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Staff Profile

Dr Wanda Canton

Lecturer in Sociology

Background

My interdisciplinary research interweaves (critical) criminology, ethnomusicology, sound studies, and critical theory.


I have long taken an interest in state violence and political resistance to it. My undergraduate in International Relations focused on indigenous women's leadership in the Zapatista (EZLN) movement in Mexico. My masters in Psychoanalytic Studies focused on British media responses to ISIS and its Islamophobic implications. My doctorate began as an exploration of the criminalisation of rap music but became a critical discussion of the role of the community as an abolitionist alternative to the criminal justice system, and its neoliberal entanglements to the Non-Profit Industrial Complex.


My professional background is in designing and managing mental health services, with a focus on co-production and arts-based peer support. As a facilitator and consultant I specialised in workshops and structured support groups championing rap music and spoken word as a way to survive and express trauma, stigmatisation and incarceration. I delivered these groups in secure psychiatric hospitals, domestic violence services, mental health recovery centres and prisoner support services, among others. I have worked in and visited men's prisons across the UK (Cat A-C) to promote arts and education. I have supported Expert Defence Witnesses where rap lyrics are used as evidence in court.


I have contributed as a guest speaker to the Listening Place Bilennial (Norway) and the University of British Colombia (on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm Musqueam people).



Research

My research centres on British and American abolitionist politics and forms of policing, which may include methods control and punishment beyond state institutions. For example, the criminalisation and censorship of popular culture including UK Drill, social media, subcultures and protest which may rely on businesses and the third sector to enforce. I am particularly interested in differences between prison industrial complex abolitionism and abolitionism informed by Afro-pessimism and/or Black optimism. I explore concepts of the community, constructions of subjectivity and violence within this. I am interested in protest and social movements which use noise and disorder.


I welcome ideas and collaborations for projects which work directly with people affected by criminalisation and incarceration.


In 2022 I founded Sonic Rebellions, an international research network of artists, activists and academics exploring the relationship between sound and social justice. This includes popular music and culture, sonic methodologies and the relevance of sound in social movements around the world. We have bi-annual 'seasons' of events with conferences, interactive workshops and more. We have a book series under Routledge and hope to publish our second volume in early 2026.



Teaching

I have taught Criminology and Sociology since 2022, and joined Newcastle University in 2025.


I currently teach as follows:


Postgraduate


SOC2070 This is How We Do It: Sociology Research Design and Proposal (module lead)

SOC8054 Gender and Its Intersections (module co-lead)

SEC8026 Global Security: Politics, Space & Society (lecturer)



Undergraduate


SOC2044 Sociology of Crime: Social Control in Neoliberal Societies (lecturer)

SOC2058 Theorising Social Worlds (lecturer)

Publications