it to the general mainstream media and certainly not to any government brief-
ings on the evolving health crisis (Warmbrod et al., 2021). In fact, anyone who even
started to question the rapid unfolding of how this dangerous virus was unleashed on
the world was quickly rubbished and banished from the public and online domains.
Yet upon us all, Covid-19 quickly descended and spread, and as it did, scientific
progress and open debate, along with a substantial amount of common sense and
rationality, were practically wiped off the face of the earth. The virus, which early
studies showed and now even more recent ones confirm, was particularly deadly for
the extremely vulnerable or very elderly.1 The majority of these groups died with or
of Covid-19 in their numbers across Western countries generally overpopulated by
elderly people in underfunded and overlooked institutions like residential care
homes or hospitals (Briggs et al., 2021b). In many countries, particularly across the
West, a ‘Covid death’ was someone who died within 28 days of a positive test we
were told, whereas other developing nations, with far more inadequate health sys-
tems, were told by the WHO to diagnose a Covid death based on ‘suspected symp-
toms’ – without a concrete diagnosis (Briggs et al., 2021c). Irrespective of other
sicknesses, suddenly everyone was reportedly dying of or with Covid-19 and not
from heart attacks, cancers, and the like. Crude increases in excess deaths would
later occur with little investigation or media attention. By comparison, it was diffi-
cult to gauge if people were dying with/of Covid-19 in developing nations since
health infrastructures struggled to determine causes of death from general ailments
relative to life expectancy in those respective countries and the long list of WHO-
generated Covid-19 symptoms made up the new threat of Covid-19.
Conversely, most people who were infected didn’t seem to experience much,
perhaps at worse cold-like symptoms for a few days (Briggs et al., 2021c). Yet,
already-overstretched and underfunded health systems across the world – placed in
adverse situations because of aggressive austerity cuts from previous years – sym-
bolically washed their hands of people with any other illnesses and converted their
entire operations into Covid-19-only treatment zones. Screening appointments were
abolished, and people with serious conditions were literally told to go away while
political energy was invested in combatting the new, invisible threat that was awash
in the media which, because of the depictions, seemed to strike randomly, appearing
as almost nothing to some people while having the potential to kill others within a
matter of days.
1
For a summary of these papers see extensive literature reviews in both Briggs et al. (2020, 2022).
216 D. Briggs
Public worry and anxiety levels were high thanks to the incessant bombardment
of ‘killer’ Covid stories mixed with grim-faced government briefings where the
unfolding crisis was presented to us in a series of perplexing, unreliable figures and
statistics. Mainstream media journalists skirted around the most obvious questions
relating to unprepared, underfunded, and austerity-burdened health systems and
woeful strategic public health planning, thus confirming their complicity in what was
taking place as well as acting as the mouthpiece for the collective political assign-
ment of potential ‘virus transmission’ to faltering or weak individual compliance
with the restrictions. Unrealistic, worst-case scenario mathematical models on
‘potential deaths’ were devised by academic departments with clear profit and kudos
motives in mind – such as ‘mathematical-modeller of the year 2002, 2005, and 2009’,
Professor Neil Ferguson at Imperial College in the United Kingdom – which quickly
started to receive large sums of government money and from pharmaceutical indus-
tries to forecast what might happen. Rigorous testing mechanisms and protocols
were established in most countries using the extremely defective polymerase chain
reaction (PCR) test – a tool which researchers quickly found responsible for ‘false-
positive results’ as well as ‘false-negative results’. Even the designers of the PCR test
didn’t recommend it as a diagnostic tool for such viruses (see Briggs et al., 2021a).
Decades of scientific knowledge was discarded around the management of pan-
demics as blindingly obvious strategies put forward by some of the world’s leading
virologists, pathologists, and epidemiologists to protect the most elderly and vul-
nerable were ignored. Instead, the vast majority of political regimes around the
world opted to ‘lockdown’ entire nations, social distance their electorate from each
other, and isolate anyone with anything suspiciously contagious. Yet still, people
kept dying largely because many governments botched their management of the
crisis by failing frontline medical staff by not providing enough personal protective
equipment (PPE). In this way, the already overstretched and underfunded health
systems were soon to be understaffed as the frontline health workers fell ill from
overexposure to Covid-19. Some even died. Despite this, viral transmission contin-
ued to predominantly take place in residential care homes and hospitals (Heneghan
et al., 2021; Briggs et al., 2021c)) and thus acted as a catalyst in the deaths of thou-
sands of elderly people – who, if they didn’t die with/of Covid-19 – died of loneli-
ness and isolation under the restrictive lockdown measures (Briggs et al., 2021b).
Aside from being told to see no one, in the event of seeing someone, people were
ordered to keep their distance from each other in case this further spurned infection.
Households were told not to mix or even meet for dinner, and in a few countries, like
Australia and New Zealand, people were told to stop talking to neighbours in the
street (Briggs et al., 2021c). Never had society been so atomised. Then, as a sym-
bolic gesture that was to exacerbate the already high levels of collective mistrust and
caution, unscientifically proven mask mandates were passed in many countries,
which obliged the public to adorn their complexion with ‘face coverings’ in closed
and sometimes open, public spaces. A climate of anxiety became one of paranoia,
which meant in many countries, people experienced rare social encounters deco-
rated with designer masks, surgical masks, homemade pieces of cloth, and, on occa-
sion, gas masks. The combined frenzy continued as mainstream media reporting
oscillated between ‘Covid deaths’ and the arrival of newer, ‘deadlier Covid-19
variants’ and the respective increase in ‘case numbers’ before returning to death
statistics because of the new variants. Everything seemed to easily resurface when
‘cases’ increased, which rehashed governmental knee-jerk mode. It felt like no one
was dying of anything else other than Covid-19 as all context on any other means of
hospitalisation or death remained unquestioned.
As the lockdowns set in, most of the world stood still. Those businesses that
could, moved to remote online working while many others in hospitality, tourism,
and travel collapsed. Borders were shut and planes were grounded. Millions and
millions of people lost their jobs and, in some cases, only a handful received meagre
government support to deal with the ruin and woe. For example, across the Pacific
Islands, there were low Covid-19 cases and deaths—only 453 people had died with/
from Covid-19 in total. Yet almost all the islands ground to a halt and enforced strict
lockdowns. By the summer of 2020, in Vanuatu, the number of employees in the
tourism industry declined by about 64% during the Covid-19 crisis, while in June
2020, unemployment had nearly tripled in Fiji compared with levels in 2019 (Briggs
et al., 2021c). Schools were closed and educational learning for children and young
people was massively disrupted. Shops, bars, and restaurants also shut as home
deliveries and online shopping became the only means for the fortunate. Public
spaces lay redundant, vacant, and void, and at one point in many cities across the
world, traffic lights and birds were among the only sounds to be heard.
For a few, things got easier. Billionaires in the digital and private health indus-
tries quickly increased their already obscene wealth, and the professional middle
classes have generally benefitted from working from home. While for the privi-
leged, the sudden closure of almost everything meant life, work and relations simply
moved online, the lockdowns set in motion a series of other negative consequences.
Unmoved by the situation, not-so-fortunate workers in frontline health and food
industries simply carried on in the face of it. Some people at home developed severe
mental health problems and some reliance on drugs/alcohol (Briggs et al., 2021a).
Vulnerable women and children – perhaps otherwise normally out during the day –
were now spending more time with aggressive and violent partners. Yet this parallel
damage almost immediately disproportionately affected poorer populations.
Millions of seasonal workers were stranded in other parts of the world and unable
to get home; some even died trying to get back (Scroll, 2021). The homeless were
without support networks and started to die of drug overdoses, particularly in the
United States and Canada (Briggs et al., 2021c). Millions of refugees and stateless
citizens became stuck in situations of risk and precarity (Godin, 2020) as all these
silent forms of suffering were stifled from public consciousness.
New Hope or Old Futures in Disguise?
Quite naturally, such change – with quite clear winners and losers – produced anger
and grievance, and 2020 saw an increase in public protests throughout the world. In
2020 alone, 15,000 violent protests took place across the world; 5000 of which were
218 D. Briggs
directly related to Covid-19 (Institute for Economics and Peace, 2020). However,
the initial changes coming, as societies locked down, provoked a sense of together-
ness and community for some, which was thought at the time would result in the
potential for positive change as a result. Primrose et al. (2020, p. 17) note how the
lockdown ‘generated optimism about an alternative world that mirrored sentiment
felt during the 2008 financial crisis and thus embodied a sense of déjà vu’ in this
respect. For many, Covid-19 seemed to represent an opportunity to evaluate our
individual and collective priorities and envision an alternative future. Indeed, Žižek
(2020, p. 41) argued that ‘it is a sad fact that we need a catastrophe to be able to
rethink the very basic features of the society in which we live’. Many people demon-
strated ‘new hope’ for change to what they saw as a politically impotent, unequal,
and ultimately flawed social system: their subjective dreams revolved around com-
munal solidarity, a greener planet, and a fairer society.
Could the Covid-19 pandemic represent the ‘event’ that provides the catalyst for
change at both a societal and subjective level? Was this to be the moment which
would alter the course of capitalist history forever? Could citizens rise up and gal-
vanise the growing discontent and initiate the start of a new future? Would global
politics, shamelessly corrupt and brazen, lay down the neoliberal armoury and wave
the white flag of world peace in this new brave world? After all, the pandemic had
certainly, once again, exposed both the flaws in neoliberal ideology and its inability
to adequately handle the crisis.
Yet, as the lockdowns prevailed, this sense of solidarity waned, and in many
Western countries, instead, a sense of scepticism about how change could realisti-
cally be achieved, echoing Fisher’s (2009, p. 21) term reflexive impotence, ensued.
When taken out of their daily routines and being presented with an existential crisis,
and thus confronting gaping entrenched issues such as myriad inequalities and cli-
mate change, many simply felt a sense of powerlessness. Change was happening too
late. Just like perhaps previous efforts to incite social change in the aftermath of the
2008 global financial crisis and the 2011 riots across Europe and the Middle East,
collective energy seemed to fizzle out quickly (Winlow et al., 2015). New life rou-
tines and attitudes to living prompted by the lack of movement and disruption to
social relations were symbolically anesthetised by digital entertainment and online
shopping, which provided a bridge between pre-pandemic normal and post-
lockdown version called the ‘new normal’ (Briggs et al., 2020).
Desire for change was, once again, deemed naïve and too utopian and further
numbed by increased submission to consumerism evidenced through increased time
on the internet, social media, and expenditure on online shopping. This produced
pangs for the ‘old normal’ and represents what has been termed ‘old futures in dis-
guise’ (Briggs et al., 2020), thus further embedding the function of digital industries
in the political economy and our subjective way of life. Because consumer attitudes
were already deeply embedded in peoples’ modes of being, it was this that helped
people cope with the lockdown, either through sustained consumption or the nostal-
gic dream of future indulgence when remnants of the ‘old normal’ were to resume.
During the lockdowns, all people had was themselves. Alongside the absence of a
coherent alternative political narrative which could galvanise change, there seemed
to be little general political commitment to a better future since many nation states
were relishing newfound additional control. Instead, the increased power assumed
because of the ‘state of alarm’ governance made in the name of the ‘pandemic’
withdrew citizen freedoms and attached rigid conditions to access them again. All
this was complemented with spatially symbolic reminders of the ‘Covid-19 threat’,
incessant media, and political rhetoric about the continued risk of virus infection,
which was to become deeply embedded in self-managing citizens’ attitude towards
the restrictions and life in the ‘new normal’.
Ripped, Torn, Then Shredded: Tensions in the ‘New Normal’
As people came out of the lockdowns, the residue of the preceding months started
to present itself. Some people were fearful of others and got aggressive if their space
was compromised. Mask wearing became normal in open, public spaces even if
unpublicised research confirmed that in the main, the virus tended to be contracted
in densely populated, poorly ventilated contexts as well as hospitals and residential
care homes (Briggs et al., 2021c). Businesses struggled to recuperate, and more and
more people lost work as the ‘state of emergency’ seemed to just roll over and over
in many countries (Žižek, 2020). People who had worked on the frontline and/or
downplayed the risk of Covid-19 throughout the pandemic period were tired of it.
Conversely, many home workers, with less experience of life in the ‘new normal’
proceeded with caution. Division set in further when the two groups started to blame
each other for the ‘rising’ Covid-19 cases – even though the infection waves had
already confirmed that most countries had ‘got over the worst’ and that we were
entering endemic status (Briggs et al., 2021a).
Recurrent revolving conversations and debates hinged around ‘opening up too
early’ and ‘not locking down hard enough’ on one side and the comparison with the
few countries like Sweden, South Korea, and some American states who had insti-
gated very few restrictions. This produced further schisms in the ‘new normal’ as a
majority of ‘restriction followers’ and ‘mask wearers’ blamed a smaller group of
people who they saw as rule breakers or the ‘Covid-deniers’ and/or ‘conspiracy
theorists’. The latter of these groups were holding the ‘restriction followers’ and
‘mask wearers’ to account by calling them ‘sheep’ or ‘sheeple’ – people who had
essentially unreservedly and without question handed over their personal freedom
to governments and, in doing so, given them a sizeable bonus of political power.
These ‘Covid-deniers’ and/or ‘conspiracy theorists’ were those who believed
that Covid-19 was a smokescreen and that the virus, and its substandard manage-
ment, was part of a new agenda supported by initiatives such as the World Economic
Forum (WEF) (Briggs et al., 2021c). Prior to Covid-19, the WEF had infamously
published a series of very available publications about the need to reconfigure soci-
ety and promote a greener, more equal society in which digitalisation and technol-
ogy took centre stage. Even though members and associates of the WEF are part of
the global elite, it was almost impossible to associate them with what was taking
220 D. Briggs
place throughout 2020 or even their provisional plans on how society should be
reorganised in the event of a viral pandemic. On social media, there were even inter-
views with Bill Gates in which he talked about the potential for a viral threat and
how the world needed to prepare. Tweets of his even confirmed in 2019 how he was
glad he had invested in vaccines as a future market.
Indeed, citizens of the world were told that restrictions on the ‘new normal’
would ease with the introduction of a Covid-19 vaccine. Even though it normally
takes between 5 and 10 years to develop safe, commercially available vaccinations,
suddenly within 8 months of the first lockdowns, pharmaceutical businesses with
questionable track records had a solution after having only trialled their ‘successful
vaccines’ with samples of those unaffected by Covid-19-healthy people. The vac-
cines were to be made available to everyone, and desperate governments threw bil-
lions at them (Briggs et al., 2021c). Firstly, people were told that the elderly and
vulnerable would get the vaccine to ‘protect them’. But while Covid-19 – and in
some instances the vaccine as well – continued to kill off people who were above
the average life expectancy in many countries, the vaccines were pushed on people
in their 60s. Contradictions and questions arose when two of the three media barom-
eters started to falter: (1) ‘cases’, (2) hospitalisations, and (3) deaths. Reporting on
the troubling variables of the pandemic such ‘hospitalisations’ and ‘deaths’ became
obsolete when numbers stayed low in many countries (Briggs et al., 2021a, c). The
only reported risk became ‘an increase in new cases’ or the ‘potential increase in
new cases’ and renewed rhetoric surfaced around the negligent citizens such as the
‘Covid deniers’ or ‘conspiracy theorists’ who had ‘refused’ the vaccination and, as
we were instructed, were consequently putting other people’s lives at risk.
Soon after, politicians and public health experts told us that middle-aged people
should also get ‘protected’ for others as well as themselves by having the vaccine.
To keep the media fear machine busy and active, anomaly cases of ‘younger people’
being hospitalised and dying from Covid-19 were singled out and publicly pro-
jected as a means of nudging this group towards vaccination. Inevitably, it would be
the younger groups in their twenties and thirties who were targeted, and the question
simply became when it would turn to both adolescents and children – the latter of
whom are barely affected by the virus nor have been found to be significant vectors
of Covid-19. (Bhopal et al., 2021) Now, despite the ‘independent’ advice given by
some medical experts, which does not recommend that children get vaccinated,
governments in collaboration with obliging pharmaceutical industries are pressing
ahead, and in Austria, the vaccine will be mandatory for everyone from February 2022.
The introduction of the vaccine and with it a moralistic political rhetoric of ‘pro-
tect yourself and protect others’ further divided many nations, largely because poli-
ticians and media focussed attention on the ‘anti-vaxxers’ – a group of people whose
views ranged from the planned microchipping of human beings to simply not feel-
ing unaffected by Covid-19 and therefore feeling it unnecessary to have the vaccine.
Nevertheless, anyone who wasn’t in the vaccine queue doing it for their country was
sinful, selfish, and deserved to have their freedoms withdrawn from them (Briggs
et al., 2021c). Soon after, ‘vaccine passports’ were introduced in some countries,
which provided a means for the safely vaccinated to be able to spend time in closed
or confined spaces with other people who had made the same ‘correct’ decision –
even if they could equally contract as well as transmit the virus. Bars, restaurants,
and clubs turned away business from this resistant group. The new unclean or ‘anti-
vaxxers’ did not merit participation in the ‘new normal’, something which, to this
day, remains unresolved as countries around the world turn ever more stringent in
their policies and rhetoric on this group (Briggs et al., 2021c).
aboo Topics: Spiralling Inequality, Social Harm,

