Decolonising Criminology? We’re Not Interested: Indigenous Refusal and the Limits of the Discipline

Over recent years, long-standing tensions between criminology and Indigenous scholars in Australasia have intensified. These tensions arise from several sources: the continued support some non-Indigenous criminologists give to the settler-colonial state and its criminalisation of Indigenous peoples; conflicting views about how research methods, ethics, and theory should engage with Indigenous knowledge; and the racism, silencing, and marginalisation experienced by Indigenous scholars within the discipline. I begin by outlining the causes and features of this contentious relationship between criminology and Indigenous scholars. I then give attention to “Southern Criminology,” arguing that while presented as a “post-colonial turn,” this movement mirrors existing forms of exclusion and silencing by ignoring decades of decolonising work led by Indigenous Peoples. Following, I consider recent gestures by the Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology towards Indigenous inclusion. While these are welcomed, they also echo familiar “indigenising” tactics that placate calls for Indigenous self-determination and authority yet leave untouched the structural violence of settler-colonial states such as Australia and New Zealand. I conclude by asking whether criminology can truly decolonise, arguing that until it confronts its deep entanglement with colonisation, any reconciliation with Indigenous scholars will remain rhetorical rather than real.