Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Perceiving and Communicating Environmental Contamination and Change: Towards a Green Cultural Criminology with Images

  • Published:
Critical Criminology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In this article, we will respond to recent calls for a ‘green cultural criminology’ by attempting to open the way for new visual explorations of environmental harms and crimes, and by suggesting some methodological perspectives that can be advanced by the use and analysis of the photographic image. To demonstrate the power, potential and possibility—as well as some potential limitations—of a green cultural criminology with images, we draw on two ethnographic studies carried out in Huelva (Spain) and central Appalachia (United States). The described methods have the advantage of (1) bringing together the multiple and complex experiences of those who live in polluted areas; (2) considering the cultural meaning given to experiences of ecological change and destruction; and (3) exploring how those experiences are represented, communicated and understood. We conclude with a call to use qualitative visual approaches for carrying out research in an emergent green cultural criminology designed to develop a complex understanding of the multiple forms of environmental harms and crimes.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. While this article is a collaborative endeavor, it draws heavily on two distinct field-based research projects: Natali’s, conducted in Huelva, Spain, and McClanahan’s, conducted in the Appalachian region of the United States.

  2. Without becoming a single unity, these approaches come together within an emerging broad perspective (see, e.g., South et al. 2013: 28; White 2008: 14; see also Halsey 2004: 834; Lynch and Stretesky 2003; Walters 2010; White 2011).

  3. Elsewhere, Ferrell et al. (2015: 211) explain, “As developed by the great sociologist Max Weber, the concept of verstehen denotes the subjective or appreciative understanding of others’ actions and motivations—a deeply felt understandingessential for fully comprehending their lives”.

  4. For a more thorough discussion of the affective dimensions of human-ecology relationships, see generally Debarbieux and Rudaz (2015) and Frierson (2006). For a discussion of empathic relationships between humans and other animals, see generally Adams and Donovan (1995) and Donovan and Adams (2007).

  5. Despite the necessity of visual imagination and communication argued here, we should be mindful of the problems of “ocularcentrism,” discussed by Jay (1995), Bartram (2004), Macpherson (2006) and others.

  6. As Brisman and South (2014: 9, 16) note, cultural criminology is deeply concerned with meaning. The meaning of images, of course, is of great significance for the green-cultural criminological framework. A distinctly visual green-cultural criminological framework, though, must not only be attentive to the meaning of an image itself, but to the meaning of the conditions of its production.

  7. In visual sociology, photo elicitation has become a familiar, if underused, qualitative method. John Collier (1967) first describes the use of this method in research on rural assimilation into urban centres in Canada.

  8. In this way, a hybrid green-cultural-visual victimology would be able to explore “the symbolic environments created by victims […] as they come to terms with their experiences” (Ferrell et al. 2015: 234–235) and, for this very reason, would become a significant method “to account for meaning, situation, and representation, and to confront the harms of injustice and inequality” (Ferrell et al. 2015: 231).

  9. The interviews were carried out in the streets, in bars and in shops, and entailed asking people who were in the various areas of the town if they were willing to participate. The decision was not to have a statistical sample of the inhabitants of Huelva: in a symbolic interactionist perspective “a small number of well-informed informants are […] a better sample than much larger samples of minimally involved subjects” (Harper 2001: 27). In fact, the purpose was not to generalize from the empirical results, but to focus on and propose some “sensitizing” perspectives (Blumer 1969) suitable for the observation of “sensitive” environments. The interviewees in this study ranged in age from 18 to 90 and were both male and female.

  10. Van de Voorde (2012: 207) writes: “Barthes (1981) and Sontag (1977) further suggest a visual semiotics attuned to the layering of meanings, with denotation focusing on what or who is depicted, and connotation emphasizing the various ideas and values that are expressed through the content and structure of representation.”

  11. The expression “social object” refers to the radical interactionist perspective that informs this approach (see Athens 2007; Blumer 1969; Mead 1963/1934; Natali 2016a, b, c, in press).

References

  • Adams, C. J., & Donovan, J. (Eds.). (1995). Animals and women: Feminist theoretical explorations. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Anzoise, V., & Mutti, C. (2013). Integrating photo elicitation and mental maps in the study of urban landscape. In R. Nathansohn & D. Zuev (Eds.), Sociology of the visual sphere. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Athens, L. (2007). Radical interactionism: Going beyond Mead. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 37(2), 137–165.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Auyero, J., & Swistun, D. (2009). Flammable. environmental suffering in an Argentine shantytown. Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barthes, R. (1978). Image-music-text. New York: Hill & Wang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barthes, R. (2000[1980]). Camera lucida: Reflections on photography. London: Vintage.

