Strangers in our Midst
This chapter explores the legal construction of culture and cultural difference in criminal litigation. Drawing on empirical material and reported judgments from English courts, the chapter documents the content of appeals to culture and identifies the pitfalls of their exploitation in criminal litigation. Cultural difference is not a neutral marker to separate social groups in the courtroom. Rather it is often deployed to explain behaviour in relation to specific groups, and is loaded with prejudices and stereotypical representations of racialized minorities. As a legal strategy in criminal litigation, it has worrying effects. These appeals to culture fix individuals into separate and essentialized categories, and prevent an assessment of individual conduct; they conceal structural social inequalities, racism, and discrimination, and the role of the law in perpetuating them; and extra-territorialize undesirable behaviour, norms, and values.