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- Convenors:
-
Davide Casciano
(University College London)
Martijn Oosterbaan (Utrecht University)
Lene Swetzer (The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID))
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- Format:
- Panel
- Location:
- 6 College Park (6CP), 01/035
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 26 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
The purpose of this panel is to develop a better understanding of the crimes of the powerful from an anthropological perspective, including tax evasion, money laundering, corruption, corporate, state and institutional crimes, human rights violations, and environmental harm, among others.
Long Abstract:
Throughout history, powerful actors have committed crimes for centuries. However, criminologists and anthropologists have only lately focused on the powerful rather than the powerless. Scholars such as Edwin Sutherland have paved the way for understanding crimes as acts carried out by people in all sorts of societal positions. Current global conditions - including the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic - demand that we encourage ethnographic research on crimes of the powerful and place the topic at the centre of anthropological inquiry. With the growth of the information age and the unequal geopolitical relationships and neoliberal realities that have accompanied it, crimes committed by powerful actors have also changed and in some instances have become more visible. These criminal activities emanate from and feed into disparate power relations, and as such are tied to the broader political, legal, cultural and social contexts in which they occur. To understand perpetuations, we need critical research which reveals and analyses such ties. For example, how did the crimes of the powerful evolve and transform over time? What are the current dynamics of criminal/illegal/harmful activities undertaken by powerful private and public actors? And how can ethnographic approaches contribute to research on crimes committed by the powerful? To address these questions at the core of the proposed panel, we invite scholars to submit papers that explore a wide range of topics, including tax evasion, money laundering, corruption, corporate, state and institutional crimes, human rights violations, and environmental harm, among others.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 26 July, 2022, -Blanka Koffer (Independent Scholar)
Paper short abstract:
This paper argues that the growing need for third party funding in German academia comes along with a rise of practices officially marked as illegitimate and illegal while being tolerated or even supported for the benefits these practices provide for individuals, universities, and foundations alike.
Paper long abstract:
Following EU science policies from the 1990ies onwards, German universities were transformed into neoliberal institutions of private-public partnerships as traditional state funding was reduced while a growing number of foundations donated a growing amount of money for temporary contracts in the field of science and the humanities. Both categories of institutions, universities and foundations alike, rely on good reputation and trust. The foundations, non-profit organisations according to German tax law, range from big players as the German Research Foundation and the Volkswagen Foundation to foundations owned by smaller companies and families wanting to secure their assets. The universities and their employees are placed in a constant competition in order to secure their routines. An accepted strategy to cope with this challenge is violating the rules together with benevolent decision-makers, in this case study: women in positions of power at foundations and universities.
Jennifer Speirs (University of Edinburgh)
Paper short abstract:
An increasing number of cases have come to light recently of infertility clinicians in the past using their own semen to impregnate their female patients. The discoveries have been made accidentally through using DNA kits, as people have searched for genetic kin. Is this elite immorality criminal?
Paper long abstract:
Doctors who provide infertility treatment to help involuntarily childless people have reported feelings of compassion and a desire to help to create families. This is true also of semen donors although as with doctors, the motivation has also been one of seeking financial gain. Nevertheless research has shown that doctors attempted to minimise risks to the patients and to the donor-conceived children by recruiting 'reliable' donors from a good family background who would be unlikely to pass on 'bad genes' and sexually transmittable diseases.
When doctors used their own semen, they were violating the well known biomedical ethical principles of respect for autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence and justice. The discovery of their behaviour has caused detriment to donor offspring and has put them at risk of unwitting incest with their secretly related siblings.
Why did they do it? Most of the perpetrators discovered to date are retired or have died, leaving no clues as to their motivation. Those who have spoken allegedly have been evasive. Speculation suggests that they were saving the cost of recruiting donors, or enjoyed the opportunity of sexual gratification, or believed in their right to spread their own genes - or all of these. Donor offspring have questioned why this behaviour has not been treated as criminal, which would at least offer the possibility of compensation, and act as a deterrent. However, given the increasing use of DNA testing, state regulation and professional codes of practice, there may be hope that such behaviour will not be repeated.
