Abstract
There are many connections between the various strands of critical criminology. Previously, we highlighted common issues between green and cultural criminology, while also noting some of the ways that each perspective could potentially benefit from cross-fertilization (Brisman and South in Crime Media Cult 9(2):115–135, 2013, Green cultural criminology: constructions of environmental harm, consumerism and resistance to ecocide. Routledge, Oxford, 2014; McClanahan in Crit Criminol. doi:10.1007/s10612-014-9241-8, 2014). In this article, we extend our analysis to consider green, cultural and rural criminologies through the exposition of several key issues, including “the rural” as local context in which exploitative global forces may exercise power; agribusiness and the food/profit chain; farming and the pollution of land, water and air; and finally, cultural/media images and narratives of rural life. We focus more specifically on this final intersectionality through an analysis of Jonathan Franzen’s novel Freedom (2010), analyzing his depictions of rural people, environmental activists, and the rural environment through the issue of mountaintop removal. We conclude our article by identifying several examples of key directions in which the intersectionality of green, cultural and rural criminologies might proceed, including trafficking and abuse of farmworkers, harms associated with the cultivation of quinoa, and a critical interpretation of media and popular narrative depictions of environmental issues within rural contexts.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Because of the radical changes to landscape, culture, and ecological health presented by mountaintop removal mining, the discursive deployment of “reclamation” is a central component of the processes through which mine operators gain social support for extraction. Simply put, without the ecologically empty promise of reclamation, mine operators would likely face much more resistance from the communities affected by mountaintop removal.
References
Agnew, R. (2011). Dire forecast: A theoretical model of the impact of climate change on crime. Theoretical Criminology, 16(1), 21–42.
Agnew, R. (2012). It’s the end of the world as we know it: The advance of climate change from a criminological perspective. In R. White (Ed.), Climate change from a criminological perspective (pp. 13–25). New York: Springer.
Akella, A., & Cannon, J. (2004). Strengthening the weakest links: Strategies for improving the enforcement of environmental laws globally. Center for Conservation and Government. Washington, DC: Conservation International. Accessed at: http://www.oecd.org/environment/outreach/33947741.pdf.
Appalachian Voices. (2013). Mountaintop removal 101. http://appvoices.org/end-mountaintop-removal/mtr101/.
Arsenault, C. (2011). Zapatistas: The war with no breath? http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/01/20111183946608868.html.
Bady, A. (2010). Franzen’s Freedom and unfinished realism. http://www.thevalve.org/go/valve/article/franzens_freedom_and_unfinished_realism/.
Beirne, P. (1997). Rethinking bestiality: Towards a concept of interspecies sexual assault. Theoretical Criminology, 1(3), 317–340.
Beirne, P. (2007). Animal rights, animal abuse, and green criminology. In P. Beirne & N. South (Eds.), Issues in green criminology: Confronting harms against environments, humanity and other animals (pp. 55–83). Cullompton: Willan.
Beirne, P. (2009). Confronting animal abuse: Law, criminology, and human-animal relationships. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Benton, T. (1998). Rights and justice on a shared planet: More rights or new relations? Theoretical Criminology, 2(2), 149–175.
Bisschop, L. (2012). Is it all going to waste? Illegal transports of e-waste in a European hub. Crime, Law and Social Change, 58(3), 221–249.
Bové, J., & Dufour, F. (2001). The world is not for sale: Farmers against junk food. Interviewed by Gilles Luneau, Translated by Anna De Casparis. London: Verso.
Brisman, A. (2006). Meth chic and the tyranny of the immediate: Reflections on the culture-drug/drug-crime relationships. North Dakota Law Review, 82(4), 1273–1396.
Brisman, A., & Rau, A. (2009). From fear of crime to fear of nature: The problem with permitting loaded, concealed firearms in National Parks. Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal, 2(2), 255–272.
Brisman, A., & South, N. (2013). A green-cultural criminology: An exploratory outline. Crime Media Culture, 9(2), 115–135.
Brisman, A., & South, N. (2014). Green cultural criminology: Constructions of environmental harm, consumerism and resistance to ecocide. London and New York: Routledge.
Bunce, M. (1994). The countryside ideal: Anglo-American images of landscape. London: Routledge.
Carrington, K. (2013). Corporate risk, mining camps and knowledge/power. In K. Carrington, M. Ball, E. O’Brien, & J. Tauri (Eds.), Crime, justice and social democracy: International perspectives (pp. 295–311). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Carrington, K., Hogg, R., & McIntosh, A. (2011). The resource boom’s underbelly: Criminological impacts of mining development. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 44(3), 335–354.
