Community Studies Using Ethnographic Techniques: Still Relevant to Criminology?

Abstract

During the 1960s and 1970s there was a robust and vibrant research tradition in the social sciences that involved documenting small communities and subcultural groups within societies. Since then, this tradition has sporadically resurfaced within Australian criminology, primarily through anthropologically oriented research that focuses on Indigenous people and their communities, and through ‘street’ participant-observation with young people and/or drug users. The impetus to undertake research of this kind has faltered in the past two decades for a range of reasons, loosely summarised under the headings of political, ethical, practical and empirical concerns. This article briefly describes the history of this research tradition within criminology and the factors that led to its decline, and concludes by arguing for its renaissance.