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Goyes, David Rodriguez; Sollund, Ragnhild, Sollund; South, Nigel --- "Special Issue. Towards Global Green Criminological Dialogues: Voices from the Americas and Europe. Guest Editors' Introduction" [2019] IntJlCrimJustSocDem 25; (2019) 8(3) International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy 1



Guest Editors’ Introduction
Towards Global Green Criminological Dialogues: Voices from the Americas and Europe

David Rodríguez Goyes

University of Oslo, Norway

Antonio Nariño University, Colombia

Ragnhild Sollund

University of Oslo, Norway

Nigel South

University of Essex, United Kingdom

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 et al. 2017; Mol et al. 2017), in the spirit of these ‘three basic ideas’, we attempt to open dialogues, broaden 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.

The aim of this dual special issue project—simultaneously published in two languages in two distinguished international journals (International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy and Crítica Penal y Poder) —is to support the goal of Southern criminology to level inequalities in the valuing of criminological knowledge in the Global North and the Global South (Carrington, Dixon et al. 2019; Carrington, Hogg et al. 2019; Carrington, Hogg and Sozzo 2016). In opening ‘dialogues’ and collaborations between South and North, we aim to highlight the important contributions made by writers on the environment, justice and good ways of living to the democratisation of knowledge and pursuit of cognitive justice (Santos 2009, 2014, 2018).

To achieve cognitive justice means: 1) to acknowledge that all the people—not only those inhabiting the Global North—can produce valid knowledge, even when their paths towards knowledge production are diverse; and 2) to give the cognitively marginalised—who usually inhabit the Global South—the chance to intervene in global debates. These premises are theoretically straightforward, but full of hindrances when we try to implement them. First, many followers[1] of decolonial theory—which calls for the epistemological liberation of ‘the south’—end up closing their minds to the knowledge generated in the Global North and thereby simply reinforce cognitive barriers dividing the Global North and the Global South. Such behaviour misinterprets the postulates of decolonial theory. For example, Santos called for the end of ‘abyssal thinking’ (2009) and the lines, trenches and barriers that inhibit communication, and called for the creation of a zone of ‘cultural translation’ (2014), in which representatives of all groups of the world can establish a conversation between equals. Perhaps the best way to decolonise knowledge is by replacing allegedly ‘colonial’ knowledge with interpretations that escape colonialism (Goyes 2018). This, however, is only achievable after having studied, understood and responded to the allegedly colonial knowledge in collaboration with the ‘owners’ of non-colonial, ‘traditional’ knowledge.

The second challenge to the achievement of criminological cognitive justice is of a more pragmatic nature: to develop a Southern criminology, we need to include new, different and diverse voices in the criminological conversation. Writing about those new voices is obviously insufficient—akin to colonial, anthropological collection of stories. The storytellers themselves must express their ideas—these are, in Gramsci’s (1971) terms, the ‘organic’ intellectuals who create knowledge from within their social group. However, such inclusion is not always easy and further challenges arise. For example, those who have not been historically represented in social sciences such as criminology—the ‘organic’ intellectuals—may lack resources, be marginalised, impoverished, and lack the time to reflect and write. Instead, their priorities are day-to-day living, securing food and a home. If the excluded voices and visions of ‘organic’ intellectuals are to be present, Northern assumptions about orthodox, appropriate and necessary ways of expressing ideas need to be modified and made flexible. Alternative models to the presentation of knowledge other than solely in the format of ‘introduction, methods, theory, context, findings, discussion, conclusion’ need to be accepted. Finally, and very significantly—such writers, the ‘southern non-traditional, “organic” intellectuals’—are frequently bilingual but their dominant languages are not English, and instead will be the local official language and their Indigenous language.

We believe that the essays here show that Southern criminologists and green criminologists can and must work outside and beyond the conventional academic treadmill of production (Goyes 2019; Lund 2015). To add the voices of the marginalised and impoverished, we need to create more channels and opportunities to democratise knowledge in building a future Southern and green criminology. In practice, this means that we need to understand that the traditional structure of criminological articles is not the only way to structure the presentation of knowledge and experience. This implies that, first, academic criminological journals, at least those aligned with the goals of a Southern criminology, should accept works in formats that may better represent the ideas therein, rather than force authors to conform to the ‘standard’ of the traditional journal. Second, we also need to share time to assist those usually rejected by ‘professional’ criminological outlets. There is a Western/Northern bias here, as such journals typically publish in English, in which case editorial and translation assistance with use of the English language may be helpful.