Carrington, K., McIntosh, A., Hogg, R., & Scott, J. (2013). Rural masculinities and the internalisation of violence in agricultural communities. International Journal of Rural Criminology, 2(1), 3–24.
Carter, T. (1996). The failure of environmental regulation in New York. Crime, Law and Social Change, 26(1), 27–52.
Cheng, H. (2012). Cheap capitalism: a sociological study of food crime in China. British Journal of Criminology, 52(2), 254–273.
Cloke, P. (2006). Conceptualising rurality. In P. Cloke, T. Mardsen, & P. Mooney (Eds.), Handbook of rural studies (pp. 18–27). London: Sage.
Corrigan, M. (2011). ‘Freedom’: franzen’s novel earns high praise. NPR.org book review. http://www.npr.org/2011/09/30/140918939/freedom-franzens-novel-earns-high-praise.
Curry, M., & Cullman, S. (Directors) (2011). If a tree falls: A story of the earth liberation front (Motion Picture, distributed by Oscilloscope Laboratories).
DeKeseredy, W. (2013). Pushing the envelope: The current states of North American critical criminology. Paper presented as part of the presidential panel: Key perspectives in critical criminology at the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Atlanta, GA (22 November 2013).
DeKeseredy, W., & Donnermeyer, J. (2013). Thinking critically about rural crime: Toward the development of a new left realist perspective. In S. Winlow & R. Atkinson (Eds.), New directions in crime and deviancy (pp. 206–222). London: Routledge.
DeKeseredy, W., Muzzatti, S., & Donnerymeyer, J. (2014). Mad men in bib overalls: Media’s horrification and pornification of rural culture. Critical Criminology, 22(2), 179–197.
DeKeseredy, W., Schwartz, M., & Donnermeyer, J. (2009). Dangerous exits: Escaping abusive relationships in rural America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Dingwall, G., & Moody, S. (Eds.). (1999). Crime and conflict in the countryside. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
Donnermeyer, J. (2012). Rural crime and critical criminology. In W. Dekeseredy & M. Dragiewicz (Eds.), Routledge handbook of critical criminology (pp. 289–301). London: Routledge.
Donnermeyer, Joseph F., & DeKeseredy, Walter S. (2014). Rural Criminology. London and New York: Routledge.
Dorn, N., Van Daele, S., & Vander Beken, T. (2007). Reducing vulnerabilities to crime of the European waste management industry. European Journal of Crime, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, 15(1), 23–36.
Duffy, R. (2010). Nature Crime: How we’re getting conservation wrong. London and New Haven: Yale University Press.
Du Rées, H. (2001). Can criminal law protect the environment? Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention, 2(2), 109–126.
Evans, A. (2011). Resource scarcity, climate change and the risk of violent conflict. Washington, DC: World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/9191.
Ferrell, J. (2001). Tearing down the streets: Adventures in urban anarchy. New York: Palgrave.
Ferrell, J. (2006). Empire of scrounge: Inside the urban underground of dumpster diving, trash picking, and street scavenging. New York: New York University Press.
Ferrell, J. (2013). Tangled up in green: Cultural criminology and green criminology. In N. South & A. Brisman (Eds.), Routledge international handbook of green criminology (pp. 349–364). New York, NY: Routledge.
Franzen, J. (2010). Freedom. New York, NY: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux.
Gaarder, E. (2011). Women and the animal rights movement. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Gentile, S. (2010). Clearing the air: The fury over Jonathan Franzen’s ‘Freedom’. Need to know: The daily need, Sept. 16. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/the-daily-need/clearing-the-air-the-fury-over-jonathan-franzens-freedom/3558/.
Geredien, R. (2009). Post-mountaintop removal reclamation of mountain summits for economic development in Appalachia. Prepared for the Natural Resources Defense Council. http://www.ilovemountains.org/reclamation-fail/mining-reclamation-2010/MTR_Economic_Reclamation_Report_for_NRDC_V7.pdf.
Geredien, R. (2009b). Extent of mountaintop mining in Appalachia—2009. Boone, NC: Appalachian Voices.
Gibbs, C., McGarrell, E., & Axelrod, M. (2010). Transnational white-collar crime and risk: Lessons from the global trade in electronic waste. Criminology & Public Policy, 9(3), 543–560.
Halsey, M., & White, R. (1998). Crime, ecophilosophy and environmental harm. Theoretical Criminology, 2(3), 345–371.
Hayward, K. (2012). Five spaces of cultural criminology. British Journal of Criminology, 52(3), 441–462.
