What does it mean to “do” southern criminology? What does this entail and what demands should it place on us as criminologists ethically and methodologically? This article addresses such questions through a form dialogue between the Global North and the Global South. At the center of this dialogue is a set of questions about ethical conduct in the pursuit of knowledge and understanding in human relations. These develop into a conversation that engages South Asian scholars working at the forefront of critical social science, history and theory with a foundational text of European hermeneuticist theory and practice, Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Truth and Method, published in 1960. Out of this exercise in communication across culture, histories and knowledge practices emerges a new kind of dialogue and a new way of thinking about ethical practice in criminology. To give such abstractions a concrete reference point, the article illustrates their possibilities and tensions through a case study of penal reform and the question of whether so-called “failed” Northern penal methods—like the prison—should be exported to the Global South. The article thus works dialogically back and forth through these scholars’ accounts of ethical conduct, research practice, the weight of history, and the work of theory with a very concrete and common criminological context in sight. The result is what might be understood as a norm of ethical engagement and an epistemology of dialogue.

“做”南方犯罪学是什么意思？这意味着什么，它应该对我们作为犯罪学家的道德和方法提出什么要求？本文通过全球北方和全球南方之间的形式对话来解决这些问题。本次对话的中心是一系列关于在人际关系中追求知识和理解时的道德行为的问题。这些发展成为一场对话，让在批判社会科学、历史和理论前沿工作的南亚学者与欧洲诠释学理论和实践的基础文本汉斯-格奥尔格·伽达默尔的真理与方法进行交流，出版于 1960 年。通过这种跨文化、历史和知识实践的交流练习，出现了一种新的对话和一种关于犯罪学伦理实践的新思维方式。为了给这些抽象提供一个具体的参考点，文章通过刑事改革的案例研究以及所谓的“失败”的北方刑罚方法（如监狱）是否应该出口到全球南方的问题来说明它们的可能性和紧张关系。因此，这篇文章通过这些学者对道德行为、研究实践、历史的重要性和理论工作的描述，以非常具体和共同的犯罪学背景进行对话。结果可能被理解为一种道德参与规范和一种对话认识论。