In the past, others have tried to achieve cognitive justice by inviting contributors from the Global South to publish in Northern books and journals. For example, Dod and Shank, editors of the Crime and Social Justice Journal, attended various meetings of the Latin American Critical Criminology Group (Dod 1986; Dod and Shank 1987; Shank and Dod 1987a, 1987b) with the hope of helping with ‘the development of theory corresponding to real needs [of] Latin America’ (Shank and Dod 1987a: iii–iv). Arguably, such a hope was not realised, perhaps mainly because they invited the academic elites to contribute instead of inviting ‘the south within the south’ to be part of the ‘global’ criminological debate. The lesson to be learned is that the only way to achieve a real Southern criminology is by genuinely including those who are part of ‘the south within the south, the periphery within the periphery’ in this changing discipline.

In this special issue, we have tried to be guided by the ideas and proposals we have set out above. First, we hope to have distanced ourselves from a belief that the South needs to develop its knowledge in isolation from the North; we think that cognitive justice is only achievable by virtue of a dialogue between parties that are accepted and can act as equals. The spirit of this is reflected in the aim to create ‘Global Green Criminological Dialogues’ rather than just reproduce ‘voices from Latin America’. Hence, while authors may be writing about the same or similar topics, Northern and Southern authors may have differing perceptions of what constitutes the most significant problem(s), because they start from the point of view of their own experience and sociocultural position. It is hoped that by means of dialogue, these perspectives can be refined in relation to each other and reach an understanding, perhaps even a synthesis, of Northern and Southern voices and epistemologies. Thus, most articles forming this special issue are co-written by Latin American and ‘Northern’ authors. Second, as far as possible, we have sought to include a mix of contributors who have been involved with this kind of project for a while alongside others who have not hitherto focused on such criminological debates.

As a result, our special issue has six articles (and three book reviews). We begin with an example of how illuminating and significant a different sort of approach can be. In her essay, Katia Apaza explains what the concept of Pachamama really means for Latin American Indigenous peoples. Apaza’s work is of great value to all green criminologists because we, like many environmentalists, usually and proudly champion the ideal of the Pachamama. However, most of us only have a superficial and inadequate understanding and perception of the idea, tinted by popularisation and idealisation.

The following essays show how far from valuing nature and other-than-human species the criminal, commercial and political systems of the more material world are. In their article, Inés Arroyo and Tanya Wyatt deal with wildlife trafficking between the European Union and Mexico, providing a perfect example of the need to have global dialogues—we cannot understand what happens in one region of the world without understanding what happens in the others. Valeria Vegh Weis shows how the Argentinian criminal justice system, instead of focusing ‘on the harms produced by the corporations’ focuses on ‘the Indigenous peoples claiming to protect their land and natural resources’. This work efficiently uses Northern theory (e.g., that of Baratta 2004) to understand Southern problems with the aim of helping marginalised Southern communities. In the next piece, Ragnhild Sollund, Ángela Maldonado and Claudia Brieva Rico analyse the global measures applied to counteract climate change, and the effects these measures have on local peripheral communities. The findings include the observation that current global climate policies may be regarded as a form of environmental colonialism, in which the direct costs of measures to reduce climate change are paid by poor and marginalised people in the South. Thus, Northern countries may enjoy a ‘green’ image and continue with their usual oil contaminating activities, while the money that is supposed to be directed into protection of the rainforest and to project an image of good practice in environmental conservation may instead disappear in bureaucracy and corruption. This work is an excellent example of the kind of collaboration and results that can be produced as we cross ‘the abyss’ and join forces to gain a better understanding of an issue. A similar benefit arises from the work of Bill McClanahan, Tatiana Sánchez Parra and Avi Brisman in their analysis of how the Colombian peace process facilitated the advancement of foreign capitalist endeavours in Colombian territory, most of which, like tourism, propels environmental destruction. Thus, in Colombia, ‘peace agreements’ have meant ‘destruction’ and ‘violence’ to the ecosystems. Their essay shows that global dialogues are not only about pointing out differences, but also finding similarities—capitalism is globally dictating the course of everything, including peace processes. Finally, David R. Goyes and Nigel South discuss hidden intentions behind conservation projects, arguing that development projects and conservation projects often share the effect of environmentally disenfranchising Indigenous communities.

With this special issue, we hope to gain and to offer a better understanding of diverse environmental issues by combining Northern and Southern perspectives. We also hope to inspire further global dialogues of a similar nature.

Correspondence: David Rodríguez Goyes, Doctor in Criminology, University of Oslo, Norway. Assistant professor at the Antonio Nariño University, Transversal 25 N 59-18, Bogotá, Colombia. Email: d.r.goyes@jus.uio.no.

References

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Please cite this article as:

Goyes DR, Sollund R and South N (2019) Special issue. Towards global green criminological dialogues: Voices from the Americas and Europe. Guest editors’ introduction. International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy 8(3): 1-5. DOI: 10.5204/ijcjsd.v8i3.1240

2019_2501.jpg This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence. As an open access journal, articles are free to use with proper attribution. ISSN: 2202-8005


[1] We are not going to provide names nor references for this. Our purpose with this introduction is not to attack but to build.


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