Publicaciones (en inglés)
Resúmenes y vínculos a los artículos
2024
Criminology: A Contemporary Introduction 2nd edition, by Tony Murphy,
During the same weeks i devoted myself to reading Tony Murphy’s Criminology: A Contemporary Introduction, i was analyzing data from CRiMLA, the largest criminology project ever conducted in Latin America in which we repeatedly interviewed 420 persons imprisoned on the continent (Goyes & Sandberg, 2024). Parallel to reading Murphy’s text-book, i studied the track records of our participants’ families of origin. one thing caught that my attention: while 39% had guardians (mainly parents or grandparents) who had alcohol use disorders, only 10% had guardians with a drug use disorder. Furthermore, most of the 39% with a track record of alcoholism in their families experienced violence related to the substance. in contrast, only a small fragment of those with a track record of drug addiction at home had had negative experiences due to it. The imbalance in the data contrasted with society’s condemnation of drugs and widespread acceptance of alcohol. Then, i took up Murphy’s book and found the following paragraph on page 140:
The issue of cannabis consumption is all the time more interesting when considering the work of weissenborn and Nutt (2012). They have demonstrated that the consequences and, indeed, harms associated with the use of common intoxicant drugs, such as alcohol and cannabis, have generally not been properly reflected in the policy decisions in recent decades in the Uk. Alcohol, for example, which was described by weissenborn and Nutt as being more than twice as harmful as cannabis to users, and five times more harmful to other people, has not received the regulatory responses (including criminal justice sanctions) that cannabis has in the Uk.
There it was: a piece of information that helped me make sense of my findings in an introductory book. Scholars often see textbooks as simplified, basic knowledge meant to give neophytes an idea of what criminology is about. Yet, after reading Murphy’s entire text, i can attest that it does more than expected. it combines a friendly entry to the discipline, with deep documentation of many specialized topics, and a clear pedagogical philosophy.
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2018
Book review: Grant Pink and Rob White (eds), Environmental Crime and Collaborative State Intervention
Although green criminology emerged in the 1990s, commentators still refer to it as a ‘new subgenre within criminology’. Perhaps this is because green criminology continues to open original lines of research, as evidenced by Environmental Crime and Collaborative State Intervention, edited by Grant Pink and Rob White. The strengths of this innovative collection are its interdisciplinarity and the first-hand information and perspectives of contributing practitioners.
The volume establishes its importance from the very start: given that the creators of environmental risks implement strategies that are increasingly more sophisticated, more violent and more spatially fluid, explains Malcolm K Sparrow in the Foreword, environmental regulatory agencies need to establish collaborative networks that bring the requisite high-level responses. With this goal in mind, Pink and White define collaboration simply as ‘working together for a shared purpose’ (p. 6). As such, collaboration can include cooperating, coordinating, networking and still other ways of enhancing the capacity for mutual benefit.
2019
Living Well at Others’ Expense: The Hidden Costs of Western Prosperity by Stephan Lessenich.
Living well at others’ expense is the modus operandi of modern capitalist societies. As this book’s title foretells, the author offers a view of the current world order in which the global north controls economic and political systems and receives the benefits of development, whilst the global south pays the price.
Stephan Lessenich explains how the daily dynamics of northern and southern countries are inseparably linked. Northern states and citizens satisfy their thirst for resources and commodities by impinging on the environmental and social boundaries of their southern counterparts, a process Lessenich calls “externalization”, “exploiting the resources of others, passing on costs to them, appropriating the profits, and promoting self-interest while obstructing or even preventing the progress of others”. Meanwhile, southern countries, prey to the rules imposed by the north, intensively exploit their own natural and human resources to try to keep up with the pace of demand.
Using ordinary language and clear examples, Living Well at Others’ Expense unveils the social dynamics of the global village as a “zero-sum game”. The high living standards of some are only sustainable through the suffering and degradation of most others – including non-human others.
Admittedly, many intellectuals have for decades been describing such an uneven and unfair distribution of wealth in the contemporary world. Even in the 1950s, the idea of the resource curse was popular among economists to indicate that countries rich in biodiversity are ‘cursed’ to experience war, poverty and exploitation; and since the 1980s, grassroots movements throughout the world have denounced the injustice by which the powerful enjoy ‘environmental goods’ while the marginalised cope with ‘environmental bads’.
Nevertheless, aside from exploring the northern exploitation of the south, Lessenich covers a topic that intellectuals have discussed much less: the societal denial of the unfair global allocation of opportunity. The American Dream and its associated idea of meritocracy currently dominate the universal collective consciousness, making us believe, first, that ‘successful’ individuals owe their privileges to hard work; and second, that anyone who works hard enough can achieve those privileges. However, as Lessenich shows, privilege is mostly inherited, either directly within a family or structurally within a nation, and hard work may not even come into the equation.
More than a decade ago Colombian writer Héctor Abad Faciolince stated: “Without nutrition, it is not even true that we all are born equal, because [malnourished] children come to the world already with a disadvantage.” Lessenich’s book is a timely reminder of such injustice. It is also a clear description of contemporary society, in which some have privileges and live well because others lack opportunities and resources. Living Well at Others’ Expense exposes the vacuous idea that we all can succeed if we work hard at it.
I have worked for over a decade with rural communities in the global south, so Lessenich’s insights are unsurprising to me. Yet, despite such close contact with injustice, I tend to forget that my own pleasures often come at the cost of suffering – of people and Nature. Therefore, this book is an extraordinary nudge that if we are not part of the solution, we are part of the problem.