ABSTRACT
Situated in cultural horizons infatuated with images of crime, one easily forgets that criminality is created through complex processes that impart criminal identities (Christie, 1994). Moreover, criminal justice traditions descending from the English common law are built on accusatorial foundations (Pollock & Maitland, 1898; O’Connor, 1984). In general, one might say that all forms of exclusion involve the creation of otherness and are thus related – one way or another – to precipitating moments of accusation. Over the centuries, vastly different landscapes have hosted versions of accusation; all arrest the ordinary flows of everyday social life, initiating processes that are licensed to attach stranger identities to designated subjects. In this sense, accusation could be viewed as a moment where accusers draw on local cultural resources to allege that there are criminal outsiders within a given context. It involves a process that, if successful, precipitates exclusion, othering and simultaneously ensconces never completed boundaries around what is included.
