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Doing Green, Critical Criminology with an Auto-Ethnographic, Feminist Approach

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Abstract

In this article, I employ an auto-ethnographic methodology as a point of departure in order to explore my path into research on the legal and illegal trade in wild animals which, over the years, has consisted of interviews with experts and enforcement agencies in Brazil, Colombia and Norway including offenders (in Norway), and analysis of verdicts, interrogation reports, and custom seizure reports from Norway. I argue that research not only may, but should be value-driven and that a researcher’s personal biography can (1) provide additional insight into a research area; (2) serve to create rapport with informants; and (3) forge an important foundation for the formulation of research questions and the analysis of empirical data. Values also provide a platform for the choice of theoretical framework that is applied and which enhance and further knowledge within the field—in this case, perspectives of harm and justice, particularly species justice and eco-justice. The article calls for a stronger interdisciplinary approach in green criminology—one that includes feminist care ethics, philosophy and compassionate conservation perspectives, and which offers a more radical critique of human exploitation of ‘wildlife’ specifically and other animals more generally.

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Notes

  1. Nibert (2013:12) introduces the term ‘domesecrated’ to refer to “the systemic practice of violence in which social ‘animals’ are enslaved and biologically manipulated, resulting in their objectification, subordination and oppression.” Through ‘domesecration,’Nibert (2013: 12) adds, “many species of ‘animal’s that lived on the earth for millions of years, including several species of large, sociable Eurasian mammals, came to be regarded as mere objects, their very existence recognized only in relation to their exploitation as ‘food ‘animal’s’ or similarly socially constructed positions reflecting various forms of exploitation” (emphasis added).

  2. Ferrell (1997) similarly argues for empathy during fieldwork to understand and analyze criminalized behavior, and the situations of crime victims. See Natali and McClanahan (this volume) for an application of Weber via Ferrell in the use of photographs in interviews with environmental victims.

  3. Harding suggests the concept objectivism, rather than the concept of objectivity, on the grounds that the former term will enable scientific projects to escape containment by the interests of powerful social tendencies. (Harding 1995, pp. 337–338).

  4. Feminist standpoint theorists make three principal claims: (1) knowledge is socially situated; (2) marginalized groups are socially situated in ways that make it more possible for them to be aware of things and ask questions than it is for the non-marginalized; and (3) research, particularly that focused on power relations, should begin with the lives of the marginalized (Bowell 2016).

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Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Avi Brisman and Nigel South for valuable comments to an earlier version of this article.

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  1. Ragnhild Sollund University of Oslo, Department of Criminology and Sociology of law, Oslo, Norway

    Ragnhild Sollund

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Sollund, R. Doing Green, Critical Criminology with an Auto-Ethnographic, Feminist Approach. Crit Crim 25, 245–260 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-017-9361-z

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