'Little Development, Few Economic Opportunities and Many Difficulties': Climate Change From a Local Perspective

A southern criminology perspective on the study of climate change is overdue, given that climate change is a global phenomenon with localised effects. This article is a southern empirical criminological study of the colonial causes of, justice consequences of and southern responses to climate change. The study is based on four years of research in the Colombian Río Negro basin, undertaken by a multidisciplinary team of which I was part. My main argument is that the region contributes to climate change and heightening local risks primarily because of Western-imposed cultural ideas and production practices, and market demands. The article also discusses the idea of returning to southern traditional practices to mitigate and adapt to climate change

‘Tactics Rebounding’ in the Colombian Defence of Seed Freedom

This article investigates the Red de Semillas Libres de Colombia [Colombian Network of Free Seeds] movement, since its inception to date (2013-2016). The study, developed within the framework of green criminology and with a focus on environmental justice, draws on ethnographic observations of Red de Semillas and semi-structured interviews with group members. I explore processes of repertoire appropriation developed by social movements. The main argument advanced is that the Red de Semillas experienced a case of ‘tactics rebound’, in which tactics deployed at the global level shaped local tactics, bringing a set of problematic consequences. The article starts by summarising key explorations of repertoires of contention and connecting them with framing theory propositions. My interest is to locate processes of tactic appropriation in the context of collective action frames. I situate this theory in a study of the organisation and the tactics it used to elucidate how the concept of ‘collective action frame hierarchies’ can be used to explain instances of ‘tactics rebounding’

Rosa del Olmo Prize: Introductory Essay

Academic prizes have three problems: they feed an individualist ethos, perpetuate the idea of the ‘marketplace of ideas’ as a fair and even playing field, and build a stereotype of white, Western men as the ultimate knowledge creators. However, prizes can also challenge stereotypes and help democratise knowledge creation by enlarging the visibility of communitarian knowledge creation beyond Western scripts and outside hegemonic masculinities. The International Journal for Crime, Justice, and Social Democracy, committed to cognitive justice, knowledge democratisation, and encouraging voices on the periphery to partake in global academic debate, established the Rosa del Olmo Prize. Seeking to challenge criminological stereotypes about who can create knowledge that contributes to the development of criminology, the Journal honours Venezuelan criminologist Rosa del Olmo (1937-2000) through this award. Rosa symbolises critical, feminist, decolonial criminology working to advance social justice

Entre 'conservación' y 'desarrollo'. La construcción de la 'naturaleza protegida' y la privación de los derechos sobre el ambiente a las comunidades indígenas

Conservation and development discourses are the two main frameworks in which global debates about how to relate to nature take place. These discourses are considered as opposed; while conservation discourses argue for the maintenance of nature in its pristine state, development discourses seek to justify reengineering spaces to give place to cities, monocultures and roads. However, both discourses have one practical consequence in common: the environmental disfranchisement of indigenous communities. This article uses the case of the Ecuadorian Yasuní Park to show how the implementation of both conservation and development discourses end up disempowering indigenous communities. We use media reports and governmental statements to document the Yasuní case. A critical analysis of the dynamics behind this and other cases allows us to expose the misleading messages, the ironic consequences and the false motives involved in some conservation projects.Las narrativas de ‘conservación’ y ‘desarrollo’ son los dos principales discursos que enmarcan los debates globales sobre cómo el ser humano debe relacionarse con la naturaleza. Estas narrativas son consideradas como discursivamente opuestas: mientras las narrativas de conservación buscan mantener a la naturaleza en su estado original; las narrativas de desarrollo proponen rediseñar los espacios para dar lugar a ciudades, monocultivos y carreteras. Sin embargo, ambas narrativas tienen una consecuencia práctica en común: el desempoderamiento ambiental de las comunidades indígenas. Este artículo usa el caso del parque Yasuní, en Ecuador, para mostrar cómo la implementación de narrativas tanto de desarrollo como de conservación resultan en el desempoderamiento de las comunidades indígenas. Para documentar el caso usamos entrevistas, reportajes de medios y comunicados gubernamentales. Un análisis crítico de las dinámicas detrás del caso Yasuní nos permite mostrar los mensajes engañosos, las irónicas consecuencias y los falsos motivos detrás de algunos proyectos de conservación

Between ‘Conservation’ and ‘Development’: The Construction of ‘Protected Nature’ and the Environmental Disenfranchisement of Indigenous Communities

Conservation and development discourses are the two main frameworks in which global debates on how to relate to nature occur. These discourses are considered as opposed; while conservation discourses argue for the maintenance of nature in its pristine state, development discourses seek to justify re-engineering spaces to give place to cities, monocultures and roads. However, both discourses have one practical consequence in common: the environmental disfranchisement of Indigenous communities. This article uses the case of the Ecuadorian Yasuní Park to show how the implementation of both conservation and development discourses ultimately disempower Indigenous communities. We use media reports and governmental statements to document the Yasuní case. A critical analysis of the dynamics behind this and other cases allows us to expose the misleading messages, the ironic consequences and the false motives involved in some conservation projects

