On Narrative and Green Cultural Criminology

Abstract

This paper calls for a green cultural criminology that is more attuned to narrative and a narrative criminology that does not limit itself to non-fictional stories of offenders. This paper argues that (1) narratives or stories can reveal how we have instigated or sustained harmful action with respect to the environment and can portray a world suffering from the failure to effect desistance from harmful action; and (2) narratives or stories can, may and possess the potential to shape future action (or can stimulate thought regarding future action) with respect to the natural world, its ecosystems and the biosphere as a whole. A wide range of fictional stories is offered as examples and illustrations, and the benefits of a literary bend to the overall criminological endeavor are considered. KeywordsEnvironmental crime and harm; green criminology; green cultural criminology; narratives; narrative criminology; stories. Please cite this article as:

A sensory and visual approach for comprehending environmental victimization by the asbestos industry in Casale Monferrato

“…Drawing on the new field of visual criminology (Brown and Carrabine, 2017) and on the long wave of a creative sensitivity (see also Jacobsen, 2014), the methodology used in this research places itself within what Brisman and South (2014) conceptualize as a 'green cultural criminology' -a criminological perspective that tries to imagine new modes of analysing critically the intersection of culture, crime, justice and environment -open to the narrative dimension (see Brisman, 2017a). On this theoretical basis, a qualitative visual method may represent one of the possible avenues of a green cultural criminology in order to explore the multiple aspects of environmental crimes from a green and cultural perspective (see also Brisman, 2017b;Ferrell, 2013: 349;Natali, 2013Natali, , 2016bNatali, , 2016dNatali and McClanahan, 2017).…”

Exploring Violent Cosmologies From a “Radical Interactionist” Approach

“…It is clear that this would be a naive approach that does not consider the process of memory in selecting past experiences and the specific context of the interview where these meanings emerge. Because most narrative research is undertaken through interviews, proving that narrative must precede offending is a "logical impossibility" (Fleetwood 2016: 174; see also Brisman 2017Brisman , 2019aBrisman , 2019b. In this regard, our proposal suggests that the internal conversation-often elliptical-which precedes the act is not coincident with-and is not the same as-the story narrated after action.…”

The Fable of The Three Little Pigs: Climate Change and Green Cultural Criminology

“…For present purposes, if cultural criminology is, to quote Ferrell (1999: 396), 'an emergent array of perspectives linked by sensitivities to image, meaning, and representation in the study of crime and crime control', then green cultural criminology might be conceptualised as an emergent array of perspectives linked by sensitivities to image, meaning and representation in the study of green or environmental crime and environmental crime control. Accordingly, green cultural criminology (1) harm and disaster are constructed, envisioned and represented by the news media and in popular cultural forms; (2) dedicates increased attention to patterns of consumption, constructed consumerism, commodification of nature and related market processes; and (3) devotes heightened concern to the contestation of space, transgression and resistance to analyse the ways in which environmental harms are opposed in and on the streets, and in day-to-day living (Brisman 2014(Brisman , 2015a(Brisman , 2017a(Brisman , 2017b(Brisman , 2017cBrisman and South 2012, 2015a, 2017cBrisman, McClanahan and South 2014;Mazurek 2017;McClanahan 2014;McClanahan, Brisman and South 2017;Redmon 2018;Schally 2018). The first of these is most pertinent to this paper's purpose.…”

“…The present paper builds on Brisman (2017b) in two ways: (1) it considers how a particular kind of environmental narrative-that of climate change-appears, as well as criticisms thereof; and (2) it allegorises the fable of The Three Little Pigs as a story of climate change migration-an aspect of climate change that is misrepresented (and sometimes missing) in the discourse.…”

“…The Three Little Pigs is not ostensibly a story of environmental crime and harm. And thus this paper represents the opposite kind of endeavour to 'On Narrative and Green Cultural Criminology' (Brisman 2017b) and other green cultural criminological attempts to examine the dynamics of causation and response to environmental problems described in fiction and science fiction (including children's literature and young adult fiction). Nevertheless, I contend that The Three Little Pigs can be interpreted as a tale about climate change, and conclude the paper with additional arguments for approaching, reading and analysing stories regarding human-human and human-environment relationships.…”