The Criminological Imagination: Mills, Reflexive Analysis, & Richard Wright's "Native Son"

Abstract

The promise of Mills's (1959) classic sociological imagination for criminology is revisited and assumptions about the adequacy and usefulness of fiction in terms of its analytical and explanatory potential are challenged. The criminological imagination, as a quality of mind, analytic framework and method of knowledge production, provides an ideal meta-framework with which to consider fiction. The theories of Jack Katz (1988) and the symbolic interactionists further develop Mills's concept of biography, while the Birmingham School (Clarke, Hall, Jefferson, & Roberts, 2006) expands on Mills's concept of society; integrating these within the meta-framework of the criminological imagination produces a reflexive analysis of Native Son, a classic novel by Richard Wright (2005). In so doing, fiction is demonstrated to be a legitimate object of criminological inquiry that challenges criminological conventions, clarifies and critiques criminological concepts, and creates and communicates criminological knowledge.