'Pale face'/ 'pointy face': SA criminology in denial
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Date
2013
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Institute for Security Studies (ISS)
Abstract
This paper responds to key aspects of Bill Dixon's article, Understanding 'Pointy Face': What is criminology
for? It suggests that criminology should unambiguously be 'for' social justice in South Africa's transhistorically
unequal context. South African prison statistics are used as a conceptual shortcut to briefly
highlight racialised constructions of crime, the criminal and the criminologist. A trans-disciplinary
conceptual approach, as a more socially just way to understand violent crime in South Africa, is proposed. A
methodological framework, which draws on the notion of cultural-structural-direct violence and
intersectional theory, is presented. These extend Bill Dixon's call for criminology to include history,
structure, human psyche and biography5 and resonates with Biko Agozino's call for a 'counter-colonial'
criminology. The paper ends by returning the Eurocentric gaze of most South African criminologists, calling
them out on their denial about trans-historical violence that implicates 'Pale Face' in the violence of 'Pointy
Face'.
Description
Keywords
Criminology, South Africa, Violent crime
Citation
Henkeman, S. (2013). 'Pale face'/ 'pointy face': SA criminology in denial. South African Crime Quarterly, 45: 5 - 11