  • Bartram, R. (2004). Visuality, dromology and time compression Paul Virilio’s new ocularcentrism. Time and Society, 13(2–3), 285–300.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Becker, H. S. (1966). Whose side are we on? Social Problems, 14, 239.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Becker, H. S. (1974). Photography and sociology. Studies in the Anthropology of Visual Communication, 1, 3–26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berger, J. (1991[1980]). About looking. New York: Vintage International.

  • Berger, J., & Mohr, J. (2016/1982). Another way of telling a possible theory of photography. London: Bloomsbury.

  • Bignante, E. (2010). The use of photo-elicitation in field research. Exploring Maasai representations and use of natural resources. EchoGéo, 11, 1–18.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blumer, H. (1969). Symbolic interactionism: Perspective and method. Englewood Cliffs.

  • Brisman, A. (2012). The cultural silence of climate change contrarianism. In R. White (Ed.), Climate change from a criminological perspective (pp. 41–70). New York: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Brisman, A. (in Press). Representations of environmentalcrimeenvironmental crime and harm: A green-cultural criminologicalperspectivecriminological perspective on human-alteredlandscapesaltered landscapes. In M. Brown & E. Carrabine (Eds.), The routledge international handbook of visual criminology. London: Routledge.

  • Brisman, A., & South, N. (2012). Proposing a green-cultural criminology: A new perspective for 21st century criminology. In G. Meško, A., Sotlar, K. Eman (Eds.), Ecologicalcrime and environmentalprotection—Multidisciplinaryperspectives, GorazdMeškocentury criminology. In Ecological crime and environmental protection—Multidisciplinary perspectives (pp. 17–35). Llubljana, Slovenia: Faculty of Criminal Justice, University of Maribor. (Published as: Brisman, Avi, in Nigel South. (2012). Predlogekološko-kulturnekriminologije: novpogledpredlog ekološko-kulturne kriminologije: Nov pogled za kriminologijo 21. stoletja [‘Proposal of eco-cultural criminology: New view for criminology of 21st century’]. Ekološka kriminaliteta in varovanje okolja—Multidisciplinarne perspektive. Gorazd Meško, Andrej Sotlar and Katja Eman (uredniki), pp. 17–35. Ljubljana: Fakuleta za varnostne vede, Univerza v Mariboru).

  • Brisman, A., McClanahan, B., & South, N. (2014). Toward a green-cultural criminology of “the rural”. Critical Criminology, 22(2), 479–494.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brisman, A., & South, N. (2013a). Introduction: Horizons, issues and relationships in green criminology. In N. South & A. Brisman (Eds.), Routledge international handbook of green criminology. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brisman, A., & South, N. (2013b). A green-cultural criminology: An exploratory outline. Crime Media Culture, 9(2), 115–135.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brisman, A., & South, N. (2014). Green cultural criminology. constructions of environmental harm, consumerism and resistance to ecocide. London: Routledge.

  • Brisman, A., & South, N. (2015a). ‘Life stage dissolution’, infantilization and anti-social consumption: Implications for de-responsibilization, denial and environmental harm. Young—Nordic Journal of Youth Research, 23(3), 209–221.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brisman, A., & South, N. (2015b). New ‘folk devils’, denials and climate change: Applying the work of Stanley Cohen to green criminology and environmental harm. Critical Criminology, 23(4), 449–460.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown, M. (2014). Visual criminology and carceral studies: Counter-images in the carceral age. Theoretical Criminology, 18, 134–158.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carrabine, E. (2011). The iconography of punishment: Execution prints and the death penalty. The Howard Journal, 50(5), 452–464.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carrabine, E. (2012). Just images: Aesthetics, ethics and visual criminology. British Journal of Criminology, 52(3), 463–489.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Collier, J. (1967). Visual anthropology: Photography as a research method. New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cullinan, C. (2011). Wild law: A manifesto for earth justice (2nd ed.). White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Debarbieux, B., & Rudaz, G. (2015).The mountain: A political history from the enlightenment to the present. (trans: Todd, J.M.). Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

