Criminologie van de Ander

Criminology of the Other – Beyond a white epistemology in research on ‘intelligence’ and ‘Moroccans’ Much criminological research on ‘intelligence’ and ‘ethnicity’ as well as other ‘criminogenic factors’ is founded on a white epistemology. Causal interpretations of partial correlations with delinquency are backed up by methodological principles and procedures coupled with causal narratives. Consequently, social reality is reduced to a mechanistic system of univocal effects of individual attributes. Interpretive gaps between statistical regularities and conclusions about the explanations of delinquent behaviors remain overlooked. We call for a broadening of the epistemological horizon in empirical criminological research. By centering our analyses on the contexts of discovery and interpretation surrounding research, we can examine the historical entanglement of knowledge production with societal, cultural, and (inter)personal processes.