I accept the Critical Criminologist of the Year award with gratitude and humility—but not without devoting careful thought to how to receive it.
Individual awards can be criticised for feeding an individualistic ethos at a time when, more than anything, we need communal actions to achieve structural transformations. Individual awards can also reinforce an already hierarchised and competitive academia when we instead need an ecology of collective intellectual activity.
But awards can also be seen as symbols of solidarity by showing that research which champions justice is seen and valued. By bestowing a prize, a group can express that we are together in working for a better planet. Awards can also be platforms for justice, infusing new vitality into projects at risk of being worn down by dim realities. Keep going, keep fighting.
I interpret this award as the latter: as a symbol of solidarity and as a platform for rekindling emancipatory action. Instead of taking this award as a celebration of individual merits and indulging in self-congratulation, I want to exalt our collective commitment to reducing suffering and injustice. It is this interpretation of the award that informs my decision not to be there with you today—even when I would have rejoiced in your company.
I believe personal satisfaction is no reasonable argument for increasing my carbon footprint. Amidst environmental breakdowns, a commitment to ecological justice should lead us to prioritise fundamental needs over nonessential experiences. I also believe that the money required for me to attend the ceremony, instead of funding a trip, can be invested in ways more attuned to the Division’s goal of unveiling and challenging the social structures that marginalise and subordinate. In the middle of widespread inequality, embracing social justice should move us to work for collective well-being instead of individual distinction.
In line with these beliefs and upon my request, the Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law at the University of Oslo allocated funds for a research project by Indigenous Peoples. The sum is the equivalent of what my trip to San Francisco would have cost. This money makes it possible for a team of Indigenous researchers to conduct a critical study—and be paid for it—on the gendered dynamics that produce injustice within their communities.
Today, ten researchers from the Áwa, Barí, Inga, Muisca, Nasa, Piapoco, Pijao, Tikuna, Uitoto, Uwa, and Zenú Colombian Indigenous Peoples, moved by the symbolic power of this award and using it as a platform, have joined the ranks of critical scholars working for a fairer society.
So, I thank, once more, the members of the Division on Critical Criminology and Social Justice not only, nor primarily, for choosing me as the Critical Criminologist of the Year but for inspiring—through its actions and awards—new generations of intellectuals committed to dismantling oppression.
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