Abstract
It has been widely opined in discussions around a number of transnational criminal markets that where a global economic supply and demand relationship exists, demand reduction by way of consumer education and ‘awareness-raising’ may be an effective intervention in reducing illicit trade. It seems an obvious and sensible suggestion on the face of it, but just how amenable are consumers to being educated away from purchasing illicitly obtained and trafficked goods, and what are the barriers that stand in the way of that process of demand reduction through awareness-raising? This paper approaches these questions by asking what are the conditions for guilt-free consumption in the international trade in illicit cultural objects. The paper identifies seven such conditions, and concludes that in this global market we are witnessing the playing out of a common social story in which a powerful group of market capitalists and end-consumers employs a range of sociologically developed linguistic and performative strategies to obfuscate or legitimise their exploitation of a group of less powerful victims. If that is the context for the so-called debate about illicit antiquities, crime-reduction strategies involving consumer education seem considerably more difficult to achieve than has been widely recognised in policy discussions on transnational crime.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
See Brodie’s paper in this issue which suggests that this common assumption may well be incorrect.
References
Alder, C., Chappell, D., & Polk, K. (2009). Perspectives on the Organisation and Control of the Illicit Traffic in Antiquities in South East Asia. In S. Manacorda (Ed.), Organised Crime in Art and Antiquities (pp. 119–144). Milan: International Scientific and Professional Advisory Council of the UN Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme.
Bakan, J. (2004). The Corporation: the Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power. New York: Free Press.
Becker, H. S. (1963). Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. New York: Free Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1996). On Television and Journalism, tr. P. Parkhurst Ferguson. London: Pluto Press.
Braithwaite, J. (1984). Corporate Crime in the Pharmaceutical Industry. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Brodie, N. and Bowman Proulx, B. (forthcoming) ‘Museum Malpractice as Corporate Crime? The Case of the J. Paul Getty Museum’, Journal of Crime and Justice.
Brodie, N., Doole, J., & Renfrew, C. (Eds.). (2001). Trade in Illicit Antiquities: the Destruction of the World’s Archaeological Heritage. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
Brodie, N., Doole, J., & Watson, P. (2000). Stealing History: the Illicit Trade in Cultural Material. Cambridge: The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
Coggins, C. (1969) ‘Illicit Traffic of Pre-Columbian Antiquities’, Art Journal, Fall: 94-8.
Cohen, N. (2004). Pretty Straight Guys. London: Faber and Faber.
Cohen, S. (2001). States of Denial: Knowing about Atrocities and Suffering. Cambridge: Polity.
Cuno, J. (2008). Who Owns Antiquity? Museums and the Battle Over Our Ancient Heritage. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Duster, T. (1971). Conditions for Guilt-Free Massacre. In N. Sanford & C. Comstock (Eds.), Sanctions for Evil. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Inc.
Ede, J. (1998). Ethics, the Antiquities Trade, and Archaeology. International Journal of Cultural Property, 7(1), 128–131.
Elia, R.J. (1994) ‘The World Cannot Afford Many More Collectors with a Passion for Antiquities’, The Art Newspaper, 41(October): 19.
Felch, J., & Frammolino, R. (2011). Chasing Aphrodite: the Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the World’s Richest Museum. Boston/New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Fitz Gibbon, K. (ed) (2005) Who Owns the Past? Cultural Policy, Cultural Property, and the Law. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Garfinkel, H. (1956). Conditions of Successful Status Degradation Ceremonies. American Journal of Sociology, 6, 420–424.
Gerstenblith, P. (2002) ‘United States v. Schultz’, Culture Without Context: the Newsletter of the Illicit Antiquities Research Centre, University of Cambridge, 10(Spring).
Gerstenblith, P. (2003) ‘The McClain/Schultz Doctrine: Another Step Against Trade in Stolen Antiquities’, Culture Without Context: the Newsletter of the Illicit Antiquities Research Centre, University of Cambridge, 13(Autumn).
Gerstenblith, P. (2007). Controlling the International Market in Antiquities: Reducing the Harm, Preserving the Past. Chicago Journal of International Law, 8(1), 167–195.
Gerstenblith, P. (2009) ‘Schultz and Barakat: Universal Recognition of National Ownership of Antiquities’, Art, Antiquity and Law, 14(1).
Hawkins, A., Rothman, R. A., & Goldstein, D. B. (1995). A Tale of Two Innocents: Creating an Equitable Balance Between the Rights of Former Owners and Good Faith Purchasers of Stolen Art. Fordham Law Review, 64(1), 49–96.
