Lombroso e o Nascimento do Positivismo Criminológico

Maestria Científica ou Artefato Cultural?

Abstract

This article develops a cultural criminological approach to the birth of criminological positivism, focusing on the Lombrosian aesthetics, which are understood as performance art and an exercise of seductive cultural power, that nullifies the multiplicity of cultural meanings visible not only in the criminalized, but also in the aborigines. The critique is inserted in the context of the exercise of European colonial powers in the 19th century, shedding light on the meanings behind the tattoo or te moko. In conclusion, the article points out that Lombroso's scientific positivism was performance art at the service of European power. The “natural” sciences cannot depend on their acceptance by their subjects; but criminology was, and is, nevertheless, a social science that exists within the domains of culture, and of normative questioning and affirmation, of ambiguities and ambivalences. Positivism attempts to “naturalize” a political and cultural interaction. Against this, it must be emphasized that crime and the reaction to crime cannot fail to be places for the interaction of the many forms of social power, for the exercise of forms of power and strategies of resistance.