Abstract
This paper addresses the question of the modes of public engagement of researchers in the field of criminology, understood as a complex field of studies, which is traversed by various theoretical and methodological traditions that refer to a broad set of research problems. The research produced in the last 20 years on this problem have been done on few jurisdictions in the Global North. In a critical dialogue with this intellectual production, this article seeks to present an exploration of a specific context of the Global South, the case of Argentina. It is argued that the embeddedness of a good part of this field of studies in the academic world of Law Faculties in this specific scenario - although this may be similar in other Latin American contexts - brings with it certain modes of public commitment of its participants that they are molded in relation to those of the historically preceding and simultaneously active figure of the criminalist. These modes are identified, finding points of contact with some delimited in the settings of the English-speaking world by Sparks and Loader in a series of recent texts, but a peculiar type of involvement is highlighted that is defined as the “critical but realistic and reformist observer”. Its characteristics are defined and exemplified by certain fundamental protagonists of the Argentine criminological field that come from the world of law. Finally, certain directions are pointed out in which this inquiry should advance in the near future.
Keywords:
Criminology; Public engagement; Law