On Arrigo – Listserv Discussion

On Arrigo – Listserv Discussion

The following comments were offered on the crit-L listserv in response to Bruce Arrigo’s “Call to Action.”

From: crit-l@sun.soci.niu.edu on behalf of Marty Schwartz [schwartz@oak.cats.ohiou.edu]

Sent: Thursday, October 07, 1999 1:39 AM

To: Multiple recipients of list

Subject: On Arrigo

I have been asked to go more public with a version of comments I have previously made privately. Here are some.

Marty

1. One can take a rather broad perspective on this problem. This is not a criminology problem, but one that affects sociology, psychology, political science, economics, history, etc. One exception is English literature, which has had a slightly different history with postmodernism. One of the reasons for this is that academics from Duke, NYU, Berkeley, Chicago, etc. were doing the publishing. Like it or not, that will color the decision of many editors.

2. Although Bruce is clear, others have not been as clear in dealing with JQ. Be careful, this is the best journal so far in crim to publish critical works. I have an obvious vested interest in saying this, having served as deputy editor to Victor Kappeler, but the point remains that under both Edna Erez and Victor feminist works were being published, and Victor published postmodern work.

3. One of the harder things to do is to differentiate between excellent pieces that don’t get published, and crap that doesn’t get published. Bruce and Dragan are well aware of this, having been editors of journals that had a lot of lefty crap submitted. I believe that Dragan once told me that he was rejecting 75% of submissions to Humanity & Society, which means a lot of lefty stuff was being rejected. But it wasn’t because it was too far to the left.

One problem is that we are dealing here with journals with acceptance rates along the lines of 8%. Under ANY circumstances getting accepted will be difficult. There doesn’t have to be an all out conspiracy against non-empirical work to get rejected, but just a slight prejudice. If you consistently rate in the top 15% of submissions, but not in the top 8%, you will get rejected. Top journals get 200 to 300 submissions a year. Regional sociology journals can get 125 a year. It is very important to differentiate between articles that are rejected because they aren’t good enough, from articles rejected because they don’t fit pre-conceived molds.

Dragan, Bruce and Stuart between them have more articles and books than the entire faculty of several medium sized colleges. So, it is obvious that they can get things published. Why can’t they publish in the most prestigious journals?

4. I am intrigued by Bruce’s suggestion that we do an empirical study and determine rates of publishing critical articles. One problem, of course, is to determine the rates of submission of critical articles.

More important, though, is to fight through the tough questions. What IS critical criminology? The journal Criminology, for example, published as a lead article a piece by Jody Miller, who I consider the best junior feminist criminologist in the U.S. Does that count? Do the publications of Elliot Currie as a left realist count? How do we decide who is and is not a critical criminologist. Then you get people like me — not everything I have ever done in my life should be counted as critical.

There are ways to deal with this in standard sociological research methodology. Have more than one “coder,” check to see the level at which they agree with each other on the coding, etc. Still, all you can come up with is the percentage of all articles published that could be considered critical. No doubt the editors would just claim that they get few submissions, or that the submissions are not good enough. How can we respond to this?

Well, that is enough bandwidth for me. See you all in Toronto. If you say hello to me you are chairing a division committee. If you pick up a round of drinks, you don’t have to.

Marty

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From: crit-l@sun.soci.niu.edu on behalf of Steve Russell [srussell@lonestar.jpl.utsa.edu]

Sent: Thursday, October 07, 1999 8:57 AM

To: Multiple recipients of list

Subject: Re: Abstract for Critical Criminology’s Disconent

Since this is the critcrim list, may I speak heresy?

The rise of the electronic data base as a research tool has changed the shape of the playing field. It now matters more what the title of your article is than where it is published in terms of influencing other researchers, which of course is why we publish.

Let me talk about law, which I know best, but there are similar stories in the social sciences and, probably, natural sciences.

It used to be that how many people would read your article was determined by the circulation of the law review where it published. Here in my home state, the biggie was Texas Law Review, and the second highest circulation would probably be Harvard Law Review even though last time I looked Harvard was not in Texas. The other law reviews in Texas had high circulation spots defined by location of alums, but their support was library subscriptions and law school subsidies.

Now, meatspace subscription numbers are pretty irrelevant. They have gone down for all journals.

One researches a topic on Lexis or Westlaw or the Index to Legal Periodicals on line. If a title is snappy enough, the researcher will open your document. If your writing is compelling, the researcher will read your document, perhaps cite you, and you have just become part of the national policy conversation through an article published in the Podunk City College Journal of Antique Streetcar Law.

One case in point among many. In 1992, I published a (very postmodern) article about family violence (as a vehicle for discussing legal rhetoric) in South Texas Law Review, which I later learned had the lowest circulation among the law reviews in Texas (no longer true).

Within a month, I had a call from a publisher in New York who wanted to pay me for a reprint (I let him) and the article continues to be cited in the legal literature almost ten years later, most recently in an appellate opinion this year.

When people get their scholarly input from electronic data bases, it is the same number of key strokes to access one journal as another. What motivates those key strokes is sometimes author, sometimes the title of the journal, but most often the title of the article.

Now, there’s a subject for investigation for you number-crunchers!

To sum up my heresy: I think we are entirely too concerned about getting into the big kids’ sand box. We should be putting prettier toys in our own, so they will want to play with us.

Steve Russell

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From: crit-l@sun.soci.niu.edu on behalf of Jeff Walker [jtwalker@ualr.edu]

Sent: Thursday, October 07, 1999 9:48 AM

To: Multiple recipients of list

Subject: Re: Abstract for Critical Criminology’s Disconent

Steve Russell is correct, I believe, about electronic databases changing the way research is read and cited. I think there are two limitations/issues for critical criminology that militate against this effect though.

First, it is my assumption (although I don’t know first hand) that many of the crit. crim. publications are not indexed in the major computerized indexes (Wilson Omnifile, Sociofile, etc.). Unlike the Index to Legal Periodicals, which I believe indexes almost all of the law journals; it is somewhat difficult to get social science journals included in the major indexes. This is something that we probably need to explore as an action item for having our work included among the mainstream journals.

A larger issue, though, is who would read the material. It is my feeling that much of our material is marginalized by mainstream researchers regardless of whether or not they have access to it (exemplified by the number of “mainstream” criminology instructors who use nothing past Class, State and Crime as their readings for crit. crim.). If that is true, then even getting our material indexed may not create the effect we are looking for because, to many, if it is not in one of the prestigious journals, it doesn’t matter.