T
and the Resulting Parallel Collateral Damage
For many in secure forms of professional work that could transition into homework-
ing, lockdown afforded a more modest consolidation of finances, a better work-life
balance, and more time for pursuits that could be characterised as higher-order
human flourishing – learning new skills and spending meaningful time with loved
ones. There is no doubt that some of these people suffered stress and depression and
had healthcare appointments cancelled. All the while, the ‘lockdown winners’ – the
elite – consolidated their wealth and those in key industries – pharmaceuticals,
logistics and online shopping, and digital technologies – were generating huge prof-
its (Briggs et al., 2021c). Others were able to exploit the panic and secure (often
seemingly without oversight or due process) government contracts to supply PPE,
track and trace, as well as other advisory services from ‘expert’ health organisa-
tions/groups which were deemed suddenly necessary. Meanwhile, all the while, in
fact, absent from discussion and consideration was the simultaneous and parallel
damage which was irreversibly unleashed on society as a consequence of the lock-
downs, social distancing, self-isolation, and curfews.
For some reason, we were allowed to talk about the good things emerging from
the pandemic’s restrictions but seemed to be censored when it came to talking about
the other disturbing consequences produced by those very same measures. While
digital industries like Facebook, Netflix, and Amazon flourished as did the pharma-
ceutical companies and the newfound demand to produce vaccines, the inequality
gap grew even wider than ever before (Briggs et al., 2021c). Criticism emerged
against rich nations who used their economic muscle to put themselves first in the
vaccine queue while developing nations waited for donations from the former. Very
little of this came to light since the immediate preoccupation revolved around the
rapid and mass vaccination of as many people as possible. Where resistance against
the vaccines emerged, ‘democratic states’ like Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany,
and Austria further withheld freedom from the unvaccinated and threatened further
sanctions. All the while, there was a sense that none of these actions should be ques-
tioned, symbolised by the general lack of critique from the mainstream media –
already complicit in generating compliance to lockdowns and respective measures.
While more money-spinning booster ‘jabs’ were being foisted on as many peo-
ple as possible across the West, those previously at the bottom of the socio-economic
hierarchy almost uniformly, despite the geographic variation, suffered far greater
222 D. Briggs
consequences than those at the top of the ladder. First, the reality is that exposure to
and the health impact of Covid-19 mostly followed existing social and health
inequalities. Racial, class-based, economic, and geographic inequalities had a sig-
nificant determining factor in who caught Covid-19, who required hospitalisation
and, ultimately, who died. While age was a significant determining risk factor, those
who were already unequal – the truly disadvantaged – were most at risk (Briggs
et al., 2021a). Those deemed ‘essential’ or ‘key’ workers, often in low-paid occupa-
tions, were more at risk while middle-class professionals stayed at home. The front-
line healthcare and residential care workforce had been ‘applauded’ for their bravery
and commitment to the cause during the lockdowns, but resistance to vaccination in
the United Kingdom, the USA, Italy, Germany, and France – because of doubts
about vaccine efficacy and questions against the measures imposed by governments
to manage Covid-19 transmission – meant that hundreds of thousands were now
losing their jobs. While this now further cripples already-at-breaking-point health
systems, all the while, the aggressive political rhetoric continued to advocate the
vaccine despite clear evidence that natural Covid-19 antibodies were found to be
more long-lasting and vaccine efficacy had started to wane (Briggs et al., 2021c).
The management and control of information about Covid-19 seemed to conve-
niently continue to hide the devastating facts of what lockdowns and social distanc-
ing were doing to billions of people across the world. Meanwhile, extremely poor
people continued to suffer in multifaceted ways. Lockdown shattered entire labour
market sectors and forced unemployment rates up significantly. While governments
intervened in their economies in ways that dismantled neoliberal shibboleths of fis-
cal spending and the nonexistence of magic money trees, evidence suggests that
furlough schemes, unemployment insurance, and government payments were not
always timely, adequate, or universal. Millions of people lost jobs or were asked to
survive on a percentage of their usual wage. Local economies dependent on tourism
collapsed overnight. Closures across the hotel and hospitality sector have left many
businesses in ruin. Border closures dried up whole informal tourism industries and
stranded seasonal workers across Africa, Asia, and the Pacific region. Whole coun-
tries and communities were starved of support and investment and lay at the mercy
of the market for their recovery. The personal and social impacts of unemployment
have long been noted, regardless of whether we believe unemployment to be a struc-
tural problem or a personal failure. In the immediate aftermath of lockdown, mil-
lions around the world were laid off (Briggs et al., 2021c). The consequences of that
will reverberate for some time.
The home abuse of vulnerable women and children increased significantly across
the world and was made worse by the closure of educational institutions, thus creat-
ing new victims in households already under the stress of the strain of lockdowns.
Young people in numerous countries self-harmed as others developed severe mental
health illnesses in the aftermath of the loss of their livelihoods. Other vulnerable
people who relied on social services and charity handouts were immediately at a
loss when contact and support were severed as agencies transferred to cost-effective
online operations. Suicides increased as did substance-abuse-related overdoses.
None of these tragedies though were making it to the collective consciousness, and
public debate about these ramifications generally remained absent throughout

(Briggs et al., 2021c). When opposition surfaced – even if it was some of the world’s
most credible scientists like Professor Jay Battacharya, Professor John P.A. Ioannidis,
and Professor Sucharit Bhakdi – people were branded ‘Covid-deniers’ and/or ‘con-
spiracy theorists’ and were quickly lambasted by politicians and the media and in
online forums. And what were the social scientists doing throughout all this?
Social Science Judgement Day
Well while the world was plunged into the uncertain abyss of the Covid-19 pan-
demic, most of the social-science community went silent during most of 2020. They
did nothing even in the face of controversial restrictions implemented by numerous
governments around the world related to the curtailment of travel and personal free-
doms, which continue to destabilise whole countries and wreak havoc on the poor-
est and most disadvantaged. Perhaps they were just going to wait for the funding
calls to see which areas of Covid-19 would be deemed permissible to research.
When the noise started to be made, it tended to be from a proportion of academics
who publicly supported these very measures without considering the catastrophic
parallel damages which were simultaneously inflicted on the poor and vulnerable.
Early attempts to conceptualise all this were made when some academics imprinted
dated theories of risk society and moral panic on what was taking place. Another
group conducted snapshot reductionist surveys on subgroups of people with no
political, economic, or even medical context. There was also a group who, despite
these glaringly obvious and devastating consequences, were only able to write about
their own experiences and creative interpretations of the lockdowns. This collective
reaction highlights the deficits attached to careers which are embedded around com-
mercial enterprises of grant accumulation and prestigious journal publication, fol-
lowed up by a status update on Twitter.
Over the last 18 months, many social scientific efforts have been conceptualised
to represent:
• A handwashing social harm – endorse central ideological messaging associated
with Covid-19 such as the lockdown and downplay the resultant social harm.
• Empirical curfews – fail to step outside their discipline, romanticise reality and
impose deaptive theories like moral panic. These works lack depth in capturing
people’s experiential realities during the pandemic and are often empirically
limited.
• The disinfection of reality – do not place reality within its macro-political-
economic context and provide snapshot efforts to dissect social feeling/experi-
ence into measurable variables and graphs.
• An ‘academic lockdown’ – which are not studies but commentaries alluding to
the glorification of the author’s hobby or previous publications.
224 D. Briggs
Many studies and commentaries endorse pro-governmental decisions by explor-

ing the measures implemented by governments without questioning their imple-
mentation, efficacy, or the balance of harms associated with restrictions. Published
in the Journal of Public Affairs, the article uses complex modelling strategies to,
like Ferguson et al. (2020), conclude that ‘contact tracing, stay-at-home restrictions,
and international movement restrictions are most effective in controlling the spread
and flattening the Covid-19 curve’. Similarly, Koh et al. (2020) working at the
Centre for Strategic and Policy Studies advocate the ‘effectiveness’ of social dis-
tancing measures and lockdowns in reducing infections. Their modelling, based on
the Covid-19 Government Response Tracker – a dataset covering 170 countries –
concluded that ‘lockdown-type measures had the largest effect on limiting viral
transmission, followed by travel bans’. These academics are, therefore, perhaps
unknowingly, forming part of the general evidence base which endorses measures
and approaches to the pandemic where there was little initial debate or
consultation.
Writing in Advances in Social Science, Education, and Humanities Research,
Awaludin (2020) claims the Covid-19 pandemic generated a ‘moral panic’. In his
analysis of media articles written in Indonesia during the first part of the lockdown,
Awaludin says an ‘overcriminalisation’ was applied to people who ‘refuse the burial
of bodies infected with Covid-19, the spread of hoax news, hoarding of consumer
goods, misuse of social assistance to violations of quarantine of the region’. The
moral panic theory has also been applied to Indonesian Muslim citizens’ rejection
of a Covid-infected corpse to pass through grieving and burial rituals (Labib, 2020).
The theory was also used to explain the toilet-roll panic-buying behaviour evident
in many countries during the lockdowns (also see Long & Khoi, 2020). Writing in
the International Journal of Social Science and Humanity, Li’s (2020) analysis of
media and social media material (see also Satawedin, 2020) found that the ‘mass
media and social media played an important role in leading Americans to perceive
excessive consumption in terms of a consumer panic, thus contributing to a moral
panic’. While the moral panic theory has done much to stimulate debate, applying
this theoretical framework to the Covid-19 pandemic omits social harm, neglecting
both the social distress and the intensification of inequalities.
There are also some social scientists who seek to dissect social life from its struc-
tural context, thus disinfecting it from its own reality. Though dissected, there is no
mention of the body or, in other words, the statistical results do not consider their
macro-political-economic context. They propose to research social life in objective
ontological conditions and seek to cleanse and disinfect reality, presenting it as if it
were the universal truth. For example, in one financed international study which
captured a cohort of participants from four different countries (the Netherlands, the
USA, the United Kingdom, and Germany) over the course of 24 h, Hameleers et al.
(2020) sought to examine the role of misinformation and disinformation in the con-
text of compliance. While there are no details on the sample profile, the results show
that people exposed to misinformation (inaccurate) sought out more information to
clarify, and this correlated with their adherence to measures. Conversely, those
exposed to disinformation (deliberately misleading) were less compliant with
Covid-19 measures. Such analyses are an example of ‘abstracted empiricism’

