The British Journal of Criminology · 2007 · 10 citations · 0 references
Katherine Biber's short monograph is a refreshingly original intervention in the field of criminology, in terms both of the material upon which it draws and the style of its analysis. Captive Images artfully combines the theoretical elaborations of a wide range of authors more often associated with disciplines such as philosophy (Derrida), cultural studies (Benjamin, Sontag, Butler), semiotics (Barthes), postcolonial studies (Fanon, Bhabha) and psychoanalysis (Žižek, Lacan) than with criminology. Insights derived from these multiple sources support Biber's construction of a comprehensive theory of the image, and she uses the resulting theory to critically examine the use of photographic evidence in criminal trials. A second dimension of her work involves close scrutiny of the jurisprudence on ‘cross-racial identification’ in multi-racial jurisdictions such as the United States and Australia. The final aspect of Captive Images is an application of her general findings to the specificity of the Australian context (the author...