Jeff

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From: crit-l@sun.soci.niu.edu on behalf of Steve Russell [srussell@lonestar.jpl.utsa.edu]

Sent: Thursday, October 07, 1999 11:33 AM

To: Multiple recipients of list

Subject: Re: Abstract for Critical Criminology’s Disconent

On Thu, 7 Oct 1999, Jeff Walker wrote:

> First, it is my assumption (although I don’t know first hand) that
> many of the crit. crim. publications are not indexed in the major
> computerized indexes (Wilson Omnifile, Sociofile, etc.). Unlike the
> Index to Legal Periodicals, which I believe indexes almost all of the
> law journals; it is somewhat difficult to get social science journals
> included in the major indexes. This is something that we probably
> need to explore as an action item for having our work included
> among the mainstream journals.

If Jeff’s assumption above is correct, it is a major problem. I am not sure how to attack it, but it must be attacked.

The larger issue stated below is important but…(speaking here as an Indian who has had Indian policy marginalized on my own campus)…the only thing that overcomes prejudice is results. Prejudice is not vulnerable to argumentation, however eloquent.

The reason for critcrim is I hope to show that more humane policies can make our living space more liveable. If we have a better description of reality than the mainstream we will become the mainstream provided policy wonks have access to our description. If we do not have a better description of reality, we deserve to be marginalized. (It may be apparent from the above that I pick the ideas from post-modernism that suit me. I have not swallowed it whole. I do recognize that to describe is to create, but I maintain that here was already something there to be described.)

Steve Russell

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From: crit-l@sun.soci.niu.edu on behalf of Raymond Michalowski [Raymond.Michalowski@NAU.EDU]

Sent: Thursday, October 07, 1999 1:00 PM

To: Multiple recipients of list

Subject: Re: On Arrigo

I want to thank Bruce for, not only his article on publishing critical work, but for helping energize this discussion. I also want to thank Marty for his comments, and to add a few thought to them.

1. Yes, we have to be careful to distinguish what problems are specific to critical criminology, and what problems are inevitable for any work that cuts against the grain of a dominant paradigm. Reviewers and/or editors do not have to be hostile toward “critical” work in criminology, or part of a plan to keep it out of high profile journals, for little of it to appear. All they have to do is not understand the epistemology and the language of critical work to find it “simply not argued at the appropriate level” (a quote from a review I received a few years ago).

Possible route to some amelioration: It can be useful to suggest a list of potential reviewers to the editor when submitting to a journal that does not normally publish work of the type being submitted. Sometimes this works – if the editor is open to multple perpsective. If the editor does not, then they will, of course not listen, and may even actively seek reviewers known to be hostile to your work (don’t ask how I know this). I and my co-authors have had experience in both directions, but clearly we have benefited from having directed editors toward people who might be knowlegable about the epistemological and theoretical framework our work is based in.

2. Regarding quality: I have been reviewing manuscripts for both high profile journals and what I would consider often, equally good, but less sanctified ones for more years than I care to count. This has led me to the following observations regarding the matter of the relationship between quality and publication.

a. most manuscripts I have reviewed are not ready for publication at the time of submission.

b. manuscripts written from a critical criminology perspective are typically further away from being ready for publication than manuscripts written from more mainstream perspectives and/or based on quantitative models of inquiry. The reasons for this I suspect are:

(1) there is less of an agreed upon standard for how to do critical work as compared to the highly developed and relatively rigid format for quantitative work. This openness is good from the standpoint of allowing for creative critical exploration. On the down side, when standards are unclear, it is easier for people to believe they have met them. I think this is why I have reviewed a number of critical articles whose intellectual rigor is less than we would expect of a paper ready for publication.

(2) some critical work relies on historical analysis and social scientists tend to do bad history by relying primarily, and often uncritically on secondary sources.

(3) the journal article format is often a bad fit for critical work. Historical, theoretical, and qualitative analyses done well often requires more space than the standard theory, methods, data, findings conclusion “success model” for quantitative work. The forced truncation of the development/presentation of critical ideas and analyses hurts the apparent quality of critical work in some cases.

c. editors seem more likely to give outright rejections, rather than R&Rs to underdeveloped critical manuscripts than equally underdeveloped manuscripts that fit the quant model. This too, I think is related to the lack of clear models for evaluating critical work. Without a clear model it becomes harder to see just how it could be “fixed.” I find that my reviews of quantitative manuscripts, for instance, tend to be 1–2 pages, while my reviews of critical manuscripts are often in the 2-5 page range. My own experience submitting work is that few mainstream reviewers devote this much time to manuscript evaluation, meaning that an editor receives reviews that recommend less than outright publication, but little guidance as to what to tell the author to do. In that case rejection becomes the path of least resistance.

d. In my reviewing experience critical work that is revised and resubmitted is less likely to cross the threshold to publication than revised quantitative work. This is just an extension of the reason above: without clear directions of how to improve the work, it is harder to gratify reviewers on the second go around. It is also harder to revise critical work. It is much easier to be add another statistical test, or respond to criticisms of potential multicollinearity than to rethink an entire theoretical argument so as to make it more logical and/or clearer to the potential audience.

There’s a theme here. Quantitative work is more likely to get published in higher profile journals than qualitative work because: there quantitative work can appear to be “proven” according to a pardigmatically established standard, and quantitative work (regardless of how critical the substantive implications) does not challenge the orthodox assumption of the nature of “fact.” Which brings me to another point.

I think part of the strategy is for critical criminologists to become more proactive as reviewers in the mainstream journals. Offer our services.

– Ask to be a reviewer on critical crim articles in our areas of expertise.

– Talk to editors. The more people who understand critical work, the more of it will be published.

– But we also have to be sure that we don’t confuse solidarity with critical criminologists with being uncritical of their work. But being a critical analyst of the work of others carries a serious responsibility. We must actively help one another make our work better, rather than merely taking pleasure in pointing out what’s wrong with each others scholarship.

Marty suggests we have a serious discussion about what constitutes “critical” work. The discussion going on here, so far, seems to imply that quantitative work is, by definintion, is not critical. Or am I misreading things? If quantitative work is excluded from the idea of critical crim, it puts the kind of political-economic analyses done by people like Susan Carlson and me outside the scope of “critical criminology.” Is “critical” a code word for qualitative and post-modernist modes of analysis only? Or does it refer to forms of criminology that challenge the taken-for-granteds of orothodox criminology from alternative prespectives that are not conservative/right-wing?

See y’all in Toronto. Let’s keep the discussion going.

Ray Michalowski

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From: crit-l@sun.soci.niu.edu on behalf of Ellen Leichtman [leichtman@worldnet.att.net]

Sent: Thursday, October 07, 1999 2:32 PM

To: Multiple recipients of list

Subject: Re: On Arrigo

I too was asked to go more public with my comments and post something on the list-serve. I would also like to comment on some of the points made by Marty.

While I agree with Marty that one needs to “differentiate between excellent pieces that don’t get published, and crap that doesn’t get published,” this seems to be true only with regard to critical criminologists. It seems to me that a lot of statistical crap does get published, and by mainstreamjournals. This means that it depends on the type of crap you are submitting.