(Wright Mills, 1959), that is, when data are severed from their broader context and
people are presented as floating above the complexity of life. This methodological
replication of the hard sciences and its search for a fundamental cause covers up
how the social world is messy rather than both linear and characterised by simple
cause and effect.
As the world faces the biggest crisis since the Second World War and neoliberal-
ism faces structural difficulties yet again, some social scientists have only been able
to reflect on their own personal experiences and feelings about the pandemic. While
on the one hand Ward (2020) rightly suggests that Covid-19 brings opportunities for
new sociological theory, his paper is a presentation of his lockdown artwork, which
tries to conceptualise the crisis by rehashing existing theories, including risk society
and liquid fear. While there are some merits in auto-ethnographic reflexivity and its
potential capacity to bring people together to unite against potential suffering and
stress caused by the Covid-19 pandemic (see Gates et al., 2020; Logan, 2020), the
purpose and use of some of the accounts should be questioned. For DeGarmo
(2020), performative reflexive autoethnography provides the means to embrace our
individual capacity to ‘express ourselves’ during the harsh realities of Covid-19.
But is the pandemic about us as academics with reasonably stable positions or about
the billions of other people who have been far worse impacted?
Such studies are far away from the realities of what is taking place in a post-
Covid-19 scenario because they have not sought ways to study what has happened
to the world. The few critical voices, like mine, have found it almost impossible to
generate public debate and have frequently been shut down. Yet we have found
ways to document through online surveys, digital ethnography, and open-ended
zoom interviews complemented with informal conversations and observations on
what has taken place without letting this censorship extinguish our duty as social
scientists charged with critically examining life in the aftermath of the Covid-19
pandemic. As such, we should be interested in the impact of social forces, including
pandemics and state responses, upon the lives of people in a range of different set-
tings and contexts. We should therefore continue to study and question the political,
economic, cultural, and social ramifications of various phenomena, including pan-
demics and the responses of governments, officials, and media.
My work has led me to ask critical questions that do not seem to have not been
raised within political or media spheres. The evidence provided about Covid-19, its
risk, and its impact in this chapter is drawn from a study I have led over the last
20 months. The study has been based on a series of online surveys (n = 3000) over
several phases of the pandemic, which include key periods in the evolution of the
pandemic. People from all over the world have completed these surveys from an
Indian ticket inspector, to a Finnish childcare worker, from a Swiss shoe shop sales-
man, to a retired couple from Australia, from an American aviation worker to an
unemployed construction worker in the United Kingdom. To augment this, 63 open-
ended interviews were conducted with people from around the world via Zoom and
400 h were spent in 10 different online Facebook forums dedicated to the discussion
and debate of Covid-19. These forums were made up of as little as 25,000 people up
226 D. Briggs
to 250,000. When permitted and as society started to open again, ethnography was
also undertaken in two different countries significantly impacted by the virus as
much as the restrictions (the United Kingdom and Spain). Along with my col-
leagues, we have had to embrace the disciplines of virology, immunology, and epi-
demiology and complement them with our understanding of political economy,
inequality, and twenty-first-century subjectivity.
Why? Because the post-pandemic world is already different: politically, eco-
nomically, culturally, and socially. Inequalities and harms have grown significantly
across the world during the pandemic. Existing problems – food insecurity, insecure
and precarious forms of work, educational inequality, inadequate housing, cultural
antagonisms around migration and asylum seekers, crime, and antisocial behav-
iour – are now far more advanced since the onset of the pandemic and lockdown.
The economic, cultural, and social fault lines and antagonisms exemplified by
Donald Trump and Brexit have now been joined by disagreement and division over
Covid-19 rules, mask wearing, vaccination, compliance, and freedom. We now
encounter more ethical and moral questions without resolution in an emotive age
with no adjudicating authority to settle such debates. The fault lines and antago-
nisms over Covid-19 represent a further fraying of social cohesion. The ties that
bound us have broken as we defensively filter out those we disagree with, those who
do not think, look, or act like us. The divides are, more than ever, racial, gendered,
nationalist, and above all class-based.
The consequences of this are troubling, and when viewed from a criminological
viewpoint, the erosion of social cohesion alongside the myriad other inequalities is
a recipe for an explosion of expressive and instrumental crime, violence, and anti-
social behaviour. Challenging people for not respecting social distance or for wear-
ing or not wearing masks will result in assaults, violence, and harm. We must be
ready to critically research such a world for if we fail to move forward with this
social change, we will have a sundry role in society if not other than to simply be
complicit with what governments are doing by doing or saying nothing about it.
If social science is to have ‘impact’, it needs to understand the myriad and com-
plex issues brought to the fore by Covid-19 and the governmental response. I invite
colleagues to go out and research the social, political, economic, and cultural
impacts of the pandemic in a variety of ways. Funding agendas are likely to align
with the pandemic response, so we should all possess a strong fidelity to knowledge
and our understanding of the world and, where funding is not available, still develop
projects, undertake research, engage with people, find out what is happening and
how people are dealing with the effects of the pandemic. We can only do this by
engaging with them, getting to know them, earning their trust, and listening to them,
and such critical qualitative work could be the marker of the difference between
making these stories heard and just quietly confining them to history.
References
Awaludin, A. (2020). Overcriminalization due to moral panic Covid-19 pandemic. Advances in

Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, 499, 613–624. https://doi.org/10.2991/
assehr.k.201209.344
Bhopal, S., Bagaria, J., Olabi, B., & Bhopal, R. (2021). Children and young people remain at low
risk of Covid-19 mortality. The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health, published online 10th
March 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2352-4642(21)00066-3
Briggs, D., Ellis, A., Lloyd, A., & Telford, L. (2020). New hope or old futures in disguise?
Neoliberalism, the Covid-19 pandemic and the possibility for social change. The International
Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 40(9/10), 831–848.
Briggs, D., Ellis, A., Lloyd, A., & Telford, L. (2021a). Researching the Covid-19 pandemic: A
critical blueprint for the social sciences. Bristol University Press.
Briggs, D., Ellis, A., Telford, L., & Lloyd, A. (2021b). Working, living, and dying in Covid times:
Perspectives from frontline residential care workers in the UK. Safer Communities, 20(3),
208–222.
Briggs, D., Ellis, A., Lloyd, A., Telford, L., & Kotzé, J. (2021c). Lockdown: Social harm in the
Covid-19 Era. Palgrave Macmillan.
DeGarmo, M. (2020). Activating embodied imagination during COVID-19: A performative reflex-
ive autoethnography. Qualitative Inquiry. https://doi.org/10.1177/2F1077800420962474
Ferguson, N., Laydon, D., Nedjati-Gilani, G., et al. (2020). Impact of non-pharmaceutical inter-
ventions to reduce COVID-19 mortality and health care (pp. 1–20). Imperial College London.
https://doi.org/10.25561/77482
Fisher, M. (2009). Capitalist realism: Is there no alternative? Zero.
Gates, T., Beazley, H., & Davis, C. (2020). Coping with grief, loss, and well-being during a
pandemic: A collaborative autoethnography of international educators during COVID-19.
Voices from Practice, International Social Work, 63(6), 782–785. https://doi.org/10.117
7/2F0020872820949622
Godin, M. (2020). COVID-19 outbreaks are now emerging in Refugee camps. Why did it take
so long for the virus to reach them? In Time, 9th October 2020 cited online at https://time.
com/5893135/covid-19-refugee-camps/
Hameleers, M., Van Der Meer, T., & Brosius, A. (2020). Feeling “disinformed” lowers compliance
with COVID-19 guidelines: Evidence from the US, UK, Netherlands and Germany. Harvard
Kennedy School Misinformation Review. Online First. https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-023
Heneghan, C., Dietrich, M., Brassey, J., Jefferson, T., & Kay, A. J. (2021, December 3). CG report
6: Effects of COVID-19 in care homes – A mixed methods review. Collateral Global. Version 1.
https://collateralglobal.org/article/effects-of-covid-19-in-care-homes/
Institute for Economics & Peace. (2020). Global peace index measuring peace in a complex
world. Sydney.
Koh, W., Naing, L., & Wong, J. (2020). Estimating the impact of physical distancing measures in
containing Covid 19: An empirical analysis. International Journal of Infectious Diseases, 100,
42–49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2020.08.026
Labib, M. (2020). Analysing rejection of corpse infected by Covid-19 in the perspective of moral
panic and FIQH social theories. Santri: Journal of Pesantren and Fiqh Sosial, 1(1), 71–86.
Li,Y.,Yao, L., Jiawei, L., Lei, C., Song,Y., Cai, Z., &Yang, C. (2020). Stability issues of RT- PCR
testing of SARS-CoV-2 for hospitalized patients clinically diagnosed with COVID-19. Journal
of Medical Virology, 92(7), 903–908.
Logan, K. (2020). Save lives, protect the NHS: An auto-ethnography of a community Midwife dur-
ing the COVID-19 pandemic. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Equality and Diversity, online
first, 1–5. http://journals.hw.ac.uk/index.php/IPED/article/view/90
Long, N., & Khoi, B. (2020). An empirical study about the intention to hoard food during
COVID-19 pandemic. EURASIA Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education,
16(7), em1857. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/8207
228 D. Briggs
Primrose, D., Chang, R., & Loeppky, R. (2020). Pandemic unplugged: Covid-19, public health and
the persistence of neoliberalism. Journal of Australian Political Economy, 85, 17–28. https://
search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.212825816337612
Satawedin, P. (2020). Moral panics and COVID-19: Are we panic ourselves or do Media make us
panic? BU Academic Review, 19(2), 207–224.
Scroll. (2021). Covid lockdown: Over 8,700 people, many of them migrant workers, died along
railway tracks in 2020. Scroll, 3rd June 2021 cited online at https://scroll.in/latest/996519/
covid-l ockdown-over-8 700-p eople-m any-o f-t hem-m igrant-workers-d ied-a long-r ailway-
tracks-in-2020
Ward, P. (2020). A sociology of the Covid-19 pandemic: A commentary and research agenda for soci-
ologists. Journal of Sociology, 56(4), 726–735. https://doi.org/10.1177/2F1440783320939682
Warmbrod, K., Montague, M., & Gronvall, G. (2021). COVID-19 and the gain of function debates.
Science and Society, 22(e53739), 1–5.
Winlow, S., Hall, S., Treadwell, J., & Briggs, D. (2015). Riots and political protest: Notes from the
post-political present. Routledge.
Wright Mills, C. (1959). The sociological imagination. University Open Press.
Žižek, S. (2020). Pandemic: Covid-19 shakes the world. OR Books.
Daniel Briggs Ph.D. works part time as a Professor of Criminology at the Universidad Europea in
Madrid, Spain. As a researcher, writer and inter-disciplinary academic who studies social prob-
lems, he has undertaken ethnographic research into social issues from street drug users to termi-
nally ill patients; from refugees to prostitutes; and from gypsies to gangs and deviant youth
behaviours. He also lectures across the social sciences and has published widely. His book, Dead
end lives: Drugs and violence in the city shadows (Policy Press, 2017), won the Division of
International Criminology’s Outstanding Book Award 2018 (selected by the American Society of
Criminology). His most recent single-authored book is titled Climate changed: Refugee border
stories and the business of misery (Routledge, 2020) and he has co-authored Researching the
Covid 19 pandemic: A critical blueprint for the social sciences (Bristol University Press) and
Lockdown: Social harm in the Covid-19 era (Palgrave MacMillan). Hotel Puta: A hardcore ethnog-
raphy of a luxury brothel is due for publication soon (RJ4All Publications) and he is currently
writing up a book on social life post-covid-19 (Palgrave MacMillan).
Chapter 14
“Being” Ethical in Research
Rita Faria
Ethics: Is It Worth Reading About It – Again?
At this point, most readers of this book have already learned something about eth-
ics. Furthermore, many have probably already submitted one or more projects for
ethical clearance by IRBs or ethics commissions or were asked about ethics proto-
cols when submitting a paper for publication. So, is it worth reading another piece
on ethics which will, more likely than not, reaffirm the same old guidelines of “do
no harm” to participants, make sure to get informed consent, and guarantee their
anonymity?
Well, I would advise reading this piece. This chapter will identify and discuss
some of the ethical challenges underlined throughout this edited collection, high-
lighting continuities and changes in ethics applied to cutting-edge qualitative crimi-
nological inquiry. It will also argue for the need for researchers to be trained in
solving ethical dilemmas and “being” ethical, instead of considering ethics a mere
box-ticking exercise. Furthermore, I will argue that ethical considerations about
participants and research may help in analyzing disruptive phenomena and crises
such as the ones that have been witnessed lately.
Nonetheless, this is also the appropriate moment to offer the much-needed defi-
nition of what ethics is and why social science research, especially using qualitative
methods and studying crime and victimization-related topics, needs to pay atten-
tion to it.
Braswell, considers ethics to be the study of right and wrong, good and evil
(2020, p. 3) and claims that exploring ethics leads to people becoming more aware
of and open to moral and ethical issues, while simultaneously helping in the
R. Faria (*)
School of Criminology, Interdisciplinary Research Center on Crime, Justice and Security,
University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
e-mail: rfaria@direito.up.pt
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18401-7_14
230 R. Faria
development of critical thinking and analytical skills, so that they become person-
ally more responsible and particularly able to understand the coercion taking place
in the criminal justice system. In a more philosophical and abstract positioning,
ethics can be considered from a utilitarian and consequentialist perspective or from
a deontological one (Gold & DeValve, 2020). For Anderson and Corneli (2018),
ethical decision-making refers to the process of identifying, evaluating, and choos-
ing among options regarding problems impacting humans. The authors go on to
include research ethics as a form of applied ethics, with rules about what ought to
be done in the very specific context of research. Not wanting to take sides on whether
ethical considerations and actions should be done in accordance with their conse-
quences or their intentions, it is a no-brainer that ethics is closely entrenched with
the activity of collecting data from and with human participants – the sort of activi-
ties frequent in the social sciences and, moreover, in criminology. Thus, the need to
consider ethical reasoning when conducting criminological research.
Notwithstanding the relevance of social science in knowledge production and the
amelioration of social problems and challenges, one ought to ask if empirical
research can be conducted at any cost to the participants. Is the advancement of the
overall scientific knowledge more relevant than the well-being of particular partici-
pants? Obviously not, and the Nuremberg code (1947), subsequent to the calling out
of the Nazi experiments with prisoners, was the first attempt to identify the need for
science to have rules and regulations about what is right or wrong to do with human
participants. Particularly, the code came to demand that participants in research
provided their voluntary consent while limiting experiments that can cause physical
and emotional harm.
However, other examples abound of the types of harms participants can suffer
from taking part in the research. Some well-known cases can be easily searched for
on Google and have contributed to abundant literature and commentaries, but the
Milgram experiment in 1963 and Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment in 1973
are usually used as cautionary tales in criminology and other social sciences
(Anderson & Corneli, 2018). These examples pinpoint, again, the failure to get
informed consent from participants as well as the harmful consequences they suf-
fered from participating in the creation of scientific knowledge related to crime and
crime control or obedience.
More recently, there have been concerns about avoiding harms for all those
involved in research and not only for participants in research. Following Jupp et al.,
Noaks and Winkup consider that “ethics is about the standards to be adopted towards
others in carrying out research” (p. 37–38), thus considering wider categories of
third parties eventually impacted by research, including colleagues, organizations
for which research results are relevant (e.g., police forces), or communities from
which samples of participants are drawn. Overall, then, researchers ought to con-
sider the risk or probability of harm research may inflict on participants or other
people. Moreover, researchers have to be aware that potential harms stemming from
participating in research can include physical, psychological, economic, legal,
social, and even dignitary harms (Anderson & Corneli, 2018).
14 “Being” Ethical in Research 231
Considerations about risks for participants and devising mechanisms for mini-
mizing unnecessary harm must be developed from the onset of the research and
throughout its development: “prior, during and after [the] scholarly endeavour”
(Bacon & Sanders, 2017, p. 159). Risk assessment strategies (Noaks & Winkup,
2004) must be devised in order to guarantee the most important ethical principles in
research: no harm or non-maleficence, autonomy, beneficence, and justice, which,
overall, materialize into ethical procedures such as obtaining informed consent from
participants, and guaranteeing their privacy, anonymity, and confidentiality
(Anderson and Corneli, 2018; Isreal & Gelsthrope, 2017; Noaks & Winkup, 2004).
However, many authors consider that, currently, the bureaucratization of ethics,
or ‘ethics creep’ (Haggerty, 2004), through ethical clearance procedures obtained
from ethics committees or IRB may hinder the more edgy research methods, par-
ticularly ethnographic and qualitative overall, as well as any critical approaches
(Winlow & Measham, 2017). Particularly, some authors have considered that the
growing regulation of research ethics may have counterproductive effects by pro-
tecting powerful agencies from scrutiny and by making it harder to research power-
ful actors and agencies, even at the expense of the researcher’s well-being and
freedom due to the interference of powerful people during the research process
(Alvesalo-Kuusi & Whyte, 2018; Faria & Eski, 2018; Israel & Gelsthorpe, 2017;
Petintseva et a., 2020).
Simultaneously, it is crucial that students, novice researchers, research commis-
sioners, and funders, as well as different audiences or users of science (e.g., the
media), realize that criminological research is not as simple as asking survey par-
ticipants if they like Pepsi or Coke the better, or if they prefer to buy online or to
take a walk to the mall to purchase what they need.
Informed consent, anonymity, and confidentiality should be carefully addressed
when conducting research on crime and crime control-related topics. Criminological
inquiry revolves around ethics for several reasons:
–– Probable harms caused by criminological research may be manyfold, consider-
ing that very often criminological inquiry delves into participants’ traumatic
experiences of victimization, violence and abuse, drug use and stigmatization,
poverty, and structural inequalities. Psychological harm is, thus, likely to happen
just by asking participants to recall past experiences or to position themselves
about their future, especially when data is collected with and from victims of
crime and trauma, and from vulnerable populations.
–– Legal harms may arise considering that a myriad of criminological research con-
sists in asking about self-reported criminal behavior, sometimes even witnessing
a crime and deviant behavior (as in the case of ethnographic studies). Asking
about sensitive topics, such as crime commission or the suffering of harms, is
frequently the Gordian knot of criminological inquiry. The fact that respondents
may have been or are in a prison setting does not limit this consideration, as
criminal behavior different from the one that caused respondents to be sentenced
may be revealed to researchers. Furthermore, more recently, ethics codes clearly
state that researchers have a legal obligation to report some types of crimes or
232 R. Faria
suspected crimes, such as information regarding acts of terrorism, money laun-

