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Part I
Theoretical Pillars of a Southern Science to End Ecological Discrimination
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Chapter 1
Introduction to a Southern Green Criminology
Summary
In this first chapter, I present green criminology as a project based on three pillars and characterised by two traits. I explain how one cultural model and one economic theory have inspired most green criminology undertakings. But mainly, I argue that it is time for the structured appearance of a Southern green criminology, given that recent developments in green criminology show that North–South divides are a key driver of environmental harm.
Keywords: Consumerism; decolonial theory; epistemologies of the South; geographical South; green criminology; harm perspective; metaphorical South; multi-scalar analyses; North–South divides; Southern criminology; treadmill of production
Green Criminology
There are many insightful articles, books and book chapters written with a green criminology framework and about green criminology. Among the latter, authors like Avi Brisman and Nigel South (2013) have done an excellent job in summarising and organising the extensive green criminology knowledge produced thus far. The aim of this chapter is much less lofty than trying to provide a full overview of all intellectual green criminology production. I aim to present the main traits and key concerns of green criminology. The reader is invited, nonetheless, to explore in depth what green criminologists have written. Let me begin by offering a tentative definition of green criminology. I understand green criminology to be a sub-disciplinary conceptual framework that relies on criminology knowledge to study transgressions committed against ecosystems, human beings and non-human beings in the interactions between humans and their natural surroundings (Goyes, 2018b).
Definitions are a dangerous business. They establish borders that include and exclude, and not everyone feels comfortable in them. Furthermore, as Katja Franko points out in her discussion about terrorism, definitional processes reflect the interests of the one doing the defining (Aas, 2013, now Franko). This is evident in that several definitions for green criminology exist, and in most cases, green criminologists are in disagreement about them. Ragnhild Sollund (2013c) argues that only the criminology endeavours that acknowledge the intrinsic value of all species on the planet can be regarded as green criminology. Paul Stretesky, Michael Long and Michael Lynch (2014) propose that green criminology is the study of the systematic production of harms brought about by the capitalist treadmill of production. Rob White (2012b) goes further and proposes changing the name of green criminology to eco-global criminology to draw attention to the global nature of green crimes. Gary Potter (2018) agrees with the idea of changing the name of the discipline. He suggests the label ‘ecocriminology’ instead, arguing that not only one arm of criminology, that is, green criminology, should be concerned with the natural environment, but the entire discipline should also involve itself in the discussion. These diverse suggestions show the difficulty of defining green criminology; however, they also signal that green criminology is not merely theoretical but rather an orientation that directs the study of the actors, drivers and consequences of detrimental human interactions with their natural surroundings. Arguably, it is because green criminology is primarily an orientation and not a theory that accounts for its fruitfulness: by not having only one overarching explanation for every environmental harm, it borrows conceptual tools from all fields and types of knowledge to develop deeper and more complex understandings of the issue (Brisman, Goyes, Mol, & South, 2017).
Tenets of Green Criminology
Despite these definitional differences, the conceptualisations I discussed above contain the three fundamental tenets shared by most green criminologists:
(1) Green criminology is located within the discipline of criminology.
(2) Green criminology is concerned with how human action and agency elicit harmful ecological consequences.
(3) Green criminology expands the category of victim to include ecosystems and non-human animals.
Green Criminology as a Sub-Discipline of Criminology
That green criminology is a sub-discipline of criminology means that the former shares broad interests of the latter. Then again, clearly defining the interests of criminology is filled with challenging pitfalls, mainly because criminology, more than any other discipline, is a post-disciplinary discipline (Pavlich, 2000) that does not have a clear core and whose boundaries, if they exist, are indeterminate. Pat Carlen (2011) has reproached those who try to impose a definition of criminology for being evangelists. This may be harsher than necessary because we can agree that criminology is roughly concerned with studying a set of processes and a set of entities related to criminality. Among the processes are those of defining crime, producing crime, reacting to crime and victimising. Among the entities, which are more static phenomena, are criminals, victims and the consequences of criminality (Lomell & Skilbrei, 2017). If we adopt such a non-specific definition of criminology, we can say that green criminology is concerned with studying those processes and entities that concern environmental conflicts. Examples of the consequential questions that green criminology explores are: what are the social processes by which an environmental action is labelled ‘legal’ or ‘criminal’? What are the processes of committing environmental crimes? Why does a society react the way it does to environmental criminality? Who can be labelled as an environmental criminal? What groups are most often environmentally victimised? What short-term and long-term social consequences do environmental crimes have?
Human Action and Agency in Green Crime
Environmentally destructive events that are not the product of human intervention are not considered to be within the scope of green criminology. Criminology as sociology is concerned with human social action, which Max Weber (1922/1997) defined as that which is executed in the framework of human co-existence and has a specific social intention. Consequently, social action is meaningful, affected by cultural and economic elements, and simultaneously affects those elements. Green criminologists study the complex social webs where environmental crime is conceived and executed. So, for instance, lions eating zebras in the normal course of their lives is not of interest to green criminologists because no human action is involved; it is not, per se, environmentally destructive. However, the reach of the tentacles of humanity is so widespread on this planet that it is difficult to identify an environmentally destructive event in which humans are not involved. Nonetheless, because of its focus on the natural environment, green criminology must also understand and use the knowledge of scientific disciplines studying the organisms that inhabit earth, whether that be zoology, ecology or genetics.
