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Master of Science in Cultural Criminology

Advanced level. 120 credits. Start: Autumn. Preparing you for PhD studies and for advanced professional work.

What are the attractions in dealing drugs, being a graffiti writer, or trying to rehabilitate criminals? Cultural criminology aims to explain and understand how people involved in deviance, crime or social control go about their everyday life and how they interact with others.

The programme objective is to provide the students with tools to understand, analyse and practically manage criminological phenomena using knowledge of the underlying cultural factors. In addition to providing students with specialised theoretical and empirical knowledge based on previous research, the programme has a major emphasis on the students’ development of methodological knowledge and skills.

As a student you will gain insights into developments concerning the definition and reproduction of what is considered deviant and distinctive, and social control with regard to norms, legislation and judicial institutions at national and transnational levels.

The programme will provide you with tools to critically review, analyse and evaluate the interplay between theory and practice, and study deviant subcultures as well as societal control mechanisms. Further broadening and/or specialisation of the programme is made possible through elective courses and an internship course.

Investigating corruption we find important cultural themes governing both those involved in corruption and the anti-corruption movement. Actors navigate between different conceptions of what is considered a gift and a bribe, linked to differences between countries but also between professions and historical periods.

We are interested in how media represents crime but also personal experiences and detailed accounts of life inside institutions. We primarily use fieldnotes, interviews, texts, images and Internet data.

In short, Cultural criminology is about local cultures, subcultures and a multitude of cultural characteristics associated with crime or deviance.

More about the programme

The point of departure of the programme is that cultural structures – visible in sense-making interaction patterns, societal power relations and emotions – are interwoven with crime and deviations, and with the control mechanisms and media of society in recurring ways.

The Master’s programme in Cultural Criminology focuses on crime, deviations and social control through study of how cultural norms, representations and conceptions function in society from the perspectives of individuals and of society. Issues concerning human actions and interactions as well as of collective notions of morality/immorality and normality/abnormality are of key interest. Further topics of study include which social phenomena are defined as deviant and how they are produced and reproduced.

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    E-mail: studievagledare [at] soc [dot] lu [dot] se