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Imaging Visual Methods for Green Criminology

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Book cover A Visual Approach for Green Criminology

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Green Criminology ((PSGC))

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Abstract

The interaction between what we observe and the words used to describe our observations produces reciprocal understandings. In this chapter, I describe some theoretical and methodological principles for the use of the photographic image as a method of researching environmental crimes and harms—a green criminology with images—with a particular focus on the use of photo elicitation. Finally, I suggest that by learning how to “listen visually,” green criminologists can gain a richer understanding of the phenomenon they are investigating, particularly from the perspective of those people who are directly affected by it.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Moreover, the photographic device presents itself as a peculiar ensemble of different kinds of knowledge and practices that is able to re-modulate visual dimensions.

  2. 2.

    In order to decode present and pervasive environmental deterioration, it is essential to re-trace the processes of industrialization that characterized the capitalist modernity of Western Countries along with the systemic and “epistemic” violences (Spivak 1999) that distinguish it. In this reflexive and critical re-reading, post-colonial and cultural studies can help to enhance the alternative voices and those of resistance that challenge the dominant imagination, and unmask the interweaving between culture and power, by increasing the value of the conflicting tensions that permeate the common sense and that always render imperfect and therefore unstable the hegemonic construction of consensus.

  3. 3.

    These ideas, to some extent, resonate with Walter Benjamin’s notion of the “dialectical image.” More concretely, in Chap. 4, we have seen these aspects with respect to the scenario of Huelva, particularly in the choice of juxtaposing a Google Earth image with the old photograph of Punta del Sebo. As Mirzoeff (2011) reminds us, we must endeavour to fill the gap between the richness of our visual experience and the limitations of the analytical instruments available to comprehend it (see Frisina 2013: 82). Besides, the scholar challenges the aerial visualization of those who want to dominate (aerial photos of bombings) with the planetary one of those who fight to defence the biosphere (see Frisina 2013: 84). Harper (2012: 56–87) also explores these aspects:

    The aerial perspective also shows the disastrous and contradictory effects of human action on the land. There are many examples, but I’m thinking in particular of Emmet Gowin’s aerial photos of nuclear bomb test sites, bomb disposal craters, offroad traffic patterns on the Great Salt Lake, weapons disposal trenches, copper mining and ore processing facilities, labyrinths of trenches left behind from uranium exploration, pivot irrigation and drainage ditches, aeration ponds in toxic water treatment facilities and abandoned Minuteman missile silos through the American West.

  4. 4.

    The privileged relationship between the visual and the environment does not necessarily imply an “ocularcentric” position. As we have seen in Chap. 4 and as I will highlight in Chap. 7, our ways of seeing have to be linked with our ways of sensing.

  5. 5.

    This new attention seems to be the result of the convergence of other significant re-orientations of researching: the “practice”, the “spatial” and the “sensory” turn (Pink 2012a).

  6. 6.

    Parkin (2014: 16) writes: “More specifically, photo-elicitation may reduce the gulf that often exists between the ‘emic’ (insider/member) world of the respondent and the ‘etic’ (outsider/non-member) world of the academic researcher.”

  7. 7.

    See Harper (2012: 155–187); Banks (2001). As Harper (2012: 159) explains, “I came to believe that the photo elicitation interviews did more than stimulate deeper and sharper memory, as John Collier noted […]. Rather, our conversations created what Max Weber called verstehen, loosely translated as understanding, and usually interpreted as capturing the point of view of the other.”

  8. 8.

    See Chap. 4.

  9. 9.

    The notion of “collaborative method” is contested. See Lapenta (2011) on collaboration and photo elicitation.

  10. 10.

    As is well known, in order to avoid falling into what philosophers call “naturalistic fallacy,” it is essential to separate facts from values—the world from our judgement of the world—a descriptive attitude from an evaluative/prescriptive one. It is, however, necessary to take into account that these levels are not impervious to each other: our story and our way of looking at the world are woven with implicit rules that direct our acceptance of what presents itself as real (Bencivenga 2015: 29).

  11. 11.

    On this, see also Back (2007).

  12. 12.

    In my view, being a sensitive seismograph is not an end in itself, but a capturing technique that widens the net of data the researcher will analyse. On this idea—linked to the life and work of Aby Warburg—see Gombrich (1986).

  13. 13.

    See Chap. 5.

  14. 14.

    Many techniques are already employed to take into account this dimension. These include: the “diary-photo” (Letham 2004); “mental maps” (Lynch 1960; Anzoise and Mutti 2013); experiments with a higher level of creativity, such as the “visual tours” (Peyrefitte 2012) and the “itinerant soliloquies” (Anzoise et al. 2016).

  15. 15.

    Moreover, to co-produce knowledge means not only recognizing the active role of the participants in the process of research, but also explaining in what measure, in what forms and in which phases, the actors act as real and proper “co-researchers” (Phillips et al. 2013).

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  1. Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy

    Lorenzo Natali

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Natali, L. (2016). Imaging Visual Methods for Green Criminology. In: A Visual Approach for Green Criminology. Palgrave Studies in Green Criminology. Palgrave Pivot, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54668-5_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54668-5_6

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