dering, child neglect, or abuse (Statement of Ethics of the British Society of
Criminology).1
–– Frequently, researchers collect data from participants who are already curtailed
in their freedom, such as detainees and prisoners, institutionalized youngsters,
asylum seekers in refugee camps, drug users in drug clinics, and so on. Such situ-
ations demand extra care in considering how people can voluntarily consent to
participate in criminological research (Anderson & Corneli, 2018), particularly
because there is a tragic history of the prison setting being used to conduct uneth-
ical research (Moore & Wahidin, 2017). Moreover, research results may, if ethi-
cal compliance is lacking, deepen some groups’ and communities’ experiences
of stigmatization and exclusion, thus creating further social and economic harms.
–– The involvement of youth and children in research is particularly challenging
because they have been considered vulnerable populations, deserving extra ethi-
cal precautions (Anderson & Corneli, 2018). A series of ethical issues arise
regarding procedures to get informed consent in terms children can in fact under-
stand, the potential of children being explored by gatekeepers during research, or
difficulties arising in assuring confidentiality and anonymity (Girling, 2017).
While many of these issues are not unique to criminological research, one must
admit that, when researching crime and crime-related topics, protecting the most
vulnerable becomes a pressing topic because, more often than not, they are being
asked about their experiences with crime, violence, and abuse or with witnessing
violence and abuse in their surroundings (Hackett, 2017).
In sum, criminological inquiry, quite often, includes asking people (frequently
from vulnerable groups) about sensitive behavior, including victimization and trau-
matic experiences, crime commission, deviant behavior, or the effects of structural
harms. This, in turn, can pose multiple harms for participants or for communities,
and researchers are asked to anticipate the risks of such harms taking place, devising
the necessary compliance measures to assure basic principles such as “do no harm.”
History has taught us that research, as any other human activity, cannot be con-
ducted no matter what or at the expense of the well-being of all those involved
(directly and indirectly in the research process). Furthermore, as any other social
activity, research is not immune to bias, manipulation and excesses, and misconduct
(Faria, 2018). Some may argue that harms can also be felt and that risks exist for
researchers themselves, especially when conducting a critical analysis of powerful
actors and institutions (Alvesalo-Kuusi & Whyte, 2018; Faria & Eski, 2018).
Finally, researchers conducting qualitative research have been alerting that ethi-
cal regulation by ethics commissions or IRBs often curtail the possibility of using a
series of research methodologies but most especially ethnography. As Bacon &
Sanders (2017, p. 159) argue, “The nature of criminological studies is that qualita-
tive research entails morally ambiguous situations and often falls into the generic
1
Statement of Ethics of the British Society of Criminology, retrieved from https://www.britsoc-
crim.org/ethics/
category of ‘risky research’.” Due to their naturalistic approach, qualitative meth-

