The Death Penalty and the 'Bali 2'

Let me start by stating that I do not support the use of the death penalty as a response to crime.  The reasons for my position can be summarised as follows:

1. I find it difficult to trust the settler-colonial state to use the ultimate punishment against its citizens 'fairly', given its use of genocide against Indigenous peoples, and the propensity for the formal justice system to deploy state-sanctioned violence against the poor.
2. The state's exhortation that we 'shalt not kill' is contradicted somewhat when it gives itself the right to do so.
3. There is little evidence that the death penalty has a deterrent effect on serious offending. Research on the impact of the death penalty in the US has shown that in some of the states using this form of punishment over the past 2 decades, the rates of serious offending have either not changed or in fact increased.
4. Because the use of the ultimate, irreversible penalty requires that the 'system' be perfect.  And no justice system is perfect; not the various jurisdictions here in Australia (where I live), or New Zealand (where I grew up). These so-called 'civilised' systems of justice routinely get it wrong, as recent exoneration's demonstrate. The same can be said for the justice system of our neighbour, Indonesia.

Dominating media and political commentary right now is the possible execution of the Bali 2 Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. As a New Zealander living in Australia the massive amount of commentary on the situation has highlighted a number of interesting contradictions and patterns of behaviour on the part of Australians, particularly members of the mainstream media, political class and the much broader group of 'social commentators' (namely those who write letters to the editor or engage with talk back radio). A number of recurring 'themes' are present in a lot of their rhetoric on this issue, including:

Indonesia's justice system is barbaric

While Australia does not use the death penalty as a response to crime, it is nevertheless difficult for some international observers like myself to take seriously claims made by some Australian's that the Indonesian justice system is barbaric and uncivilised. After all, Australia is the country that incarcerates Indigenous peoples at higher rates than anyone else, and the upward trend is not, as some argue, related solely to increases in serious offending by Indigenous peoples (see discussion below). It is the jurisdiction that suspends the legislation giving all Australian's the same protections against racial discrimination so it can deploy discriminatory policies against the Aboriginal peoples of the Northern Territory. It is the jurisdiction where police corruption and racist practice has long been established via research and formal enquiries. It is the jurisdiction that currently avoids its international obligations by processing 'illegal immigrants', including children, in off-shore detention centres; not to mention imprisoning under-age Indonesian youth for people smuggling in contravention of international covenants against such practices. It is time that many Australian's woke up to the fact that your country's 'way of doing justice' is not viewed by some as the exemplar of western, civilised practice that you think it is.      

Australian's have contradictory attitudes towards the use of the death penalty

It appears that the majority of Australian's are opposed to Indonesia putting the Bali 2 to death by firing squad.  As someone opposed to the death penalty I am happy that this is the case. But I do wonder where all the anti-death penalty Australian's were when Indonesia used the death penalty against the Bali bombers back in 2008? At the time there were a few commentators, those consistently against the death penalty who expressed opposition to the executions on the grounds of their opposition being a moral absolute (see for example, the editorial in The Sydney Morning Herald, March 2015 and the 2 editorials that commentary refers to in the same newspaper back in 2008). In the main, the majority of the media and political commentary was of the 'Indonesia is a sovereign nation and has the right to determine what they believe is the appropriate way to respond to crime' kind. Or, as expressed by John Howard and repeated by many Australian commentator at the time, the bombers were simply 'getting what they deserved'. In other words when Indonesia's use of the death penalty suited the response some Australian's wanted to the killing of 202 people in Bali, there was little talk of the barbarism of the Indonesian justice system or criticism of its use of the death penalty. And before people email me to say it is not appropriate to compare the Bali bombings to drug smuggling let me just say that a) the death penalty is either barbaric and an inappropriate response to all offences or it is not - the moral absolute referred to in the Sydney Morning Herald editorial mentioned above - and b) remember the devastation wrought against the Indonesian population by the drug trade, the reason why, whether we agree with them or not, many Indonesians support the use of the death penalty in drug smuggling cases.  

The mainstream media and political class routinely express condescending, colonialist attitudes towards our South Pacific and Asian neighbours

Certain attitudes support the aforementioned 'themes', in particular a slightly racist condescension on the part of some members of the mainstream media, political class and 'social commentators' towards our nearest neighbours in the South Pacific and Asia. Colonialist ideals of the inherent social and racial superiority of the 'Australian way' stinks up much of the rhetoric about Indonesia's political and justice systems. Belief in the superiority of the 'western way' lurks behind the smirks that often accompany comments about police and judicial corruption, and the barbarity of Indonesia's prison systems and use of the death penalty. Is there some truth to these allegations/attitudes? Yes, corruption of the judiciary occurs, and anecdotal evidence of the need to bribe police in order to avoid being charged is so vast that it simply cannot be ignored.

But, this country is hardly in a position to cast such dispersion's at its neighbours. Putting aside the usual response that while your own justice system is not perfect it is not as bad as others as a) an exaggeration of how 'just'  your justice system is and b) ignorance of the degree to which the system is classist, racist and misogynist, let us highlight a few home truths about the 'Australian way' (and the same can be said of the New Zealand way as well): first, as I intimated above you have probably the worst record of incarceration of Indigenous peoples in the world, and while you continue to drive up their rate of incarceration through - in part - the biased application of police discretion, implementation of racist legislation like the NTER, and through arrests related to driving offences (in the Northern Territory) and imprisonment for non-payment of fines (Western Australia) you have little justification for intimating that other country's justice systems are 'uncivilised". Similarly while you continue to incarcerate refugees including children in contravention of UN conventions, many of whom are fleeing war zones that your country was involved in creating, you don't get to condemn anyone else for unethical conduct. And lastly, while your political class is more concerned at stopping potential 'terrorists' from returning from Middle East conflicts than doing something concrete about the 'gendered terrorism' occurring every day in this country, then it is increasingly difficult to accept the inferences many of you make that country's like Indonesia are 'less civilised'. And Mr Abbott, announcing the 'strategy/taskforce or whatever photo opportunity your advisers devised recently to make you and your government look serious about domestic violence doesn't nullify my argument, given that your government recently cut funding for the community-centred DV-related services required to support survivors of domestic violence.

