Book Review: Criminal Legalities in the Global South: Cultural Dynamics, Political Tensions and Institutional Practices by Pablo Ciocchini and George Radics (eds)
| Author | Antje Deckert |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1362480620984854 |
| Published date | 01 November 2022 |
| Date | 01 November 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Pablo Ciocchini and George Radics (eds), Criminal Legalities in the Global South: Cultural Dynamics,
Political Tensions and Institutional Practices, Routledge: New York, 2020; 254 pp.: 9781138625631, US
$160.00 (hbk), 9780429459764, US$44.06 (e-book)
Reviewed by: Antje Deckert, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand
The editors, Pablo Ciocchini and George Radics, are both academics in Singapore—a
country that (arguably) belongs to the Global South. Many chapter authors in this
edited collection are emerging scholars. Like the editors, most chapter authors have
received their academic qualifications both in the Global North and South thus represent-
ing a group of scholars who have likely experienced epistemological oppression and the
othering, silencing and marginalization of the voices of the Global South first-hand. The
editors of this volume have, however, done a wonderful job in acknowledging individual
writing styles and voices.
While this volume adds value to any general bookshelf on the ‘Global South’, it also
fills a crucial gap in research because it is the first of its kind to solely focus on socio-legal
studies of criminalized behaviours from an exclusively ‘southern’perspective. Yet, the
authors have managed to write for both readers in the Global South and North by ground-
ing their respective discussions in the universal commonality of ‘the law’. The edited col-
lection thus generates a sense of inclusivity and ongoing dialogue between the colonial
past and the neo-colonial present in which both sides of the globe are invited to
partake. Overall, the book highlights how ‘the law’in the Global South continues to
be inspired by foreign values because it was—and often still is—imported from or influ-
enced by the Global North. Therefore, the law often fails to serve local cultures and
aspirations and thus creates legal grey zones that provide relentless challenges for both
law enforcement and the judiciary. To emphasize this tension between culture, politics,
institutional practices, and ‘the law’, the edited collection refers to ‘criminal legalities’
instead of ‘the criminal law’. Preceded by an introduction, the book contains 11 chapters
in three sections—Cultural dynamics, Political tensions and Institutional practices—fol-
lowed by a conclusion.
Chapter 1 discusses the criminalization of adultery in colonial India applying Edward
Said’s concept of orientalism to the legal realm. The author argues that the British colo-
nial courts interpreted Islamic family law through a Victorian lens of sexual morality
declaring as a ‘wife’only a woman whose body was under constant control of her
husband. While India abolished adultery as a criminal offence in 2018, the legacy of
this ‘legal orientalism’(p. 30) remains alive in Pakistan and Bangladesh, where adultery
laws continue to criminalize women (less so men) and expose women to male violence.
Chapter 2 covers LGBT rights in Singapore. The author explains that the Global North
experienced a homogenous post-Second World War history: a baby boom followed by a
cultural revolution in the 1960/1970s that rejected conservative moral values and thus
advanced LGBT rights. Concurrently, the Global South was regaining its independence
from colonial rule compelling it to prioritize socio-economic security. To accelerate eco-
nomic growth, Singapore enhanced ‘British laws that were meant to control the colony’
(p. 36) and re-framed them as ‘Asian values’(hard work, discipline, group interests over
individual rights). The criminalization of homosexuality is part of that colonial-legal
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