Introduction

Abstract

This introduction seeks to outline a contemporary anthropological approach to crime and criminalization, an “anthropological criminology 2.0.” This anthropological criminology distances the subfield from its social Darwinist connotations and instead etches itself clearly onto a social and political anthropological tradition. In doing so, the introduction moves from Malinowski’s initial functionalist and localist approach to present-day political and global orientations. It offers five distinct propositions for anthropological criminology to engage with in the future, which we believe are essential for future anthropological studies of crime and criminalization. With these as guidelines, we hope to fully revive a much-needed dialogue between criminology and anthropology. As we shall see, anthropological and ethnographic insights are currently in demand as global, yet poorly understood, forms of crime are developing alongside ever cruder and more amplified reactions to them.

The Diversity of Solidarity Economies: A View from Danish Minority Gangs

“…In fact, when literature on gangs addresses their economic dimensions, the focus often lies on their legal/illegal facets (Rodgers 2022), exploring, for instance, the monetary profits and business models that surround the trade of illegal "flagship" goods such as weapons, stolen items, and drugs (for instance , Padilla 1992;Bourgois 1995;Levitt and Venkatesh 2000). Such a criminogenic approach to gang economies blurs the quotidian activities that make up a great part of their organizational life (Sausdal and Vigh 2019), which cannot be reduced to their illegal activities. Indeed, I choose instead to dig into the solidarity mechanisms that are classically conceived as being central to the everyday lives of gangs (for instance, Thrasher 1927: 57;Jansyn 1966), but that are rarely unpacked in their economic dimensions.…”