Review: Susanne Spindler (2006). Corpus delicti. Männlichkeit, Rassismus und Kriminalisierung im Alltag jugendlicher Migranten [Corpus Delicti. Masculinity, Racism and Criminalization in the Everyday Life of Juvenile Migrants]

Abstract

In her dissertation, published in 2006 as a book, Susanne SPINDLER deals with the interrelations between masculinity, racism and the criminalization of juvenile migrants. To do so, SPINDLER interprets the results of eleven biographical interviews with detained juvenile migrants. A particular focus in on processes of "doing gender": because accepted forms of masculinity are withheld from the juveniles they retreat into an extremely physical and violent form of masculinity, which paves the way to crime and prison. The book offers interesting insights into the process of criminalization of young migrants and enriches the research field with a new perspective. However, SPINDLER's argument finally remains too one-sided, since with the retreat into masculinity only one aspect is considered and other factors which might be helpfully for the understanding of the observed processes are ignored a priori. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0802103

Keywords

• migrants
• masculinity
• violence
• criminalization
• biographical studies