The last point I want to make on this issue relates to the tendency of the mainstream media, political class and social commentators to 'feign outrage' - to look for reasons to make disparaging, negative comments about Indonesian officials involved in the row over the fate of the Bali 2. A classic example of this strategy occurred recently in response to the massive police and military deployment when the Bali 2 were transferred to another prison. It was reported that up to 700 personnel were deployed during the exercise, along with numerous armoured vehicles, jet fighters, etc. Yes, the response was completely over the top and unnecessary. But the outrage from some media and Abbot et al is hard to take seriously when a similar situation recently occurred here.  I am referring to police and 'security' institutions across Australia deploying up to 800 personnel in an anti-terrorist exercise, called Operation Appleby, that netted a massive total of... 2 arrests. The Australian Federal Police and others involved were heavily criticised by the Muslim community and so-called 'lefties' (as they were described by mainstream media) for the excessive force deployed against their communities. They were accused of political opportunism; of carrying out an exaggerated response to the situation in order to display - through media, an exaggerated level of threat. The official response, that the number of people involved was required to ensure 'safety' etc, simply didn't stack up. My point is that the political class and justice officials of this country are not above using exaggerated responses  to 'threats' for political purposes in order to gain positive media headlines, any less than their Indonesian counterparts are. In the case of Operation Appleby the population of convenience for an exercise in exaggerated moral panic were Muslims; Australia's current 'go to' community for the expression of exaggerated outrage, fear and risk.  In the Indonesian context what better community to target for an exaggerated response than Australian drug smugglers, a target group officials know is easy to justify due to decades of condescending rhetoric and behaviour towards that country from Australia's politicians and populist media. And for those New Zealander's reading this, it wouldn't pay to get too cocky; you might care to recall the massive deployment of police against the Tuhoe peoples in the Bay of Plenty to arrest all those 'terrorists' a few years back - you know the ones that were eventually charged with firearm offences?

As for the Bali 2, Andrew and Myuran, I hope current attempts to halt their execution are successful. I hope that one day they can return to Australia and demonstrate to their families, friends and communities the extent of their rehabilitation, and to teach young people here the price that can be paid for getting involved in the drug trade. I only hope that the ham-fisted, condescending and colonialist rhetoric that spews forth from this country's mainstream media, politicians and 'social commentators' has not pissed Indonesian officials off so much that Andrew and Myuran's chances of avoiding the ultimate punishment have in any way been diminished.  

Breaking the Criminal Justice-Criminology Nexus - Empowering Indigenous Communities

Introduction

I want to begin by telling two stories in order to provide context for the issues I will cover in this presentation:

The stories

The 2013 European Criminology Conference: (see description of this case study included in the Indigenous Criminologist post of 29/10/2013).

Drivers of Crime: In 2008 New Zealand's Ministry of Justice organised a 1 day hui (meeting) with a range of service providers, researchers, academics, and community members as part of the consultation process for the development of what is now called the Drivers of Crime project.  In the lead up to the hui various government agencies 'bargained' with the Minister of Justice (and by extension, senior officials at MoJ) to ensure that the list of invitees represented a cross-section of the 'community'.  Te Puni Kokiri (the Ministry of Maori Development) was one of those agencies, and attempted to have added to the list myself and other 'critical Maori commentators', and current and past gang members who worked with this particular community to deliver social services.  Officials from the Minister's office and MoJ attempted to block our inclusion on the list and if not for Te Puni Kokiri officials standing their ground and persuading the then Minister for Maori Affairs (firmly supported by Dame Tariana Turia) were we eventually invited, thus ensuring a range of Maori voices were heard on the day.  But it would be wrong to think that 'we' won: when MoJ summary of the main points of discussion was released some weeks later the vast majority of issues raised by the critical Maori caucus was excluded; including repeated concerns expressed about the lack of Maori input into the development of crime control policy, racist/biased policing, overuse of imprisonment, and other significant, structural failures on the part of the formal justice system.

Since then a number of other similar incidents have been experienced by Indigenous scholars residing in Settler-Colonial jurisdictions with whom I am in regular contact.  These individuals have discussed a number of incidents, some historical, some more recent, that mirror my own experiences.  Our common experience of the white privileged, arrogant conduct of some members of the Policy Industry and criminology, has made me realise that in all our critical analysis of the many and varied Colonial Projects that are deployed in Settler-Colonial contexts to subjugate Indigenous peoples, one that requires our urgent empirical attention on our part, is the criminal justice/criminology nexus.  The rationale for this claim, this empirical call to arms, so to speak, is quite straightforward: it is essential that we expose the nefarious effects of the parasitic relationship between members of Western, Authoritarian Criminology and members of the Policy Industry, given the hegemony this nexus has on the development of empirical knowledge about Indigenous crime.

The Provocations

• The parasitic relationship between Eurocentric Criminology and the Policy Industry is one of the most affective, ‘subtle’ colonial projects deployed in settler-colonial contexts to subjugate Indigenous peoples.

And

• We must become more aggressive in our critique of, and challenge to, this relationship if we are to decrease the damage it does to our communities.

What follows represents the tentative explorations of two questions that are of increasing concern to Indigenous scholars (and our critical, non-Indigenous colleagues), namely:

• What role, if any, does the Criminal Justice-Criminology nexus (or relationship) play in the Settler Colonial subjugation of Indigenous peoples?

