ISCI is a cross-disciplinary research centre working to further our understanding of state crime: organisational deviance violating human rights

The State Crime Testimony Project

eTestimony Page

During the course of the 20th century newly emerging, and well established, states killed and plundered on a grand scale. However, these acts of barbarity have not met silence. Indeed, diverse communities of resistance around the world have, and continue to, censure domestic and foreign governments for trammelling fundamental human rights norms.

Although criminology has traditionally ignored the complex dialectic between state crime and resistance, this trend is now in remission owing to successive generations of state crime research.  On this website, state crime scholars – with particular regional expertise – present case studies on their research, in language that is free of disciplinary jargon. Each case study gives users access to a rich a range of annotated primary materials and multi-media resources that palpably brings the particular state crime event into focus.

In the spirit of Wikileaks, the State Crime Testimony Project (SCTP) aims to enrich understandings of elite deviance through the provision of data and materials that is often marginalised, hidden or destroyed by those in power.

The SCTP is administered by the International State Crime Initiative (ISCI). ISCI is a multi-disciplinary, cross-institutional and international initiative designed to gather, collate, analyse and disseminate research based knowledge about criminal state practices, and resistance to these practices.

The SCTP has received generous support from the King’s College London Teaching Fund and the Pluto Education Trust.

See below for the case studies:

toxic-waste

Toxic Waste Dumping In Abidjan

state-terror-bougainville

State Terror and The Bougainville Conflict

torturre-rio-blanco

Torture At The Río Blanco Mine – A State-Corporate Crime?

draw-tell

Draw and Tell: Street Children In Apartheid South Africa

paga-hill

The Demolition of Paga Hill

words-as-knives

Hate Propaganda: Words as Knives

 

The State Crime Testimony Project can be accessed here.

Learning materials to aid the project’s use in class are provided below.

Teaching materials

The following exercises are designed so the SCTP case studies can be employed as tools for promoting critical inquiry and engagement during seminars.

Case Study Themes Exercise Type Exercise
Draw and Tell: Street Children in Apartheid South Africa. State crimes against children, race crimes, state terror, draw and tell methodology. Class assignment, group work, seminar discussion. Exercise – Analysing Children’s Drawings
Group work. Exercise – Developing new research methods with vulnerable children
The Demolition of Paga Hill. Forced eviction, corruption, state terror, state-corporate crime. Seminar presentation, seminar discussion. Exercise – Forced Eviction Presentation
Group work. Exercise – Paga Hill Restorative Justice Conference
Torture at the Rio Blanco Mine – A State Corporate Crime? Resource grabbing, resistance, state-corporate crime, torture, state terror. Seminar presentation, seminar discussion. Exercise – Resource Grabbing Presentation
Group work. Exercise – Resisting Resource Grabbing
Toxic Dumping in Abidjan. Environmental crimes, state-corporate crime, corruption. Class assignment, group work. Exercise – Researching the Trafigura Dumping
Class assignment, seminar discussion. Exercise – Analysisng Toxic Dumping using Kramer et al
War Crimes and the Bougainville Conflict. State terrorism, war crimes, state-corporate crime. Class assignment, group work. Exercise – Prepare a Probation Report on Bougainville Copper Limited
Class assignment, seminar discussion. Exercise – The Bougainville Conflict and Kramer et al

Feedback

ISCI welcomes feedback and suggestions from teachers and students. SCTP’s editor, Kristian Lasslett, can be contacted via email: kak.lasslett@ulster.ac.uk