Europe is commonly depicted as the cradle of modernity. But this image usually has a blind eye for marginal communities and cultures existing seemingly apart of the big developments. An example of this is the neglect of the Roma people who settled here early, on the threshold of the Middle Ages and the modern era. The attitude of the European people towards this mobile ethnic group can be described as moving between contempt and fascination. Referring to images of gypsies in literature and other cultural expressions the author shows how during the Romantic era the gypsies were serving as a projection object for desires and fantasies about socially deviant lifestyles. The subsequent process of ‘de-Europeanization’ together with the creation of exotic images through ethnology is described as well as the racial theories and their political consequences for the Roma people in the twentieth century. Instead of contributing to the creation of borderlines and fuelling destruction fantasies, art and sciences should give more attention to the undividedness of humankind and to human dignity.

The central question of this contribution is whether slavery was considered in the Netherlands at the time as something normal, an argument which is often heard in debates about this phenomenon today. This paper shows that during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, slavery was indeed something that happened far away from home, however, all the time voices could be heard in this country opposing at least the cruelties of the slave system, or even the basic incompatability of slavery and christianity. It even turned out to be a public problem with the hundreds of enslaved people who came over time with their owners from Suriname or the Dutch Antilles to this country, and after a while became free citizens, because in the Netherlands itself slavery was not allowed.
During the second part of the eighteenth century in literary and political Dutch circles the individual voices against (the cruelties of) slavery turned more or less into a choir. These opponents of the system were obviously influenced by and often fervent supporters of the Enlightenment and its ideals for mankind of freedom, equality and brotherhood. Eventually, however, in 1797 the revolutionary Dutch National Assembly in its first constitution voted against an article meant to abolish slave trade and slavery in the near future. It took more than two generations to finally settle this question in 1863.

The Roman Catholic Church experiences a transition from the highly centralized Church formation of Ultramontane Mass Catholicism into a more decentralized and pluralistic Choice Catholicism. With respect to governance, this transition concerns the increasing importance of the diocesan intermediate level in the Church on the one hand, and a transition from a union-oriented organization model into a network-oriented model on the other. The network model is catalyzed by the digitalization of daily life and its polycentrism. This contribution discusses these developments in a systematic way with the help of sociological and theological insights. By way of conclusion it summarizes some challenges from a policy and governmental point of view. They concern the ecclesial leadership style, membership and participation, catholicity, online community building, and self-presentation in the social media.

This paper explores the hypothesis that the process of rupture in Brazilian graffiti writer’s subculture resulting in different groups - pichadores, pixadores and grafiteiros - took place in two different, though complementary, stages. The first stage is the commodification of graffiti by successive media campaigns and its penal control by the state. The second stage - which may be considered as a side effect of the first one - consists of the emergence of a new transgressive pixação movement. Instead of merely writing or tagging their signatures and messages on the walls of the city, they claim the freedom of usage of the urban space and contest the importance that property has in the late modernity context.

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is deeply rooted in the Chinese culture. Although thousands of animal and plant species are used for medicines legally, some medications contain more sinister elements; illegal animal or plant ingredients of protected species. What is the origin of this demand for rare species as medicine, who are involved in the trade and why is law enforcement complicated? This article will show that the illicit trade in TCM is a form of crime that transcends the borders of China and manifests itself in Western Europe. Various aspects of the trade are highlighted, including criminalization of the use of endangered species, western anthropocentrism and the cultural use of medicine, to understand this relatively invisible crime.

In the introduction of the special issue of the Journal on Crime & Culture on ‘Resistance’, the editors focus on the theoretical history of the concept of resistance in the field of Criminology. Against the background of the Birmingham School and the themes and ideas of Critical Criminology, the authors argue that new issues are rebelled against, and new styles and rituals become en vogue. The street fighting man on the barricades is no longer the obvious icon, and resistance is not per se intergenerational, interclass or a confrontation between minorities and mainstream culture. Resistance may have epidemic proportions as the Arabic Spring. Movements like Occupy or WikiLeaks operate across borders, but resistance also includes subtle transgressions within organizations.

This article provides a theoretical analysis of the label ‘resistance’. It sets out from the premise that the notion of resistance, although it has been current in criminology for some time, is still vaguely defined. We argue that resistance is not just a negative term, but can also be seen as a positive and creative force in society. As such, the primary function of resistance is to serve as a solvent of doxa, to continuously question obviousness and common sense. In the process of resistance we distinguish three processes: invention, imitation and transformation. The third stage warrants deeper investigation within cultural criminology.