Job descriptions regularly make the ability to bring in external funding a condition of hiring. This dictates that statistical methods are the sought after approach. Why shouldn’t the discipline’s journals reflect this bias?

After all, this is where the field actually is. I think that is Marty’s first point. This means that we need to change the bias in the field itself in order to change the bias in the journals. I personally don’t have a problem with the scientific method if it can be considered as one approach within many. I am waiting for the day the gov’t give out grants for a hermeneutical study on crime in the inner city.

There are also academic fields that don’t subscribe to this religion of science. Of course, these aren’t fields that are considered “related” to criminal justice and sociology. I am talking about the fields of anthropology and ethnomusicology (the latter is usually sluffed off as being a humanity by those in criminal justice because the degree is often in the music dept.). I would also include the fields of literary criticism and philosophy, but they are actually humanities and as such considered unimportant to c.j.. (I can’t believe the narrowness of some in this field.)

I like your Bruce’s idea #7, (trying to) publish the results of the poll in the respective journals. Use their own methodology against them. If it’s “scientific”, it must be true. However, it brings up all those “problems” that statistical studies have. Would it account for all those “lost” articles that were never sent, because of the climate against critical criminology? How would published articles be rated against those that were rejected? Perhaps it would also be interesting to apply Marxist theory to a study of who gets published. The numbers don’t tell it all.

Ellen Leichtman

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From: crit-l@sun.soci.niu.edu on behalf of Steve Russell [srussell@lonestar.jpl.utsa.edu]

Sent: Thursday, October 07, 1999 3:30 PM

To: Multiple recipients of list

Subject: Re: On Arrigo

Of course quantitative work can be critical criminology.

I agree with the comment that a lot of quantitative crap seems to find its way into mainstream journals. I say this not because I am capable of evaluating the numbers but because I take the numbers at face value and can find many, many reasons to say “So what?”

The methods of literary criticism can and should inform our enterprise. I am not sure why the “humanities” label is so deadly.

Seems to me like the anthropologists who think Indian elders are ignorant. There are different ways of knowing. Is that so complicated?

Steve Russell

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From: crit-l@sun.soci.niu.edu on behalf of Raymond Michalowski [Raymond.Michalowski@NAU.EDU]

Sent: Thursday, October 07, 1999 4:18 PM

To: Multiple recipients of list

Subject: Re: On Arrigo

Ellen,

Thanks for the observations. Putting on my political-economist hat for a moment, I’d like to suggest that the emphasis on the grant-getting capacity of faculty is a reflection of the desperation of many university administrations in the face of the on-going, right-wing campaign to defund universities in order to punish them for being sites of where some critical inquiry into the operations of the society still goes on.

Ray

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From: crit-l@sun.soci.niu.edu on behalf of Marty Schwartz [schwartz@oak.cats.ohiou.edu]

Sent: Thursday, October 07, 1999 4:59 PM

To: Multiple recipients of list

Subject: On Ray and Steve

Well, the level of conversation on this issue is higher than I thought it would be. Great contributions.

In general, having been a reviewer in my career for over 30 academic journals and having had about 60 acceptances and 30 rejections of my own, I think that I am at least qualified to agree with Ray virtually point for point. An excellent commentary.

I was just writing privately to someone else suggesting that one of the many problems is that few of us are rigorously trained, or have rigorous colleagues. As Ray suggests, in an field with unclear boundaries, there are many who feel that they are sharp and clear when they are not (I don’t mean this to apply to Dragan and Bruce, by the way). My students who have been successful at publishing in top journals are the ones who have gone to the very best graduate schools, and have learned top rigor. They work in departments with very top senior scholars who critique their work before it goes out. Despite being radical feminists or socialist feminists, they still publish, get grants, etc. It is a bit harder than if they were mainstream, but it is being done. Most crim people (myself included) went to secondary schools and work in departments without rigorous scholars. We suffer at a great disadvantage as compared to many abstract empiricists.

Lately, I have been doing a lot of grant reviewing for the National Institute of Justice, and while I have vows of confidentiality about specifics, I can say that the overwhelming majority of grant applications have terrible theoretical bases and abysmal statistical proposals. I think that if a crit person had a very clear theoretical model, with a plan for action that was crisp and sound, it would be received enough to be read carefully, if not by all reviewers then certainly by the NIJ staff. Of course, the debilitating thing is that a certain amount of the money goes out to whatever the agency thinks is hot and needs to be done, even if the methodology is not very good. Of course, it could be worse. I write from Australia, where the conservative federal government (confusingly named the Liberal Party) has decided to fund the Lone Fathers Association to set up shelter houses for battered men, because they are tired of funding women and want to even up the score a bit.

Two more things:

Ray asks whether the definition of critical is presumed to be non-statistical. I agree with his basic presumption, since that also would not apply to me. Although I have written or co-authored a number of theoretical pieces, including several on postmodernism, I also use statistical work heavily, including publishing pieces using logistic regression, etc. Like Ray, I think that it is your theory and intent that informs whether you are critical, not your methodology.

Steve wants to be heretical in suggesting that people will read stuff in smaller journals. I agree that law is a very different field — judges for example actually read the material clerks gather, unlike many sociologists. But, if I can be even more heretical, I might suggest that very few people in this field get promoted to full professor, get invited to lecture at top conferences, get awards for ASC and ASA, etc. on the basis of publishing in Humanity & Society. I know in my own case that when I publish in Sex Roles, Criminology, JQ, etc. I am inundated with requests for reprints, my articles appear in readers, I am invited to give lectures, etc. When I publish in Deviant Behavior, H&S, Sociological Focus, etc., the work disappears into a black hole, never to be mentioned or cited again. I think that is why Bruce and Dragan would like to break into some top journals now and then. It isn’t because they can’t publish — they already have more publications than any 10 people should be allowed to jointly have. It is because their work is marginalized.

marty

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From: crit-l@sun.soci.niu.edu on behalf of Ellen Leichtman [leichtman@worldnet.att.net]

Sent: Thursday, October 07, 1999 5:05 PM

To: Multiple recipients of list

Subject: Re: On Arrigo

Ray,

I didn’t know that. I appreciate your bringing that up. It puts another dimension on the issue. I do know, however, that c.j. grants are often given to people who know people in gov’t, for studies that don’t rock the boat, to continue government policies. If the government pays, the government dictates. I had a problem with that in gov’t funding of the arts when I work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Now there is a problem with the Brooklyn Museum of Art and Giuliani. It also brings in more money for professors and depts. to supplement their income.