Contesting and Contextualising CITES: Wildlife Trafficking in Colombia and Brazil

This article raises the question of whether recently implemented legislation in Colombia and Brazil (1) provides the necessary tools to prevent the harms of wildlife trafficking (WLT) and (2) influences humans’ practices concerning the use of nonhuman animals. These questions are investigated from the dual perspectives of green criminology and public policy. The analysis is based on a qualitative empirical study undertaken in Colombia and Brazil whereby we discuss the function of the legislation in Colombia and Brazil in preventing illegal WLT. We consider the legitimacy of different practices of WLT and evaluate them with respect to species justice and environmental justice

Criminologies of the global south: critical reflections

This article attempts an ambitious undertaking by scholars collaborating from far flung parts of the globe to redefine the geographic and conceptual limits of critical criminology. We attempt to scope, albeit briefly, the various contributions to criminology (not all of it critical) from Argentina, Asia, Brazil, Columbia and South Africa, in alphabetical order. Our aim is not to criticize the significant contributions to critical criminology by scholars from the Global North, but to southernize critical criminology—to extend its gaze and horizons beyond the North Atlantic world. The democratization, decolonization and globalization of knowledge is a profoundly important project in an unequal and divided world where knowledge systems have been dominated by Anglophone countries of the Global North (Ball, this issue; Connell, 2007). Southernizing fields of knowledge represents an important step in the journey toward cognitive justice as imagined by de Sousa Santos (2014). While we can make only a very small contribution from a selected number of countries from the Global South, it is our hope that others may be inspired to join the journey, fill in the gaps, and bridge global divides

Hacia diálogos criminológicos verdes globales. Voces de las Américas y de Europa

In the preface to his book Epistemologies of the South (2016: viii), de Sousa Santos writes that ‘three basic ideas’ have guided the writing of the book. First, a recognition that ‘the understanding of the world by far exceeds the Western understanding of the world’. Second, the proposition that ‘there is no global social justice’ – and we would add ‘global environmental justice’ – ‘without global cognitive justice’. And third, the argument that ‘emancipatory transformations in the world may follow grammars and scripts other than those developed by Western-centric critical theory’. It should go without saying that we agree – and here (and elsewhere Goyes, Mol, Brisman, & South, 2017; Mol, Goyes, South, & Brisman, 2017)), in the spirit of these ‘three basic ideas’, we attempt to open dialogues, broaden out our use of sources of understanding, pursue cognitive justice alongside social justice and eco-justice, and present the powerful arguments and visions of those who may be following non-western-centric grammars and scripts.El motivo de esta doble edición especial, publicada simultáneamente en dos idiomas y en dos revistas internacionales distinguidas, es apoyar el objetivo de la Criminología del Sur de nivelar las desigualdades en la valoración del conocimiento criminológico en el norte global y el sur global (Carrington, Dixon, et al., 2019; Carrington, Hogg, Scott, Sozzo, & Walters, 2019; Carrington, Hogg, & Sozzo, 2016). Al abrir ‘diálogos’ y colaboraciones entre el sur y el norte, nuestro propósito es resaltar las importantes contribuciones realizadas por las escritoras y escritores sobre el ambiente, la justicia y las buenas maneras de vivir la democratización del conocimiento y la búsqueda de la justicia cognitiva (Santos, 2009, 2014, 2018)

Land-grabs, Biopiracy and the Inversion of Justice in Colombia

The possibility of commercially exploiting plant, animal and human genetic resources unlocked by biotechnology has given rise to a wide range of cultural, environmental, ethical and economic conflicts. While supporters describe this activity as bioprospecting, critics refer to it as biopiracy. According to this latter view, international legal agreements and treaties have disregarded opposition and legalized the possibility of appropriating genetic resources and their derivative products through the use of patents. The legal framework that permits the appropriation of natural genetic products in Colombia also criminalizes aspects of traditional ways of life and enables a legally approved but socially harmful land-grabbing process. The article describes these processes and impact in terms of the inversion of justice and the erosion of environmental sustainability

Green Criminological Dialogues: Voices from Asia.

Many different languages and disciplines are involved in Asian research on environmental conflicts. Linguistic diversity combined with the varied economic, legal, political and social contexts of the Asian continent gives birth to myriad debates about environmental crime and harm. Borders between disciplines are blurred and take different shapes depending on the linguistic and academic contexts. As a result of this situation, the many resources, knowledge and debates developed in various ‘bubbles’ hardly cross disciplinary and linguistic borders. With this special issue, we hope to contribute to unlocking doors and building bridges between the myriad Asian knowledge traditions about environmental conflict, crime and harm. Also, we aim to open the door for readers (be they scholars or practitioners) to engage with the debates and collaborate in addressing instances of environmental degradation in Asia. Finally, we want to remove the obstacles that separate the multi-disciplinary Asian scholars working on environmental crime from the green criminologists around the world