SJ Cooper-Knock
School of Law
Senior Lecturer in Criminology
EDI Director
+44 114 222 6798
Full contact details
School of Law
EF03
Bartolomé House
Winter Street
Sheffield
S3 7ND
- Profile
-
My research focuses on the politics of urban in life in South Africa. The current focus of my work includes: everyday policing and punishment; being and belonging in the city; the politics of crisis; and concepts of urban justice.
I completed my undergraduate in History and Politics (BA Hons) at the University of Nottingham. Later, I studied for my MPhil and DPhil in International Development at the University of Oxford.
I worked at the London School of Economics and Political Science in International Development before moving to the University of Edinburgh where I was jointly appointed by Social Anthropology and the Centre of African Studies.
I joined the University of Sheffield as a joint appointment between the Department of Sociological Studies and the School of Law in 2021. I am also a member of the Sheffield Institute for International Development and the Centre for Criminological Research.
I am also an Associate Researcher at ACMS at the University of the Witwatersrand, I am on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Southern African Studies and Critical African Studies.
- Qualifications
-
- PhD, University of Oxford
- MPhil, University of Oxford
- BA(hons) University of Nottingham
- Research interests
-
My research focuses on the politics of urban in life in South Africa. The current focus of my work includes: everyday policing and punishment; being and belonging in the city; the politics of crisis; and concepts of urban justice. It includes:
-Everyday Policing and Punishment, exploring different forms of policing and punishment and their consequences in South Africa with a range of collaborators including Dr Gail Super and Kamau Wairuri.
-Off-grid Cities, exploring elite off-grid decisions around energy and their broader consequences for sustainability and justice with Gauteng City Regional Observatory, University of Cambridge, University of the Western Cape, and University of the Witwatersrand.
-Magistrates Courts in South Africa and Uganda with Dr Anna Macdonald (University of East Anglia).
-Moving Words Project exploring migration, being, and belonging in Johannesburg with Dr Duduzile Ndlovu (ACMS, Wits).
-The Lockdown Diary Project exploring the experience of 70 residents across Cape Town from occupied buildings, informal settlements, townships and suburbs with Dr Fiona Anciano, Mmeli Dube, Mfundo Majola, and Boitumelo Papane (University of the Western Cape).
-The Politics of Fire Project exploring informal settlement fire in the Western Cape with the IRIS Fire Team (University of Edinburgh, University of the Western Cape, University of Stellenbosch).
- Publications
-
Journal articles
- “Maybe we should take the legal ways”: Citizen engagement with lower state courts in post‐war northern Uganda. Law & Society Review, 56(4), 509-531.
- A summons to the magistrates’ courts in South Africa and Uganda. African Affairs, 119(477), 552-577.
Chapters
- A moral economy of citizenship post-apartheid South Africa?, Political Values and Narratives of Resistance: Social Justice and the Fractured Promises of Post-colonial States (pp. 55-72).
- “Maybe we should take the legal ways”: Citizen engagement with lower state courts in post‐war northern Uganda. Law & Society Review, 56(4), 509-531.
- Research group
-
I am a member of the Sheffield Institute for International Development and the Centre for Criminological Research.
- Teaching interests
-
I teach on a range of criminology modules at the School of Law and the Department of Sociological Studies.
- Teaching activities
-
The UG modules I teach are:
- LAW147 Situating Crime
- LAW21004 Gender, Race and Crime
- SCS2009 The Sociology of Crime and Deviance
The PG modules I teach are:
- LAW6173 Research Process
- Professional activities and memberships
-
- Editorial Board Journal of Southern African Studies
- Editorial Board Critical African Studies