Ellen

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From: crit-l@sun.soci.niu.edu on behalf of Steve Russell [srussell@lonestar.jpl.utsa.edu]

Sent: Thursday, October 07, 1999 5:10 PM

To: Multiple recipients of list

Subject: Re: On Arrigo

On Thu, 7 Oct 1999, Raymond Michalowski wrote:

> I’d like to suggest that the emphasis on the grant-getting capacity
> of faculty is a reflection of the desperation of many university
> administrations in the face of the on-going, right-wing campaign to defund
> universities in order to punish them for being sites of where some critical
> inquiry into the operations of the society still goes on.

Isn’t this true not only of most academic disciplines but also most cultures at any given time?

It is the proper function of a university to generate critical thought. To those who benefit from established wisdom, that is more often than not unwelcome.. See, e.g., the fate of Socrates. That is the romance of our profession, and I for one would have it no other way.

In support of your remarks, see Ronnie Dugger’s book, Our Invaded Universities. You are absolutely right. But it seems to me that is the way it is, has been, always will be and always should be.

People will not pay for the privilege of getting their asses kicked but that is no reason to quit kicking. I know you do not suggest we quit kicking, but you seem to suggest that the kickees ought to start liking it.

Steve Russell

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From: crit-l@sun.soci.niu.edu on behalf of rjm [Raymond.Michalowski@NAU.EDU]

Sent: Thursday, October 07, 1999 9:33 PM

To: Multiple recipients of list

Subject: RE: On Arrigo

Ellen and all,

I think the matter regarding insider trading on Federal grants is generally correct, but maybe a little bit less sinister than just funding non-boat rockers. Marty is right that (up to a point) a critically oriented study that was theoretically and methodologically sound and (here’s the kicker) about the next hot topic, would not be denied funding just for being critical. Many of the reviewers are people not so dissimilar from us on the review panels. BUT…the key is that insiders know what’s going to be coming down the line and can begin to prepare long before the rest of us see the RFPs. Nothing more sinister than networks among the good ole boys and girls. But it does put those of us in the hinterlands, or my case the last outpost of civilization in the Southwest, at a serious disadvantage even if we wanted to do that kind of funded work.

All of this discussion can seem a little dispiriting at times, but I want to add a note of joy. For me it is a delight to see so many people doing critical work in criminology, to see a division within the ASC where we can meet and exchange, to have outlets of our own, to have panels devoted to critical work at meetings. I can remember the days in the 70s when we were far fewer and when the majority of the orthodox crim folk were pretty convinced we had no right to even exist in academia. The progress is too slow for sure, but the intellectual movement survived, grew, and continues to grow.

If it were not a struggle there would be no reason for us to be critical. If we enjoyed the mainstream limelight in a criminology situated in center of the world capitalist, neo-imperialist, and globalized empire, something would be wrong. Of course there are systemic pressures to keep us at the margins. That’s our struggle. That’s the point. So let’s struggle on together.

Ray

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From: crit-l@sun.soci.niu.edu on behalf of SOC_BARAK@ONLINE.EMICH.EDU

Sent: Friday, October 08, 1999 4:14 AM

To: Multiple recipients of list

Subject: Re: On Arrigo

Ray,

Amend! and I never use this word…but gang Ray is right on target here. What has developed over the past 30 years is really something… but you already said it beautifully.

Gregg Barak

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From: crit-l@sun.soci.niu.edu on behalf of Raymond Michalowski [raymond.michalowski@NAU.EDU]

Sent: Friday, October 08, 1999 1:19 PM

To: Multiple recipients of list

Subject: Re: On Arrigo

Steve and all,

Thanks for comment on quantitative work. I think the real problem with any methodology is that people forget it is nothing more than a tool to understanding, not an end in itself. I think of a lot of orthodox quantoids who seem to fit the saying that “If you give a child of three a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” As someone who has done quantiative work, theoretical work, and ethnographic work it seems to me that the real issue is does the strategy being used to create understanding fit the question at hand. Its hard to do political-economy without numbers, it is had to do ethnography with them.

I think Steve’s “so what” point is the key one. It is not whether work is “quantiative crap,” or “post-modern crap,” or “theoretical crap,” it is whether the work helps us build an understanding that moves us, however limitedly, down a path toward an undistorted discourse on human justice.

Ray

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From: crit-l@sun.soci.niu.edu on behalf of Raymond Michalowski [raymond.michalowski@NAU.EDU]

Sent: Friday, October 08, 1999 1:24 PM

To: Multiple recipients of list

Subject: Re: On Arrigo

Steve,

No, you are right. I don’t think the kickees will start liking it. But I do believe that some infiltration is possible. I have also had the experience that sometimes the kickees get the message, begin to changer their minds and find themselves tempted to want to join the kickers. Some of the most radical people ever to exit my classes were high placed police officials who began to question the logic they had lived by. I don’t think like many of my good liberal friends do that we can educate away the problems of power and domination, but I do think we can and should reach out to those we think oppose liberationist approaches to social life. Sometimes they are less organized in their thought, and less immovable in their beliefs than we like to think. Don’t give the powerful too much credit. They may have power, but they often lack wisdom.

Ray

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From: crit-l@sun.soci.niu.edu on behalf of Bruce Arrigo [BArrigo@mail.cspp.edu]

Sent: Thursday, October 14, 1999 11:10 AM

To: Multiple recipients of list

Subject: Response to Critical Criminology’s Discontent

Dear Colleagues:

I have deliberately waited some time before responding to the several e-mails addressing various points I raised in the essay, “Critical Criminology’s Discontent: On the Perils of Publishing and the Call to Action.” Let me first say how delighted I am to read the various comments generated from the essay. Sifting through the comments, it is abundantly clear to me that many of us do feel and live the profound difficulty of making a connection to a larger academic audience in which peace activism, praxis, social justice and humanism are at the center of criminological work.

Having said this, I do want to comment on a few points. First, I think our struggle is not about defining what is “critical.” Although a very useful philosophical exercise in its own right, I believe that this question puts the Division on the defensive and, unfortunately, diverts our attention from the matter at hand. Further, this is the kind of question I would anticipate from our non-critical colleagues. In other words, if we move to respond to our dilemma by first addressing the question: “what does it mean to engage in critical scholarship?” we, unknowingly and benignly, I think, endorse the “power” that our non-critical counterparts have to set the agenda for US in regard to potential dialogue, engagement, information, and social change. I wish to be clear that answering this question IS something we could (and over time should) refine, tweak, and massage; however, the “real” agenda is about acknowledging the breadth and depth of exclusion we confront and the corrosive and debilitating impact this has on our Division membership, future critical crim scholars/activists/students, and the overall relationship we have with the general criminological academic community.

There is something of a fluid continuum of critical crim thought. Several of us have written about it; indeed, in the anthology, “Social Justice/Criminal Justice” I describe my take on the continuum in the book’s Introduction. Rather than investing too much time massaging this point, I recommend that we embrace and celebrate the various intellectual strains of thought that constitute critical analysis. Granted, different people will disagree on what “exactly” is critical; however, I believe we also can say, with some confidence, that what tends to get published in prestigious criminological journals, regrettably fails to represent our divergent critical perspectives on crime, law, justice, society.