  • Degen, M. M., & Rose, G. (2012). The sensory experiencing of urban design: The role of walking and perceptual memory. Urban Studies, 49(15), 3271–3287.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Donovan, J., & Adams, C. (Eds.). (2007). The feminist care tradition in animal ethics: A reader. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Feldman, A. (1997). Violence and vision: The prosthetics and aesthetics of terror. Public Culture, 10(1), 24–60.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ferrell, J. (1997). Criminological verstehen: Inside the immediacy of crime. Justice Quarterly, 14(1), 3–23.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ferrell, J. (1999). Cultural criminology. Annual Review of Sociology, 25(1), 395–418.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ferrell, J. (2013). Tangled up in green: Cultural criminology and green criminology. In N. South & A. Brisman (Eds.), Routledge international handbook of green criminology. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferrell, J., Hayward, K., & Young, J. (2015). Cultural criminology: An invitation (2nd ed.). London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferrell, J., & Van de Voorde, C. (2010). The decisive moment: Documentary photography and cultural criminology. In K. Hayward & M. Presdee (Eds.), Framing, crime cultural criminology and the image (pp. 36–52). London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frierson, P. R. (2006). Adam Smith and the possibility of sympathy with nature. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 87(4), 442–480.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hall, R. (2009). Wanted: The outlaw in American visual culture. Charlottesville, Virginia: University of Virginia Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hall, M. (2013). Victims of environmental harms and their role in national and international justice. In R. Walters, D. Westerhuis, & T. Wyatt (Eds.), Emerging issues in green criminology exploring power, justice and harm. Hampshire, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Halsey, M. (2004). Against “green” criminology. British Journal of Criminology, 44(6), 833–853.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harcourt, B. (2006). Language of the gun: Youth, crime and public policy. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Harper, D. (2000). Reimagining visual methods: Galileo to neuromancer. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 717–732). Thousand Oaks: Sage (Second Edition).

    Google Scholar 

  • Harper, D. (2001). Changing works: Visions of a lost agriculture. Chicago, London: University Of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harper, D. (2002). Talking about pictures: A case for photo elicitation. Visual Studies, 17(1), 13–26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hayward, K., & Presdee, M. (Eds.). (2010). Framing crime. Cultural Criminology and the Image. USA and Canada: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heckenberg, D., & White, R. (2013). Innovative approaches to researching environmental crime. In N. South & A. Brisman (Eds.), Routledge international handbook of green criminology. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Holm, G. (2008). Visual research methods: Where are we and where are we going? In S. N. Hesse-Biber & P. Leavy (Eds.), Handbook of emergent methods. London: The Guilford Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ingold, T. (2000). The perception of the environment: Essays in livelihood, dwelling and skill. Abingdon: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Jay, M. (1995). Photo-unrealism: The contribution of the camera to the crisis of ocularcentrism. Vision and Textuality (pp. 344–360). London: Macmillan.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, J. (2011). ‘The arithmetic of compassion’: Rethinking the politics of photography. British Journal of Political Science, 41(03), 621–643.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lapenta, F. (2011). Some theoretical and methodological views on photo-elicitation. In E. Margolis & L. Pauwels (Eds.), The sage handbook of visual research methods. London & Thousand Oaks: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Larsen, G. (2012). The most serious crime: Eco-genocide concepts and perspectives in eco-global criminology. In R. Ellefsen, R. Sollund, & G. Larsen (Eds.), Eco-global crimes: Contemporary problems and future challenges. England: Ashgate Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Linnemann, T., & Wall, T. (2013). ‘This is your face on meth’: The punitive spectacle of ‘white trash’ in the rural war on drugs. Theoretical Criminology, 17(3), 315–334.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lynch, M., & Stretesky, P. (2003). The meaning of green. Theoretical Criminology, 7(2), 217–238.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Macpherson, H. (2006). Landscape’s ocular-centrism–and beyond. From Landscape Research to Landscape Planning: Aspects of Integration, Education and Application, 12, 95.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mead, G. H. (1963[1934]). Mind, self and society: From the standpoint of a social behaviorist. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

  • Mirzoeff, N. (2011). The right to look. Critical Inquiry, 37(3), 473–496.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Natali, L. (2010). The big grey elephants in the backyard of Huelva. In R. White (Ed.), Global environmental harm criminological perspectives. Cullompton: Willan publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Natali, L. (2013a). The contemporary horizon of green criminology. In N. South & A. Brisman (Eds.), Routledge international handbook of green criminology. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Natali, L. (2013b). Exploring environmental activism: A visual qualitative approach from an eco-global and green-cultural criminological perspective. CRIMSOC: The Journal of Social Criminology Special Issue: ‘Green Criminology’. Autumn 2013. Waterside Press, pp. 64–100.

  • Natali, L. (2014a). Green criminology, victimización medioambiental y social harm. El caso de Huelva (España). Revista Crítica Penal y Poder, 7, 5–34.

    Google Scholar 

  • Natali, L. (2014b). Green criminology e vittimizzazione ambientale: Verso nuove riflessività. Studi Sulla Questione Criminale, 1–2, 81–98.

    Google Scholar 

  • Natali, L. (2015a). A critical gaze on environmental victimization. In R. Sollund (Ed.), Green harms and crimes. Cheltenham: Palgrave MacMillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Natali, L. (2015b). Organismi geneticamente modificati e Green criminology: Una proposta osservativa. Notizie di Politeia, 31(12), 63–70.

