Unveiling White logic in criminological research: an intertextual analysis

Abstract

Critical race scholars have called into question the objective neutrality upon which much positivist social science rests, arguing that it discursively masks how whiteness underpins the normative purview of research design and findings. As the scholarly securing of whiteness takes shape through explicit and discursive mechanisms, this article examines how it is manifest in criminological research through an intertextual analysis of contemporary peer-reviewed scholarship. Examining 558 articles in five recognized journals, this paper documents how blind spots towards race and racial stratification surface in criminological research, arguing that most of the articles analyzed do not simply ignore White privilege; they actively uphold it. Findings suggest that they do so through two means: first by whitewashing race, that is, disregarding how race and racism can differentially affect acts and trends of crime and deviance, and secondly, by narrowly representing race as merely explanatory variable without querying the broader power relations it marks. After discussing how these patterns reveal and uphold whiteness as a normative value, we conclude with a discussion of preliminary steps aimed at exposing and unpacking how White logic informs the field.

Keywords:

• criminological research
• methods
• White logic
• race

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. We follow the APA guidelines of designating racial and ethnic groups as proper nouns; hence, we capitalize terms such as ‘White’ and ‘Black’ when using them accordingly.

2. Wiegman (2012) also reflects on this concern in reference to what George Lipsitz refers to as ‘the impossibility of the anti-racist subject,’ pointing to an underlying concern: that pursuing individuals’ self-empowerment (as whiteness studies arguably seeks to doe) likely cannot undo the consequences of broader identity-based projects.

3. Impact factors are often considered a ‘benchmark of a journal’s reputation’ and capture how often its work is cited per year (Springer, 2012). Part of a broader academic audit culture, it is, however, only one measure of impact and readership.

4. In British Journal of Criminology, 50(4), two articles of 10 discuss race. In Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 28(1), three of eight discuss race. In Crime and Delinquency, 58(5), two of seven discuss race.

5. Eleven studies use race as a dependent variable to determine if and how the independent variable affected individuals differently based on their race; however, such use also raises questions about whether identifying as a particular race can depend on factors such as sentencing laws, residential segregation, and others.

6. When authors used race categories beyond ‘White’ and ‘non-White,’ these were the four categories most likely to be used. Hispanic, however, is depicted as an ethnic category in recent US Censuses, which also allows respondents to identify with one or more races (e.g. ‘White’ and ‘Black’).