A Call for a Black Feminist Liberatory Ethics in Criminological Research on Black Women and Girls’ Offending and Victimization

Abstract

Criminology posits objectivity and neutrality as the ideal standard for research methods, yet traditional definitions of objectivity and neutrality have historically been constructed by White, cisgender men and used to gauge the legitimacy of criminological research. This paper is an examination of the difficulties of studying Black women and girls’ offending and victimization as a Black woman researcher, including the “pushback” for what was seen as race exclusion in a gender violence issue. Based on my qualitative research with Black women survivors of sex trafficking and sexual exploitation, I introduce “Black feminist liberatory ethics,” a set of guidelines and ethics of care for studying Black women and girls and their experiences criminal legal system amid the continuing struggle of liberation from oppression. I argue research can include liberatory practices for historically oppressed groups from systemic and epistemic injustice by revolutionizing traditional criminological research methods.

Keywords

Research methods Black feminism intersectional criminology Black women ethics liberation

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