Relatedly, as criminology settles into a sustained period of manipulating large data sets, it is not surprising that the discipline’s mainstream journals would prefer studies endorsing the methodological assumptions of quantitative inquiry. We also know that many talented critical criminologists (e.g., Marty Schwartz, Meda Chesney Lind, Brian MacLean, Walter DeKeseredy) employ statistical analysis in several of their research investigations. I applaud their efforts. We need to be careful, however, in how we frame the relationship between research methodology and critical criminology. Part of the problem many critical criminologists confront is that method is very intimately linked to a series of epistemological assumptions about agency, society, social change, sense-making, identity and the like. But this IS our strength. Here, too, we want our non-critical colleagues to understand how a diversity of methods, anchored in different critical crim perspectives, reveals new and different insights about law, punishment, victimization, policing, judicial decision making, etc., in relation to agency, sense-making, society, identity, and the like.

As a division, if we understand and embrace our diversity (in terms of the continuum that represents critical thought, and in terms of research methods that inform our theoretical perspectives), I think we present a very potent “force,” if you will, to our non-critical colleagues symbolizing our strength at the discussion table. It is in this spirit that, I submit, we must invite mainstream criminologists to explore with us how our Division’s diversity advances ALL of our interests in furthering our regard for criminological/sociolegal knowledge.

Bruce

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From: crit-l@sun.soci.niu.edu on behalf of Steve Russell [srussell@lonestar.jpl.utsa.edu]

Sent: Thursday, October 14, 1999 11:30 AM

To: Multiple recipients of list

Subject: Re: Response to Critical Criminology’s Discontent

Bruce,

Thank you for provoking a valuable series of exchanges.

Steve Russell

*****************************************

From: crit-l@sun.soci.niu.edu on behalf of Bruce Arrigo [BArrigo@mail.cspp.edu]

Sent: Thursday, October 14, 1999 11:53 AM

To: Multiple recipients of list

Subject: Re: Response to Critical Criminology’s Discontent -Reply

Steve: Thanks to you too. Let’s keep the discussion alive. Let’s change the culture in which we write, teach, work, and live.

Bruce

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From: crit-l@sun.soci.niu.edu on behalf of Marty Schwartz [schwartz@oak.cats.ohiou.edu]

Sent: Saturday, October 16, 1999 4:43 PM

To: Multiple recipients of list

Subject: journal issues

Folks —

I have been arguing privately and publicly that the problem we as critical criminologists is much broader than the actions of a couple of journal editors or journals. This piece, published by the president of the American Sociological Association in a recent issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, takes on the identical issue to the one we have been discussing.

Marty

>> > Soul-Searching in Sociology: Is the Discipline in Crisis?