And

• What should we do about it?

Part of the rationale for privileging empirical analysis of the nexus between white criminology and the policy industry, is historical – the historical relationship between a) coloniality, b) criminal justice and c) the academy.  Biko Agozino has effectively exposed that the discipline of criminology developed significantly under colonialism, and was an essential player in the colonial states subjugation of Indigenes.  You cannot explain the contemporary moment; the ways in which peoples are subjugated, without reference to the past.  In the words of Hayden (2004):

"Rather than distance ourselves from the past, as the centrist amnesiacs would counsel, perhaps we should finally peel back the scabs and take a closer look at why all the wounds haven’t healed". 

Colonial Projects in the Neo-Colonial Context
As the Nigerian criminologist Biko Agozino has demonstrated, criminal justice is one of the most potent Colonial Projects the Settler Colonial state utilises in its ongoing subjugation of Indigenous peoples.  One of its key functions is in assisting the state to ‘control’ what it defines as significant wicked problems, i.e., Indigenous over-representation, which is invariable portrayed in governmental discourse as a ‘fact of criminal justice life’.  It is a ‘social fact’ so significant that that it poses a threat to social order that requires meaningful, authoritative, indeed at times violent, intervention in relation to the practice of crime control.

And if you think my use of the term ‘violent’ is perhaps overstating things a little, all I need say in response is ‘the Tuhoe raids’. 

In New Zealand the ‘Maori problem’ is described in governmental and media discourse as being so significant that our crime problem would disappear if we could significantly reduce it, because, according to an ACT party member quoted in the Otago Daily Times in 2012, we are “full of crime”. 

If I may I would like to interrupt the flow of my analysis to divert to an interesting argument I heard posited by a young Maori scholar at an International Indigenous law conference held in Brisbane in June last year: Kiritapu Allen made what I think is a highly provocative, but accurate statement that given the violence and disfuntionality that permeates criminal justice in New Zealand, perhaps including the term ‘system’ in its title is somewhat misleading.  Instead, we should view it as a series of inter-linked incidents of violence, coated in the stink of colonialism. 

Much of the criminal justice system response to the ‘wicked problem’ of Maori over-representation comes in the form of structural violence, including, but not exclusively

• militaristic-style policing strategies;

• biased application of public disorder offences and discretionary powers;

• the criminal justice-led large-scale removal of Indigenous children and youth to detention centres; and

• and of Indigenous adults to the prison system – a form of displacement and confinement that O’Connor calls the ‘New Removals’ and Chris Cunneen ‘the new stolen generation’, with reference to the Australian context. 

I consider these ‘strategies’ as examples of overt violence perpetrated by the criminal justice sector against Indigenous peoples. 

Then we have a range of subtle, insidious strategies of containment and control, including:

• the aforementioned strategy of blocking Maori participation in forums that impact the design of policy;

• reliance on in-house Maori ‘experts’ to direct the development of policies for Maori, in place of meaningful engagement with Maori communities and Maori ‘experts’

• meaningless consultation exercises undertaken after policies and interventions have been designed and signed off by a CE, Minister or Cabinet;

• reliance on Maori/Aboriginal strategies that have no impact on an agencies bottom-line, and that make little or no reference to the socio-economic marginalisation of Indigenous peoples and used by agencies to market themselves as ‘culturally aware’;

• restricting or blocking access to sites of justice and undertaking independent, empirical research, and blocking research on criminal justice issues of importance to Maori, including bias, experiences of policing and imprisonment;

• arrogant dismissal of Maori knowledge and programmatic response to social harm in preference for importing theories, policies, legislation and interventions from western, high crime contexts;

• privileging academic literature and research on Indigenous issues and peoples carried out by white, western, administrative/authoritarian criminologists, whilst ignoring the Indigenous research lexicon; and

• indigenisation, or the inappropriate utilisation of Indigenous symbols, language and cultural artifacts to ‘sex up’ imported, ineffective crime control policies, like boot camps or Multi-Systemic Therapy, that are then forced upon our communities, and which do little to alleviate our over-representation in the criminal justice system. 

The white privileged criminological academy isn’t much better.  The range of disempowering behaviours perpetrated by its members is just as extensive, including:

• confine their critical criminological gaze to issues relating to state-defined problem populations, more often than not people of colour and working class youth, without significant engagement with individuals or communities from these populations – in other words they privilege the use of non-engaging methodologies; a reliance on statistical analysis and restrictive surveys at the expense of actually talking with brown people;

• confine their uncritical criminological gaze to state-run justice processes, policies, legislation and issues that the state deems important, for which they receive generous remuneration via the establishment of parasitic contractual relations;

• limit their ‘critical analysis’ of state systems and policies on programme effectiveness and evaluation largely devoid of historical context and the wider political economy of the state’s dominance of ‘justice’ in the neo-liberal moment – in other words their research and analysis is devoid of critical consideration of minor issues like genocide, coloniality, land grabs, destruction of key social and political institutions, biological and cultural warfare, etc; and

• empower themselves through the veil of scientism, an ideological construct that privileges the Eurocentric, supposedly ‘enlightened’ approach to measuring the Indigenous life-world, whilst denigrating Indigenous (and other) forms of knowledge that seek to explain the social world from the perspective of the Other.

Doing Imperialism Quietly?  The Criminal Justice-Criminology Nexus as Structural Violence

No longer able to attain political legitimacy by deploying overtly racist, assimilationist strategies such as the forced removal of our children in militaristic fashion, least it results in international condemnation, or banning our language and cultural practices through legislation, or replicating the physical genocide of the Indian Wars carried out in Canada and the U.S, or the killing times in Australia, the neo-liberal settler state and its supporting institutions of the body politic, in particular the white privileged academy, nevertheless continues to deploy structural violence against Indigenous peoples.  This comes in the form of  the development and application of racist criminological knowledge and interventions, made possible via collusion between white privileged academics and the policy sector.