The Category of Victim Includes Ecosystems and Non-human Animals
In orthodox criminology, legal and victimology studies, the victim is defined as a person who fits into the legal definition of victim. Scholars in these disciplines have critiqued this legalistic approach as being too narrow and not always in line with reality. This radical adjustment takes as victims all those who suffer, whether directly or indirectly, the harmful consequences of an event regardless of legal definitions (Skilbrei, 2017). Humans are not the only species on earth that have the capacity to suffer. Non-human animals are sentient beings who feel pain, experience fear and anxiety, and are aware that they are being hurt (Regan, 1983; Sollund, 2014). Seeing only humans as victims does not stand to reason when animals can suffer in equal measure. Furthermore, green criminology recognises ecosystems as a third kind of victim. As I explain in Chapter 3, many Latin American Indigenous communities see Mother Earth, or Pachamama, as the living body on which they live (Zaffaroni, 2012). In physics, the Gaia hypothesis asserts that all beings on planet earth are interconnected (Sheptycki, 2016), and the butterfly effect claims that the flapping of a butterfly wing on one side of the globe can result in a tornado on the other side (Hilborn, 2004; Lorenz, 1972). Both indigenous philosophy and these concepts developed in physics stress that all species on planet earth, no matter how small, depend on the wellbeing of the whole. Likewise, Robert Ezra Park (1925/1999), one of the most influential criminologists of all times, warned almost a century ago that the biotic equilibrium of an ecosystem guaranteed the wellbeing of its components. For Park, of course, this was a metaphor for the vibrancy of the city as an ecosystem. But ironically, Park’s idea is most apt in its literal sense: we depend for our survival on the wellbeing of the ecosystem that hosts us and of which we are a part. In this sense, ecosystems can also be victims.
Characteristics of Green Criminology
While the above three tenets form the basis on which green criminology is built, it can be further distinguished by two characteristics.
The Adoption of a Harm Perspective
Green criminology does not depend on legal definitions of what constitutes a crime to outline its research interests. Rather, it takes its lead from ‘the harm perspective’ that is interested in all sources of environmental destruction and victimisation whether they are legally recognised as criminal or not. Such a way of defining the scope of criminology has its origin in the broader field of critical criminology, and has gained a new force and relevance with the emergence of green criminology.
Almost six decades ago, Schwendinger and Schwendinger (1970) drew attention to the double standard of criminology in that it did not study racism and imperialism because they were not legally defined as crimes, in effect calling for a revision of the definition of crime. Pearce (1976) and Davies, Francies, and Jupp (1999) have further highlighted the fact that even though an act is not punished by law does not necessarily mean that the action is not harmful or undesirable. Hillyard, Pantazis, Tombs, and Gordon (2004) showed that legally defined acts of crime occur very seldom compared to harmful acts that are not legally considered criminal. It follows that if criminology depends on legal definitions of crime to determine its object of study, many of the most harmful acts committed on earth would escape its radar.
The Development of Multi-scalar Analyses
Many social scientists are by now aware that the social world is shaped by complex interactions of events taking place in diverse geographies even as they have specific local effects. In sociology of law, ‘legal pluralism’ indicates that multiple legal systems operate in a territory or a state (Santos, 2009c); indigenous communities, states and the global community, all have legal systems in place that affect specific geographies. Even if originating in diverse geographies, these legal systems intersect and operate simultaneously in a specific location resulting in unique constellations of legalities.
In a similar vein, globalisation scholars have coined the term ‘glocal’ to signal that no cultural, economic or political event is absolutely global or absolutely local; rather, it occurs at the intersection of the two geographies (Aas, 2013). For biological phenomena, the interweaving of different geographies is even more important. The entire planet is a system composed of climate, oceans, land surfaces, ice masses and vegetation in a complex interrelation. This means that an ecological event in one location affects other geographies as well. Forestry in the Amazon not only affects Amazonian ecosystems but also the entire earth system because the carbon dioxide emitted when the trees are felled contributes to the warming of the atmosphere of the entire planet. With these considerations in mind, Rob White (2012b) calls for the interactions between the local, the national, the regional and the global to be situated centrally in the development of green criminological studies.
What Falls Under the Purview of Green Criminology?
Given these three pillars and two traits, transgressions against ecosystems, humans and non-humans produced in the interactions between humans and their natural surroundings are of concern to green criminology. Commentators may consider this too imprecise, but it is this latitude that makes green criminology a stimulating and fertile field while simultaneously worrisome. The seemingly never-ending stream of human activities that harms the natural environment allows for endless scope for research, including even the most innocuous of human activity. Take for instance the apparently innocent yacht expeditions to the famous Balearic Islands that Morelle Hungría (2018) has shown contribute to the destruction of Posidonia Oceanica, a sea grass that is vital for the health of the marine ecosystems of this Mediterranean archipelago.
North–South Divides as a Key Driver of Environmental Harm
The two most influential theoretical perspectives used by green criminologists in their research of environmental destruction and victimisation are cultural and economic. Stretesky et al. (2014) have developed a political economy approach to explain how global structural economic forces lead to environmental harm. They characterise contemporary capitalism in three ways: the constant expansion of production in order to increase profit, the manipulation of production systems to create surplus profits and the unlimited expansion of capital. Capitalism harnesses nature for its treadmill of production first, by extracting raw materials and energy resources necessary for production, and second, by creating production waste (pollution), that is, production cannot be 100 per cent efficient. While natural systems, in their pristine state, have a productive function that follows natural laws of energy transformation, capitalist production, with its extractions and accumulations, alters those natural processes by accelerating entropy, contributing to global ecological disorganisation.
Brisman and South (2014) have looked at the cultural aspect of environmental degradation, focussing on consumerism as one of the most important drivers of environmental harm. Humans around the globe are expe...
