Call for papers: International Conference on Culture, Crime, and Global Challenges

On 16-17 April 2025, the Criminology working group of the Willem Pompe Institute for Criminal Law and Criminology at Utrecht University organizes an International Conference on Culture, Crime, and Global Challenges. Submissions are welcome and should be received before March 1, 2025.

In recent decades cultural perspectives have become a central concern in the study of crime. Cultural differences (and according to some ‘clashes of culture’) interfere with Global North/South contestations over space, the environment, and mediated meanings. Moreover, cultural ‘meaning-making’ figures prominently in forms of resistance directed against neoliberal capitalism, corporate and state crimes, and other crimes of the elite. Such crimes, harms, and transgressions are ‘culture-in-the-making’, and in the same way our methods of tackling them are ultimately cultural projects. Acknowledging the role of culture is therefore crucial when developing global perspectives of contemporary crimes, harms, and social injustices. We hereby invite scholars from all disciplines to contribute to our shared understanding of cultural, criminological issues.

Since the beginning of the 2000s six cultural criminological conferences have taken place in Utrecht and Amsterdam. We seek to continue this tradition by providing a platform for international researchers from different disciplines to present and discuss their work.

Focus Themes

• Theoretical perspectives on culture/crime
• Global inequalities, cultural diversity, and social justice
• Consumerism of crime and culture
• Environmental harm in a cultural context
• Queer criminology; gendered perspectives on crime/deviance
• Cultural embeddedness of organised crime
• Emerging forms of edgework and cultural resistance
• Crime and art, literature, and music
• Crime, media, and power
• Digital crime
• Drugs cultures
• Corporate harms, state secrets and cultures of denial
• Historical criminology
• Cultural essentialism, radicalism, and conspiracy

Submissions

Paper abstracts should be a maximum of 250 words long and include the title, author(s), a short description, and the chosen focus theme (see above). For thematic panel proposals, please submit the entire set of abstracts. You can also submit an author-meets-critics-panel (with min. two critics), a roundtable discussion, a visual presentation e.g. Pecha Kucha, a short film or documentary (12 mins maximum), or a photo exhibit.

Please submit individual paper or panel (four presentations) abstracts to: cultureandcrimeconference2025@uu.nl For author-meets-critics-panels, roundtable, or visual presentations please submit abstracts to: cultureandcrimeconference2025@uu.nl. All submissions should be received before 1 March, 2025.

Applicants will be notified of the outcome of their submission by 15 March 2025.

Call for papers (pdf)
Conference website