This brings me full circle, to the stories I told at the beginning of the presentation.  How is it that policy workers and white privileged criminologists continue to produce bullshit about Maori and other Indigenous peoples?  More importantly, how is it that this bullshit still holds sway with the policy sector?  Answering these questions in full would require a whole presentation of its own.  So I’ll restrict myself to just 2 key reasons: a) because of their arrogance, related to a) because we are too nice. 

Doing Things for Ourselves

There are a number of practical, administrative responses either underway or that should be considered, including:

Research Project – Racism in the Academy;

International Journal of Indigenous Justice (IJIJ);

International Congress of Indigenous Justice (ICIJ);

All of these activities were discussed in the Indigenous Criminologist blog released on 31/7/2014.  

We urgently require a major change in our approach to the trash the Policy Industry and its parasitic partner, Authoritarian Criminology, produce about Indigenous peoples.  We need to become more aggressive in our approach to exposing the racism and white, colonial privilege that underpins their approach to the ‘Indigenous problem’.  Only by challenging the criminal justice-criminology nexus in an aggressive manner, and through the development and application of a Critical Indigenous Criminology, will we challenge the hegemony the members of this 'axis of bullshit' hold over the development of supposedly ‘legitimate’ knowledge about 'the Indigenous experience'.  Perhaps then we might finally have a say in the development of policies, legislation and interventions that reflect our approaches to dealing with social harm and our lived experiences, rather than the exotic fantasies of white privileged policy workers and academics. 

Second New Zealand Criminology Symposium - AUT University

Hi all

A reminder that AUT University is holding the 2nd New Zealand Criminology Symposium on Monday 9 February 2015.

For more information and to register go to the following link:

http://www.aut.ac.nz/study-at-aut/study-areas/social-sciences/events

Speakers include:

Associate Professor Tamari Kitossa - Brock University (Ontario)

Associate Professor Tracey McIntosh - Auckland University

Dr Tara McGee - Griffith University (Brisbane)

Dr Mike Ruguski - independent researcher (Wellington).

In a welcome departure from the norm for academic events the convenor, Dr Antje Deckert has invited people who work with/in communities and 'hard to reach' groups to talk about issues with crime control, including:

Harry Tam, Edge TeWhaiti and Michael Osborne, and

Holly Mortimore and Vicki Letele.

The speakers will cover a range of topics from obstacles to desistance from offending, strategies for engaging with 'hard to reach communities' such as gangs and their whanau (families), and effective responses to reducing crime. 

See you there.

Juan

A Comment on the Epistemic Violence of White Academic Privilege - Part 2

Blind Spots

During a presentation at a conference in Oslo in 2014 anthropologist Richard Wilk discussed the topic of 'the negative terrain of discipline' and in the process exposed significant weaknesses in the discipline of anthropology. Richard made three arguments pertinent to this discussion:

1. What we do not study can be more informative than comfortable and conventional topics.
2. Sometimes the hardest thing to see is what is right in front of your face; what D. Miller calls the 'blindingly obvious'. And
3. These zones of wilful blindness are always worth investigating (because 'open fields' are liberating).

In this blog I want to focus on the first statement, but before I do so I want to deal briefly with statement 2:

In previous blogs I have dealt with the Eurocentrism and white privilege that provide the ideological and epistemological basis of much of western criminology's engagement with Indigenous peoples and their 'issues'. The evidence of racism and the practice (and its effects) of white privilege within the Academy is extensive (see Aguirre, 2000; Cobb-Roberts, 2011; Iverson, 2007; Jeffries, 2006; Johnson-Bailey and Cervero, 2008; Miller, 2008; Moreton-Robinson, 2002; Myers, 2002; Smith et al, 2006; Stanley, 2006; Takara, 2006; Ward and Weems, 2010) - it is an empirical reality for many 'scholars of colour' who work in the academy. The racist, white privileged conduct of members of the academy touches on significant social (justice) issues including racism, discrimination, disempowerment, sexism and unethical conduct. All these 'issues' receive significant attention by criminologists and other academics; except it seems when their own colleagues conduct themselves in ways that disempower Indigenous scholars. In my experience members of the white privileged academy are much less interested in turning their critical gaze to a) the historical and contemporary role their discipline plays in the subjugation of Indigenous peoples, and b) exposing the racist, white privileged conduct of their colleagues. In my view:

the issue of racism and white privilege within academic criminology is one of the significant empirical blind spots of the discipline.

This blog utilises preliminary results of recent and ongoing research project to offer insights into the racist and white privileged strategies deployed by members of the western academy, and especially of members of the discipline of criminology, against Indigenous scholars.  

The Academy's Approach to Indigenous Peoples: Ignorance or Arrogance?

"One of the significant features of white [privileged, academic] ignorance is that it involves not just knowing but not knowing what one does not know and believing that one knows" (Applebaum, 2010: 13).

I recently engaged with work by non-Indigenous scholars on research they conducted in Indigenous communities. Two issues stood out from their work:

1. The researchers had little background in researching on or with Indigenous peoples, and needed to engage Indigenous advisers on how to research Indigenous communities. And
2. The advisers seemed to know little about the communities in which the research was being conducted, and so most of the information given to the principal researchers before entering the communities was inaccurate.  As a result they had to learn how to appropriately research in these communities post-entry.

First of all, hats off to the academics for recognising they had issues and needed to do better in the future. However, two thoughts came to mind while I engaged with their work:

1. Why would white middle class academics with no meaningful experience of researching with Indigenous peoples believe they have the right to apply for this contract and carry out the research?  And
2. Why would the contracting government agency give them a contract when they demonstrably lacked the necessary experience and knowledge?

