Criminological futures and gendered violence(s): Lessons from the global pandemic for criminology
| Author | Sandra Walklate |
| Published date | 01 March 2021 |
| Date | 01 March 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00048658211003629 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Criminological futures and
gendered violence(s):
Lessons from the global
pandemic for criminology
Sandra Walklate
University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK and Monash University,
Melbourne, Australia
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to foreground the gendered crime consequences of the global
pandemic and to raise questions emanating from them for the future(s) of criminology.
The paper reviews some of the criminological response to the pandemic offered during
2020. The global pandemic was constituted by some as providing the opportunity for a
natural experiment in which criminological theories and concepts could be tested in real
time and by others as an opportunity to further raise the profile of crimes more hidden from
view, particularly domestic abuse. For the former, domestic abuse is constituted as an excep-
tion to what might be learned from this experimental moment. For the latter, gendered
violence(s) are central to making sense of this moment as ongoing, mundane and ordinary
features of (women’s) everyday lives. This paper makes the case that the evidence relating to
the gendered consequences of Covid-19, renders it no longer possible for the discipline to
regard feminist informed work (largely found within the latter view above) as the stranger,
outside of, or an exception to, the discipline’s central concerns. It is suggested that the future
(s) of criminology lie in rendering that stranger’s voice, focusing as it does on the continuities
of men’s gendered violence(s) in all spheres of life, as the discipline’s central problematic.
Keywords
Covid-19, domestic abuse, feminism, gendered violence(s), natural experiments
Date received: 21 January 2021; accepted: 25 February 2021
Corresponding author:
Sandra Walklate, University of Liverpool, Eleanor Rathbone Building, Bedford Street South, Liverpool, Merseyside
L69 7BZ, UK.
Email: S.L.Walklate@liverpool.ac.uk; sandra.walklate@monash.edu
Journal of Criminology
2021, Vol. 54(1) 47–59
!The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/00048658211003629
journals.sagepub.com/home/anj
To continue reading
Request your trial