Book review: Alex Simpson, Harm Production and the Moral Dislocation of Finance in the City of London: An Ethnography

Abstract

that occur beyond the visual – that the book really achieves a (re)focusing of criminological attention and thinking. This has benefits as the descriptions provided on the page are much more palpable and therefore help transport the reader into the environment under examination. For instance, the book hosts various forms of creative writing, such as vignettes, short stories and music lyrics, which are extremely effective mediums with which to communicate the respective penal landscapes. Other significant methodological challenges are discussed, including issues of integrity and accountability – how researchers navigate ethnographic research which necessities a sensorial embodiment of spaces which conflict with and/or mute ethical and political positionalities (Chapters 6 and 9). Despite penal reform agendas appearing in different international contexts in recent years, insights uncovered throughout the book show how these top-down policies often contradict operational practices in penal sites. By focusing on the minutiae of environments and processes within spaces of social control, and specifically the embodied experiences of punishment, we see how these spaces continue to be painful (Chapters 5 and 8). Indeed, the textured narratives in this collection allow the reader to encounter an array of carceral spaces in different geographical contexts and cultures. It was striking to see how the disregard for (some) human life was depicted in so many of the chapters, reinforcing questions concerning the purpose and practice of punishment. We are reminded that state-sanctioned violence occurs each and every day across the globe through, for instance, the continued use of incarceration (Chapters 2, 11 and 13). Albeit this violence manifests in different ways, and to varying degrees, it remains present in our contemporary ‘humane’ societies. This text moves us away from more traditional narratives about punishment and penalty that rely on the visual, and while this may cause some ‘academic discomfort’ (Herrity, Schmidt, Warr, p. xxix), I agree with the editors that this is ‘necessary’ for a new sensory epistemology to blossom. However, readers of this book will feel some discomfort as it will prompt them to think about their own positionality and practice; from their epistemological stance to their previous and/or forthcoming methodological choices, analytical processes and reflexive practices. Even if readers come to the decision that this is ‘touchy feely’ or otherwise an unscientific way of conducting criminological research, it will have encouraged a form of self-interrogation – and this, so rarely a part of our criminological training, is one of the achievements of this edited collection. As such, it is without doubt that the editors’ aim to ‘invigorate a conversation about the role of sensory experience in the production of knowledge’ (p. xxi), has been met. If, like me, readers find themselves agreeing with the editors and can appreciate how ‘penality has an inherent sensory component’ (Herrity, Schmidt and Warr, p. xxiii), then they will appreciate this book as more than this – as a seminal methodological and intellectual contribution.