The Social Construction of Serial Murder. A Philosophical Critique (original) (raw)
Since the publication of Philip Jenkins’s essay The Social Construction of Serial Homicide (1994), it is now widely acknowledged that serial murder shall be considered as an ill-founded criminological category mainly maintained by statistical errors, political strategies and ideological interests. Moreover, recent critiques of the FBI profiling methods (Muller 2000; Canter & Youngs, 2009) put into question the idea of tailored investigation techniques with respect to serial homicide. Last but not least, psychiatrists disagree on whether or not serial killers shall be qualified as a homogeneous group from a psychopathological or psychodynamic perspective. The aim of this contribution is to introduce a philosophical critique of this commonly accepted constructivist approach of serial homicide. Our study will start with some epistemological considerations on criminological classifications and investigation techniques. This will not only help us to clarify the methodological flaws in social constructionism essays (Caputi, 1987; Cameron & Frazer, 1987; Seltzer, 1998; Tithecott, 1998), but also enable us to refine our domain of inquiry with more specific guidelines. Secondly, aided by the works of Ian Hacking (1998; 2000; 2002), we will question the philosophical implications of the social construction of serial murder. Eventually, we will vindicate an anthropological approach for prospective researches on serial murder. In brief, we would like to establish two claims: (1) in the United States, serial murder was experienced as a nightmarish episode of the sexual revolution; (2) on a cross historical and cultural level, serial murder has to be described as a sacrificial practice—that is as a type of crime tying violence to the sacred.
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