Southern death investigation: Theorizing coronial work from the global south

Save a few notable exceptions, criminologists have overlooked the coronial jurisdiction, missing opportunities to theorise its role in addressing fatalities. Taking Australia as its example, this chapter argues that Southern death investigation exhibits a unique constellation of features developed in response to law on the frontier, and colonial settler society in its stead, and is a jurisdiction more deserving of critical criminological reflection. Australian coronial law and practice has been strongly shaped by its deaths, some contentious, and which petition distinct socio-legal legacies relating to key criminological issues, such as Indigenous deaths in custody, border deaths, and policing both urban and remote communities. This chapter sets out this history, highlighting the empirical work already underway illuminating Southern death investigation practices and connecting up global coronial concerns. Its aim is twofold: firstly, to discover the contributions of Australian death investigation to theoretically thinking through fatality and its effects and, secondly, to bring death investigation finally, fully, into the global criminological project