ods, as opposed to more numerical approaches (particularly experimental methods),
are conducted by means of researchers closely interacting with participants in envi-
ronments which are familiar to the latter, and for extended periods of time. This
close interaction with people, groups, places, this shared experience of sounds, lan-
guages, smells, and activities, and the immersion in the field and in social practices
may be so dense and intense that researchers may be perceived as insiders (Bucerius,
2015; Petintseva et al., 2020). More recently, due to its shared and interactive nature
where research and participants collaborate in knowledge production, research has
been reframed to be considered co-creation or co-production of knowledge, deeply
embedded in reflexivity (for an overview, see Armstrong et al., 2017; Noaks &
Winkup, 2004). Moreover, qualitative research can bring about situations of ambi-
guity in ethical decision-making, considering that the research protocol, differently
from protocols which are tributary to the medical and natural sciences, has to
include some degree of flexibility to accommodate “on the spot” surprises, newness,
and changes, which are, after all, natural features of everyday social practices, being
conveyed by participants exerting their freedom to change their minds, the script
and the circumstances. The dynamic nature of interactions, social negotiation and
some degree of arbitrariness and novelty, decision-making processes and adaptation
to situational and structural conditions of existence and living, all this and much
more is, in many stances, the exact focus of attention from qualitative researchers –
no wonder, then, that many ethical decisions have to be taken “on the spot,” as
research progresses and researchers delve deeper into the topic, the field and in
social interactions with participants.
Cutting-Edge Methods and Ethical Dilemmas
Many of the previous chapters of this edited book have revealed how ethical reflec-
tion goes hand in hand with the criminological project of conducting empirical
research on crime and crime-related topics. Not only have new approaches to quali-
tative methods been discussed, but also authors have addressed the ethical dilemmas
some methodological choices carried or, on the contrary, how ethical considerations
limited methodological options. These chapters are exemplary in manifesting ethi-
cal reasoning that tries to apply the guiding ethical principles to the volatile condi-
tions of data collection and results dissemination. They show how, with thorough
ponderation or “gut feeling” at the moment, qualitative researchers frequently deal
with ethical dilemmas at several stages of the research. What is more, the chapters
in this book clearly show how relevant is for qualitative criminology the “do no
harm” principle.
In their essay, Copes and Davis clearly illustrate the emotional impact and trauma
that research can have for participants and, obviously, how researchers react to signs
of negative impact, furthermore when photographs about people’s lives are being
used. However, they conclude that there is a therapeutic effect of research on those
234 R. Faria
they have studied and accompanied, especially because researchers were very care-
ful in avoiding all sorts of exploitation of the participants’ lives, rather allowing
them to choose how to participate in the research, namely by choosing materials to
elicit interviews, by switching power dynamics between participants and research-
ers and by reducing researcher bias on what is considered relevant. Furthermore, in
the dissemination stage, results were deliberately presented in such a way as to
show the participants and their lives as examples of struggle and empowerment. The
authors claimed to have achieved this through empathy, sensitivity, and awareness
raising, being particularly careful to offer context and present the complexity of
these people’s stories of drug use and violence. However, once the pictures became
public, there was a risk of further stigmatizing participants and the communities
they were sampled from. A risk that the authors believe was not likely as the results
were framed as alternative ways of seeing the realities documented, of turning the
invisible visible, and even by cultivating viewers about the need to develop a human-
izing lens to look at the results. In the end, the paper by Copes and Davis not only
reveals methodological choices – using photographs to elicit responses and to dis-
seminate research results – but also offers epistemological considerations about the
‘ownership’ of data, as well as ethical considerations about potential benefits and
risks others may experience due to the research using photographs on and with
marginalized communities. The authors conclude that “Photographs make it harder
to ignore the complexity in people’s lives. We see them and their surroundings. We
can empathize and connect with them.”
Hill and Potter, in face of a similar dilemma about the dissemination of photog-
raphy and images of active offenders (poachers), decided differently and opted not
to use such images. The images were created and used throughout the research
process, particularly as notetaking, as a reward for participants and for elicitation.
Photos of “palaces,” kids learning to hunt with bows and arrows, and images illus-
trating structural inequalities are just some of the examples presented in the chapter.
However, the fact that illegal activities (or remaining symbols of such illegal activi-
ties) were taking place, together with the need to minimize personal harm to research
participants and to comply with the non-malfeasance principle, made the authors
choose not to publicly display the photographs, particularly because, as they argue,
“The risk of criminal justice intervention is clearly a risk of harm to participants
who may face not just loss of liberty through incarceration, but other, often long-
lasting, harms associated with criminalization.” Further considerations of stigmati-
zation of communities or of bystanders (i.e., people not involved in illegal activities
but presented in photos) invited the authors to ethically reason about the public
display of such images, defending the need for group privacy.
Sidoti-Pasquazi’s paper deals broadly with virtual ethnography and how online
environments have become new anthropological spaces. Overall, the author pres-
ents existing arguments according to which anonymity and confidentiality in virtual
ethnography should be reconsidered. According to the author of the chapter, “online
interactions are completely different from face-to-face encounters with research
subjects. Researchers may lack the necessary sensibility when approaching virtu-
ally, especially (…) dealing with possible vulnerable groups.” However, care for
participants and respect for the “do no harm” guiding principle, should be kept
when studying people on online social media, particularly when they are carrying
out illegal activities. In other words, the classical considerations of criminological
research take place both in offline and online research, especially when researching
vulnerable populations and participants that risk legal consequences for conducting
the exact same illegal activity one wishes to know more about. However, probable
risks for the researcher also have to be considered, and “researchers need to think
thoroughly before they immerse and interact with their participants” as the frontiers
between virtual and physical sites of research, online and offline behaviors and
participants, can be quite blurred. Likewise, Mardones-Bravo, by thoroughly pre-
senting the pros and cons of online methods in criminology, recognizes that ethical
considerations need to be addressed when researching in the online world. Covert
research in social media and getting consent from participants are some of the main
ethical dimensions to consider in such cases.
Emotional risks for researchers can also exist, and when that is the case, ethical
considerations and reflexivity come together to make sense of the research process
of designing a study, collecting data, and presenting results. Particularly because, as
Kilty and Fayter show, professional detachment, usually attributed to deontological
consideration of ethical rules, may need reconsideration when criminologists with
lived experiences of criminalization conduct research on and with incarcerated peo-
ple. In such cases, the impact of sensitive topics, commonly associated with crimi-
nological inquiry, as well as the recalling of traumatic events, may occur on not only
the research participant but also the researcher. Or as the author describes, “for
those who lived experience of incarceration, critical prison research can be harrow-
ing in that observing carceral sites and practices and/or speaking with criminalized
people can lead to a host of difficult feelings and emotions.” However, as it happens
with participants, not only are negative feelings acknowledged, but also, more often
than not, research impacts positively on the participants and on the researcher, with
feelings of camaraderie and solidarity being reported. Likewise, the authors claim,
morals and ethics intertwine in the potential for healing that research in such con-
texts promotes. Likewise, Herrity, Schmidt, and Warr consider that sensory method-
ologies add an extra dimension of “ethical care in research practice,” in the sense
that such methodologies enhance research participants’ agency and control, which,
according to the authors, allows participants to better navigate emotionally sensitive
topics, putting them in control of the direction of the research and of communica-
tion more broadly. The co-construction of knowledge and renegotiation of science’s
authority is also acknowledged by Natali, South, McClanahan, and Brisman’s piece
that shows how methodological, ethical, and epistemological considerations are
intertwined in some of the most recent and innovative empirical endeavors or creat-
ing criminological knowledge.
The chapters of this book also address the role of ethics committees and IRBs for
empirical criminological research, Briggs’ paper in Part I of the book, for instance,
offers a critical perspective about the current environment where research is taking
place, particularly how ethnography is being frowned upon by ethics committees
which, as the author argues, are more concerned with liability in risky contexts
236 R. Faria
(such as in the interstices of drug use and drug trafficking), and share an overall
unacceptance of covert research. The author’s account of ethnographic research
freed from the shackles of academic capitalism is one of ethical decision-making
and reasoning despite the mandatory ticking of boxes imposed by ethics commit-
tees; of fluid and rapid adjustments to pressing social events such as the refugee
crisis and their internal routes in Europe; and of systematic observation and data
collection on vulnerable populations of drug users and sex workers; of retaining the
moral purpose of knowledge creation through self-funded ethnography, compliant
with ethical requisites and critical of the institutional and organizational existing
conditions of higher education.
Sun and Benson, on the contrary, show how ethics committees can be fundamen-
tal to maintain stability in times of deep changes, as it happened with the unprece-
dented lockdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemics. The suspension of
face-to-face data collection led the authors to revisit research protocols and recon-
sider ethical guidelines, particularly on how participants would provide informed
consent to take part in the research, which had moved to an online format. Keeping
communication open with ethics committees seemed to have been extremely rele-
vant for the conclusion of the original study in absolutely new conditions. The
authors argue that “the IRB is duty-bound to follow and enforce regulations regard-
ing research with human subjects, but IRBs also have an interest in seeing that
research progresses in their institutions.” However, the last reference that Sun and
Benson leave is towards research participants and how, even when researchers find
themselves pressured to conduct and finish the study, the most relevant thing to do
is to communicate with and be transparent with participants, keeping them informed
about how the research is going, what to expect, and “be open to continuing com-
munication,” in a practical form of caring for, supporting, and protecting partici-
pants, especially during one of the most life-changing events of the last decades.
“Being” Ethical in Criminological Research
Considering the guiding ethical principles presented previously, as well as the sev-
eral ethical considerations and reflections offered by the authors of this edited book
and by authors referenced in other relevant literature, as well as my own experience
of over 10 years in ethics committees, I would like to further stress some ideas per-
taining to ethics in criminology.
From my perspective, training and experience in ethical reasoning are extremely
important. As it happens with research methods, the best way to learn about it is by
doing it. In the case of ethics, this means knowing the guiding principles and apply-
ing them to solve particular dilemmas. In fact, thinking about ethical dilemmas may
be simultaneously very challenging, especially for novice researchers, and very
fruitful. The consideration that there are hardly any reified responses to ethical
dilemmas is one of the first intellectual challenges researchers can endure. Take, for
instance, anonymity and the need to guarantee that data from participants is kept
protected from public scrutiny. Now consider empirical research on crimes of the
powerful, such as case studies on major financial swindles or corruption by well-
known public figures – in such cases, anonymity is virtually impossible to maintain,
and I would further argue that may not be desirable to ensure. Furthermore, the
Statement of Ethics of the British Society of Criminology states that the responsibil-
ity to minimize personal harm to research participants may not be applied where
researchers are uncovering corruption or pollution and that “Researchers need not
work to minimize harm to the corporate or institutional entities responsible for the
damage.” In sum, ethical dilemmas exist, and just as important as training research-
ers on ethical principles is training researchers on recognizing and solving ethical
dilemmas.
Ethical dilemmas arise when researchers need to apply abstract principles and
guidelines to concrete and practical research situations, such as accessing the field,
contacting gatekeepers, or deciding if they are using photographs for the public dis-
semination of results. Sound ethical reasoning refers to the ability that researchers
develop in carefully considering the risks and harms, together with the overall ben-
efits, of making particular methodological choices. From the research question to
the sampling design, to the recruitment and data gathering, to the moment the
researcher leaves the field and attempts to publish results, in all research stages and
steps, ethical considerations are due and ethical dilemmas are being solved. And
while, for some situations, researchers already know, beforehand, how such dilem-
mas were solved, for other, particularly when using innovative methods or when
trying to adapt traditional methodologies to critical and profoundly changing social
phenomena, existing familiar ethical solutions may be lacking. This means research-
ers need to develop the ability to use ethical reasoning. Or, in other words, research-
ers need to learn how to “be” ethical and how to integrate ethical decision-making
into all steps of the research process. Furthermore, not all countries and institutions
give the same relevance to ethics committees or devise ethical compliance
mechanisms.
While authors from Anglo-Saxon countries have been publishing extensively on
the works of such ethics committees or IRBs, much is yet to be known about what
are (if any) the ethics governance mechanisms in other countries, particularly the
more peripheric ones or where criminological research is in its early stages. In many
countries, ethics committees for criminological research may not exist. Or they may
not be sufficiently developed. Or they may be mere forms of window dressing for
institutions to “look ethical” despite continued disrespect for researchers, partici-
pants, and the particularities of criminological inquiry. In such situations, when
ethics is not carefully considered and cared for at the institutional or organizational
level, it is crucial that researchers develop ethical reasoning.
As mentioned, the first step for that to happen is to recognize that there are no
“one size fits all” solutions, even though similar situations may lead to similar ethi-
cal decisions. However, acknowledging that dilemmas may and probably will exist
at some point in the research helps researchers to be ready to react when that hap-
pens. Especially because, as already considered, many ethical decisions are taken
“on the spot” when interacting directly with (prospective) participants. Additionally,
238 R. Faria
researchers ought to be aware of and know in some detail the existing rules, includ-
ing ethics codes or data protection guidelines, of their respective institutions, coun-
tries, or the ones used by research sponsors. Next, researchers ought to know whom
to turn to to ask for support and help in solving ethical dilemmas. All researchers
will deal with ethical dilemmas sooner or later, which means that, besides ethics
committees, researchers can turn to their colleagues or supervisors, instill debate on
ethical decision-making, and learn from their peers’ experiences. This can happen
in more or less private meetings, but it can also take place during research seminars
or even by looking at what has come up in journals or conferences. I thus argue that
it would probably be incredibly valuable for researchers to have access to col-
leagues’ previous experience with ethical dilemmas and to debates on ethics through
frequently published papers and presentations at conferences with research ethics,
overall, being given more visibility than it actually is. However, as Dodge and
Parker show in a different chapter of this book, publishing qualitative research may
be particularly challenging, let alone when authors wish to discuss or present meth-
odological and ethical details.
Ethical Considerations in Contemporary Crises
The knowledge of overarching ethical rules and the development of ethical reason-
ing and the skills to make ethical decisions – “being” ethical – are particularly
important in critical moments in history. Many of the chapters of this edited collec-
tion mention this need to adapt ethical requirements to, for instance, unprecedented
lockdowns. Rapidly changing social practices and individual experiences mean, for
instance, that risks and harms that researchers should account for also change rap-
idly. Just consider the recent potential for information and data going viral and
traveling throughout the world; or how images and words (which can be research
data or research results) are quickly shared on social media. But despite this velocity
of events, many people still struggle to benefit from the right to be forgotten, mean-
ing that past events can still be accessible online (and become research data) despite
the fact that the respective authors have ceased to consent to have them publicly
available.
Anonymity and privacy have new meanings and need to be reconsidered in the
online world, where people can manage their alias or virtual characters. Demographic
and personal data may not have correspondence in the online and the offline world
for some research participants. However, online actions happening to virtual identi-
ties (e.g., hate crimes, insults, bullying) can have real consequences and harms to
real people in the offline world.
Current social developments should also bring new ethical (and further method-
ological) considerations. While ethics, in this paper, has been mostly directed
towards human participants, the growing body of work on green criminology,
together with the pressing need to study the causes of the current climate emergency
and ways to ameliorate them, may mean that criminological research may need to
consider animal well-being as well. The interaction with nonhuman suffering (e.g.,
illegal wildlife trading, poaching, illegal fishing) and criminological research may
pose new ethical dilemmas regarding how researchers avoid doing harm to nonhu-
man research participants. Simultaneously, this probably merits broadening the per-
spective on who/what should be considered a research participant.
Political unrest and polarization in many current societies demand new ways of
considering how to collect and analyze data. The complexity, richness, and depth of
qualitative inquiry may need to be readjusted to the study of realities based on fake
news and “black and white” debates. The seeming lack of nuances in public debates
on relevant issues, together with extremist and extreme political discourses, may
lead qualitative research to readjust its data collection techniques or data analysis
procedures. Simultaneously, this poses ethical dilemmas as research results can risk
creating further divides and real or symbolical political barricades.
Finally, one last comment about the conditions that allow the existence of sound
ethical reasoning. Ethics and ethical analysis and consideration are more likely to
exist in just and ethical institutions. Demanding researchers to care for participants
while researchers themselves work in and for institutions who do not care about
them; mandating researchers to do no harm to participants while working in institu-
tions where researchers are frequently bullied, are gaslighted, or work in precarious-
ness; and upholding researchers to the higher ethical standards while, simultaneously,
offering working conditions that do practically nothing to avoid burnout and other
mental health issues or that prevent individuals from working in dignified condi-
tions – all this is condemning ethics to be just a box-ticking exercise to get research
money, publications and high ranks in universities’ assessments. Being ethical is
only possible if researchers are given the chance of working ethically in ethical
institutions.
References
Alvesalo-Kuusi, A., & Whyte, D. (2018). Researching the powerful: A call for the reconstruction
of research ethics. Sociological Research Online, 23(1), 136–152.
Anderson, E. A., & Corneli, A. (2018). 100 questions (and answers) about research ethics. Sage
Publications.
Armstrong, S., Blaustein, J., & Henry, A. (Eds.). (2017). Reflexivity and criminal justice.
Intersections of policy, practice and research. Palgrave Macmillan.
Bacon, M., & Sanders, T. (2017). ‘Risky’ research and discretion in pursuing the criminological
imagination. In M. H. Jacobsen & S. Walklate (Eds.), Liquid criminology. Doing imaginative
criminological research (pp. 159–172). Routledge.
Braswell, M. C. (2020). Ethics, crime and justice. An introductory note to students. In
M. C. Braswell, B. R. McCarthy, & B. J. McCarthy (Eds.), Justice, crime, and ethics (10th ed.,
pp. 3–9). Routledge.
Bucerius, S. (2015). Being trusted with “inside knowledge”: Ethnographic research with male
muslim drug dealers. In J. Miller & W. R. Palacios (Eds.), Qualitative research in criminology
240 R. Faria
Faria, R. (2018). Research misconduct as white-collar crime: A criminological approach. Palgrave

Macmillan. ISBN 978-3-319-73435-4.
Faria, R., & Eski, Y. (2018). Een wolf onder de wolven. Ethiek en Ethische Commissies in criminol-
ogisch onderzoek naar ‘the powerful’. Tijdschrift Over Cultuur en Criminaliteit, 8(3), 43–58.
Girling, E. (2017). Ethical challenges. Doing research with children. In M. Cowburn,
L. Gelsthorpe, & A. Wahidin (Eds.), Research ethics in criminology. Dilemmas, issues and
solutions (pp. 37–54). Routledge.
Gold, J., & DeValve, M. (2020). Utilitarian and deontological approaches to criminal justice eth-
ics. In M. C. Braswell, B. R. McCarthy, & B. J. McCarthy (Eds.), Justice, crime, and ethics
(10th ed., pp. 10–26). Routledge.
Hackett, S. (2017). Researching child sexual assault: Towards a child sensitive methodology. In
M. Cowburn, L. Gelsthorpe, & A. Wahidin (Eds.), Research ethics in criminology. Dilemmas,
issues and solutions (pp. 133–149). Routledge.
Haggerty, K. (2004). Ethics creep: Governing social sciences research in the name of ethics.
Qualitative Sociology, 27(4), 391–414.
Israel, M., & Gelsthorpe, L. (2017). Ethics in criminological research. A powerful force, or a force
for the powerful? In M. Cowburn, L. Gelsthorpe, & A. Wahidin (Eds.), Research ethics in
criminology. Dilemmas, issues and solutions (pp. 186–203). Routledge.
Moore, L., & Wahidin, A. (2017). The role of ethics in prisoner research. In M. Cowburn,
L. Gelsthorpe, & A. Wahidin (Eds.), Research ethics in criminology. Dilemmas, issues and
solutions (pp. 55–76). Routledge.
Noaks, L., & Winkup, E. (2004). Criminological research. Understanding qualitative methods.
Sage Publications.
nology. Springer Nature.
Winlow, S., & Measham, F. (2017). Doing the right thing. Some notes on the control of research
in British criminology. In M. Cowburn, L. Gelsthorpe, & A. Wahidin (Eds.), Research ethics in
criminology. Dilemmas, issues and solutions (pp. 204–219). Routledge.
Rita Faria is Assistant Professor of Criminology in the School of Criminology, Faculty of Law,
University of Porto (Portugal), and director of the Interdisciplinary Research Center on Crime,
Justice and Security – CJS. She holds a PhD in criminology, a Master of Sociology, and a Bachelor
of Law. Her research interests include white-collar crime, and financial, corporate, and environ-
mental crime. She also has been researching and writing about research misconduct and research
ethics, as well as the history and epistemology of criminology, particularly in Portugal. She has
co-authored papers on the use of qualitative research in criminology, drawing attention to the
fields’ methodological and ethical specificities. She is president of the European Society of
Criminology’s European Working Group on Organizational Crime (EUROC) and co-chair of the
Working-Group on Qualitative Research Methodologies and Epistemologies (WG-QRME).
Currently, she is also on the editorial board of Crime, Law & Social Change.
Chapter 15
What Now and How? Publishing
the Qualitative Journal Article
Mary Dodge and Megan Jean Parker
The conundrums associated with publishing qualitative data are particularly vexing
when researchers and reviewers find themselves at opposite ends of the methods
spectrum (i.e., anchored at one end as quantitative or at the other as qualitative). In
cases in which either the researcher or the reviewer is a strict adherent to one side or
the other, never the twain shall meet as they say: “east is east and west is west”
(Kipling, 1892). Indeed, publishing qualitative research often is fraught with barri-
ers that academics and journal editors find perplexing, and these obstacles can land
them on opposite sides of the fence.1 While disagreements about the validity and
reliability of both types of methods persist and purists can present persuasive argu-
ments that favor their position, the reality is that research takes many shapes and
forms, all of which contribute to multiple goals. The research experience and
narratives involved in qualitative work, however, offer special insights and findings
that might be overlooked in a quantitative study and vice versa – hence, the current
emphasis on mixed methodology. One goal of this chapter is to explore the contro-
versies created by the resistance to accept qualitative work for publication as valu-
able research that is deserving of attention. The most common problems that arise
from editors and reviewers are the explanations of methodology, methods, presenta-
tion of the data, and the pragmatic quagmire that may stifle the voices of
1
The misconceptions that play out in the dichotomy of quantitative versus qualitative have outlived
their usefulness. Like many debates in criminology, extremist viewpoints are tempered by the
rejection of a dichotomy between the approaches (Buckler, 2008; Kraska, 2008, Tewksbury et al.,
2005). The advantages and disadvantages of qualitative research have received a great deal of
attention in the literature in many academic fields (see e.g., Berg, 2007; Buckler, 2008; Hussein
et al., 2014; Jacques, 2014; Starman, 2013; Tweskbury, 2013).
M. Dodge (*) · M. J. Parker