The short answer to question two is that officials from contracting institutions often go for the 'familiar' when deciding who can/should do research on their behalf; meaning they go for academics who look, think and talk like they do.  In the majority of research funding situations, Indigenous academics and the research institutions they work for are less likely to be trusted with sensitive, politically charged topics, unless they are overseen by members of the white, privileged academy. It is also likely that contracting officials lack the critical knowledge and experience to be able to recognise that the individuals involved are not suited to carrying out the research.

The answer to question one is much more complex: How do you explain the fact that a group of non-Indigenous academics lacking both experience and knowledge, still apply for the research contract?

We could start to answer the question by acknowledging that people working in the contemporary academy are expected to apply for grants as part of performance management. The increasing commercialisation of the tertiary education sector means that applying for (and hopefully attaining) commercial monies is a key performance indicator for contemporary academics. The fact that the pool of contract research monies in many western, neo-liberal contexts is steadily diminishing, and the political nature of the grant decision-making process makes the chances of success minimal, are largely ignored. Most of the academics and university administrators involved know this to be the case, but pretty much everyone ignores it and so the act of simply applying becomes the key measure of success. Therefore, one could argue that the fiscal imperative is such that academics apply for grants they are wholly unsuited to because the pressure of being 'seen' to be attempting to fulfil the required performance measure means they apply for any grant regardless of their suitability. On paper it reads like a tidy rationale, but in my experience it is rarely the reason for applying for grants they are unsuited for.  

Perhaps the academics in question don't realise they are the wrong people to be carrying out research in Indigenous communities? Maybe they are so blind to their weaknesses that they genuinely believe themselves to be appropriate, when in reality they are not? In which case perhaps we should be forgiving and gently take them by the hand, sit them down for a quiet chat about their inadequacies and offer to help them to achieve the knowledge necessary for carrying out the research?

Sorry, but that excuse simply won't fly either, although I acknowledge having dealt with a number of academics in the past 20 years who were totally ignorant of their shortcomings in engaging with Indigenous people. No, the main reason why they apply is not ignorance but arrogance; an arrogance born of their white privileged position as members of an institution and of a discipline (in this case, criminology) that too often treats 'coloured folk' as methodological, financial and reputational cannon fodder; as sources of research grant monies to enhance their chances of promotion.  

In my experience, white privileged academics, especially those from the discipline of criminology, apply for research contracts on Indigenous issues for which they are unsuited because they genuinely believe they are entitled to do so. In this situation obvious personal shortcomings in method, methodology, theory, epistemology, etc, are overcome by seeking advice from one of their brown mates, regardless of that persons suitability for the role, or by simply reading a methods text book (although it is unlikely the book will be Linda Smith's 1999 Decolonising Methodologies!). The philosophical framework that emboldens these academics can be summarised in two words, white privilege - a state of mind and being that fosters their belief in the inherent superiority of the western, middle class academic environment; one that provides them the right to research brown people and their issues despite their lack of knowledge and experience. Having worked for a number of years in the academy, and carrying out research on the experiences of other Indigenous academics of working in this environment, none of this surprises me - the academy is replete with racist, white privileged conduct.

This brings me to the preliminary results of my ongoing research on racism in the academy, and especially within criminology.  In 2015 and 2016 I will be seeking to publish journal articles and book chapters that provide more detailed discussion of my findings.

Racism - the Epistemological Foundations of the Western Academy

Throughout my academic career I have experienced or observed a number of acts of racism and disempowerment perpetrated by white colleagues against Indigenous scholars. Over the past 18 months I've had discussions with 12 Indigenous scholars in Australasia and North America on the issue of racism and the academy as part of an ongoing research project. From this research I have discerned a half dozen or so actions/behaviours that commonly occur when white academics are seeking to empower themselves and, as a result, disempower 'colleagues of colour'. In the following section I discuss three of the 'actions' identified so far:

We own your name, we own you

One of the most common racist and disempowering acts is to place our name on research funding proposals without our consent.  I've experienced this behaviour in the past, as have four of the scholars I have spoken with thus far. In all instances white colleagues added our names to research grant applications without our permission. Why? Because the research topic either touched on Indigenous issues or the application form instructed them to explain how they will ensure their research is "culturally appropriate" (note that such forms rarely if ever ask the applicant if they will ensure their research is culturally grounded and empowering). How to deal with this? Simple - add a brown name.  

One of my research participants who works in a New Zealand university, recounted how one of his colleagues informed him his name had been added to a grant application as they were passing in a hallway with the words 'just thought I'd let you know that I'm doing research on such-and-such so I included your name on the application because I thought you'd be interested and we need a Maori presence'.  

Can you imagine the sh*t that would hit the fan if I as a male academic walked past a female colleague and said 'hey, I'm doing some research on Maori and since it might involve Maori women I added your name cause, you know, we need a female presence'. How long do you think it would take for the formal complaint paperwork to come through; at the very least you can expect the HoD to have a quiet but firm word in your ear?  So let me ask the obvious question: why do white academics, both male and female (2 of the perpetrators of this conduct reported during my research were women) act as if they have the right to conduct themselves in such a condescending, patronising way? Surely it is because they believe they are empowered to conduct themselves in this way by their white privileged colleagues, the discipline they belong to, and the institution they work in?