>> >

>> > By JOE R. FEAGIN

>> >

>> > Most members of the American Sociological Association are
>> > proud of their discipline’s intellectual diversity. However, a
>> > recent controversy over the editorship of the American
>> > Sociological Review, the A.S.A.’s flagship journal, indicates
>> > that the majority of the association’s leadership lags
>> > somewhat behind the membership in progressing toward goals of
>> > greater intellectual diversity and democracy in the A.S.A.’s
>> > operations.
>> >
>> > Viewed narrowly, the A.S.R. debate is over which editors
>> > should be at the helm of the nation’s leading sociology
>> > journal, which is also the association’s official journal. The
>> > controversy, however, reflects much broader, long-simmering
>> > tensions within the discipline that parallel frictions within
>> > other social sciences and society at large.
>> >
>> > Most sociologists who do qualitative and theoretical research
>> > — particularly those who study issues regarding race,
>> > ethnicity, gender, class, and sexuality — oppose the heavy
>> > emphasis that the A.S.A.’s establishment puts on
>> > quantitatively analyzed survey research. That opposition is
>> > only in part about the dominance of a certain research method.
>> > It is also fueled by a recognition that much mainstream
>> > research has drifted away from the urgent moral and practical
>> > concerns voiced by critical sociologists since the first
>> > decades of this century.
>> >
>> > At first sight, the latest A.S.A. flap has to do with
>> > questionable procedures by its governing council, the clout of
>> > an elected publications committee, the qualifications and
>> > visions of proposed editors, and the association leadership’s
>> > receptivity to criticism and reform. But, fundamentally, the
>> > issues that the A.S.A. is facing are the same ones facing the
>> > nation as a whole. Will we continue to allow traditional
>> > elites in large institutions to control important discourse
>> > and decisions? Or will we take our democratic traditions
>> > seriously, and significantly open up that dialogue and
>> > decision making to the larger population? However the
>> > immediate questions regarding a single sociology journal are
>> > resolved, both the narrow and the broader debates, I believe,
>> > are necessary and constructive.
>> >
>> > The strength of sociology has long resided in its intellectual
>> > diversity. Sociology was the first discipline in the United
>> > States to undertake serious studies of racial and gender
>> > inequality, and one of the first to include serious research
>> > on a range of other issues, such as class inequality, bias
>> > against gays and lesbians, and age discrimination.
>> > Sociologists have been among the sharpest analysts and critics
>> > of U.S. society, from the early commentaries of W.E.B. Du Bois
>> > on racism to the analyses of gender relations by Charlotte
>> > Perkins Gilman, and from recent assessments of the American
>> > ruling class by G. William Domhoff to Arlie R. Hochschild’s
>> > explorations of worker alienation and the management of
>> > emotions.
>> >
>> > From the beginning, sociology has included a rich variety of
>> > qualitative and quantitative research methods. However, since
>> > World War II, many leading sociologists have stressed the need
>> > for sociology to standardize and develop more methodological
>> > rigor. They have called for the use of advanced statistical
>> > techniques, survey and demographic methods, and positivistic
>> > generalization — the testing of rigidly framed, deductive
>> > propositions by quantitative data and methods.
>> >
>> > Many sociologists have taken the command for statistical rigor
>> > to heart. Indeed, one reason why sociology does not currently
>> > have more social impact is its over-emphasis on advanced
>> > statistical methods and a neutrality toward society’s marked
>> > inequalities. Like other social scientists, too many
>> > sociologists have lost touch with the moral and practical
>> > concerns from which our field emanated.
>> >
>> > How did the shift away from broader concerns come about? In
>> > tour-de-force articles in the book A Critique of Contemporary
>> > American Sociology (General Hall, 1993), Gideon Sjoberg, of
>> > the University of Texas, and Ted R. Vaughan, now retired from
> > the University of Missouri, demonstrated that, since World War
>> > II, sociology has been reshaped into a discipline whose most
>> > prestigious members are often linked to government agencies,
>> > foundations, or other bureaucracies that supply much of the
>> > money for social research. In the past several decades,
>> > members of major Ph.D.-granting sociology departments — such
>> > as the University of Wisconsin, Indiana University, and
>> > Pennsylvania State University, among numerous others — have
>> > become heavily dependent on research grants provided by those
> > bureaucracies.
>> >
>> > Before World War II, the majority of sociologists conducted
>> > research projects — usually with little outside financing —
>> > that primarily used qualitative techniques or
>> > descriptive-statistical measures, such as percentages and
>> > medians, that were understandable to the educated layperson.
>> > The discipline’s primary concern was with addressing specific
>> > societal problems and working toward an understanding of their
>> > causes and development. After the war, federal agencies and
>> > foundations began backing social-science research on a large
>> > scale. Partly because survey and other research projects using
>> > advanced statistical methods enjoyed the respectable patina of
>> > “hard science,” and partly because those projects rarely
>> > raised fundamental questions about major institutions, they
>> > were favored by the large underwriters of social research.
>> > Although regularly challenged, the quantitative orientation
>> > gained a central position within U.S. sociology.
>> >
>> > Many sociologists and other social scientists fashioned
>> > themselves into grant-seeking entrepreneurs, with their own
>> > narrow professional networks and readily identifiable niches
>> > of inquiry. Often their research goals have coincided with the
>> > establishment-oriented interests of the bureaucratic
>> > benefactors. Concurrently, there has been relatively little
>> > large-scale backing of qualitative projects, especially those
>> > of researchers who question mainstream institutions.
>> >
>> > Large-scale federal and corporate financing brought the major
>> > Ph.D.-granting departments into prominence. Today, those
>> > powerful research departments attract well-published
>> > sociologists and many graduate students, control major
>> > publications such as the A.S.R., and act as gatekeepers for
>> > much sociological research and debate.
>> >
>> > There are, of course, many quantitative researchers who are
>> > reflective and critical. The problem is not quantification per
>> > se, but the all too frequently unreflective use of
>> > quantitative methods without consideration of the research’s
>> > social context, societal relevance, or uncritical assumptions.
>> >
>> > In other words, the postwar accommodation of money sources
>> > that prefer to support only certain research topics and
>> > quantitative methods has often bred superficiality in
>> > sociology — as well as in some other social sciences, such as
>> > political science. The social survey, a prevailing research
>> > technique, typically involves surface-level readings of human
>> > behavior. A great deal of of what sociologists and other
>> > social scientists know is from these short survey questions,
>> > framed by researchers who have no direct contact with their
>> > research subjects.
>> >
>> > For example, much survey research suggests that white people’s
>> > attitudes toward African Americans have become much more
>> > liberal in recent decades. Yet the brief survey questions
>> > typically used in such research are problematic as an
>> > indication of the real views of white Americans.
>> >
>> > Recent research by the Texas A&M sociologist Eduardo
>> > Bonilla-Silva on white students at three major universities
>> > found that racial attitudes expressed on short-answer survey
>> > items were often different from those expressed by respondents
>> > in interviews allowing more-detailed commentary. On a short
>> > survey item, eight in 10 of the 400-plus students said they
>> > approved of marriages between black people and white people.
>> > When a smaller, representative group from the same
>> > institutions was interviewed in depth, fewer than one-third
>> > still approved of racial intermarriage. Given the time to
>> > explain, the majority expressed reservations about marriage
>> > across the color line. Respondents might indicate in a survey
>> > question that they didn’t have a problem with intermarriage,
>> > but in a longer interview would back off from that view and
>> > say they wouldn’t want it to happen in their families. That
>> > kind of in-depth interviewing, a traditional qualitative
>> > approach, often reveals the deep realities of social life that
>> > quantitative survey research alone cannot measure.
>> >
>> > The control of mainstream journals by quantitatively oriented
>> > sociologists has driven those who primarily use other methods
>> > to publish their innovative work in books or in specialty
>> > journals. Today, as a result, there is a mainstream “article
>> > sociology” and a “book sociology,” with strikingdifferences
>> > in style, methods, and subject matter. Such bifurcation is
>> > also evident in political science and economics.
>> >
>> > The discourses of the two sociologies are, to a remarkable
>> > degree, non-overlapping. In mainstream journals like the
>> > A.S.R., establishment editors rarely publish qualitative or
>> > theoretical research, especially research involving critical