Sagar Ved Singh (Central University of Rajasthan)
Paper short abstract:
This paper aims to critically scrutinize the arguments in Indian journalistic television debates pertaining to the status of caste and need of caste-based census in India. The implications could be for understanding the discursive strategies deployed in debating the caste as a sociolegal phenomenon.
Paper long abstract:
Caste based categorization among the followers of Hinduism has sustained its presence hitherto. The proponents argue about caste as one of the most [humanely] suitable parameters to distinguish and distribute the realms of the production and imparting of knowledge, goods, and services for the civilized survival of human society. However, there had been numerous instances recorded in the disciplines of history, sociology, anthropology and cultural studies which would delineate the pictures of caste as being an instrument of so-called upper-caste people [for instance Brahmins] to assert their self-proclaimed superiority over the people of lower-castes [Dalits, Shudras etc.]. The legal provisions of reservations for the ‘scheduled castes’ in India is always a hot topic for the elections, parliamentary, legislative, academic, and journalistic television debates. This paper is concerned with critically analyzing the television debates on Indian tv news channels NDTV 24X7 and Republic World, pertaining to the controversy around the issue of ‘caste-based census’ in India. This study will adopt the Foucauldian approach to conduct critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1992, 2010) with using the framework of Gramsci’s theory of hegemony (1971) to scrutinize (i) how the issue of caste is defined in the debates? (ii) which are the elements drawn onto for problematizing the caste as a mechanism of controlling and exploiting the people of lower sociocultural and economic sections of Indian society? (iii) how are the power-positions discursively constructed to endorse or discourage the cause of caste-census? and (iv) whether the caste status-quo is challenged or sustained in arguments?
Erella Grassiani (University of Amsterdam)
Paper short abstract:
In this paper I will explore the complex entanglement between public and private entities and the technologies that move between them in order to show how the sale of (cyber) weapons for criminal use is made possible. The intimate relationship between industry and state is instrumental here.
Paper long abstract:
In 2010 three Israeli men started a company for cyber security technologies and called it NSO. The company, which describes itself as developing ‘cyber Intelligence for global security and stability’ , is the developer of the now infamous software Pegasus, which can be used to infiltrate phones through the ‘no click’ method. It sells its software to governments only.
In 2021 Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International published an important account that reported on the misuse of Pegasus worldwide. Since, we can see daily updates of the long list of people and groups against whom the cybersecurity software had been used, from South America, the Arab world to Asia. These were not only, as NSO wrote in its reaction to the allegations, criminals and terrorists, but mostly journalists, politicians and Human Rights activists worldwide.
In this paper I will explore the complex entanglement between public and private entities (private security, military, police, government actors), and the technologies that move between them in order to show how the sale of (cyber) weapons to problematic regimes is not only a matter of a company wanting to make money. Such powerful actors can ‘get away with’ such crimes, I argue, because of the intimate relationship between, in this case, the Israeli security industry and the Israeli state. The extreme ‘blurring’ of what is and who is part of the commercial side or of the political-diplomatic side is instrumental for the normalization of such commercial activities that can produce serious Human Rights crimes.
Lene Swetzer (The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID))
Paper short abstract:
Drawing on my fieldwork in Algeciras (Spain), in this presentation I will address how a long history of urbanistic corruption has affected urban relations. As I will show, the urban landscape is a powerful channel of communication between the population and the governing entities.
Paper long abstract:
The city of Algeciras, in the Strait of Gibraltar, has a long history of urbanistic corruption (Gallardo 2018). Indeed, ‘corruption talk’ (Torsello, 2016) among the local population makes strong references to the urban and infrastructural dilapidation and associated practices of amongst other embezzlement and clientelism. As I will show, the urban landscape, including its buildings, streets and infrastructure are powerful channels of communication between the population and the governing entities. Thus, drawing on my fieldwork in Algeciras, in this presentation I will address how a long history of urbanistic corruption has affected the relations of (mis)trust towards local, regional and national politics; and how it affects urban relations among the population and their relation to the city itself. In taking a socio-spatial approach, and presenting the urban environment as a communication channel, I hope to advance discussions on corruption as a “language” that goes beyond a discursive perspective.