GENEALOGY OF INDONESIAN CRIMINOLOGY

Dr Iqrak Sulhin1

1Department Of Criminology Universitas Indonesia, ,

The social, cultural, political, economic and social background of the society contributes to the development of science. Indonesia as one of the Dutch colonies had a long experience of colonialism that affects various aspects of life including the development of science. After independence, the writings of political leaders and intellectual contribute to postcolonial discourses. The main question to be answered by this paper is, how is the development of criminology as a social science discipline when associated with the historical background of Indonesia itself as a nation?

This paper is produced through historical research combined with the study of discourse. Historical research may be suspected as an attempt to discover the origins of criminology in Indonesia. This is not entirely wrong, because indeed the effort is to explain how the emergence and development of criminology in Indonesia from the beginning to the present. However, historical study used in this paper, more accurately referred to as the archaeological/genealogical study. History is no longer the past, but it is a discourse construct created by textual relations. Theoretically, current article departs from the idea that history has the power to form the consciousness of the actor. This framework is in line with the social construction process of reality presented by Peter L Berger and Thomas Luckmann. The explanation from Berger and Luckman about the formation of reality is also called the process of social knowledge formation.

Textual studies shows that criminology in Indonesia has several features that can be explained as follows. The development of criminology as a discipline cannot be separated from Dutch influence, through the application of intellectual products of Dutch scholars. During the period of colonialism and post-independence, there was a scientific interaction between scholars from Indonesia with scholars from the Netherlands.

This paper assumes that Indonesian criminology manifesto is a postcolonial manifesto, a scientific response from a once colonized nation. Indonesian Criminology is a science that is part of decolonization of discourse, or involved in the resistance and replacement of colonial discourse. This assumption departs from the fact that colonialism is the most serious crime, both in terms of welfare and the continuity of its social, cultural, and political existence. Criminology in Indonesia will be more sensitive to the principle of social justice.


Biography:

Dr Iqrak Sulhin is the head of Department of Criminology, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Indonesia for 2016-2020 periods. His main focuses in research and teaching are on theoretical criminology, penology, and new media and crime.