Any person of colour will do - as long as I get out of work

Another disempowering behaviour consistently reported involved colleagues using Indigenous colleagues to get themselves out of work. A number of the academics I interviewed reported receiving emails from colleagues or the chair of the workloads committee, informing them that 'wouldn't it be good for you, an Indigenous scholar, to sit on such and such a committee because it would be useful to have an Indigenous perspective', etc, etc. Now, this argument probably stands up for a teaching and learning committee which oversees what is taught and how (to ensure units or courses cover Indigenous issues), but academics I spoke to for this project reported being placed on four or five committees for which a specific Indigenous perspective was not paramount - it was simply a case of colleagues using the 'Indigenous perspective' argument to get themselves moved off committees they had no interest in attending.

If you disagree with me you are angry, aggressive and violent

This was one of the most powerful strategies identified by participants, one that most of the eight men I spoke with had experienced, or observed another Indigenous/black scholar experiencing. If you are an academic of colour and you disagree with white colleagues, and especially if you pull them up for unethical or racist conduct, there is a good chance this strategy will be used to silence you. Participants spoke of being accused of being verbally aggressive for calling out colleagues for racist conduct - regardless of the 'tone' in which they delivered their rebuke, and two found themselves placed under surveillance by university security because colleagues they had challenged subsequently reported feeling 'threatened'; a strategy WIlliams (2001) discusses with some vigour in her piece entitled The Angry Black Women Scholar. Two Australian scholars I discussed this strategy with made interesting observations that are pertinent to this discussion: one said in response this issue "aren't we always angry? No matter how we respond, or what language we use, it will be represented as anger; it is a simple a way of turning attention away from their conduct". While his colleagues response was "so what? Sometimes we have the right to be angry when we are faced with racism. Why are we expected to keep our cool in the face of white privileged arrogance".  

An interesting aside to this issue is the fact all bar one of the participants who discussed this issue reported that senior officials at the institution where they worked failed to do anything significant when they reported the white privileged, racist conduct of their colleagues. Instead, the institutional response focused on their response to the racist conduct, or officials tried to channel the complaint away from the formal disciplinary process and into informal 'mediation'.  

We decide when you are Indigenous and when your work is important
Another strategy employed by white privileged academics to 'own' us is to control when we can/cannot speak or work as Indigenous scholars. In two instances participants related how they had been redefined as non-Indigenous so that work they had previously been doing could be offered to someone else. 

Three of my respondents reported experiencing what can only be described as non-Indigenous colleagues deciding when they can speak as an Indigenous person, and proscribing when they can no longer do so. In two instances respondents reported being stopped from giving a lecture on Indigenous perspectives so a colleague could instead lecture in their place. One incident involved an Indigenous scholar being stopped from giving a lecture on the topic of Indigenous women's experiences of prison, an issue they had actually done research on, and replaced by a white colleague who had not. 

Another reported debating with a colleague on the suitability of people shortlisted for a lecturing position. The colleague argued that it was imperative that increasing the number of women be the top selection criteria. The Indigenous scholar described the resulting interaction thus:

"I responded by pointing out that as I was the only Indigenous scholar on staff it is equally important to consider increasing the Indigenous quota.  Her response was 'I'm surprised you say that, I've never heard you speak as a Maori before'.  Initially I was shocked, but then asked her 'I'm surprised you say that; have you actually read my research, my publications?' To which she replied 'well ok, but you've never spoken openly here about Maori issues'. I got the feeling that I was supposed to earn my Indigenous badge everyday; everyday I need to wear the Tino Rangatiratanga t-shirt and lecture everyone on Maori issues, just to remind them of my ongoing commitment to Maori issues".

Concluding Comment
It is my experience and that of the majority of my participants, that institutions rarely live up to the marketing rhetoric of their 'Aboriginal Strategy' or code of conduct, by holding white academics formally accountable for the types of conduct discussed in this blog. In relation to the criminal justice system Cunneen (2008: 37) argues that "the current direction of the criminal justice system is one that could be regarded as criminogenic to the extent that it fosters and compounds Indigenous anger". I argue that a similar statement can be made about the way in which academic institutions often fail to safeguard Indigenous scholars and hold academics accountable for employing racist strategies like the purposeful construction of Indigenous resistance per se as acts of aggression and violence, using our names and CV's to enhance grant applications without our permission, or redefining us as non-Indigenous in order to remove work from us and empower themselves. Andrea Smith (2011) once gifted us an Indigenous Feminism Without Apology. In similar fashion I offer this blog and future publications resulting from this research without apology, as part of an evolving Indigenous (Warrior) Criminology, in the hope that one day Indigenous scholars are able to participate in the academy free of the disempowering, unethical conduct discussed here.    

References
Aguirre, A (2000) Women and Minority Faculty in the Academic Workplace: Recruitment, Retention, and Academic Culture. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Applebaum, B (2010) White: On the Possibility of Doing Philosophy in Good Failth, in G. Yancy (Ed.) The Centre Must Hold: White Women Philosophers on the Whiteness of Philosophy. Lanham (MD): Lexington.  
Cunneen, C (2008) Indigneous Anger and the Criminogenic Effects of the Criminal Justice System, in A. Day; M. Nakata and K. Howells (Eds.), Anger and Indigenous Men. Leichhardt: Federation Press: 37-46. 
Iverson, S (2007) Camouflaging Power and Privilege: A Critical Race Analysis of University Diversity Policies, Educational Administration Quarterly, 43: 586-611. 
Jeffries, M (2006) Centering the Edge: Addressing Institutional Racism and Habitual Exclusion in the Academy, Du Bois Review, 3(2): 481-484. 
Johnson-Bailey, J and Cervero, R (2008) Different Worlds and Divergent Paths: Academic Careers Defined by Race and Gender, Harvard Educational Review, 78: 311-332. 
Miller, D (2008) Shades of Grey: An Autoethnographic Study of Race in the Academy, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 21: 347-373. 
Moreton-Robinson, E (2002) Talkin' Up to the White Woman: Indigenous Women and Feminism. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press. 
Myers, L (2002) A Broken Silence: Voices of African American Women in the Academy. Westport: Bergin and Garvey. 
Smith, A (2011) Indigenous Feminism Without Apology, Unsettling America: Decolonisation in Theory and Practice, available at http:unsettlingamerica.wordpress.com/ 
Smith, W; Yosso, T and Solorzano, D (2006) Challenging Racial Battle Fatigue on Historically White Campuses: A Critical Race Examination of Race-Related Stress, in C. Stanley (Ed.), Faculty of Colour Teaching in Predominantly White Colleges and Universities. Bolton (MA): Anker: 299-327. 
Stanley, C (2006) Colouring the Academic Landscape: Faculty of Colour Breaking the Silence in Predominantly White Colleges and Universities, American Educational Research Journal, 43: 701-736. 
Takara, K (2006) A View from the Academic Edge: One Black Woman Who is Dancing as Fast as She Can, Du Bois Review, 3(2): 463-470. 
Ward, A and Weems, M (2010) Speak Truth and Shame the Devil: An Ethnodrama in Response to Racism in the Academy, Qualitative Inquiry, 16: 310-313. 
Williams, C (2001) The Angry Black Woman Scholar, NWSA Journal, 13: 87-97. 