    Google Scholar 

  • Natali, L. (2016a). Eliciting narratives on the experiences of environmental victimization: A qualitative visual method. In T. Spapens, R. White, & W. Huisman (Eds.), Environmental crime in transnational context global issues in green enforcement and criminology. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Natali, L. (2016b). Guerre contemporanee e conseguenze ambientali.Un approccio di green criminology. Rassegna Italiana di Criminologia, X, 3, 209–218.

    Google Scholar 

  • Natali, L. (2016c). A visual approach for green criminology. Palgrave MacMillan: Exploring the Social Perception of EnvironmentalHarm.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Pauwels, L. (2009a). Street discourse: A visual essay on urban signification. Culture Unbound, 17, 263–272.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pauwels, L. (2009b). Photo essay: The urban canvas. Contexts, 17, 54–61.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pauwels, L. (2010). Visual sociology reframed: An analytical synthesis and discussion of visual methods in social and cultural research. Sociological Methods & Research, 38(4), 545–581.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pauwels, L. (2011). An integrated conceptual framework for visual social research. In E. Margolis & L. Pauwels (Eds.), The sage handbook of visual research methods. London and Thousand Oaks: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pensky, M. (2004). Method and time: Benjamin’s dialectical images. The Cambridge Companion to Walter Benjamin, 177–98.

  • Pink, S. (2001). Doing visual ethnography images, media and representation in research. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pink, S. (2008). An urban tour: The sensory sociality of ethnographic place-making. Ethnography, 9, 175–196.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rafter, N. (2014). Introduction to special issue on visual culture and the iconography of crime and punishment. Theoretical Criminology, 18, 127–133.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rose, G. (2012). Visual methodologies. An introduction to researching with visual materials. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rose, G., Degen, M., & Basdas, B. (2010). More on ‘big things’: Building events and feelings. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 35(3), 334–349.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roth, L. (2009). Looking at Shirley, the ultimate norm: Colour balance, image technologies, and cognitive equity. Canadian Journal of Communication, 34(1), 111–136.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schept, J. (2014). (Un)seeing like a prison: Counter-visual ethnography of the carceral state. Theoretical Criminology, 18, 198–223.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sekula, A. (1981). The traffic in photographs. Art Journal, 41(1), 15–25.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sekula, A. (1982). On the invention of photographic meaning. In Thinking photography (pp. 84–109). New York: Macmillan Education.

  • Sekula, A. (1986). The body and the archive.October, 39, 3–64.

  • Silverman, D. (2000). Analyzing talk and text. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • South, N., Brisman, A., & Beirne, P. (2013). A guide to a green criminology. In N. South & A. Brisman (Eds.), Routledge international handobook of green criminology. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Suchar, C. S. (1997). Grounding visual sociology research in shooting scripts. Qualitative Sociology, 20(1), 33–55.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Talbot, W. H. (1844). The pencil of nature. Project Gutenberg (e-book# 33447), 16.

  • Van de Voorde, C. (2012). Ethnographic photography in criminological research. In D. Gadd, S. Karstedt, & S. F. Messner (Eds.), The sage handbook of criminological research methods. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vassenden, A., & Andersson, M. (2010). When an image becomes sacred: Photo-elicitation with images of holy books. Visual Studies, 25(2), 149–161.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Virilio, P. (1989). War and cinema: The logistics of perception. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wall, T., & Linnemann, T. (2014). Staring down the state: Police power, visual economies, and the “war on cameras”. Crime, Media, Culture, 10(2), 133–149.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walters, R. (2010). Toxic atmospheres: Air pollution, trade and the politics of regulation. Critical Criminology, 18, 307–323.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • White, R. (2008). Crimes against nature: Environmental criminology and ecological justice. Cullompton: Willan Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • White, R. (2011). Transnational environmental crime: Toward an eco-global criminology. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • White, R., & Heckenberg, D. (2014). Green criminology. an introduction to the study of environmental harm. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, C. (1996). An environmental victimology. Social Justice, 23, 16–40.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wyatt, T., & Brisman, A. (2016). The role of denial in the ‘theft of nature’: A comparison of biopiracy and climate change. Critical Criminology. doi:10.1007/s10612-016-9344-5.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wylie, J. (2011). Landscape. In J. A. Agnew & D. N. Livingstone (Eds.), The sage handbook of geographical knowledge. London: SAGE.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zaitch, D., & de Leeuw, T. (2010). Fighting with images: The production and consumption of violence among online football supporters. In K. J. Hayward & M. Presdee (Eds.), Framing crime cultural criminology and the image. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy

    Lorenzo Natali

  2. University of Essex, Colchester, UK

    Bill McClanahan

Authors
  1. Lorenzo Natali
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Bill McClanahan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Bill McClanahan.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Natali, L., McClanahan, B. Perceiving and Communicating Environmental Contamination and Change: Towards a Green Cultural Criminology with Images. Crit Crim 25, 199–214 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-017-9356-9

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-017-9356-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation