Expressions of speciesism: the effects of keeping companion animals on animal abuse,animal trafficking and species decline

Humans’ contact with other animals is chiefly organised around humans’ own consumption and ‘needs’. This article begins with an aspect of the human—non-human animal relationship that is connected to animals as social, not material beings -‘pet-keeping’. Over the past few years the pet industry has expanded enormously. I discuss how the keeping of companion animals can be understood, and the consequences for the animals involved; this practice leaves an increasing number vulnerable to abuse and exploitation, not the least dogs—the most common companion animal. The market for companion animals worldwide is fed by breeding, but also by the abduction of animals and birds from their habitats. Keeping companion animals contributes greatly to the endangerment of many species, parrots in particular. Therefore the focus of this paper especially concerns parrots and the consequences they and their species suffer from being abducted, trafficked and traded, whether the trade is criminalized or not. I will discuss implications of the CITES convention, whether it serves to legitimate rather than protect animals from trade, trafficking and suffering.     

Southern Green Cultural Criminology and Environmental Crime Prevention: Representations of Nature Within Four Colombian Indigenous Communities

Critical Criminology - This exploratory study develops a “southern green cultural criminology” approach to the prevention of environmental harms and crimes. The main aim is to...     

Real-time research: decolonising research practices – or just another spectacle of researcher–practitioner collaboration?

This article examines the experiences and outcomes from collaboration between a group of researchers and a Northern NGO to improve recovery work in Sri Lanka after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami disaster. A Real-Time Research methodology was established to follow and intervene in the recovery practices as they took place on the ground. What was learned and achieved through this collaboration is assessed, with particular reference to the relationships between various stakeholders in the collaboration.     

Local Navigations in a Global Industry: The Gendered Nature of Entrepreneurship in Ghana’s Oil and Gas Service Sector

Oil and gas discoveries spurred expectations of economic growth and employment in Ghana. The demand for labour is however limited within offshore petroleum extraction. Employment generation therefore depends on the development of an onshore oil and gas service sector. This study examines the strategies adopted by local entrepreneurs in the ‘oil city’ of Takoradi, focusing on the gendered nature of their activities, skills, networks and capital sources. I argue that the petroleum industry’s male dominance and international standards requirements, coupled with gender constraints regarding work and access to relevant resources, limit female entrepreneurs’ creation of employment in this emerging sector.     

Editors’ Introduction to the Special Issue, “Southern Criminologies: Methods,Theories and Indigenous Issues”

Critical Criminology -     

Young People's Everyday Politics in Post-conflict Sri Lanka

Since the civil war ended in 2009, political spaces in eastern Sri Lanka have remained restricted. The authors examine how young people in areas formerly controlled by or with the presence of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) engage in politics by making safe spaces. A framework for understanding youth politics is presented in order to explain how youths' political spaces are found at the interface of two axes: the axis between political presence and political involvement; and the axis between voiceless politics and vocal politics. Through locating young people's perspectives, practices and realities in relation to these axes, the authors find that war-affected youths in eastern Sri Lanka are stuck in their everyday politics, which prevents their full political presence and involvement. Repolitisation is needed to mobilise youths' political agency.     

Fight the Youth: Youth Bulges and State Repression

It is generally acknowledged that large youth cohorts or “youth bulges” make countries more susceptible to antistate political violence. Thus, we assume that governments are forewarned about the political demographic threat that a youth bulge represents to the status quo and will attempt to preempt behavioral challenges by engaging in repression. A statistical analysis of the relationship between youth bulges and state repression from 1976 to 2000 confirms our expectation. Controlling for factors known to be associated with coercive state action, we find that governments facing a youth bulge are more repressive than other states. This relationship holds when controlling for, and running interactions with, levels of actual protest behavior. Youth bulges and other elements that may matter for preemptive state strategies should therefore be included in future empirical models of state repression.