>> > approaches. Those approaches are often used by scholars who
>> > have been marginalized — including many female, black,
>> > Latino, Asian, gay, Marxist, and working-class sociologists.
>> > For decades, those researchers have capably and critically
>> > dissected the dominant society — and the sociological
>> > profession as well. Examples include the brilliant black
>> > sociologist Oliver C. Cox, whose groundbreaking book on racial
>> > conflict, Caste, Class, & Race: A Study in Social Dynamics
>> > (Doubleday, 1948), has only lately received attention from
>> > U.S. sociologists. A more recent example is the work of
>> > Dorothy E. Smith, whose critical feminist analyses are
>> > presented in her book The Everyday World As Problematic: A
>> > Feminist Sociology (Northeastern University Press, 1987).
>> >
>> > Interestingly, even mainstream introductory sociology
>> > textbooks draw heavily on the book-sociology research for much
>> > of their content, because book sociology often provides
>> > more-interesting data on, and analyses of, the day-to-day
>> > quandaries of contemporary society.
>> >
>> > Until the mid-1960s, the American Sociology Review was a more
>> > intellectually and methodologically diverse journal than it
>> > has been since. As late as summer 1964, one large issue of the
>> > journal featured five major conceptual articles on social
>> > evolution and historical change, including essays by leading
>> > theorists such as Talcott Parsons and Robert Bellah, both of
>> > whom were on the faculty of Harvard University. Not one of
>> > those essays had any quantitative apparatus, and not one would
>> > probably have been published in the A.S.R. in recent decades.
>> >
>> > Since the 1970s, numerous sociologists have complained about
>> > the dominance of hyper-quantitative research in the major
>> > journals, and several esteemed sociologists have organized
>> > informal boycotts of A.S.R. subscriptions among their
>> > colleagues. The recent conflict over the journal’s editorship
>> > should be seen against that background, not as a professional
>> > clash out of the blue.
>> >
>> > In January, Walter Allen — a distinguished sociologist at the
>> > University of California at Los Angeles, recent nominee for
>> > president of the American Sociological Association, recent
>> > member of the A.S.A. council, and an African American — was
>> > nominated by the A.S.A. publications committee’s eight voting
>> > members for the editorship of the A.S.R. In a close vote, that
>> > nomination was rejected by the council’s 19 voting members,
>> > who also rejected the committee’s second choice, Jerry Jacobs,
>> > of the University of Pennsylvania, in favor of two candidates
>> > the committee had not recommended. The council majority chose
>> > two co-editors from the University of Wisconsin at Madison —
>> > Charles Camic and Franklin D. Wilson — and thereby returned
>> > the A.S.R. to a leading quantitative department, the only one
>> > to control the journal three times since the 1960s. While no
>> > one questions Camic’s or Wilson’s academic credentials, for
>> > many sociologists, the journal’s return to Wisconsin indicated
>> > an elitist and establishment mindset among the association’s
>> > leaders (The Chronicle, September 3).
>> >
>> > In council discussions, a major argument made against Allen
>> > was that he had not published articles in the A.S.R. or the
>> > American Journal of Sociology, another major journal of the
>> > discipline. Yet Allen — whom I supported for the editorship
>> > in the council discussions — has published six dozen research
>> > chapters and articles in important books and distinguished
>> > journals, including the Harvard Educational Review and Signs.
>> > A researcher whose work often deals with education, family,
>> > and racial relations, Allen has spent his entire career in
>> > top-10 departments (Michigan, North Carolina, U.C.L.A.). He
>> > has served on the editorial boards of many journals and has
>> > extensive administrative experience with journals and large
>> > research grants.
>> >
>> > Even though several council members sought more time to review
>> > the new candidates properly, the council majority pushed
>> > through a decision on the editorship much too rapidly.
>> >
>> > Walter Allen was the best candidate for the editorship, in my
>> > opinion, because he offered a well-devised strategy for
>> > diversifying the A.S.R.’s content and for democratizing its
>> > editorial operations. Envisioning a dynamic and reinvigorated
>> > journal, Allen proposed the creation of an intellectually
>> > diverse team of six deputy editors with expertise in a range
>> > of qualitative, quantitative, and theoretical research. Those
>> > editors would have included sociologists who are female,
>> > black, Asian, or Latino. The strong deputy-editor structure
>> > would have resembled that of the Administrative Science
>> > Quarterly, one of the best-run journals in social science. The
>> > proposed editors were to have substantial authority in
>> > handling reviews of papers — including selection of reviewers
>> > and correspondence with authors — all in consultation with
>> > the editor. Such a system would very likely have insured that
>> > papers submitted by scholars doing research into currently
>> > underrepresented topics would be evaluated by respected peers,
>> > well-informed in those specialties.
>> >
>> > One of the proposed deputy editors was Patricia Hill Collins,
>> > of the University of Cincinnati, a leading scholar in critical
>> > theory. In her perceptive new book, Fighting Words: Black
>> > Women and the Search for Justice (University of Minnesota
>> > Press, 1998), Collins argues that intellectuals who break with
>> > conventional wisdom are more of a threat to the establishment
>> > than their numbers might suggest. Allen and his proposed
>> > deputy editors apparently were such a threat.
>> >
>> > In addition to being hasty and, I think, unwise, the council’s
>> > rejection of the publications-committee recommendations was
>> > unprecedented. It triggered months of controversy, resulting
>> > in an intense business meeting at the association’s annual
>> > conference in August, in Chicago. As many as 400 sociologists
>> > turned out at the 7 a.m. meeting to debate the issue. Many
>> > A.S.A. members indicated that they were upset that a leading
>> > sociologist with impeccable credentials was not considered
>> > qualified by the council majority to be the A.S.R.’s editor.
>> > The members passed, overwhelmingly, a resolution calling for a
>> > reconsideration and reversal of the council’s decision. In
>> > addition, Judith Auerbach, of the National Institutes of
>> > Health — president of Sociologists for Women in Society —
>> > called for more democracy in A.S.A. operations, recommending a
>> > task force to re-examine the elimination of the association’s
>> > elected committee on committees and suggesting the
>> > reinstitution of regional representation on the committee on
>> > nominations. That motion passed nearly unanimously.
>> >
>> > At a subsequent council meeting, a majority of council members
>> > voted to stick with their original decision on the A.S.R.
>> > editorship and supported the membership’s motion for a task
>> > force on restoring the committee on committees. Concerned
>> > about the membership’s strong criticism, the council did pass
>> > several resolutions acknowledging the need for greater
>> > intellectual diversity in the A.S.R., and called on the new
>> > co-editors to take that need into consideration. The council
>> > also called for a conference to study the journal’s future
>> > direction.
>> >
>> > Today, the debate continues, with some A.S.A. members coming
>> > to the support of the council majority’s decisions, and others
>> > pressing for more changes in the direction of greater
>> > diversity and democracy. Last month, for example, the
>> > executive committee of the Association of Black Sociologists
>> > issued a statement condemning the editorial decisions of the
>> > A.S.A. council’s majority. The statement concluded that the
>> > council’s failure to take remedial action in response to the
>> > business meeting has caused many sociologists to have little
>> > confidence in future actions of the council on issues of
>> > diversity and inclusion.
>> >
>> > As unnerving as the discord is, the debate over diversity and
>> > democracy at the A.S.R. — and in the association and the
>> > profession generally — is healthy, and would be so in any
>> > social science. It indicates growing input from the membership
>> > as to how the discipline should be organized and governed. It
>> > also reflects the profession’s soul-searching attempts to
>> > evaluate and, if necessary, to correct its course, a
>> > self-reflective tradition that is one of sociology’s recurring
>> > virtues.
>> >
>> > One of the attractions of being in a discipline that includes
>> > the study of such subjects as justice, equality, and freedom
>> > is that the societal issues we probe as researchers also are
>> > relevant to our professional deliberations. We can practice
>> > what we preach — try to encourage new intellectual voices and
>> > to structure our associations democratically. Sometimes we
>> > succeed; sometimes we fail. But if we look in the mirror and
>> > find that the reflection is sometimes a little ungainly, we
>> > should remember that we are, or can be, models for a more
>> > diverse and democratic society.
>> >
>> > It is in that light — even as we may flinch at the heat and
>> > untidiness of our current disputes — that we also can pause,
>> > just briefly, to congratulate ourselves on having them.
>> >
>> > Joe R. Feagin is a professor of sociology at the University of
>> > Florida and president of the American Sociological
>> > Association.

