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Race, Justice, and the Production of Knowledge: A Critical Realist Consideration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2014

Jon Frauley
Jon Frauley
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Queen's University, Kingston (Ontario) K7L 3N6Canada, [email protected]
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Abstract

The texts discussed illustrate general methodological and pedagogical problems faced by the social sciences. Because of their illustrative nature each of these texts makes a significant contribution to our understanding of how it is that social scientists conceive of and deploy ‘race’ as an analytic category and how this impacts on the production of knowledge about crime control and social justice. In this way, the texts are telling in terms of how analytic categories, more generally, are treated in teaching and research. Through a comparative approach this essay takes three recent texts as a vehicle to argue that the consideration of epistemological issues stemming from the employment of central analytic categories cannot be avoided and that attempts to do so yield a passive rather than active engagement with the object of analysis. Moreover, passive approaches do not serve to represent a critically engaged, social scientific enquiry.

Résumé

Les textes à l'étude illustrent des problèmes méthodologiques et pédagogiques généraux considérés par les sciences sociales. En tant qu'exemples illustratifs, chacun de ces textes contribue de manière significative à notre compréhension de la façon dont les sociologues conçoivent et déploient la «race» comme catégorie analytique et comment cela influe sur la production des connaissances au sujet du contrôle de la criminalité et de la justice sociale. Ainsi, les textes montrent, en général, comment des catégories analytiques sont traités dans l'enseignement et la recherche. Adoptant une approche comparative à partir de trois textes récents, cet essai pose qu'on ne peut éviter de considérer les enjeux épistémologiques provenant de l'emploi de catégories analytiques centrales et que les tentatives de le faire mènent à un engagement passif plutôt qu'actif avec l'objet de l'analyse. Au surplus, des approches passives ne servent guère une enquête critique en sciences sociales.

Type
Review Essays/Notes critiques
Information
Canadian Journal of Law and Society / La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , April 2004 , pp. 177 - 197
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association 2004

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References

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