Jacques, M., & Gibbs, C. (2013). Confined animal feeding operations. CRIMSOC: The Journal of Social Criminology, Green Criminology Issue, (Autumn), 10–66. http://socialcriminology.webs.com/CRIMSOC%202013%20Green%20Criminology.pdf.
Kohm, S., & Greenhill, P. (2013). ‘This is the north, where we do what we want’: Popular green criminology and ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ films. In N. South & A. Brisman (Eds.), Routledge international handbook of green criminology (pp 365–378). London and New York: Routledge.
Kramer, R. (2012). Public criminology and the responsibility to speak in the prophetic voice concerning global warming. In E. Stanley & J. McCulloch (Eds.), State crime and resistance (pp. 41–53). London: Routledge.
Lanier, M., & Henry, S. (2010). Essential criminology. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.
Laurendeau, J. (2008). Gendered risk regimes: A theoretical consideration of edgework and gender. Sociology of Sport Journal, 25(3), 293–309.
Lezzard, N. (2011) Freedom by Jonathan Franzen—Review. The Guardian. 1 September, 2011. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/sep/01/freedom-jonathan-franzen-review.
Linnemann, T. (2012). Living on the wrong side of town: Toward a cultural criminology of the rural. Presented at the 2012 annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Chicago, IL (14 November 2012).
Linnemann, T. (2013). Governing through meth: Local politics, drug control and the drift toward securitization. Crime, Media, Culture, 9(1), 39–61.
Linnemann, T., & Kurtz, D. (2014). Beyond the ghetto: Police power, methamphetamine and the rural war on drugs. Critical Criminology. 22(3), 339–355.
Linnemann, T., & Wall, T. (2013). “This is your face on meth: The punitive spectacle of “white trash” and the rural war on drugs. Theoretical Criminology, 17(3), 315–333.
Little, A. (2010). Jonathan Franzen on activism, overpopulation, and birds. The Guardian. Dec. 6. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/dec/06/jonathan-franzen-activism-overpopulation-birds.
Long, M., Stretesky, P., Lynch, M., & Fenwick, E. (2012). Crime in the coal industry: Implications for green criminology and treadmill of production. Organization & Environment, 25(3), 328–346.
Lowe, P., & Flynn, A. (1989). Environmental policy and politics in the 1980 s. In J. Mohan (Ed.), The political geography of contemporary Britain. London: Macmillan.
Lowe, P., Ward, N., Seymour, S., & Clark, J. (1996). Farm pollution as environmental crime. Science as Culture, 5(4), 588–612.
Lynch, M. (1990). The greening of criminology: A perspective on the 1990s. Critical Criminologist, 2(3–4), 165–169.
Lyng, S. (1990). Edgework: A social psychological analysis of voluntary risk-taking. American Journal of Sociology, 95(4), 851–886.
Mawby, R., & Yarwood, R. (2011). Rural policing and policing the rural: A constable countryside?. Farnham: Ashgate.
McClanahan, B. (2014). Green and grey: Water justice, criminalization and resistance. Critical Criminology. 22(3), 403–418.
McQuaid, J. (2009). Mountaintop mining legacy: Destroying Appalachian streams. http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2172.
Newmahr, S. (2011). Chaos, order, and collaboration: Toward a feminist conceptualization of edgework. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 40(6), 682–712.
Nixon, R. (2011). Slow violence and the environmentalism of the poor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Pellow, D. (2007). Resisting global toxics: Transnational movements for environmental justice. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Philpott, T. (2013). Quinoa’s rise from local food to global commodity has carried a high environmental and social cost, but that doesn’t mean you should stop eating it. The Guardian (UK). 25 January. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/25/quinoa-good-evil-complicated.
Pretty, J., et al. (2010). The top 100 questions of importance to the future of global agriculture. International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability, 8, 219–236.
Robertson, B., & Pinstrup-Andersen, P. (2010). Global land acquisition: neo-colonialism or development opportunity? Food Security, 2, 271–283.
Rothe, D. (2010). Global E-waste trade: The need for formal regulation and accountability beyond the organization. Criminology and Public Policy, 9(3), 561–567.
Scott, R. (2010). Removing mountains: Extracting nature and identity in the Appalachian coalfields. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Shivani, A. (2011). Why Jonathan Franzen’s “Freedom” is the most overrated recent novel. Huffington Post, February 7, 2011. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anis-shivani/jonathan-franzen-freedom-overrated_b_819103.html.
Smith, A. (2005). Conquest; Sexual violence and American Indian genocide. Cambridge: South End Press.
