Professor Penny Green talks to us about her new book State Crime and Civil Activism with Dr Tony Ward, her upcoming research, and why this newsletter is so important for the department.
This book grew out of theoretical work that my collaborator Tony Ward and I had been doing on state crime for many years. For us state crime, rather than a legal construct defined and punished by domestic and international laws and courts, is better understood as a violation of social norms. Following from this, organised civil society affords the most promising and effective means of challenging state violence and corruption. The definition of state crime we developed, ‘human rights violations in pursuit of state organisational goals’, relies on an audience, independent of the state, to define human rights violations. Criminal states consistently criminalise those who oppose state violence and corruption and redefine their own deviance as legitimate. For us civil society, despite its flaws, represents the most promising means of identifying, exposing and resisting the criminal practices of state. So the book was essentially an attempt to empirically explore our theoretical position across of range of very different states.
I love collaborative writing and rather wish I’d started sooner. But perhaps more importantly I would have loved like-minded mentors early on in my career. When I began as a young academic, sharing one’s work for critical review was rare. I was very under confident so didn’t take the initiative of showing my work widely. It took me a long while to build up the kind of resilience that academic publishing requires. As PhD students in the 1980’s we had only one supervisor and once we embarked on our career paths we were very much alone – no mentors, early career support networks, research groups or directors of research to guide and support.
I love working with Tony – we have similar writing styles which helps enormously but we are great friends too. We don’t always agree but we are both pretty accommodating and have never quarrelled. We care about the same political issues and share the same fundamental critique of our own discipline.
I also love working with my ISCI colleagues and I have no doubt that collaborative work, at least for me, produces the best ideas and publications.
I’m currently thinking about a comparison between the Palestinian Nakba and the genocide of the Rohingya – even at first glance there are extraordinary parallels but I’d also like to explore in greater depth the conceptual nexus between violent and non-violent resistance.
Perhaps our biggest collective challenge is to ensure that the space and conditions for independent research and academic standards are not lost in the climate of neo-liberalism which we confront.
At a personal level I want to get back into the field - working with those victims of state criminality who are not only surviving but fighting back gives not only meaning to my work but a sense of optimism which is largely absent when you observe violence, terror and corruption from afar. The human spirit is pretty indomitable and it’s a privilege to work alongside those struggling in dangerous conditions for a better world. Providing a platform, however small, for the voice of the Rohingya, the Kurds, the Palestinians makes me feel part of a wider struggle against state repression.
I like mending things – anything really, broken bowls, moth eaten jumpers, clocks that no longer tick…and I love making things – knitting jumpers (which the moths will eat but which I will then enjoy mending – a kind of virtuous cycle!)
Well it’s in excellent hands so I anticipate it will play a significant role in encouraging even greater goodwill between colleagues; that it will bring sometimes disparate sections of the department together through learning about each other’s work; that it will bring greater insights into the complementary roles played by professional services staff and academics and probably most importantly that it will give colleagues pleasure.