School of Public Affairs, Program in Criminology and Criminal Justice,
University of Colorado Denver, Denver, CO, USA
e-mail: mary.dodge@ucdenver.edu
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18401-7_15
242 M. Dodge and M. J. Parker
criminologists and research participants. The bulk of the information presented in

this chapter attempts to demystify the ways and means of qualitative journal publi-
cations with an emphasis on in-depth interviewing.
Qualitative methods are generated from numerous disciplines and are viewed by
many scholars as the backbone and foundation of criminology research. Seminal
case studies of crime have established unique frameworks such as grounded theory
and furthered in-depth exploratory studies of offenders and victims. Classic qualita-
tive work in the United States includes, for example, Clifford Shaw’s (1930) The
Jack-roller, Howard S. Becker’s widely heralded book Outsiders (1963), William
J. Chambliss’ article The Saints and the Roughnecks (1973), Freda Adler’s Sisters
in Crime (1975), and Women who Embezzle or Defraud: A Study of Convicted
Felons by Dorothy Zietz (1981). These case studies/oral histories, lest we forget,
provided a foundation for theoretical development and promoted the study of soci-
etal norms that perpetrated unequal representation in the criminal/legal justice sys-
tem which continue to involve systemic sources of socioeconomic, racial, and
gender biases. Gilbert Geis’ (1977) case study of antitrust violation cases in 1961
and Michael Levi’s (2015) qualitative research on elite frauds, ordinary frauds, and
“organized crime” significantly advanced the study of white-collar crime and cor-
porate offenders. Diane Vaughan’s (1996) extensive exploration of the Space Shuttle
Challenger explosion in the United States demonstrated the quintessential aspects
of qualitative work related to the normalization of deviance. Vaughan’s words
remind us that revisionism can correct popular misconceptions and critical social
moments often are disregarded in the absence of high-quality qualitative research:
No one has forgotten the astronauts, the incident, or the shape of those billowing clouds that
recorded the final seconds of the Challenger’s flights. Nonetheless, the loss of the Challenger
has receded into history, as the unfolding present, urgently demanding attention, replaces
the past. (p. xii)
These quick transformations are taking place now as qualitative researchers engage
in examinations that challenge the new normalization of deviance, including
COVID-related frauds, political shenanigans, cybercrime, and warmongering (see
e.g., McSwane, 2022; Pontell et al., 2021).
Jeff Ferrell and Mark Hamm’s (1998) exceptional book Ethnographies at the
Edge offered qualitative insights into homelessness, sex work, drug worlds, and ter-
rorism. This book, as noted by many ethnographers, inspired researchers to explore
and reflect beyond topics and methods that had been unforeseeable by past crimi-
nologists. Numerous studies, an understatement at best and beyond the scope of this
chapter, are available that present intriguing historical examinations and explora-
tions involving, for example, ethnographic or sensory methodology in criminology
(see e.g., Adler & Adler, 1999; Copes, 2016; Meuser & Löschper, 2002; Miller &
Palacios, 2015). Undoubtedly, the breadth and depth of qualitative work, as reflected
in the chapters of the current book, demonstrate the versatility and interdisciplinary
nature of distinctive research approaches.
Qualitative research is intellectually and emotionally stimulating, despite the
noise by some naysayers and some roadblocks. The challenges of interviewing
15 What Now and How? Publishing the Qualitative Journal Article 243
offenders and victims include, for example: identifying a sample, gaining access,
establishing rapport, determining positionality, and maintaining objectivity.
Additionally, interviews may result in numerous unexpected ethical issues that are
far from black and white. The grey areas of life, whether they are ours, others, or the
intertwining of experiences, are by far the most intriguing, yet complicated, aspect
of the research. The inexplicable areas of qualitative research may be considered by
some academics as a weakness, though many researchers who have experienced the
“pulls and pushes” reflect on these situations as puzzles that are difficult but not
impossible to solve. The strengths of qualitative or mixed methods, however, out-
weigh the struggles researchers may encounter.
Qualitative data often are gathered using in-depth interviews, which may employ
structured or semi-structured protocols. The latter allows for stronger narratives
with information that is wider and deeper in scope compared to some quantitative
work. Despite the initial trepidation a researcher may experience, particularly that
participants might be unwilling to talk about their personal lives and innermost
confidences, people often embrace the opportunity to tell their stories. Also, narra-
tives from similar offenders offer a way to engage in a systematic analysis of themes
that might not emerge in quantitative data.
Tips for the Tenacious Researcher
Qualitative work requires researchers to expand their data-gathering skills and

might include techniques such as archival/document analyses, field observations,
sensory experiences, social media data, or oral histories. In all these approaches,
criminologists must identify their methodology and methods. In fact, a recent
review that one author was privy to indicated that the researcher failed to accurately
distinguish between methodology and methods. Indeed, this difference often gets
lost in translation and the terms are used incorrectly as interchangeable. The meth-
odology is the strategy and rationale for your study (e.g., ethnography, phenomenol-
ogy) that justifies the use of a particular method (e.g., surveys, observations,
photography, interviews) that is defined and structured. Distinguishing between
these seemingly similar words is instrumental in providing a clear and concise pre-
sentation in your final manuscript submission.
Challenges linked to structuring the research will include the painstaking process
of sorting data for the best presentation and then facing submissions to journals that
potentially are biased toward quantitative methods. The countless types of qualita-
tive work demand recognizing the inherent conflicts of creativity versus scientific
methodology, emotion versus reflectivity, and narratives versus numbers. The con-
troversies over publishing qualitative research, sometimes because of the innovative
and unusual approaches, have ebbed and flowed in criminology despite a long and
reputable history. This chapter attempts to sort through the strategies that help
ensure a higher success rate of journal publications during an evolving global trend
to gather and disseminate a wider variety of research approaches pre and post the
2020 pandemic. Specifically, the material that follows includes empirical and anec-
dotal information that reminds and informs us of the debates, challenges, and best
practices in publishing qualitative criminological research.
Gathering data and publishing an article are enterprises that can involve count-
less incidents of heartache and gratification. The challenges of collecting and ana-
lyzing qualitative data may present significant efforts to capture the voices of
hard-to-reach populations. First, case studies, interviews, ethnographies, field stud-
ies, and visual and sensory work are time-consuming and difficult, though some
perspectives offered by quantitative researchers suggest that qualitative work is easy
or erroneous in the strictest sense of the criminological world of empirical work.
Second, in the “real” world, making sense of qualitative data may transcend any
orderly or preplanned analysis. In other words, attempts to fully explain a methodol-
ogy and methods that veer from the original course are unsettling for all those
involved: writers, editors, and reviewers. Rita Faria (2022, personal communica-
tion) notes that this situation is especially troublesome at a time when examples of
success, and perhaps not setbacks and “failures,” are openly discussed and dissemi-
nated via social media. Third, no template exists for writing and presenting qualita-
tive findings, especially under demands that theoretical contributions or public
policy recommendations are instrumental to successful publication. Finally, rejec-
tion is painful. In these circumstances, the story of renowned American criminolo-
gist Francis T. Cullen’s (2002) reflection offers hope: “I had written a 410-page
dissertation that had been rejected for publication as a book by 39 publishers”
(p. 19). Cullen refused to give up, and it was the 40th publisher that accepted the
book, which ultimately was widely read and admired. In other words, strive to be
tenacious and resilient.
Publication acceptance of qualitative work in criminology follows patterns
established in other fields and specialties. In 2011, for example, the editors of the
Academy of Management Journal (AMJ) emphasized that the use and publication of
qualitative methods are inevitable and that this diversity should be embraced as
instrumental in furthering our knowledge in academic pursuits. In this instance, two
associate editors were assigned to manage only submitted qualitative work as a sign
of the journal’s commitment to publishing this type of work (Bansal & Corley,
2011). The editor of the AMJ, Pratima Bansal, who received her doctorate from the
University of Oxford in the mid-1990s, offered a frank assessment of her experi-
ences: “I was lucky because there wasn’t a stigma associated with qualitative
research in the United Kingdom. At the same time, I didn’t fully appreciate the chal-
lenges I would later confront in trying to publish qualitative work.” (Bansal &
Corley, 2011, p. 233). In 2016, qualitative researchers took umbrage when the pres-
tigious British Medical Journal (BMJ) allegedly discounted their work, which
resulted in international attention. A rejection letter, according to Clark and
Thompson’s editorial (2016), indicated that the BMJ prioritized publishing quanti-
tative rather than qualitative work based on “limited downloads” of the latter. During
the controversy, cardiac researchers Clark and Thompson (2016) offered five tips to
encourage and guide qualitative researchers:
1. Try, try, try again (i.e., fight the fear of failing).

2. Nail your key message (i.e., include a strong, clear, and concise statement about
the goal of the research).
3. Match your messages to the audience of targeted journals (discussed later in this
chapter).
4. Tune into the journal (i.e., find a good fit).
5. Remember you are doing community work.
Similarly, Trish Reay (2014) offered several qualitative research strategies: col-
lect high-quality data; develop a clear and compelling research question; offer a
comprehensive literature review; explain your methods; and remember the impor-
tance of the theoretical contribution.
Despite the suggestions listed above and the rapid dissemination of information
via social media, journal editors may still balk at the idea of publishing qualitative
research. In criminology, a controversy emerged in June 2020 when Crime &
Delinquency was criticized on Twitter for indicating in a response email that “C&D
does not currently publish qualitative research.” Scholars, both qualitative and
quantitative alike, expressed great concern over this information. In response to this
outcry, editor Dr. Danielle Carkin explained that these policies and practices were
developed under the former editor and announced that she would address this issue
with the editorial board” (https://journals.sagepub.com/pb-assets/cmscontent/CAD/
Call%20for%20Papers%20CD_Qual_Updated-1627588746.pdf).
Publishing Rates Kevin Buckler’s (2008) exploration of the manifestation of
qualitative work included a threefold approach: a content analysis of criminology
and crime manuscripts published in lower and higher-tiered journals, the number of
related courses taught in PhD program curricula, and interviews with journal edi-
tors. Buckler discovered that the publishing gap between qualitative and quantita-
tive work was “quite wide,” and the former was infrequently taught as independent
courses in doctoral programs. In 2020, Heith Copes and colleagues conducted an
extensive content analysis of the qualitative research that had been published in the
top 17 criminology and criminal justice journals. Copes, Beaton, Ayeni, Dabney,
and Tewksbury (2020) noted that published articles primarily employed fieldwork,
semi-structured interviews, and mixed methods. Using mixed methods in research
often results in robust findings that are more easily published.2 The good news is
that the popularity of qualitative studies is showing a slow but steady growth (Copes
et al., 2020; Tewksbury et al., 2005, 2014).
The findings of Copes et al. (2020), however, remain moderately discouraging
and confirm that a low percentage of publications from 2010 through 2019 appeared
in top-tiered criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) journals, though the trend
could be interpreted as positive. During the study’s timeframe, 11% of all articles in
the 17 CCJ journals employed qualitative methods. The qualitative articles pub-
lished in the top five journals (n = 83) showed that only 5.3% relied on qualitative
2
See Sun and Benson Chap. 3 in Part I.
methods and of articles in the remaining 12 journals (n = 355) 12.8% were qualita-
tive. Overall, the findings show that the total number of qualitative articles has
increased since the first decade of the 2000s (see Table 15.1 for the specific journals
used in the research).
The data from Copes et al. on published articles is extensive and informative
(this chapter should be required reading in all methods courses). Visual and mixed
methods, for example, were rarely used in published articles. Table 15.2 shows their
findings for the number of articles that included discussions of coding and
grounded theory.
The steady increase of published qualitative work is a promising trend, and jour-
nals devoted to qualitative work are increasing in many fields (e.g., Journal of
Qualitative Criminal Justice and Criminology, International Journal of Qualitative
Methods, Qualitative Research, American Journal of Qualitative Research,
Qualitative Sociology, Qualitative Health Research). In fact, on the positive side,
the future of qualitative methodology and methods might be more than optimistic.
We may see the solidification and growth of qualitative as so routine that this article
will be read as a historical perspective and that many of the problematic issues are
no longer applicable. The intrigue and excitement of qualitative criminology are the
essence of past, present, and future narratives and of findings that advance our field
both in depth and width. Celebrated scholar Gilbert Geis, who was a great
Table 15.1 Percent of published qualitative articles 2010–2019

Percent of articles employing
Journal qualitative analysis
British Journal of Criminology 37%
Crime and Delinquency 2%
Criminal Justice Behavior 2%
Criminology 10%
Criminology and Public Policy 4%
Deviant Behavior 18%
European Journal of Criminology 13%
International Journal of Offender Therapy and 15%
Comparative Criminology
Journal of Criminal Justice 1%
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 0
Journal of interpersonal Violence 12%
Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 3%
Justice Quarterly 7%
Law and Human Behavior 0.8%
Police Quarterly 7%
Prison Journal 21%
Theoretical Criminology 24%
Total 11%
Source: Copes, H., Beaton, B., Ayeni, D., Dabney, D., & Tewksbury, R. (2020). Please note that,
unlike the original article, rounding errors are present in this table
Table 15.2 Article coding and grounded theory 2010–2019

