SOC 2700 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Left Realism, Victimology, Dispersed Knowledge

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 2700
• Professor: Stephanie Howells

Document Summary

Radical & critical theories: marxist theory, radical, critical and conflict. Ideas that reality is not mirrored but constructed as individuals find their own reality. Postmodernist criminology: truth is unknowable rational thought is merely one way of thinking knowledge is not cumulative facts are only social constructions criticism assumes an alternative truth that can be found. Postmodern criminological thought: the centrality of language, partial knowledge and provisional truth, deconstruction, difference and possibility. 3 language based: our reality and actions are shaped by the written language, meanings and actions are structured by this non-neutral language, only partial / provisional- can"t have true knowledge. Language contains and defines interactions with other people. Wholesale improvement in social conditions resulted not in a drop in crime but [rather] the reverse (young, 1988: 159). Central to our concerns is the explanation of law and criminality in terms of the dominant mode of production and the class nature of society (young 1998: 14): began in 1960s.