McCulloch, Jude --- "Murray Lee and Alyce McGovern(2014) Policing and Media: Public Relations, Simulations and Communications. Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge." [2015] IntJlCrimJustSocDem 11; (2015) 4(1) International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy 131

• Book Review
• Carrington Kerry (2015) Feminism and Global Justice. London: Routledge.

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Book Review
Carrington Kerry (2015) Feminism and Global Justice. London: Routledge.

Sandra Walklate

University of Liverpool, United Kingdom

Over the last decade an ever-growing literature has emerged laying claims to gender and violence and/or to a feminist criminology. Much of that literature, either implicitly or explicitly, also gives voice to claims about justice. Hence, contemporarily, there is no shortage of feminist-inspired work designed to introduce, engage and, on occasions, disappoint the prospective reader. This book, published as part of the series New Directions in Critical Criminology edited by Walter DeKeseredy, stands head and shoulders above the rest. Its title offers a clue as to how it is possible to make such a statement: Feminism and Global Justice (my emphasis). This is indeed a bold agenda and in this review I hope I both do justice to its claims and entice the reader to take a closer look.

This book is intended as a provocation and, for me, that provocation is directed primarily at the academic discipline of criminology. Carrington’s focus for this provocation is gendered violence. Using this theme she forges a pathway for the reader through the complexities of the current (violent) global world and the diversity of feminist-informed responses to be found in the face of that violence. In so doing she melds activist, academic and policy issues in such a way that it is difficult for the reader to hide from the implications that surface in its wake. To be more specific Carrington, in forging this route, takes us on a world tour. We are escorted through the problems endemic in the marginalised – but essential to capitalism, nonetheless – wastelands of the mining camps of Australia to the drug-infused worlds of South America. In both these contexts, ‘some patterns of violence among men are incubated in psychosocial contexts that are also partly the product of the anomic spaces of super-capitalism’ (p. 101). Under these conditions, ‘Masculinity Matters’ (the title of chapter five). This vision of gendered violence is both embellished and tempered as our tour guide exposes struggles directed at male violence against women in Latin America, Asia and the Middle East. From the disappeared, to female genital mutilation, to sati and honour killings, patriarchy matters and takes its toll on those on the receiving end of male violence: women and children.

Carrington’s vision of gendered violence ruptures Northern theorising. She takes us on a world tour of the underbelly of patriarchal relations and does more than evidence the nature, extent and uneven pattern of violence against women across the globe. She provides sharp and impactive examples of its shape and form. These settings provide justification for the author’s demands for a form of global justice that is rooted in a sense of what it is to be human and behave with humanity towards each other.

It should be noted that this book does not shirk from the uncomfortable reality of some women’s recourse to violence, not only towards men but towards the wider community including other women and children, such as the female suicide bomber. Here there is clearly a tricky agenda which is yet to be fully articulated and understood. Simply blaming feminism will not suffice. Looking to the complex interplay between gendered, ethnicised, aged and racialised socio-economic conditions might be a starting point.

Having read the evidence provided in this book, it becomes difficult to claim that these things are not known. They are: but who listens? At this juncture it is important to recognise that the journey that Carrington takes us on is one set against the powerful backcloth of Northern theorising. The author is at pains to point out that much of the feminist theorising that has influenced criminological debate about gendered violence has been generated within the same metropolitan vision that frames the discipline itself. Thus, she states, ‘[t]he geo-spatial origins of feminist criminology have also tended to mirror Anglophone and monocultural metropolitan biases’ (p. 12). This book endeavours to resist those centring influences and to present us with both the voices of and evidence from those who have often been marginalised by feminist criminological debates.

In this latter respect Carrington’s voice offers a distinctive guide. Eschewing conventional sources of evidence and data as the sole basis from which to generate her analysis (something which will undoubtedly irritate many), she also looks to other sources on which to build her arguments: campaign groups, victims’ stories, original newspaper reports. From these data sources another vision of social reality is brought into view, one that renders possible a different way of thinking and doing not only criminology but also social justice. Globalisation opens up – as well as closes down – opportunities. In the spaces in between being neither one nor the other (see chapter four), there is a meeting place for those striving for a different global order with a different agenda and one inspired by different voices. Carrington challenges the aspiring new generation of feminist criminologist scholars to get inside these spaces, to become exposed to the questions they pose and, most of all, to reflect upon the presumptions of Northern theorising that so constrain the contemporary criminological vista.

In sum, this is a provocation indeed. It is an ambitious book. Its analysis is not perfect. Why should we expect it to be? As provocation it does a perfect job. More prosaically it is a must read for any student of criminology, feminist or otherwise. It is written well and written with authority. More importantly it marks a real gear change in criminological debates and its claims to have a grasp on either gendered violence or justice. The gauntlet is down. Who is up for meeting the challenge?

Correspondence: Professor Sandra Walklate, Eleanor Rathbone Chair of Sociology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3BX, United Kingdom. Email: [e-mail]