Green criminology and native peoples: The treadmill of production and the killing of indigenous environmental activists
| Date | 01 August 2018 |
| Author | Michael A Long,Paul B Stretesky,Michael J Lynch |
| DOI | 10.1177/1362480618790982 |
| Published date | 01 August 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
790982TCR0010.1177/1362480618790982Theoretical CriminologyLynch et al.
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Article
Theoretical Criminology
2018, Vol. 22(3) 318 –341
Green criminology and native
© The Author(s) 2018
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https://doi.org/10.1177/1362480618790982
DOI: 10.1177/1362480618790982
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production and the killing of
indigenous environmental
activists
Michael J Lynch
University of South Florida, USA
Paul B Stretesky
Northumbria University, UK
Michael A Long
Oklahoma State University, USA
Abstract
During the development of green criminology, little attention has been paid to how
Indigenous/Native Peoples (INP) are victimized by green crime and how they employ
environmental activism to resist externally imposed ecological destruction. In the past
decade, news services and environmental interest groups have reported on the killing
of INP environmental activists who have resisted ecological destruction across the
world. Here, we begin to develop a green criminological view of INP victimization
and resistance to ecological destruction within the context of the global capitalist
treadmill of production, while drawing upon concepts of colonization, imperialism,
genocide and ecocide. Our analysis suggests that in the contemporary capitalist world
system, expansion of the treadmill of production’s ecological withdrawal process (i.e.
the withdrawal of raw materials used in production) not only accelerates ecological
disorganization in developing/underdeveloped nations, but may be harmful in nations
where INP are dependent on access to nature for survival.
Corresponding author:
Michael J Lynch, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, FL 33620, USA.
Email: mjlynch@usf.edu
Lynch et al.
319
Keywords
Ecocide, ecological disorganization, environmental justice, environmental victimization,
genocide, green criminology, indigenous peoples, treadmill of production, world
systems theory
Introduction
This special issue comes at an important point in the transition of criminological think-
ing, marking nearly three decades of green criminological research.1 To date, green crim-
inologists have addressed numerous crime and justice concerns associated with
environmental destruction that harms humans, nonhuman species and ecosystems. While
three decades seems like a long time, green criminology remains a “youngster” relative
to other forms of criminology, and many subjects remain ripe for investigation. In this
article, we examine green crimes experienced by Indigenous or Native Peoples (INP),2
who are also among the most socially and economically marginalized people globally,
but whose victimization has not been exposed, analyzed, understood and addressed to
the extent that it should, especially within criminology (see Crook et al., this issue; Goyes
et al., 2017; Walters 2017). For example, the United Nations’ Division for Social Policy
and Development of Indigenous Peoples notes that INP comprise 5 percent of the world’s
population and 15 percent of the global poor, while about 80 percent of INP globally are
classified as poor.
INP are affected by numerous forms of green crime and victimization. Here, we focus
attention on the interaction between INP genocide, ecocide and the expansion of the
global treadmill of production (ToP), and view this work as an extension of green crimi-
nology research addressing environmental justice (Brisman, 2008; Stretesky and Lynch,
1998). To examine these issues, we sketch a political-economic argument concerning
INP victimization and INP resistance to ecological harms/ecological disorganization
generated by the ToP. Green criminologists have made some reference to the green vic-
timization of INP (e.g. Goyes, 2015; Lynch and Stretesky, 2012, 2013; Moloney and
Chambliss, 2014; Van Solinge, 2010) and their resistance against green victimization
(Rojas-Paez, 2017; Weinstock, 2017). This important issue deserves more extensive
attention, both in terms of theoretical development and for humanitarian reasons. INP
throughout the world are under increased attacks from the ToP, as it seeks new raw mate-
rial sources, promoting extensive ecological destruction on INP lands. Prior studies
employ examples of harms against INP. Those studies have included examples of state
and state–corporate violence against indigenous peoples (Goyes, 2015; Rojas-Paez,
2017); harms from mining (Gutiérrez-Gómez, 2017; Rojas-Paez, 2017), rubber (Rojas-
Paez, 2017) and palm oil extraction (Mol, 2017); and laws related to addressing INP
human rights (Rojas-Paez, 2017). Brief theoretical sketches have been presented explor-
ing how harms against INP represent extensions of colonialism (Goyes and South, 2017;
Mondaca, 2017; Rojas-Paez, 2017) and result from neoliberialism (Gutiérrez-Gómez,
2017; Mol, 2017; Rojas-Paez, 2017).
