Book description

The Routledge Handbook on Africana Criminologies plugs a gaping hole in criminological literature, which remains dominated by work on Europe and settler-colonial locations at the expense of neocolonial locations and at a huge cost to the discipline that remains relatively underdeveloped.

It is well known that criminology is thriving in Europe and settler-colonial locations while people of African descent remain marginalized in the discipline. This handbook therefore defines and explores this field within criminology, moving away from the colonialist approach of offering administrative criminology about policing, courts, and prisons and making a case for decolonizing the wider discipline. Arranged in five parts, it outlines Africana criminologies, maps its emergence, and addresses key themes such as slavery, colonialism, and apartheid as crimes against humanity; critiques of imperialist reason; Africana cultural criminology; and theories of law enforcement and Africana people. Coalescing a diverse range of voices from Africa and the diaspora, the handbook explores outside Eurocentric canons in order to learn from the experiences, struggles, and contributions of people of African descent.

Offering innovative ways of theorizing and explaining the criminological crises that face Africa and the entire world with the view of contributing to a more humane world, this groundbreaking handbook is essential reading for criminologists and sociologists worldwide, as well as scholars of Africana studies and African studies.

Table of contents