*******************************************

From: crit-l@sun.soci.niu.edu on behalf of SOC_BARAK@ONLINE.EMICH.EDU

Sent: Sunday, October 17, 1999 5:17 AM

To: Multiple recipients of list

Subject: Re: journal issues

Thanks for sharing Joe R. Feagin’s essay on journals and democracy very much putting our recent/current discussion into a larger context. As for criminology, there also is the bifurcation of article criminology and book criminology.

GreggFrom:

*******************************************

crit-l@sun.soci.niu.edu on behalf of Steve Russell [srussell@lonestar.jpl.utsa.edu]

Sent: Sunday, October 17, 1999 7:37 AM

To: Multiple recipients of list

Subject: Re: journal issues

Gregg,

Could you explain the distinction briefly?

Steve Russell

*******************************************

From: crit-l@sun.soci.niu.edu on behalf of SOC_BARAK@ONLINE.EMICH.EDU

Sent: Monday, October 18, 1999 4:39 AM

To: Multiple recipients of list

Subject: Re: journal issues

As Feagin’s essay discussed there have become two ways of publishing; one in the elite or status journals (i.e Criminology) which are pretty much dominated by but not exclusively quantitatively driven work or otherwise publish the qualitatively and/or theoretically driven work in marginal journals or in book form. Exposure comes as Marty says from the elite journals in the field or as Feagin was saying from doing qualitative/theoretical type books. I couldn’t agree more.

Gregg

*****************************************

From: crit-l@sun.soci.niu.edu on behalf of Jeff Walker [jtwalker@ualr.edu]

Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 1999 12:42 PM

To: Multiple recipients of list

Subject: Publication of Crit Crim Material

Getting back to something Marty said before the conference about different opinions not being readily accepted in other organizations, below is an excerpt from a message from the discussion list on complex systems science. I thought it was interesting and relevant to our discussion since this line of research relates to Division member’s work in post modernism and chaos theory.

But on the general point about apparent censorship, I was trying to make the point re publication, that the argument used by editors that ‘most of our readers do not think that way, so we will not publish anything that exposes a different way of doing things, send it to a minority group’s journal instead’, is indeed a form of censorship. It is very difficult when things are in a state of metatheoretical flux to know what is nonsense and what is not.

Take care

Jeff

Jeffery T. Walker
Professor
Department of Criminal Justice
University of Arkansas at Little Rock

******************************************

From: crit-l@sun.soci.niu.edu on behalf of Raymond Michalowski [Raymond.Michalowski@NAU.EDU]

Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 1999 2:33 PM

To: Multiple recipients of list

Subject: Re: Publication of Crit Crim Material

Jeff and all,

Very interesting excerpt…particularly the notion about metatheoretical flux. I think the problem is that often established gatekeepers of what is and is not “nonsense” are typically unaware that metatheoretical debates are afoot. The line between sense and nonsense is as stable and bright for them as it is shifting and hazy for those caught up in the tides of metatheoretical change.

Toward the end of mainstreaming critical work, I would like to once again reiterate an offer I made about two years ago but got very few takers. When I was first put on the editorial board of Criminology Bob Bursik agreed that it would be an appropriate use of my role to develop good critical submissions for the journal. If you have critical work you would like to submit to Criminology let me know, and I’ll see what I can do to help facilitate appropriate reivews. Or if you want a preliminary pre-submission critique, I will be willing to do that as well.

I think that one of the problems with more orthordox journals is getting our work reviewed by people who have a solid familiarity with the conceptual framework and the literature we are working from. Susan Carlson and I once had an article rejected from Criminology because we were using a methodology “of our own making” – when in fact we were building on a research strategy that had been set forth by two sociologists in a highly praised lead article in the ASR – but neither the editor nor the reviewers apparently every read anything outside of the narrowest criminological orthodoxy, and so they assumed we were talking non-sense. Others have told me similar stupid-reviewer horror stories. This suggerst that Criminology might benefit from an expanded pool of reviewers who are more familiar with critical criminology. So, if you are not currently on Criminology’s reviewer list, or do not know if you are, let me know your specific areas of review interest, and I’ll put together a package of proposed reviewers and submit it to Bob. Also, I want to suggest to anyone who does not already do this, that it can be useful to suggest to give editors serveral names of several reviewers who would be good evaluators of your work.

Ray Michalowski

**********************************************

From: crit-l@sun.soci.niu.edu on behalf of Bruce Arrigo [BArrigo@mail.cspp.edu]

Sent: Thursday, December 02, 1999 12:53 PM

To: Multiple recipients of list

Subject: Re: Publication of Crit Crim Material -Reply

Jeff and Ray: I appreciated the exchange of thought on why critical or non-mainstream types of analyses more routinely fail to find their way into conventional and leading (crim) journals. There is something of an epistemological difference that underscores the manner in which critical vs. non-critical scholarship unfolds. This difference extends to logic, assumptions, beliefs, values, agency, and the like. Critical Race Theorists, Feminists, postmodernists, etc., have been saying this for some time now. The academic “struggle” is over favored ways of knowing and interpreting the world, social phenomena, and human interaction. To (always) surrender to preferred methods of analysis or understanding is to sacrifice a piece of one’s self, one’s identity, one’s humanity. When we tacitly endorse such favored ways of understanding as the key to “scientific truth” we legitimize the power such world views have over our lives, over our very being. This is the manifestation of hegemony and reification. I, too, have discussed these issues, to some extent, with Bob Bursik. Recently, I submitted materials to him for consideration as a member of Criminology’s Editorial Board. I think our challenge, in part, is to insist that multiple approaches to the knowledge process have a space within which to be heard. As critical criminologists, we need to find our way onto the decision making bodies of our leading journals. In fact, I believe we have an obligation to insist on this. If we do not, then our multiple orientations to criminology will quickly become extent like the dinosaurs of yesterday.

Bruce

*********************************************

From: crit-l@sun.soci.niu.edu on behalf of Stuart Henry [soc_henry@ONLINE.EMICH.EDU]

Sent: Thursday, December 02, 1999 5:54 PM

To: Multiple recipients of list

Subject: Re: Publication of Crit Crim Material -Reply

Jeff/Ray/Bruce:

If anyone has some time (and I have less than none) I did notice some critical responses to Joe Feagan’s Chronicle article on sociology which paralleled Bruce’s piece. These letters that are in the current issue of the Chronicle might be responded to by a letter/piece from you guys sent to the Chronicle that also highlights the same debate in Criminology. The point would be to take the issue outside of our disicipline and make it a transdisciplinary problem. Getting something in the Chronicle would also help the mainstream take notice. Yes, Bruce and Dragan I agree the timing for this debate is now, even though I did not think so!

Cheers

Stuart

Stuart.Henry@wayne.edu

*********************************************

From: crit-l@sun.soci.niu.edu on behalf of Raymond Michalowski [Raymond.Michalowski@NAU.EDU]

Sent: Thursday, December 02, 1999 6:38 PM

To: Multiple recipients of list

Subject: Re: Publication of Crit Crim Material -Reply

Bruce,

I couldn’t agree more. It seems to me the problem is the “struggle” to established favored ways of knowing itself. It would seem preferable to apprehend the search for “understanding” (rather than “scientific truth”) as an ideally polyvocal endeavor wherein participants can “hear” the speakers of multiple epistemological standpoints, evaluating them both on their terms and on ours (whatever those happen to be), but never automatically dismissing the speaking or the speaker because we think we have detected an epistemological standpoint different from our own.

Ray