Unsettling Queer Criminology: Notes Towards Decolonization

Abstract

This article highlights the ways that queer criminology appears to be invested in, and reflective of, colonial power dynamics. Drawing from the work of counter-colonial criminologists, it analyzes the way that, as a scholarly criminological project of producing knowledge about crime and criminal justice, queer criminology may enact a form of epistemological violence that subjugates Indigenous knowledges and sustains colonial power. This article then argues that as a queer political project seeking institutional and social change based on dominant “Western” LGBT and queer political frameworks, queer criminology may exclude Indigenous people and overlook political goals such as decolonization. In doing so, the article problematizes queer criminology’s investment in settler colonialism, establishes why greater attention needs to be paid to decolonization in queer criminology, and opens up the possibilities for advancing a decolonizing agenda within the field.