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Bandits, rebels or criminals: African history and Western criminology (review article)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

Stanley Cohen
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Extract

It has long been a cliché in the social sciences to talk about the insulation of disciplines and sub-disciplines from each other. We all know what it is like tostudy a phenomenon – poverty, crime, the family – from within one academic paradigm and then come across a quite different view of the ‘same’ phenomenon. The result is usually self-pity: ‘If only I had known what they were up to’ or ‘If only they knew what I was up to’.

Résumé

Bandits, rebelles et criminels: histoire africaine et criminologie occidentale

Cet article passe en revue les différents thèmes évoqués dans deux livres récents qui traitent de la criminalité en Afrique. Le premier, Banditisme, Rébellion et Protestation Sociale en Afrique, représente un recueil de dix-sept études historiques rassemblées par Donald Crummey sur la criminalité, le banditisme, la protestation et la rébellion dans l'Afrique coloniale. Le second, Criminalité, Justice et Culture dans l'Afrique Noire, constitue en étude criminologique du crime et de la justice dans les sociétés africaines contemporaines.

La revue commence par un bref résumé de la manière dont on accordait au crime une signification politique dans les diverses ‘nouvelles’ criminalités qui se développèrent en Occident au cours des vingt dernières années. Ces thèmes apparaissent sous des formes similaires dans l'histoire africaine: la question de découvrir la signification politique du crime ‘ordinaire’; la catégorisation du ‘bandit social’ telle qu'elle fut à l'origine suggérée par Hobsbawm; la relation entre la motivation subjective et la légitimation véritable. Tous ces thèmes sont présents dans le recueil de Crummey.

Le livre de Brillon présente un récit anthropologique de la criminalité conventionnelle en Afrique. Il s'agit beaucoup moins d'un écrit politique sur la signification de la criminalité que d'une explication de la nature socialement construite des statistiques officielles de la criminalité.

Type
Crime and colonialism in Africa
Information
Africa , Volume 56 , Issue 4 , October 1986 , pp. 468 - 483
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1986

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