Snider, L. (2010). Framing E-Waste regulation: The obfuscating role of power. Criminology and Public Policy, 9(3), 569–577.
Sollund, R. (2008). Global harms: Ecological crime and speciesism. Oslo: Nova Science Publishing.
Sollund, R. (2013). The victimization of women, children, and non-human species through trafficking and trade: Crimes understood through an eco-feminist perspective. In N. South & A. Brisman (Eds.), Routledge international handbook of green criminology (pp. 317–329). London: Routledge.
South, N. (1998). A green field for criminology?: A proposal for a perspective. Theoretical Criminology, 2(2), 211–234.
South, N. (2007). The ‘corporate colonisation of nature’: Bio-prospecting, bio-piracy and the development of green criminology. In P. Beirne & N. South (Eds.), Issues in green criminology: confronting harms against environments, humanity and other animals (pp 230–247). Cullompton: Willan.
South, N. (2012). Climate change, environmental (in)security, conflict and crime. In S. Farrall, D. French, & T. Ahmed (Eds.), Climate change: Legal and criminological implications (pp. 97–111). Oxford: Hart.
Southern Poverty Law Centre. (2013). Close to slavery: Guestworker programs in the United States. http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/publications/close-to-slavery-guestworker-programs-in-the-united-states.
Spivack, J. (2012). 2007–2008 Food crisis: Causes, responses, and lessons learned. Worldwatch Institute: http://blogs.worldwatch.org/nourishingtheplanet/2007-2008-food-crisis-causes-responses-and-lessons-learned/.
Stretesky, P., Long, M., & Lynch, M. (2013). Does environmental enforcement slow the treadmill of production? The relationship between large monetary penalties, ecological disorganization and toxic releases within offending corporations. Journal of Crime and Justice, 36(2), 233–247.
Stretesky, P., Long, M., & Lynch, M. (2014). The treadmill of crime: Political economy and green criminology. London: Routledge.
Tanenhaus, S. (2010). New York Times, Sunday Book Review. August 29, 2010 (BR:10). http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/books/review/Tanenhaus-t.html.
Tunnell, K. (1998). Honesty, secrecy, and deception in the sociology of crime: Confessions and reflections from the backstage. In J. Ferrell & M. Hamm (Eds.), Ethnography at the edge (pp. 206–220). Lebanon, NH: Northeastern University Press.
UK Food Group. (2003). Food Inc: Corporate concentration from farm to consumer. London: International Institute for Environment and Development.
Urry, J. (1995). Consuming places. London: Routledge.
van Erp, J., & Huisman, W. (2010). Smart regulation and enforcement of illegal disposal of electronic waste. Criminology and Public Policy, 9(3), 579–590.
Walters, R. (2006). Crime, bio-agriculture and the exploitation of hunger. British Journal of Criminology, 46(1), 26–45.
Walters, R. (2011). Eco Crime and Genetically Modified Food. Abingdon: Routledge.
Weber, M. (1946). From Max Weber. New York: Oxford University Press.
Weisheit, R. (1998). Marijuana subcultures: Studying crime in a rural context. In J. Ferrell & M. Hamm (Eds.), Ethnography at the edge (pp. 178–203). Lebanon, NH: Northeastern University Press.
White, R. (2002). Environmental harm and the political economy of consumption. Social Justice, 29(1/2), 82–102.
White, R. (2012). Land theft as rural eco-crime. International Journal of Rural Criminology, 1(2), 203–217.
White, R. (2013). Eco-global criminology and the political economy of environmental harm. In N. South & A. Brisman (Eds.), Routledge international handbook of green criminology (pp. 243–260). New York: Routledge.
Woods, M. (2010). Reporting an unsettled countryside. Culture Unbound, 2, 215–239. http://www.cultureunbound.ep.liu.se.
Wyatt, T. (2012). Green criminology and wildlife trafficking: The illegal fur and falcon trades in Russia Far East. Saarbrücken: Lambert.
Wyatt, T. (2013). Wildlife trafficking: A deconstruction of the crime, the victims, and the offenders. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Our inspiration for the title of this article comes from a paper delivered by Travis Linnemann at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology entitled “Living on the Wrong Side of Town: Toward a Cultural Criminology of the Rural.” Linnemann’s paper engaged Keith Hayward’s “Five Spaces of Cultural Criminology” (Hayward 2012) to draw out the complex geographies of several small towns in the rural Midwest and our article continues in a similar “merging” spirit.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Brisman, A., McClanahan, B. & South, N. Toward a Green-Cultural Criminology of “the Rural”. Crit Crim 22, 479–494 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-014-9250-7
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-014-9250-7