Home Office and Scottish Government. (2008). Update to the UK Action Plan on Tackling Human Trafficking. London: Home Office.
Mackenzie, S. (2005). Going, Going, Gone: Regulating the Market in Illicit Antiquities. Leicester: Institute of Art and Law.
Mackenzie, S. (2011). Illicit Deals in Cultural Objects as Crimes of the Powerful. Crime, Law and Social Change, 56, 133–153.
Mackenzie, S., & Green, P. (2009). Criminalising the Market in Illicit Antiquities: an Evaluation of the Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act 2003 in England and Wales. In S. Mackenzie & P. Green (Eds.), Criminology and Archaeology: Studies in Looted Antiquities. Oxford: Hart.
Marks, P. (1998). The Ethics of Art Dealing. International Journal of Cultural Property, 7(1), 116–127.
McSweeney, T., Turnbull, P., & Hough, M. (2008). Tackling Drug Markets and Distribution Networks in the UK: a Review of the Recent Literature. London: UK Drug Policy Commission.
Merryman, J. H. (1986). Two Ways of Thinking about Cultural Property. American Journal of International Law, 80, 831.
Murphy, J. D. (1995). Plunder and Preservation: Cultural Property Law and Practice in the People’s Republic of China. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press.
Ngoc, A. C., & Wyatt, T. (2013). A Green Criminological Exploration of Illegal Wildlife Trade in Vietnam. Asian Criminology, 8, 129–142.
Palmer, N., Addyman, P., Anderson, R., Browne, A., Somers Cocks, A., Davies, M., et al. (2000). ‘Ministerial Advisory Panel on Illicit Trade’, December 2000. London: Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
Pearlstein, W. G. (1996). Claims for the Repatriation of Cultural Property: Prospects for a Managed Antiquities Market. Georgetown Journal of Law and Policy in International Business, 28(1), 123–150.
Polk, K. (2000) ‘The Antiquities Trade Viewed as a Criminal Market’, Hong Kong Lawyer, September: 82-92.
Redmond-Cooper, R. (2000). Limitation of Actions in Art and Antiquity Claims: Part II. Art Antiquity and Law, 5(2), 185–206.
Renfrew, C. (1999). Loot, Legitimacy and Ownership: the Ethical Crisis in Archaeology. Amsterdam: Joh. Enschede.
Schneider, J. L. (2008). Reducing the Illicit Trade in Endangered Wildlife: the Market Reduction Approach. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 24(3), 274–295.
Siegel, D. (2009). The Mazzel Ritual: Culture, Customs and Crime in the Diamond Trade. Dordrecht: Springer.
Sutherland, E. H., & Cressey, D. R. (1978). Criminology. Philadelphia: Lippincott.
Tailby, R. (2002). ‘The Illicit Market in Diamonds’, Trends & Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice No 218, January 2002. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology.
Taussig, M. (1999). Defacement: Public Secrecy and the Labor of the Negative. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Tijhuis, E. A. J. G. (2006). Transnational Crime and the Interface between Legal and Illegal Actors: the Case of the Illicit Art and Antiquities Trade. Nijmegen, Netherlands: Wolf Legal Publishers.
True, M. (2011) ‘Neither Condemned Nor Vindicated’, The Art Newspaper, 220.
Vaughan, D. (1996). The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Vaughan, D. (1998). Rational Choice, Situated Action, and the Social Control of Organizations. Law and Society Review, 32(1), 23–61.
Vaughan, D. (1999). The Dark Side of Organizations: Mistake, Misconduct, and Disaster. Annual Review of Sociology, 25, 271–305.
Vaughan, D. (2004). Organizational Rituals of Risk and Error. In B. Hutter & M. Power (Eds.), Organizational Encounters with Risk. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Watson, P., & Todeschini, C. (2006). The Medici Conspiracy: the Illicit Journey of Looted Antiquities - From Italy’s Tomb Raiders to the World’s Greatest Museums. New York: Public Affairs.
Wilson, J. M., & Dalton, E. (2008). Human Trafficking in the Heartland: Variation in Law Enforcement Awareness and Response. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 24(6), 296–313.
Zerubavel, E. (2006). The Elephant in the Room: Silence and Denial in Everyday Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Acknowledgments
The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) / ERC Grant agreement n° 283873 GTICO.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Mackenzie, S. Conditions for Guilt-Free Consumption in a Transnational Criminal Market. Eur J Crim Policy Res 20, 503–515 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10610-013-9229-z
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10610-013-9229-z