Book review: Philippe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg, Righteous Dopefiend
| Date | 01 May 2014 |
| Author | Stephanie C Kane |
| Published date | 01 May 2014 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1362480613494507 |
| Subject Matter | Book reviews |
Book reviews 245
difficult questions about what it means to be visual criminologists in real time: How does
one confront images as they unfold? How can criminologists make sense of their untold
meanings and consequences? What differentiates the work of criminologists from report-
ers in spaces where narratives are tightly constructed and quickly dispensed? Their inter-
rogation of the manufacturers of news captures how journalists’ quest for ‘balance’
neatly dichotomizes death penalty debates while actively skirting any meaningful dis-
cussion about the killing state.
Damián Zaitch and Tom De Leeuw’s essay, ‘Fighting with images’ examines prosum-
ers in online football communities—individuals who generate ‘violent’ images that have
become a staple within ‘hooligan-related’ productions for supporters. Rather than focus
solely on the consumption of such images, the authors analyze their production as iden-
tity-making tools at both the individual and community level within virtual communities.
Zaitch and De Leeuw demonstrate that one need not view digital research as a ‘safe
alternative to ethnography at the edge’ but a meaningful pursuit of understanding vio-
lence and subcultures through the shared meanings around the production and consump-
tion of images.
In the volume’s last chapter, Wayne Morrison invites the reader to examine ‘genocidal
tourism’ as he reads four images of historical atrocity that help to shape our understand-
ings and approach to contemporary images of atrocity, such as the photographs of
American military guards torturing detainees at Abu Ghraib. Similar to Muzatti’s instruc-
tive methodological reflection, Morrison reminds visual criminologists that images and
their resultant meanings are culturally constructed and that images of atrocity, more spe-
cifically, should be viewed as tied to the broader context and processes of ‘terror and
state-sanctioned violence against the vulnerable’ (p. 204).
Framing Crime demonstrates that the call for a visual criminology can and has already
begun to be realized. The essays within this anthology demonstrate the myriad ways that
scholars can engage with images, from print to digital, consumed to produced, historical
to contemporary. Collectively, the authors of these 12 pieces illustrate the power of
images not only to define and control but also to transgress and resist. The methodologi-
cal reflections present in each chapter mark a way forward and lay out visual criminol-
ogy’s challenge to the uglier and passionless domains dominant within the field—a ‘must
have’ volume for anyone interested in confronting the place and politics of the image in
criminology.
Philippe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg, Righteous Dopefiend, University of California Press:
Berkeley, CA, 2009; 359 pp., 65 illustrations: 9780520254985, $31.95 (pbk)
Reviewed by: Stephanie C Kane, School of Global and International Studies,
Indiana University, USA
For criminologists who are book lovers, this co-authored work of ethnography and art is
a must read. The reader senses the book’s uniqueness the moment she takes it into her
hands. Made of smooth quality paperboard imprinted with a black and white photograph,
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