Theatrics of transnational criminal justice: Ethnographies of penality in a global age

Abstract

This special issue sets out to explore the Theatrics of Transnational Criminal Justice. ‘Why’, we ask, ‘do transnational criminal justice actors perform themselves as they do?’ ‘Why are their representations frequently, if not different from, then often quite dramatized versions of the average reality of their practices?’ ‘What does such dramatization tell us about not only the symbolism but also the structure and state of transnational criminal justice?’ And, more generally, ‘what do such performances of transnational criminal justice reveal about the nature of penal power in a global day and age?’ In probing such questions, the special issue draws together a number of accomplished ethnographers who have been exploring the performative nature of transnational criminal justice issues around the world, considering both international bodies such as Frontex, Europol, UNODC, the ICC as well as the many national actors involved in the prevention, policing and prosecution of border-crossing issues.

Performativity, Pragmatism and Border Control Technologies: Democratising the Ontologies of Border Criminology

“…Thus, Southernising border criminology will benefit from explicit theorisation of the relationship between the social and material structures of global hierarchy on the one hand, and the political agency of Northern and Southern state actors, IOs, migrants and new digital technologies on the other. Recent scholarship on border control and transnational criminal justice has indicated the value of doing so through the framework of performativity (Franko 2021;Palmer 2021;Sausdal and Lohne 2021;Singler 2021;Stambøl 2021); below, I demonstrate the strengths and a potential shortcoming of this perspective with reference to the bordering practices of Nigerian federal authorities.…”

A collaborator? Ethnographic issues of police and peer suspicion

“…You know, someone who'll misinterpret or misuse what we say.' As a police ethnographer, I have had many front-row insights into the police's workaday efforts to combat issues of transnational crime in Denmark and beyondinsights which among other things have led me to discuss both the surprising triviality of such work (Sausdal, 2021a;Sausdal and Lohne, 2021), and graver issues such as police xenophobia (Sausdal, 2018c), violence (Sausdal, 2019), surveillance (Sausdal, 2018a) and warlike behavior (Sausdal, 2021a) as they relate to what Bowling and Sheptycki (2010) have termed "the globalization of policing". This chapter looks at another issue; an issue of methodology rather than theory.…”