Chapter 16: Cultural Criminology: The Loose Can[n]on

Jeff Ferrell

Cultural criminology: The loose can[n]on Of late I and other cultural criminologists have found ourselves negotiating a long sequence of assignments aimed at defining cultural criminology (e.g., Ferrell, 2007a, 2009; Hayward and Young, 2007). This isn't a complaint, by the way; these assignments constitute an appropriate and predictable disciplinary endeavor at this stage in cultural criminology's development. Dating to Ferrell and Sanders’ (1995) Cultural Criminology , and taking on increasing disciplinary visibility over the course of the following 15 years, cultural criminology now seems the sort of established criminological theory that merits widespread explication in textbooks, edited collections, and encyclopedia. Still, if this definitional project reflects a welcome degree of disciplinary engagement with cultural criminology, it strikes me nonetheless that too much definition can come to signal a sort of intellectual death. Definition denotes a certain closing down of debate, a solidification of intellectual orientation and so a dangerous balance ...

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