In this article, we address the harms to INP, the killing/murder of INP activists and
INP resistance to harms associated with resource extraction from a political-economic
320
Theoretical Criminology 22(3)
perspective using a combination of approaches, but drawing most directly on ToP theory.
In doing so, we illustrate how the ToP affects INPs through forms of genocide that stem
from ecocide, with the latter connection posited by Crook and Short (2014).
Political-economic approaches have been employed to examine how the global eco-
nomic structure divides nations into developed and under/less-developed nations.
Following the Second World War, as an extension of the United Nations’ Economic
Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Raúl Prebisch (1949, 1950) began to
explore how trade relationships between nations promoted unequal economic develop-
ment across nations. Prebisch’s work is important as it demonstrates how nations become
disadvantaged through unequal economic exchanges. Prebisch’s ideas were later
extended by Andre Gunder Frank (1966, 1967), in his works The Development of
Underdevelopment, and Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America, which
established the utility of dependency theory for conceptualizing the exploitation of Latin
American nations and their resources by more highly developed capitalist nations (see
also Frank’s (1976) article, Economic Genocide in Chile; for an early application to
African nations see, Rodney, 1972). These perspectives were instrumental in generating
specific Latin American and African dependency theory approaches, which contend that
the same processes that generate economic expansion in core (northern) nations, gener-
ate underdevelopment in semi-peripheral and peripheral nations through economic and
ecological exploitation of the latter nations. These arguments have been modified over
time and incorporated into world systems theory and theories of unequal economic
exchange, ecologically uneven development and unequal ecological exchange (see later)
to critique both modernization arguments and other approaches that place the blame for
economic underdevelopment (relative to developed nations) on the characteristics of the
cultures, peoples and economic, political and social organization in underdeveloped
nations. In contrast, dependency theories illustrate how underdevelopment was imposed
on certain nations as a result of the organization of global capitalism. In this tradition, the
terms “developed” and “underdeveloped” are specific—employed because they also
contain a political and economic understanding and critique of how the structure of the
global economy established economically exploitive hierarchical structure between
nations. In our view, ToP theory is one perspective useful for conceptualizing how the
structure of the global economic system continues to impose economic and ecological
exploitation on some nations, and in the process, facilitating the ecological genocide of
INP. In brief, lands belonging to or inhabited by INP frequently contain natural resources
targeted for ToP withdrawal. Those withdrawals constitute attacks on INP and ecosys-
tems, and involve partnerships between ToP organizations and state governments that
facilitate treadmill access to INP lands and resources. Moreover, those attacks have gen-
erated INP resistance. INP have a long history of resisting the global expansion of capi-
talism, dating to the early 1500s. INP resistance to capitalism has also generated a long
history of violent, repressive counter-responses that include genocide, illustrating the
connection between genocide and ecocide throughout the expansion of capitalism (see
Crook et al., this issue).
To make this argument, we begin with a brief review of ToP theory. Next, we examine
the historical connection between the expansion of capitalism, colonialism, ecological
disorganization, ecocide and genocide. We then examine INP resistance to the expansion
Lynch et al.
321
of capitalism, and discuss framing contemporary INP resistance to global capitalist
expansion as part of class struggle, and explore INP resistance as a threat to capital’s
global hegemony (Rodrıguez-Garavito and Arenas, 2005). From here, we provide an
overview of violent responses to INP resistance to ecological destruction focused on the
killing/murder of INP environmental activists.
Capitalism and the treadmill of production
To understand contemporary patterns of ecological destruction, one must begin with
capitalism and its tendency to promote the acceleration of ecological...
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