5 Top-tiered journals Other 12 journals
Article content All 17 journals (N = 438) (N = 83) (N = 335)
Discuss coding
No 224 (52%) 20 (24%) 204 (58%)
Yes, little detailed 89 (20%) 18 (22%) 71 (20%)
Yes, detailed 125 (29%) 45 (54%) 80 (23%)
Coding style
Deductive 7 (2%) 2 (2%) 5 (1%)
Inductive 62 (14%) 20 (24%) 42 (12%)
Both 12 (3% 6 (7%) 6 (2%)
Not mentioned 357 (82%) 55 (66%) 302 (85%)
Grounded theory
No 355 (81%) 55 (66%) 300 (85%)
Yes 83 (19%) 28 (34%) 55 (16%)
Source: Copes, H., Beaton, B., Ayeni, D., Dabney, D., & Tewksbury, R. (2020). Please note that,
unlike the original article, rounding errors are present in this table
proponent of qualitative work, in personal communication, remarked on numerous

occasions that reading the top American journal Criminology and its emphasis on
quantitative studies was rather insipid and meaningless given the obscure data
analyses.
The Research Questions? Many, or perhaps most, scholars view the need for a
research question as essential to high-quality work. Nontraditional data sources,
however, may be less conducive to rigidly structured research questions. Additionally,
fieldwork frequently takes an unexpected path. In one case, for example, fieldwork
designed to observe and interview Johns (male clients of prostitutes) during arrests
in decoy stings was sidetracked by the handcuffed men who were, somewhat not
surprisingly, unwilling to consent to an in-depth interview (Dodge, 2005). This
experience also stands in direct contrast to the previous assertion that people want
to share their stories. The caveat here is to always consider your circumstances and
positionality as a researcher. In this case, a new research question developed during
the observational part of the study that focused on a more accessible population for
interviews: How do female police officers feel about undercover work as street
prostitutes? The research question(s) is important to the design of a high-quality
study though it may change along the process of collecting and analyzing data. A
current editor of a criminology journal in response to a recent email request about
publishing qualitative research explained:
Whether in the methods section more likely or in the introduction to the submission, it is
always a good idea to explain, in relation to the research question, why one did the inter-
viewing and what one expected to find from doing so that could not be nuanced or finessed
from quantitative gathering of information/knowledge on the matter. (Personal communica-
tion, 2021)
The Numbers Problem Qualitative research is not about numbers. This perspec-
tive can result in disagreements about reporting who and how many interviewees
expressed similar views that contributed to the thematic findings. Some researchers
endorse numbering or coding responses by a participant’s number, gender, and age
(Weaver-Hightower, 2019). While employing a pseudonym is common in qualita-
tive work, assigning a number to respondents to include with quoted material is
unnecessary. Additionally, organization codes such as “Interview 1” serve relatively
no purpose and can be eliminated (Weaver-Hightower, 2019).
Qualitative interviews are often published using the terms the “majority” or only
a “minority” of respondents, holding the same perspective. Efforts to quantify
responses with a statement that 29/35 shared the same viewpoint can establish
stronger validity and may increase the chances of publication. This approach, like
many other suggestions, begs the question of how important the exact numbers are,
but many editors find the information valuable. One criminology journal editor
when asked recently about increasing qualitative publications noted that
in addition to selecting anonymous quotations from the interviewee to represent or validate
the findings (that often seems to me like “cherry picking,” whether true or not to make the
author's argument or whatever), I think it is a good idea to tabulate, if one can, in some
fashion, using a table or whatever, similar responses by the number of interviewees.
(Personal communication, 2021)
Also, reporting demographic information can be problematic. Interviews with

police officers, for instance, often result in an inability to give specific information
on the size or description of the department, which is required to ensure confidenti-
ality. A researcher’s affiliation might disclose the identity of the department or
agency by location. Concerns about maintaining confidentiality may result in a
“fuzzy” demographic description of the agencies and participants in the methods
section. A tactful explanation and refusal to include the information is a legitimate
response to reviewers.
Sample Size The question of sample size is frequently an issue in qualitative work,
particularly with interview data. There is no magic number. Historically, case stud-
ies in psychiatry and psychology were based on a sample size of one. In fact,
research studies, according to Reay (2014), that are “based on relatively few inter-
views providing in-depth attention to a topic where we currently hold little scholarly
knowledge can be powerful and valuable” (p. 95). Only the researcher can deter-
mine the correct sample size based on decisions related to the study’s design and the
appearance of themes as the data is being collected.
Reaching saturation is an essential element of qualitative interviewing and
depends on research integrity. “Data saturation occurs when no meaningful themes
(or subthemes) in the data emerge. Data saturation tends to be a more pressing con-
sideration in studies built around semi-structured interviews (i.e., repeated use of a
predesigned set of questions) than it is in a more loosely organized fieldwork ven-
ture” (Copes et al., 2020, p. 1068). The final decision on the number of interviews
conducted and the saturation point depends on any number of factors such as
sample population, confirmation of emerging themes, and, at times, practical mat-

ters. Our work with the journal of Crime, Law and Social Change over the past few
years suggests that 15 is not the magic number, which for unknown reasons seems
to be developing as a rule in many of the qualitative studies submitted for
publication.
The Methods Section The importance of writing a detailed and informative meth-
ods section is emphasized by editors, reviewers, and, ultimately, the audience. The
thoroughness of one’s explanation of the methods is essential to publishing (Buckler,
2008). Discussions of the exact method and identification of coding, inter-rater reli-
ability, and use of software (if applicable) are essential. Remember, however, that
“computers do not analyze qualitative data; people do” (Petintseva et al., 2020).
According to most scholars, a high-quality article includes transparency in cod-
ing, inter-coding reliability, and positionality (Chenail, 2009; Copes et al., 2020;
Reay, 2014). Positionality shapes the process based on social status and other identi-
ties, which include the researchers and participants (Bourke, 2014; Copes et al.,
2020). Additionally, the perhaps outdated view that academic articles should avoid
first person may be an important part of positionality in qualitative work. Banal and
Corley (2011) argue that the “researcher voice” objectivity and subjectivity visibil-
ity can be shown in first-person narrative for methods and findings. The most recent
version of APA style (7) notes:
When writing in APA Style, you can use the first person [sic] point of view when discussing
your research steps (“I studied...”) and when referring to yourself and your co-authors (“We
examined the literature...”). Use first person to discuss research steps rather than anthropo-
morphising the work. For example, a study cannot “control” or “interpret”; you and your
co-authors, however, can. (https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa6_style/
apa_formatting_and_style_guide/apa_stylistics_basics.html)
How the research was conducted, including data sources and rich descriptions, is
essential for editors and reviewers (Banal & Corley, 2011). According to Reay
(2014), editors and reviewers frequently ask authors to “explain your methods much
more clearly” and transparently (see also, Chenail, 2009). In sum, articles must be
“transparent and detailed around the sampling procedures, inductive/deductive
approach, and analysis” (personal communication with a criminology journal edi-
tor, 2021).
Information That Seems Inconsequential Is Imperative
What may appear insignificant to an invested author are details that journal editors
and reviewers require. As previously mentioned, a full explanation of the methods
is indispensable. Also, all journals have formatting guidelines for presentation, in-
text citations, and references that may differ. Check these requirements and follow
them closely. An editor of a journal that relies on APA formatting may be opposed
to sending an article prepared in Chicago or MLA style to reviewers. The inability
to employ the correct writing style designated by the journal appears to be a prob-
lem in other fields as well. Based on an anecdotal story, the first author of this chap-
ter was engaged in a conversation with an editor of an archaeology journal in Porto,
Portugal, on a Worst Tours activity, and he asked, “Why can’t authors use the jour-
nal’s formatting? Are they just lazy?” (Dodge, personal communication, 2022).
Please avoid being one of these authors, which editors in criminology also see
frequently.
Focus on your overall presentation. Empirical storytelling is a chronological nar-
rative or roadmap that develops a natural storyline, which can show themes, trends,
and developments (Reay, 2014; Weaver-Hightower, 2019).” The beauty of qualita-
tive research is that it can accommodate different paradigms and different styles of
research and research reporting” (Weaver-Hightower, 2019, p. 234). In some cases,
according to Weaver-Hightower, a chronological narrative guides the natural story-
line and can be used to show trends. Most qualitative researchers also avoid long
quotes. The quotations are used to serve as examples that give the readers informa-
tion about who the speakers are, the source, and whether the quote is a typical or
atypical response.
A high-quality article makes a clear contribution to the extant literature, which
must be clear from the beginning. An editor of a top-tiered criminology journal
published in the United States noted that the publication of qualitative or quantita-
tive articles depends on the value and contribution of the research:
My advice here would be similar for someone who was asking about publishing a quantita-
tive research article, to be honest. I think the most essential thing is that the author(s) estab-
lish (clearly, explicitly) how the study contributes to the discipline in a truly meaningful
way. To dig more into your question, I would suggest the author(s) ensure that there is a
resonating thread in the manuscript about how the qualitative approach provides essential
insight that translates into real added value. (Personal communication, 2021)
Another problem in publishing qualitative data, as noted by Copes et al. (2020),

includes the emphasis on quantitative research for funding and viewpoints that the
former research lacks scientific rigor. Some previous research shows the prevalence
of editorial bias is less problematic compared to other issues (Armstrong, 2020;
Buckler, 2008; Copes et al., 2020). An editor for a highly respected British crimi-
nology journal indicated:
Perhaps the most important piece of advice I can give, and the kind of comment I see most
often from reviewers, is that interview material must be effectively analyzed. A common
pitfall is to offer up excerpts from transcripts and expect them to do the work on their own,
offering up a kind of raw empiricism. Instead, the findings need to be subjected to critical
scrutiny and analyzed to engage with conceptual or theoretical development. How do the
findings add to (or challenge) our existing understanding of the topic? (Personal communi-
cation, 2021)
Explore suitable outlets for your publications. Some journals appear to be more
receptive to accepting qualitative work. As previously mentioned, Copes et al.
(2020) discovered the highest percentage of qualitative articles were found in British
Journal of Criminology, Theoretical Criminology, and the Prison Journal. The
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology published no qualitative work. In this
example, why would anyone submit qualitative work to the latter journal? We can
expect a growth in publishing as the Journal of Qualitative Criminal Justice and
Criminology becomes more established and moves toward being a top-tiered
journal.
Conclusion: Revisions and Rejections
Remember the initial advice: Try, try, try again. This approach, at times, becomes
the mainstay for qualitative researchers. Internationally known scholar Henry
Pontell, a professor at John Jay and an emeritus professor at the University of
California, Irvine, presents the positive side of receiving an article rejection:
Rejections? Don’t let anger or hopelessness get the better of you or be the sole/primary
responses. It’s still free advice that can improve what you’ve done if/when you end up send-
ing it elsewhere. You can agree to disagree, but it works to your advantage to be receptive
to the negativity. You’ll be able to ferret out enough from the criticism to appreciably
improve the presentation of your manuscript through either reformulation of ideas, better
contextualization, or both (personal communication, 9/6/2021).
Similar advice was given by criminologist Todd Clear at an American Society of

Criminology meeting. If possible, according to Clear, address the critiques and sug-
gestions of the reviews and submit them to a higher-tiered journal. Often, the fall-
back is for the author to assume the article is only fitting for a lower-tiered journal
publication—that might not be the case.
Our final piece of advice is to remember that the sociological and criminological
imagination continues to flourish through a wide variety of qualitative methods. At
times, the reliance on theory and data may alienate research from daily reality and
the researcher from the work (Collins, 2003). The extant literature, this book, and
numerous other works in criminology show that qualitative research continues to
grow and prosper.
References
Adler, F. (1975). Sisters in crime: The rise of the new female criminal. McGraw-Hill.
Adler, P. A., & Adler, P. (1999). The joys of research. Sociological Origins, 1(2), 3–8.
Armstrong, E. K. (2020). Political ideology and research: How neoliberalism can explain the pau-
city of qualitativecriminological research. Alternative, 45(1), 20–32.
Banal, P., & Corley, K. (2011). From the editors: The coming of age for qualitative research:
Embracing the diversity of qualitative methods. Academy of Management Journal, 54(2),
233–237.
Becker, H. (1963). Outsiders: Studies in the sociology of deviance. Free Press.
Berg, B. (2007). Qualitative research methods for the social sciences (6th ed.). Pearson.
Bourke, B. (2014). Positionality: Reflecting on the research process. The qualitative report,
19(33), 1–9.
Buckler, K. (2008). The quantitative/qualitative divide revisited: A study of published research,

