A Theory of Relational Justice – An Example of Asian Criminology’s Approach to Decolonizing Criminology

Abstract

A significant development in criminology is the recognition and identification of colonization and Western centric in criminology particularly by the rise of Asian criminology and Southern criminology (Liu et al., 2017). A growing literature has amply demonstrated the problems of colonization and western centric biases and their detrimental results for a healthy growth of criminology knowledge (Cunneen et al., 2017). Growing numbers of scholars and studies have argued for the importance of developing nonwestern criminology and studies and the importance of decolonization in developing criminology knowledge (Moosavi, 2019). This trend of decolonizing knowledge is consistent with and alongside the broader development in decolonizing social science in general. Both Asian criminology and southern criminology are paradigm shifts, presenting a revolution and leading to a new trend in criminology development. Different understanding of nature and colonization was leads to different approaches to decolonization.
Given the importance of decolonizing criminology knowledge a central question would be: what are the approaches and what is a better approach for decolonizing Criminology? This depends on the understanding of the nature of colonization. Different understanding will lead to different approaches to solving the problems. Different approach would also face different difficulties. A comprehensive evaluation of the difficulties and advantages would decide which approach we take in decolonizing criminology.
I propose that there are generally two primary approaches to decolonizing criminology One, representation approach. Two, Universalistic approach. The two approaches are quite different in their understanding the nature of the colonization, solutions follow that understanding, and difficulties that faces.
Behind the differences between the two approaches are some more fundamental Philosophical conceptual divisions in understanding of the nature of social Sciences and humanities. On the one hand is the conception of social Sciences are like natural Sciences the tasks are seeking for more or less broader universalities that generalizable across times and space. On the other side is the conception that theories and studies concerning social and human subjects are