Crime and the Construction of Forensic Objectivity from 1850

This book approaches crime history through a detailed analysis of the ways in which forensic objectivity was constructed in relation to murder in the UK, and elsewhere, between the mid-nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This collection is interdisciplinary, with authors drawn from law, history, sociology and science and technology studies. It’s aim is to show how domestic, gendered and ethical knowledges were inextricably interwoven into expert knowledge, making what was taken to be objective knowledge of the crime and criminal: ‘forensic objectivity’. Each chapter addresses the question of forensic objectivity in different ways. Visual information is a vital part of the making of such objectivity and the use of photography in capturing and creating objectivity became increasingly important over the period covered by the proposed work. By centring the collection in the UK (but with some important international case studies for comparative purposes), over a crucial century for the concepts it explores, this essential title demonstrate the ways in which medical, policing and other expert knowledge changed rapidly over the course of 100 years.