Religion and Society
Dr Selda Dagistanli
Lecturer in Criminology
- Biography
- Qualifications
- Areas of Expertise and Research Interests
- Current Projects
- Selected Publications
Biography
Selda’s research explores the intersections of Western multicultural politics, criminal justice and law. Her overarching research priority is to interrogate the ways in which unpopular minorities are morally, politically and culturally marginalised in legal and broader community arenas. Specific interests include how the politics of exclusion, especially through both overt anti-Muslim racism and the liberal premises of law, can lead to punitive criminal justice practices and the appropriation of womens' rights movements by conservative agendas. These interests are explored through a critique of the gendered and racialised assumptions of liberalism and orientalism and informed by a background in philosophy. She is currently working on a monograph entitled Trialling Culture, Protecting Women: Racialising Sexual Violence in Legal and Political Discourses with Ashgate Publishing, UK, due for publication in 2014. She is also chief investigator, alongside Associate Professor Adam Possamai (UWS), Professor Malcolm Voyce (Macq) and Professor Bryan Turner (UWS/CUNY) on an ARC Discovery project exploring Shari’a in the everyday life of Muslim communities in Sydney and New York.
Qualifications
2008 – PhD, Centre for Cultural Research (CCR), University of Western Sydney
2001 – BA (Hons I), Philosophy, University of Sydney
Areas of Expertise and Research Interests
- Politics of sentencing and punishment
- Cultural defences in criminal law
- Racialised “moral panics” around sexual assault
- Representations of “deviant” Muslim masculinities
- Victims’ rights politics
- Cultural desistance
Current Projects
ARC Discovery Project (2012-2014) “Testing the limits of post-secularism and multiculturalism in Australia and the USA: Shari’a in the everyday life of Muslim communities” (with Possamai, Voyce and Turner)
Selected Publications
Book Chapters:
Dagistanli, S and Grewal, K (2012) ‘Perverse Muslim Masculinities in Contemporary Orientalist Discourse: the vagaries of Muslim immigration in the West’ in Morgan G and S Poynting (eds) Global Islamophobia: Muslims and Moral Panic in the West UK, Ashgate
Dagistanli, S (2007) ‘“Like a pack of wild animals”: Moral panics around “ethnic” gang rape in Sydney’. In S. Poynting and G. Morgan, (eds) Outrageous! Moral Panics in Australia, Hobart, ACYS Publishing, pp. 181-196
Dagistanli, S & Lumby, C (2003) ‘Anita: Beyond Good and Evil’ in Anita and Beyond, Sydney, Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest, pp. 64-66
Journal Articles:
Morgan, G., Dagistanli, S. and Martin, G. (2010) ‘Global fears, local anxiety: Policing, counter-terrorism and moral panic over ‘bikie gang wars’ in New South Wales’, Australia and New Zealand Journal of Criminology Vol 43(3).
Conference Proceedings:
Dagistanli, S (2006) ‘“If the Judiciary were real people”: the impact of moral panic on the sentencing of “Arab” gang rapists’ – CAESS (UWS) Conference Proceedings
Dagistanli, S (2006) ‘Consent, the “lascivious Arab” and Standards of Reasonableness in Legal and Official Discourses’, Racisms in the New World Order Conference, QLD, Proceedings
Stephen Farrall, Mike Hough, Shadd Maruna and Richard Sparks (eds.) Escape Routes: Contemporary Perspectives on Life After Punishment, Routledge: Oxon, 2011; 278 pp.; 9780415550345 (hbk), 9780203835883 (ebk)
Conference Papers:
2011:
“Cultural Time-Bomb”: An Acceptable Defence?’ at the American Society of Criminology Annual Meeting, (opens in a new window) November 17-20, 2010, San Francisco, CA.
2010:
‘Appropriating the Rights of Women: Moral Panics, ‘Victims’ Industry’ and Exclusionary Agendas in Domestic and Cross Borders Sex Crimes’, co-presented with Sanja Milivojevic at the Annual British Society of Criminology Conference, (opens in a new window) Leicester University, Leicester, UK
“‘Throw Away the Key!’ Public Ethics and the Justification for Indefinite Detention”, presented at the Australian and New Zealand Critical Criminology Conference (opens in a new window) held at the University of Sydney, Australia
2009:
‘Boys Like Them’: Exploring the Validity of Cultural Defence in the Courts, Annual British Society of Criminology Conference, (opens in a new window) Cardiff, UK
2008:
“Victims Sacrificed to a God of Due Process”: protecting our women from Muslim rapists and the courts, Critical Criminology Conference, held at the University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia
2006:
‘“You deserve it because you’re Australian”: protecting ‘our’ women from ‘Muslim’ rapists’ presented at “Not another hijab row”: New conversations on gender, race, religion and the making of communities, UTS Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Technology, Sydney, December 2006
2005:
“Consent, the ‘lascivious Arab’ and Standards of Reasonableness in Legal and Official Discourses” presented at the Racisms in the New World Order Conference, (opens in a new window) Hyatt Regency Coolum, Queensland, December 2005
“The Unreasonable Other: 'Arab Gang Rapists' before the Australian Courts”, presented at the Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology (ANZSOC) Conference, (opens in a new window) Wellington, New Zealand, February 2005