Publication of the Special Edition - Indigenous Perspectives and Counter-Colonial Criminologies

Hi all

The long-awaited special edition on Indigenous Perspectives and Counter-Colonial Criminologies has now been published in the African Journal of Criminology and Justice Studies.

The edition includes papers on issues of significance for Indigenous peoples from 

Professor Biko Agozino

Dr Tamari Kitossa

Juan Tauri

Dr Antje Deckert

Professor Andrea Smith

Professor Harry Blagg

Dr Thalia Anthony

Joey Lwart

The journal is free access and can be found via the following web page.

http://www.umes.edu/ajcjs/default.aspx?id=50660

A big thanks to Professor Agozino and the editorial staff of the journal for supporting our work.  Antje Deckert and I appreciate all the support we received in bringing this project to a successful conclusion.  There is a possibility that two further papers will be added to the edition, most likely in the New Year - we will keep you posted if/when this happens.

Heio ano

Juan

A Comment on the Epistemic Violence of White Academic Privilege - Part 1

The following blog is part 1 of a two part entry which provides an overview of the strategies and techniques of neo-colonial, epistemic violence perpetrated by the Academy against Indigenous scholars and communities.  Part 2, which will be posted in December, will report on recent research by the author and his colleagues, on Indigenous scholars’ experiences of racism within academic institutions.

Introduction

Indigenous peoples in all Settler-Colonial societies experience a number of issues when confronting both the criminal justice system and the academic discipline of criminology, including:

That the imposition of a criminal justice system, modelled on existing and developing Western models, was key to advancing the colonising process, especially the control and eventual subjugation of Indigenous peoples.

That the criminal justice system itself plays a significant role in the over-representation of Indigenous peoples.

That the criminal justice system and its supporting discipline, criminology, respond to Indigenous justice philosophies, theories and practices by portraying them as primitive, myth-based, and, therefore, illegitimate.  Furthermore, the ‘system’ marginalises Indigenous knowledge by employing rhetorical devices that construct it as ‘traditional’ and therefore as the antithesis of the preferred ‘scientific’ approach.  Except that is, for beliefs, practices and rituals policy makers and criminologists deem to be ‘culturally acceptable’, such as sitting in a circle or saying an ancient pray.  In other words, elements of the Indigenous world are utilised for their ability to eroticise and legitimise the criminal justice system, and not so much for their ability to empower Indigenous peoples.

And, a major player in the processes of marginalisation previously described is the discipline of criminology, or more accurately a particularly virulent derivative I have referred to previously as Authoritarian Criminology. 

Authoritarian Criminology

The charge that Criminology was a major player in the colonising enterprise within Settler-Colonial societies and other colonial contexts has only recently been given serious attention from those working in the discipline, such as Biko Agozino and Chris Cunneen; although we must acknowledge the work of Franz Fanon and others in the 1950s onwards is point out the importance of the social-behavioural sciences (Psychology, Anthropology, Sociology), and even history, in the colonial enterprise. 

Authoritarian Criminology can be identified by the following core practices:

Research, publications generally focuses on the conceptualisation of crime (and its definition) and what constitutes legitimate enquiry, as defined by the state.

Practitioners confine their critical criminological gaze to issues relating to state-defined problem populations: more often than not the targets of their empirical enquiry are people of colour and working class youth; and too often the research is carried out with little or no direct engagement with individuals, organisations or communities from these population groups.

Confine their enquiries to problems and questions that the state deems important for which they receive remuneration via the establishment of contractual relations.

Limit their critical analysis of state systems and policies on programme effectiveness and evaluation largely devoid of historical context and wider political economy of the state’s dominance of justice in the neo-liberal moment.

Empower themselves through the veil of scientism, an ideological construct that privileges their approach to measuring the Indigenous life-world, whilst denigrating Indigenous (and other) forms of knowledge that seek to explain the social world from the perspective of the Other.

Utilise the process of myth construction and maintenance in a hegemonic exercise aimed at privileging its ‘way of knowing’ in the policy making process, over that of potential competitors.

Silence Indigenous academics (and our critical, non-Indigenous colleagues) by deploying well-worn, racist strategies such as focusing on our ‘emotional’ responses to unethical or racist conduct (more about these strategies in Part 2 of this entry). 

So, what needs to be done to combat the hegemony of Authoritarian Criminology in deciding what is/is valid knowledge and dominate policy-making, especially in the development of Indigenous policy; activities that can most accurately described as contemporary manifestations of colonialist, epistemic violence?

