Professor Stephen Tong, Director of Research and Enterprise in the School of law, Policing & Social Sciences, said: "This is an outstanding achievement by Jennifer Hardes.

"Theoretical Criminology is held in very high regard within the discipline of criminology and the standard of articles considered for this award was extremely high. Jennifer produces very high-quality research with excellent publications, so to be recognized in this way is a great reward for her hard work and dedication to her research."  

Dr Hardes won the award for her article ‘Governing excess: Boxing, biopolitics and the body’. This article uses a biopolitical approach to explain why some forms of fighting for sport and spectacle, such as prize fighting, are considered to be criminal and disreputable whereas others, such as boxing, are legal and legitimated.

The article challenges both the prevailing ‘civilizing process’ explanation for the criminalization of some forms of sport fighting and the notion of fighting as deviance from the overall governance project. Instead, Dr Hardes argues that mundane technologies and scientific rationalities helped enroll boxing into broader processes of governance.