In trying to answer the question ‘Are you a criminologist or a sociologist?’ I keep going back to a story my late grandfather used to tell when people asked him what kind of scientist he was. He would explain, sly grin on his face, that when he’s surrounded by mostly chemists, he always says he is a physicist. When surrounded by mostly physicists, on the other hand, he would invariably answer chemist. (He was, by training, a crystallographer, and by experience a metrologist.) I suppose, after some reflection, I feel somewhat parallel. Neither of the labels, “criminologist” or “sociologist,” is all that intrinsically appealing to me. And, even more in line with my grandfather, when I attend, for instance, the American Society of Criminology (ASC) meetings in the states, I feel very sociological. By that I suppose I really mean that I think of my work as rather more theoretical, critical, and politically-motivated than the vast majority of the papers I hear at ASC meetings. Conversely, while at various sociological meetings, I often feel that because of my focus on punishment, prisons, and law, I tend to be labelled by many around me as a criminologist, by which I think they mean to say not-quite-sociological-enough. In other words, rather “applied” and, perhaps, not theoretical enough.
Instead of trying to work to get people to see me as an “insider,” I have embraced somewhat this phenomenon, in part because it allows me to slide somewhat quietly from group to group, and also because I feel like my ability to publish on various topics and using various methods is rather unconstrained. And I like that. In closing, I would note that I think my own relaxed attitude toward the policing of these labels is no doubt due, at least in part, to the fact that I have a great, tenure-track (and now tenured) position. Were my own employment unstable (or more unstable), I might very well lose more sleep over these labels, and the policing of them, than I do.
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