The Unfortunate Truth about Policy and the Academy

Before we begin to construct effective strategies for empowering ourselves, we must first acknowledge the following unpleasant truth about policy-making, policy makers and certain influential members of the academy: Neither the state (the policy makers) nor the predominantly white, middle class, privileged Western academy is simply going to stop what it is doing.  There is too much at stake for them to do so, including power, authority, prestige and, most especially of import to their institutions, grant monies, for them to voluntarily hand over the authority they have given themselves to speak for us, to the Indigenous Other and our critical, non-Indigenous collaborators.  The truth is we will have to break the hold they have on speaking about ‘our experience’, and fight them for the privilege of being able to directly influence the development of policy that impacts our communities. 

The importance of breaking this monopoly was brought home to me recently when I read two papers by non-Indigenous academics who had picked up government-funded research contracts on Indigenous issues, and then had to go and find out how to actually ‘do research’ with Indigenous peoples!  What?  You apply for a project for which you actually do not have the methodological know how or the cultural competency to carry out, and after you get the nod you then try to find out about ‘Aboriginals’?  As an experienced Indigenous academic, two questions immediately sprang to mind when I was confronted with these two examples:  a) why are government agencies giving contracts and grant monies to academics who demonstrably lack the requisite skills or knowledge to carry out emancipatory, empowering research with Indigenous peoples?  There are a number of ways we can explain this situation, but for now I’ll offer just two: i) because the government officials who make these decisions have just as little knowledge and experience of the Indigenous context so they go for academics who ‘look and act like them’; and/or ii) they go for the ‘safe option’, namely academics who will toe the line by only asking safe questions (meaning questions that will not elicit direct criticism of an  agency or their Minister) and who will stick to the institutional script.  And, what is for me the most important question, b) why are non-Indigenous academics without the requisite methodological and ‘cultural’ experience and knowledge applying for these grants? Is it ego, ignorance, or a combination of both?  I will finish on this issue by saying that I believe that one of the reasons why they feel they are able to apply for said grants when they clearly should not, is because for so long now they have been able to do so without being challenged by the Indigenous Academy.  Furthermore, it was/is possible for them to do so because we have historically done little to confront the government officials who handed the grant monies over to them to carry out their ‘Indigenous research’.

Breaking the Hegemony of Authoritarian Criminology

There are a number of ways we can respond in order to extract authority and respect from policy makers and the academy:

Continue to work ‘within the system’ (or systems) and provide meaningful support to the academy and the state to enhance Indigenous participation in their knowledge construction exercises, as some are doing already.  For example, in the New Zealand context we could use our Treaty settlement monies to fund scholarships so that we make our peoples more attractive to the academy and the public service.  However, 10 years of experience in the public service and numerous conversations with other Indigenous peoples working in the policy environment, informs me there are significant limitations involved in putting all our eggs in that particular basket. After all, the state is the entity thru which the immediate post-colonial and current neo-colonial disempowerment of Indigenous peoples is facilitated.  It (the Settler-Colonial state) is reluctant to treat us as human, as capable of looking after our own.  A recent case in point was the racist NTER policy implemented in Australia in the mid-2000s.  Continuing engagement and involvement with the policy sector is a legitimate and necessary approach, but much more is required.

Working within the academy by using the tools and methods of the academy to challenge the processes it utilises to achieve hegemony, with the added factor of engaging in research with Indigenous peoples, and not ‘on’ coloured people.  We must continue to develop our own counter-colonial theories and methodologies that challenge the legitimacy of the Academy’s tools and the exalted position its practitioners give themselves, too often on the backs of Indigenous peoples.  We must actively challenge the knowledge constructed about us, but rarely with us.  In other words, we must become or remain political (or, if you work in policy, ‘radical’); and much more aggressive (intellectually) towards the work of policy makers and members of the academy, especially Authoritarian Criminologists.

As I have hinted in an earlier blog, for every diplomat and peacemaker, we must have an academic warrior, someone who is part of a developing ‘Warrior Criminology’.  We cannot afford to be afraid of being called ‘aggressive’ or ‘emotional’, as we often are when we critique policy makers and academics and confront them directly for their racist behaviour and for the methodological shortcomings of their work.  In fact, our goal should be to embarrass them as much as possible: too often crap gets published about us about which little is said publicly.  Instead, we get annoyed and then moan at each other about some recent rubbish published in an ‘A journal’, but then bow to the silly conventions of the Eurocentric discipline that are built to protect its practitioners from any direct criticism of their shonky work, and most especially when they exhibit racist and unethical conduct. 

Recent examples of work about ‘us’ that deserved Indigenous censure included a 2008 report on Maori and crime by New Zealand’s Department of Corrections, and one on race and crime; both of which managed somehow to avoid any meaningful engagement with the critical Indigenous lexicon.  Can you imagine a journal article getting the green light if it focused on the contemporary development of restorative justice theory, but avoided the work of Howard Zehr,  John Braithwaite or one of the other founding ‘fathers’?  No?  Well, too often that is exactly what happens when non-Indigenous criminologists write about ‘us’: all of a sudden white man’s magic makes Indigenous scholarship disappear.  What this argument demonstrates is that we must become more active and strident in critiquing work that ignores Indigenous scholarship, or where the authors report on the Indigenous experience while avoiding engagement with Indigenous peoples.  We cannot allow the voice of the Institutional Other, the so-called ‘scientific criminologist’ – or as I prefer to call them, the Authoritarian Criminologist - to remain the dominant voice on the Indigenous experience because too often these authors are not telling Our Stories.  

Gangs, Restorative Justice and Policy

Attached is a video of a presentation I gave in Mission, British Columbia, Canada in December 2010; filmed by Heartspeak Productions.

Cheers

Juan