Dr Anna Souhami wins prize at the British Society of Criminology conference
Tue 30 July 2024
Dr Anna Souhami was awarded the prize for best article by the British Society of Criminology (BSC) Policing Working Group at the recent BSC conference in Glasgow. The winning paper, ‘Weather, Light and Darkness in Remote Island Policing: Expanding the Horizons of the Criminological Imagination’, was published in the British Journal of Criminology in 2023. The paper previously won the European Society of Criminology Policing Working Group prize for best article, and was shortlisted for the British Journal of Criminology Radzinowicz Prize 2023.
Through an ethnography of policing in Shetland and the Western Isles, Dr Souhami argues that traditional preoccupations with the city have limited the imagination of criminologists. By shifting our focus to remote small islands she shows how new insights come to criminological attention, including the importance of the weather, light and darkness and its implications for the exercise of state power.
BSC judges said: "This is a fantastic piece of work. It is unique, like nothing else I've read in the field of police studies or criminology more broadly. I read every word, was transported to the two Scottish archipelagoes that are the setting of this research, and given new insights into the lives and work of the island officers that police these remote communities. Drawing on an extensive, rigorous and highly original ethnographic study, the surrounding in which policing is situated is shown to be important to our understanding of police work. This article succeeds in getting its readers to think differently, to expand the horizons of the criminological imagination".
Image credit: Dr Anna Souhami