On the peculiar absence of race from zemiology

In this paper I outline and respond to the relative lack of attention paid to race within the study of social harm, or zemiology. I identify the peculiarity of this situation – there are statements within the canon that articulate a desire for zemiology to be attentive to race and racialised harms. I then explain this disjuncture, by locating zemiology within a wider tradition of social theory which itself does not recognise race in sufficient terms, via erasure of colonialism from its accounts of the formation of modernity. Here, race is rendered a matter of culture, and not amenable to structural redress. Inheriting its tools from this body of theory has deprived zemiology of adequately conceptualising race. Ultimately, this explains the peculiar situation of a zemiology which wishes to contribute to a discussion of racialised harms but rarely does so. Outlining this situation in these terms contributes to its correction, and in doing so contributes to epistemological justice within the field. 

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About the speaker

Ed Wright is an Assistant Professor in Criminology at The University of Nottingham, UK. He has a background in social theory, and has recently been concerned with the study of social harm and the colonial.