Voices of Resistance: Subjugated knowledge and the challenge to the criminal justice system

This collection of essays is the product of a postgraduate conference held at Liverpool John Moores University on November 9th 2016 in conjunction with the university's Centre for the Study of Crime, Criminalisation and Social Exclusion. The papers critically examine the targeted silencing of the powerless by state institutions and the impact of such subjugation. They provide an alternative world-view, raising fundamental questions about the politics of policy and radical reform and highlight how, by using the voices of the powerless, we can move beyond the state's definition of 'truth' and liberal policy interventions to develop an alternative set of truths which contest and contradict dominant narratives, thereby making the voices of the silenced count in the development of these alternative truths. In raising new questions in longstanding fields of study, critical postgraduate research has a significant role to play in uncovering these alternative truths which would otherwise be denied by the state.