doctoral program curricula, and journal editor perceptions. Journal of Criminal Justice
Education, 19(3), 383–403.
Chambliss, W. J. (1973). The saints and the roughnecks. Society, 11(1), 24–31.
Chenail, R. (2009). Communicating your qualitative research better. Family Business Review, 22,
105–108.
Clark, A. M., & Thompson, D. R. (2016). Five tips for writing qualitative research in high-impact
journals: Moving from #BMJnoQual. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 1–3.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406916641250
Collins, H. (2003). Discrimination, equality and social inclusion. The modern law review,
66(1), 16–43.
Copes, H. (2016). A narrative approach to studying symbolic boundaries among drug users: A
qualitative meta-synthesis. Crime, Media, Culture: An International Journal. https://doi.
org/10.1177/1741659016641720
Copes, H., Beaton, B., Ayeni, D., Dabney, D., & Tewksbury, R. (2020). A content analysis of
qualitative research published in top criminology and criminal justice journals from 2010
to 2019. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 45, 1060–1079. https://doi.org/10.1007/
s12103-020-09540-6
Cullen, F. T. (2002). It’s a wonderful life: Reflections on a career in progress. In G. Geis &
M. Dodge (Eds.), Lessons of criminology (pp. 1–22). Anderson Publishing.
Dodge, M., Starr-Gimeno, D., & Williams, T. (2005). Putting on the sting: Women police officers’
perspectives on reverse prostitution assignments. International Journal of Police Science and
Management, 7(2), 71–85.
Ferrell, J., & Hamm, M. S. (1998). Ethnographies at the edge: Crime, deviance, and field research.
Northeastern University Press.
Geis, G. (1977). Heavy electrical equipment antitrust cases of 1961. In M. B. Clinard & R. Quinney
(Eds.), Criminal behavior systems: A typology (pp. 139–151). Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
Hussein, M. E., Hirst, S., Salyers, V., & Osuji, J. (2014). Using grounded theory as a method of
inquire: Advantages and disadvantages. The Qualitative Report, 19, 1–15.
Kipling, R. (1892). Barrack-room ballads and verses. Methuen.
Kraska, P. B. (2008). The third way: Teaching mixed methods research. ACJS Today, 23(1), 1–8.
Levi, M. (2015). Qualitative research on elite frauds, ordinary frauds, and “organized crime”.
In J. J. Brent & P. B. Kraska (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of qualitative criminology
McSwante, J. D. (2022). Pandemic Inc.: Chasing the capitalists and thieves who got rich while we
got sick. Atria/One Signal Publishers.
Meuser, M., & Löscher, G. (2002). Introduction: Qualitative research in criminology. Forum quali-
tative sozialforschung/forum. Qualitative Social Research, 3(1).
Miller, J., & Palacios, W. R. (2015). Qualitative research in criminology. Transaction Publishers.
nology. Palgrave Macmillan.
Pontell, H. N., Tillman, R., & Ghazi-Tehrani, A. K. (2021). In-your-face Watergate: Neutralizing
government lawbreaking and the war against white-collar crime. Crime, Law and Social
Change, 75(3), 201–219.
Reay, T. (2014). Publishing qualitative research. Family Business Review, 27, 95–102.
Shaw, C. R. (1930, 1966, 2013). The jack-roller: A delinquent boy’s own story (2nd impression
ed.). University of Chicago Press.
Starman, A. B. (2013). The case study as a type of qualitative research. Journal of Contemporary
Educational Studies, 1, 28–43.
Tewksbury, R. (2013). Qualitative versus quantitative methods: Understanding why qualita-
tive methods are superior for criminology and criminal justice. Journal of Theoretical and
Philosophical Criminology, 1(1), 38–58.
Tewksbury, R., DeMichele, M. T., & Miller, J. M. (2005). Methodological orientation of arti-
cles appearing in Criminal Justice’s top journals: Who publishes what and where? Journal of
Criminal Justice Education, 16(2), 265–279.
Tewksbury, R., Dabney, D. A., & Copes, H. (2014). The prominence of qualitative research in
criminology and criminal justice scholarship. In Advancing qualitative methods in criminology
and criminal justice (pp. 12–32). Routledge.
Vaughan, D. (1996). The challenger launch decision: Risky technology, culture, and deviance at
NASA. University of Chicago Press.
Zietz, D. (1981). Women who embezzle or defraud: A study of convicted felons. Praeger Publishers.
Mary Dodge is a Professor in Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Colorado
Denver. She earned her PhD in 1997 in criminology, law and society from the School of Social
Ecology at the University of California, Irvine. Her research articles, which employ primarily
qualitative methodology, on white-collar crime, policing, victimization, and gender equity/inclu-
sion have appeared in the American Journal of Criminal Justice, Women & Criminal Justice,
International Journal of the Sociology of Law, Police Quarterly, and the Journal of White-Collar
and Corporate Crime. She is the editor of Crime, Law & Social Change. She and Gilbert Geis co-
edited the books Lessons of Criminology and Stealing Dreams: A Fertility Clinic Scandal. She also
is the author of Women and White-Collar Crime. She shares authorship on the book Introduction
to Criminal Justice: Systems, Diversity, and Change.
Megan Jean Parker is an Instructor in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado
Denver. Her primary research area is in the field of white-collar crime, with a particular interest in
Deferred Prosecution Agreements in corporate crime settlements, corporate fraud detection, and
qualitative theoretical research approaches. She also serves as the managing book editor for Crime,
Law, and Social Change.
Index
A E
Academic capitalism, 2, 19–34, 214, 236 Emotional labour, 104, 107–120
Algorithms, 54, 56, 58, 61, 65, 105 Ethical dilemmas, 186, 229, 233–239
Ethics, vii, 2, 20, 25, 31, 85, 89, 96–97, 104,
182, 190, 191, 229–232, 235–239
C Ethnographic innovation, 19–34
Camera elicitation, 186, 187, 194 Ethnography, vii, 1, 20, 21, 27, 33, 53, 54, 56,
Case studies, 54, 56, 72, 76, 78–80, 151, 237, 59, 61, 88, 91, 93, 103, 104, 111, 133,
242, 244, 248 135, 154, 182, 184, 185, 188, 225, 226,
Constructionist, 171 232, 235, 236, 242–244
Convict criminology (CC), 109–112, 118
Corruption, vi, viii, 33, 69–81, 183, 211, 213,
214, 237 F
COVID-19, vii, 22, 43–45, 47, 51, 59, 103, 109, Financial frauds, 69, 70, 74–75
119, 132, 211, 214–220, 222–226, 236 Focus groups, 10, 88, 90, 94, 95, 129,
Crime and COVID, 104, 226 130, 184–186
Criminological verstehen, 54, 59–63 Funded research, 21, 22
Criminology, v–viii, 1, 2, 15, 24, 34, 37, 51,
53–66, 72, 85–99, 103–105, 108–111,
125–128, 136, 141–143, 147–149, 155, G
161, 162, 165, 166, 173, 174, 182, 184, Green criminology, 211, 238
185, 190, 194, 200–203, 211, 212, 214,
230, 232, 235–237, 242–251
Critical discourse analysis (CDA), 162, 199, I
200, 202, 205, 206, 208 Incarceration, viii, 43, 107–111, 113–117,
131, 136, 148, 165, 166, 176, 191, 211,
234, 235
D In-depth interviewing, 116, 242
Demographically identifiable information, Inequality, v, vii, 34, 165–173, 175, 190, 200,
193, 195 213, 218, 221–224, 226, 231, 234
Digital data, 86 Instagram, 54, 55, 57–66, 88
Digital methods, 55, 86 Institutional Review Board (IRB), 44, 45, 47,
Discourse studies, 200 231, 236
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to 255
Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18401-7
256 Index
Interviews, 3–7, 12, 21, 26, 27, 30, 31, 37, 38, Q
40–42, 44–47, 57–59, 61, 63, 64, Qualitative criminology, v, vii, 1–2, 85–99,
72–74, 80, 85, 88–90, 93–95, 98, 99, 105, 233, 246
109, 111–117, 119, 143–146, 151, 173, Qualitative data, 37, 38, 41, 43, 46, 77, 78,
175, 183–186, 191, 203, 220, 225, 234, 92, 161, 185, 211, 241, 243, 244,
243–245, 247, 248, 250 249, 250
Itinerant soliloquies, 142, 143, 148–152 Qualitative methods, v, vi, viii, 1, 2, 10, 38,
46, 53, 86, 91, 103, 112, 176, 183,
184, 211, 212, 229, 233, 242,
L 244–246, 251
Labelling theory, 24 Qualitative research, v–viii, 1, 52, 54, 57, 58,
Liberation, 19–34 66, 71, 81, 92, 97, 104, 110–112, 117,
Lockdowns, vi, 51, 53, 119, 214–226, 236, 238 118, 166, 172, 174, 176, 183, 203, 211,
232, 233, 238, 239, 241–248, 250, 251
Quality control, 207
M
Media, v, vi, 2, 13, 23, 30, 31, 51, 52, 54–57,
61, 62, 65, 66, 69–71, 73, 74, 76–78, R
85, 87–89, 91, 94, 96, 97, 99, 144, 150, Research design, 37, 44–47, 95
154, 170, 181, 184, 201, 202, 206, 211, Research ethics, 94, 184, 194, 230, 231, 238
213, 215, 216, 218–221, 223–225, 231,
235, 238, 243–245
Medical fraud, 72 S
Mixed methods, v, vii, 1, 2, 37–47, 243, 245, 246 Sense-making, 132, 133, 135, 171, 172
Sensory criminology, 129, 143, 147–148
Social control, vi, viii, 1, 51, 125–136, 147,
O 169, 211
Offending and victimization, vi, 4, 5, 13, 20, Social distancing, 51, 221, 222, 224
51, 69, 70, 73, 76, 79, 81, 143, 148, Social problems, 26, 162, 166–173, 176, 230
162, 174, 191, 194, 211, 231, 232
Online methods, viii, 44, 85–99, 212, 235
T
Trap culture, 54, 56, 57, 59–65
P Trigger warnings, 107–120
Peer reviewed, 201
Photo-based research, 3–16
Photo-elicitation, 6, 10, 93, 142, 143, 182, V
185–187, 194 Virtual ethnography, 53–66, 91, 234
Photo-ethnography, 5, 6, 181, 185, 187, 190, Visual criminology, 142, 147, 148, 162
192, 193 Visual methods, v, 8, 16, 176, 181, 182, 184,
Prison research, 107–120, 135, 235 185, 191, 192, 194
Prisons, viii, 19–21, 29, 38–43, 46, 51, 95, 98, Visual research, 4, 16, 142, 184
105, 107–115, 117, 119, 120, 128–131,
134–136, 170, 173, 174, 182, 191,
230–232, 246, 250 W
Publishing, vii, 182, 195, 201, 211, 237, Walking method, 149
238, 241–251 White-collar crime, 69–81, 242

Qualitative Research in Criminology: Rita Faria Mary Dodge Editors

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Qualitative Research in Criminology: Rita Faria Mary Dodge Editors

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Qualitative Research in Criminology: Rita Faria Mary Dodge Editors

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Rita Faria

Mary Dodge Editors

ISBN 978-3-031-18400-0 ISBN 978-3-031-18401-7 (eBook)

Our position as editors of this cutting-edge methods in qualitative criminology book

improving the co-creation of knowledge. Qualitative methodologies have the poten-

Part I Adapting to a New World

Part II The Growing Relevance of the Online World

Part III Methodological Innovations

9 Towards Visual and Sensory Methodologies in

Part IV The Connecting Power of Languages

Part V Praxis: Pondering and Publishing

Rita Faria is Assistant Professor of Criminology in the School of Criminology,

Mary Dodge is Professor in Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of

Heith Copes and Alex Davis

 hoto-Based Research with Vulnerable Groups: Breaking

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 3

In addition, the introduction of photographs in the final products of research

Using Photography in Research

photography energizes marginalized groups to depict their experiences and provide

 ontextualizing Breaking Frames Through

formal interviews (with 52 participants), informal observations, and photography

Breaking Frames and Shaping Narratives

Researcher Frame Breaks

Fig. 1.1 Alice (21) sent a

Participant Frame Breaks

Photo-elicitation research, when conducted with marginalized communities, can be

Another participant, Nora, echoed this sentiment:

Fig. 1.2 Nora shared a

Ultimately, the shared experiences of being in the circle provided a therapeutic

Although reminiscing on trauma can be painful and difficult, narrating photographs

Audience Frame Breaks

Diana’s acknowledgement of her cultural identity as “invisible” in the city is repre-

In one photograph by Ragland, Misty stands in a doorway taking prescription drugs,

Gap in the Market

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 19

Our Current Context: Academic Capitalism

associated restrictions, we have seen how this institutional machinery grind to a

More Gaps in the Market

 reaking the Shackles from the Spanish Inquisition…I Mean

Freedom and Ethnographic Innovation

In the City Shadows: Drug Addiction and Violence

 etween the Nooks and Crannies of Western Democracy:

Concurrently, time in Valdemingómez also became complemented with another

different countries. Every time I was invited to a conference or to give a plenary, I

Cultural Underbelly: Working in a Luxury Brothel

Discussion. Broken Shackles and Ethnographic Freedom

Diana Sun and Michael L. Benson

Why Use Mixed Methods?

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 37

A Concurrent Nested Design Example

An Unexpected Disruption: The Global COVID-19 Pandemic

As a researcher, one must be cognizant that unexpected things sometimes happen.

audio distortions in a participant interview recording may lead to a whole interview

Alvesson, M. (2003). Beyond neopositivists, romantics, and localists: A reflexive approach to

Internet in qualitative criminological research, through thought-provoking essays

As I was stuck at home during a global pandemic, I found myself in a situation

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 53

virtually – where relationships are characterised by a social disengagement and

 he Criminological Relevance of Social Media

Part I Adapting to a New World

Part II The Growing Relevance of the Online World

Part III Methodological Innovations

9 Towards Visual and Sensory Methodologies in

Part IV The Connecting Power of Languages

Part V Praxis: Pondering and Publishing

hoto-Based Research with Vulnerable Groups: Breaking

Using Photography in Research

ontextualizing Breaking Frames Through

Breaking Frames and Shaping Narratives

Researcher Frame Breaks

Participant Frame Breaks

Audience Frame Breaks

Gap in the Market

Our Current Context: Academic Capitalism

More Gaps in the Market

reaking the Shackles from the Spanish Inquisition…I Mean

Freedom and Ethnographic Innovation

In the City Shadows: Drug Addiction and Violence

etween the Nooks and Crannies of Western Democracy:

Cultural Underbelly: Working in a Luxury Brothel

Discussion. Broken Shackles and Ethnographic Freedom

Why Use Mixed Methods?

A Concurrent Nested Design Example

An Unexpected Disruption: The Global COVID-19 Pandemic

he Criminological Relevance of Social Media

Some Notes on Researching Deviance Online

Criminological Verstehen Within Italian Trap Culture

Interacting Through Instagram

Researching on the Internet

Financial Fraud: The Savings and Loan Crisis

Corruption and White-Collar Crime in China

Phenomenon and Method

Using Qualitative Online Methods in Criminology

Online Interview (Synchronous and Asynchronous)

Online Focus Group

Online Questionnaires and Surveys

Online Participant Observation and Ethnography

Mobile and App-Based Methods

Video, Photo or Audio Elicitation and Diaries

Advantages for Criminologists in the Use of Online Methods

Recruitment, Costs and Logistics

isadvantages for Criminologists in the Use

Ethics and Consent

Methodological and Technical Challenges

onvict Criminology and the Value of Inclusive

The Emotional Labour of Qualitative Prison Studies

Reflexive Account of Working on ‘Feeling the Carceral’

trategies of Coping with the Emotions of Doing Critical

memory-enhancing techniques utilizing cognitive theory to maximize memory

Visual and Sensory Approach for Green