Seeing and sensing environmental harm

Green criminology seems inherently suited to sensorial inquiry – our experiences of the environment are never just visual but woven through sound, smell, taste, and touch. These sensory layers reveal not only human encounters with the natural world but also the lives of more-than-human beings, making the field ripe for deeper, embodied exploration ( McClanahan & South, 2019 ). Exploring sensescapes opens a new conversation around knowledge production, how to explore criminological phenomena, and how to ‘re-examine our assumptions about the criminological world’ ( Herrity et al., 2021 , p.xxii). Various sensorial inputs of the non-visual variety provide green criminology with a much deeper analysis and, therefore, contributions to our understandings of crime, harm, and trauma, as well as the personal, social, and political. Burns ( 2023 ) discusses the value of a phenomenological approach to green criminology, as many notions in this sub-field are taken for granted. A phenomenological approach focuses on lived experience and what that means, extending the domain to more ethical and philosophical fields. A symbolic interactionist approach ‘addresses how society is created and maintained through repeated interactions among individuals’ ( Carter, 2016 , p.931). Both approaches are captured here and therefore raise questions about what we mean by the term ‘green’ or ‘nature’, as these conceptions are primarily situated in Western empiricism and romantic notions of what we consider nature ( McClanahan, 2020 ). Others have also noted that broader ecological systems often lack empathy due to the inadequate understanding of the rights of nature in Western cosmologies ( Natali & McClanahan, 2017 ). Burns also raises the ‘ethical responsibility on the meaning of one’s lived experience’; this could involve reflecting on our everyday taken-for-granted experiences (2023). Ferall (2013) offers a poignant example of how sensory imagery – photographs of discarded shopping carts and remnants of consumerism – captures the erosion of ecological spaces. These images make visible the sensory traces of environmental degradation, tying directly into a sensory green criminological approach.