Dr Eleni Dimou

Research Interests:

Dr. Eleni Dimou is a senior lecturer in the Social Policy and Criminology department.  Her research bridges critical and cultural criminology, zemiology, decoloniality, philosophy, politics, history, cultural studies, and social justice, focusing on the intersections of power, resistance, and harm. Her scholarly interests are deeply rooted in exploring the legacies of colonialism (i.e. coloniality), including but not limited to processes of criminalisation, harm and injustice, as well as the cultural and political dynamics of subcultures, countercultures and social movements. Her work critically examines how power (coloniality) shapes societal structures and manifestations of harm and how expressions of resistance contribute to broader cultural and social change, no matter how subtle or explicit.

Her interdisciplinary research delves into the politics of criminalisation alongside the resistance embodied in subcultures and countercultures, such as Cuban underground rap and reggaeton. She critically explores migration, border violence and the punitive logic of border regimes, exposing how these structures are rooted in colonial technologies of power that continue to shape contemporary governance and exclusion. Her work also examines the lived realities of oppressed communities under settler colonialism and critically explores the criminalisation of solidarity movements that seek to challenge and resist that injustice.  Additionally, her work interrogates the harms of crypto-colonialism and its broader socio-political implications. Her scholarship is marked by a commitment to decoloniality, addressing the epistemic violence inherent in criminology and advocating for transformative, justice-oriented perspectives.

Her commitment to rethinking dominant paradigms extends beyond academia. You can see her recent video for BBC Ideas, Is it time to reassess our relationship with nature?, which explores the interconnectedness of environmental and colonial histories, by following this link: Watch here.

Approach to Teaching:

Her research deeply informs her teaching, fostering a critical and decolonial approach to studying power, resistance, harm, crime, and social justice. By integrating insights from her work, she encourages students to engage critically with dominant narratives and practices. Her teaching challenges the structural inequalities embedded in legal, political, and cultural systems through an interdisciplinary lens, equipping students with the analytical tools to interrogate colonial legacies and their contemporary manifestations. She is a dedicated educator with extensive experience in curriculum design, module leadership, and innovative teaching methodologies. At the Open University, she has played a pivotal role in developing and delivering criminology modules, emphasising inclusivity and student engagement. She has introduced assessments that foster critical thinking and creativity, such as blogs, image discourse analysis, annotated bibliographies, and dissertations tailored to diverse learning needs. She is currently the module convenor of DD311: Crime, Harm and the State.

Supervisory Interests

She is interested in supervising work that interrogates the epistemic violence embedded in criminology, social sciences, cultural and legal systems, as well as research on crypto-colonialism and its socio-political implications.  She also welcomes prospective PhD students interested in critically exploring themes at the intersection of migration, border regimes, and criminalisation, particularly in relation to colonial and neo-colonial technologies of power. She is keen to supervise projects that examine the criminalisation of solidarity movements, the politics of subcultures and countercultures (such as underground music and artistic resistance),  the lived realities of oppressed communities under settler colonialism, as well as contemporary manifestations of coloniality and neo-colonialism concerning harm and injustice.