In the Crimino-legal Fuzzy Zone
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Date
2017-06
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Current Anthropology
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Abstract
At the turn into the twentieth century, when traditional forms of social solidarity gave way, Durkheim came upon the simple yet powerful sociological insight that criminal acts serve the essential function of helping to trace boundary lines between unruliness and order. In this infinitely repeating social process, crime counterintuitively creates coherence in collectivities. Alas, as the world forges into the currents of the twenty-first century, the boundary lines are dashed at best. From nation-state to neighborhood, globalized forces have destabilized many cherished geo- and sociopolitical assumptions. Governmental and corporate actors in the highest echelons flirt in crimino-legal fuzzy zones while attempting to wall themselves off from the violence that endangers sentient life. This is the terrain of exploration and explanation in The Truth about Crime. In their new book, Jean and John L. Comaroff frame this global predicament as a scalar down-shifting into fragmented battles for sovereignty in which national states are increasingly unreliable and safety seekers increasingly resort to buying private fixes. They use the metaphor of tectonic or seismic shift to emphasize the dramatic unfolding of forces that incite crime and its narrative expression.
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Publisher's, offprint version
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Kane, Stephanie. "Book Review: The Truth about Crime: Sovereignty, Knowledge, Social Order by Jean Comaroff and John L. Comaroff (Chicago) In the Crimino-Legal Fuzzy Zone.” Current Anthropology 58(3) June.
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Book review