When, in early 2019, we decided to hold a research symposium to explore the emerging ‘southern’ and postcolonial challenges to conventional criminology, it was especially the role of police and military power, bolstering the imperial order, that served as our initial focus.
However, from the outset it was abundantly clear that, while rooted in historical process this was far from being a primarily historical question. Many contemporary challenges – deepening social inequalities, institutional racism, rising authoritarianism, corruption and corporate wrongdoing, environmental crises and police and military violence – were reflected in the topics presented at our initial symposium. These grew in depth and diversity as the papers from the symposium turned into the book Southern and Postcolonial Perspectives on Policing, Security and Social Order. Something of our original ambitions was captured in the poster we used to advertise the event.
Since then, the world has witnessed devastating wars, genocide, the return of authoritarian political leaders, global struggles against systemic racism (as reflected in the #BlackLivesMatter movement), widespread police violence and rising economic inequalities, many of which were intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic. These issues intersect with new geopolitical conflicts, illustrating the ongoing relevance of discussions on repression and resistance. Of course, this dialogue is not over; it is merely a beginning.
The ongoing legacies of colonialism and its deployment of a ‘police power’ continue to shape institutions of control, including systems of civil governance, both military and paramilitary, and economic power. These institutions reinforce multiple social harms facing marginalised people across the Global South. Policing and security practices imposed in southern contexts not only differ significantly from those in the Global North (for instance they often lack the veneer of accountability which may help legitimise some elements of northern authority) but they also anticipate and prefigure anti-democratic forms of authority currently insinuating themselves within Northern governance and policing.
Earlier this year, Julian Go, Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago, revealed in his widely acclaimed book Policing Empires how policing practices and security systems, fashioned in the subjugation of indigenous peoples, had now begun to replicate themselves in the metropolises of the Global North. These developments represent a marked reversal of the processes by which, as Caroline Elkins so graphically demonstrates, paramilitarised police control was imposed on the Global South during the phases of empire building, consolidation and then withdrawal.
Historical colonial practices, including racialized policing and legal systems have left lasting scars in the world. Dramatic contrasts are evident when comparing violence and crime in the Global South, which endures much higher rates of weaponisation (another northern legacy) and, partly as a result, chronic rates of systemic violence, human rights abuses and inequality.
Our book examines the limited success of police reforms in the Global South, particularly in Trinidad and Tobago, Africa and Mozambique, Pakistan and São Paulo, Brazil, where efforts to reform policing often fail. Additionally, we explore Indigenous resistance movements, such as in Bougainville, which challenge colonial exploitation and reclaim cultural identities. From favela activism in Brazil to feminist peace-building efforts, chapters highlight how marginalized communities are resisting state violence and building alternative forms of social order. They call for a rethinking of justice and confront the violent legacies that continue to shape the world today.
Beyond the differences in institutional structures, looking at southern experiences reveals the lived reality of marginalized populations. Indigenous communities face disproportionate repression, whether through environmental exploitation, forced dispossession of their lands, persecution of activists or gender-based violence. These histories of oppression are essential for understanding the current dynamics of policing and security not just in postcolonial societies but also in the Global North.
By centring these diverse, often overlooked, narratives our book calls for more than just a renewed understanding of justice and reform in the Global South. It embraces the call for a decolonisation of criminology and reminds us of the lesson – if lesson we need, given recent military endeavours – of the dangers posed by an unrestricted (asymmetric) imperial (police) power.
This volume brings together 25 scholars, activists and thinkers who critically engage with the legacies of colonialism, capitalism and patriarchy, seeking to challenge the interconnected systems of oppression that continue to shape our world. The aim was to unsettle Eurocentric knowledge and open new avenues for understanding justice, power and social order. The contributors draw on feminist, Marxist, Africana and queer perspectives to interrogate the construction of deviance, the role of the state in perpetuating harm and the structural inequities embedded in capitalist economic systems.
At the heart of this work is the call for decolonisation – not just of knowledge or institutions, but of the mind itself. By centring the writing and experiences of Indigenous, racialised and marginalized communities, this volume challenges the epistemological inequalities that persist, offering a powerful critique of the systems that continue to define who counts as human and whose rights are worth protecting.
Blog written by Peter Squires, Emeritus Professor of Criminology and Social Policy at the University of Brighton and Roxana Pessoa Cavalcanti, School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol. Originally published in, and republished here with permission from, Transforming Society.
Image credit: Rogério S. via Unsplash
Southern and Postcolonial Perspectives on Policing, Security and Social Order edited by Roxana Pessoa Cavalcanti, Peter Squires and Zoha Waseem is available on the Bristol University Press website.
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