Asian criminology and southern epistemologies

In Southern Theory (2007) Raewyn Connell critiques the hierarchy of global knowledge systems based on the experience of a small number of societies in the Global North (predominantly English speaking countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States). She argues that social science had succeeded in representing itself, and being widely accepted, as universal, timeless and placeless. Given the huge ethnic, social, cultural, historical, political and economic disparities across the globe this cannot possibly be the case. Yet the implied assumption is that all societies were bound to follow the lead of modern societies of the global North if they were to successfully modernize. According to this logic social phenomena in the peripheral world would be investigated from the standpoint of universal theories and laws of development generated from ‘modern’ or ‘Western’ societies of the global North. This is the kind of theory which Connell calls metropolitan thinking (Connell, 2007: 215). This chapter aims to illustrate that Connell’s argument applies with equal force to criminology, having the effect of stunting the development of criminologies from the south – including Asian criminologies, until relatively recently..