Southern Green Criminology: A Science to End Ecological Discrimination

In this first chapter, I present green criminology as a project based on three pillars and characterised by two traits. I explain how one cultural model and one economic theory have inspired most green criminology undertakings. But mainly, I argue that it is time for the structured appearance of a Southern green criminology, given that recent developments in green criminology show that North–South divides are a key driver of environmental harm.

In this chapter, I provide the conceptual and political pillars of a Southern green criminology. First, I define the concepts central to this book: ecological discrimination, a science to end discrimination and a science of the discriminated against. Second, I reflect on two expressions of ecological discrimination: speciesism and culturism. Building on those reflections, I provide the political and moral reasons why it is important to develop a science to end ecological discrimination.

In this chapter, I present the philosophical pillars of a Southern green criminology. I develop this work by asking ultimate questions. First, I argue that green criminology has yet to establish and develop the most important fundamental premises that every inquiry must have – ontological, epistemological and methodological premises. To fill that gap, I examine the philosophical beliefs that guide, sustain and legitimise environmental discrimination as well as its preventive practices. Building on that analysis, I present two major philosophies – atomistic and Gestalt – that are overarching worldviews that guide our interactions with nature. I establish a Gestalt philosophy as an inquiry paradigm that can serve as the basis of a Southern green criminology.

In this chapter, I present the scientific pillar of the project. Given the political proposal that informs the book, it is necessary for me to show why and how such an activist endeavour as I propose produces valid and reliable knowledge. To this end, I deal with the historical debate about the role of the intellectual in society based on the ideal types of the neutral expert and the academic activist introduced in Chapter 2.

In this chapter, I present the historical pillar on which a Southern green criminology can build new knowledge. Employing a genealogy of Southern green criminology, I show how the Global South was producing Southern and green criminological knowledge long before they became foci of academic research. Based on my historical account, I argue that the tradition of the Global South in producing knowledge useful for the prevention of ecological discrimination demonstrates that Southern green criminology is a potent and feasible project. But, I also warn of the threat posed by the dynamics that made Southern and green criminologies disappear in the past and that still exist today.

In this chapter, I present the methodological pillar of a Southern green criminology. It may prove useful for researchers and students interested in developing a science to end the ecological discrimination. My main concern in presenting this method is to upset the colonialist logic that sustains culturism and speciesism. In my ‘stereoscope’ of ecological discrimination, I aim to uncover harmful environmental practices that have a global reach and disproportionately affect the geographical and metaphorical Souths.

In this second part of the book, I transition from the theoretical to the applied, or from thinking Southern green criminology to doing Southern green criminology. In this chapter, I apply the theoretical bases I presented in the first part of the book to the most encompassing environmental issue of our times: climate change. I show how a Southern green approach to climate change can contribute in important ways to understanding the ecological discrimination that is part of climate change in Colombia. A Southern green criminology can also help expand the repertoire of responses to climate change. I use my research of the Colombian Río Negro Basin to exemplify how the South confronts heightened risks of climate change that are the result of ecologically discriminatory practices. Inspired by the practices of the rural inhabitants of the Río Negro Basin region, I propose going back to traditional Southern practices to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

Land is a main component of the earth system and one of the ‘goods’ over which humans have waged many wars and conflicts throughout history. In this chapter, I present the empirical and discursive dynamics that lead to ecological discrimination regarding land. I focus on three means by which Southern land is legally grabbed: private armies, discourses and laws. Much land dispossession is illegal, but in this chapter I focus on the legal forms because they are equally harmful and most of the times invisible and thus more difficult to prevent.

The Global South is rich in biodiversity, including sought-after seeds and plants. In this chapter, I show the culturist and speciesist dynamics that have removed Southern control of them. I discuss the ever-increasing spiral of biopiracy to point to the interlinked dynamics that help multinational corporations monopolise seeds and plants.

Many of the human communities that comprise the South have cosmologies that place human and nonhuman animals on a continuum. Culturism, with its foreign logic and dynamics, has broken this continuum, thereby fuelling speciesist practices. In this chapter, I portray the deep relation that some rural Southern communities have with nonhuman animals, and analyse some of the imposed logics that lead the South to abuse nonhuman animals while denying that what they are doing is mistreatment.

Humans are a key component of the earth system. Through our interactions with nature, we have irreversibly altered and damaged all components of the system, ourselves included. Usually, fields other than green criminology focus on human exploitation and trafficking; but, in this chapter, I show how environmental discourses and practices are used to justify the exploitation and monopolisation of humans. I examine the dynamics by which Southern communities are monopolised by Northern corporations. I also explore Southern forms of resistance to ecological discrimination such as land grabs, biopiracy and animal abuse. I finish the chapter with an analysis of the threat posed by culturism to Southern resistance.

I dedicate half of the book to establishing the theoretical basis of a Southern green criminology as a science that contests ecological discrimination. My political premise for such a theoretical design is that a Southern green criminology must seek to scientifically uncover the harmful practices that make the South victim to ecological discrimination. I use another five chapters to analyse the culturist and speciesist practices that create ecological discrimination against the diverse components of the earth system. In this concluding chapter, inspired by the interactions I have had with members of more than 20 Colombian Indigenous communities and my students, I formulate an everyday Southern green criminology practice for countering ecological discrimination – a critical pedagogy through Southern green criminology seedbeds.