Naegler, Laura 
ORCID: 0000-0002-1093-0282
(2022)
Resistance and the Radical Imagination: A Reflection on the Role of the Critical Criminologist in Social Movements.
Critical Criminology, 30 (2).
pp. 225-235.
Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>At times of global unrest and the emergence of a wide range of protest movements, recent intra-disciplinary criminological debates on the potentials and limits of resistance suggest a paradoxical trend. Critical criminologists—in particular, those associated with the ultra-realist perspective—have become increasingly skeptical of the idea of “resistance,” itself. In the context of these discussions, scholars have resorted to dismissing oppositional activities—including social movements and their different forms of protest—that are both intended and recognized as <jats:italic>resistance</jats:italic>. In my contribution to this debate, and in response to Jeff Ferrell’s (2019) article, “In Defense of Resistance,” I provide a critical reflection on the analysis of social movements in both ultra-realist and cultural criminological scholarship. Drawing from my ethnographic research with the (post-)Occupy movement in the United States, I argue that the dismissive reading of social movements’ resistance and the calls for stronger political leadership are the result of a narrow analytical lens applied to movements, their temporalities, and their historical context(s). In addition, I contend that the harsh criticism of social movements by ultra-realists connects to the aim of developing an intellectual leadership concerned with informing social movement practice and strategy “from above.” Here, as I maintain, the theory and practice of militant research, or <jats:italic>militancia de investigación</jats:italic>, as per the Colectivo Situaciones, challenges this understanding of intellectual leadership. The insights provided by radical collective knowledge production in social movements, and their critique of the institutional frameworks of the neoliberal university, allow for a critical reflection on the role of academia in resistance. This critical reflection can generate possibilities for social movements’ knowledge and radical imaginations to influence academic theorizing.</jats:p>
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Divisions: | Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Law and Social Justice |
| Depositing User: | Symplectic Admin |
| Date Deposited: | 15 Jun 2021 07:57 |
| Last Modified: | 18 Jan 2023 22:34 |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s10612-021-09577-x |
| Open Access URL: | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10612-0... |
| Related URLs: | |
| URI: | https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3126303 |
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