Description

Transnational Crime, Local Denial

The international market in illicit antiquities is a useful case study of a form of transnational crime. The most significant impact of “globalization” on this illicit market appears not to have been in the production of new expeditious illicit transit networks, but on aiding the emergence of a global discourse concerned with the protection of the world’s cultural heritage from the more deleterious of the forces of the market. Increasingly, this discourse has begun to recognize the failure of state-based controls in source countries, and has begun to explore systemic “global” solutions to the problem. The research reported here draws attention to one problematic aspect of demand reduction initiatives: the differential responses of market participants to a changing climate of control. Charted here are the types of denial engendered by legal and moral structural change in the marketplace, and their implications for market regulation.

environmental crime, antiquities, neutralization, denial, field, habitus

Citation: Social Justice Vol. 34, No. 2 (2007): 111-123