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- Von Essen, Erica
(författare)
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Shoot shovel and sanction yourself: Self-policing as a response to wolf poaching among Swedish hunters
- 2019
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Ingår i: AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0044-7447 .- 1654-7209. ; 48, s. 230-239
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Self-policing is essential for addressing wildlife-related crime where illegal activity is extremely diffuse, and limited resources are available for monitoring and enforcement. Emerging research on self-policing suggest key drivers including economics, folk traditions, and socio-political resistance. We build on this research with a case study evaluating potential drivers of self-policing illegal wolf killing among Swedish hunting teams. Swedish hunters marginally leaned toward considering illegal hunting of wolves an expression of resistance (10.30 out of a possible 17 on a resistance scale) and strongly believed outsiders had undue influence over hunting (15.79 out of a possible 21 on an influence scale). Most (73%) Swedish hunters stated they would report illegal wolf killing to authorities, but 20% stated they would handle the infractions through internal sanctions. Viewing illegal hunting of wolves as a form of political resistance, viewing wolf management as being controlled locally, and perceived prevalence of illegal wolf killing among hunting acquaintances were positive predictors of preferring internal sanctions to address illegal wolf killing over reporting the crimes. Resistance and perceived prevalence of wolf killing also predicted preferring no action to address illegal wolf killing. These results suggest that a counterpublic of marginalized ruralism may promote forms of self-policing that rely on internal censure for illegal wolf killing rather than using formal legal channels. Similarly, folk traditions within this counterpublic (e.g., perceptions of prevalence of illegal wolf killing) shape if and how internal sanctions are advocated. Re-engaging marginalized hunting groups and emphasizing the rarity of illegal wolf killing may promote wolf conservation, both in Sweden and in other democratic regimes.
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| 3. |
- Von Essen, Erica
(författare)
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Solidarity Between Human and Non-Human Animals: Representing Animal Voices in Policy Deliberations
- 2017
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Ingår i: Environmental Communication. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1752-4032 .- 1752-4040. ; 11, s. 641-653
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this paper, we discuss the bridging potential of "interspecies" solidarity between the often incommensurable ethics of care and justice. Indeed, we show that the Environmental Communication literature emphasizes feelings of care and compassion as vectors of responsibility taking for animals. But we also show that a growing field of Political Animal Rights suggest that such responsibility taking should instead be grounded in universalizable terms of justice. Our argument is that a dual conception of solidarity can bridge this divide: On the one hand, solidarity as a pre-political relation with animals and, on the other hand, as a political practice based on open public deliberation of universalizable claims to justice; that is, claims to justice advanced by human proxy representatives of vulnerable non-humans. Such a dual conception can both challenge and validate NGOs' claims to "speak on behalf of animals" in policy following the Aarhus Convention, indeed underwriting the Convention by insights from internatural communication in solidarity as relation, and by subjecting it to rational scrutiny in mini-publics in solidary as practice.
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| 4. |
- Von Essen, Erica, et al.
(författare)
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Toward a critical and interdisciplinary understanding of illegal hunting : a synthesis of research workshop findings
- 2015
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Illegal hunting has constituted an expression of contested legitimacy of wildlife regulation across the world for centuries. In the following report, we critically engage with the state of the art on the illegal hunting phenomenon. We do so to reveal emerging scholarly perspectives on the crime. Specifically, we aim to capture the complexity of illegal hunting as a socio-political phenomenon rather than an economically motivated crime. To do so, we adopt a critical perspective that pays particular attention to the societal processes that contribute to the criminalization of historically accepted hunting practices. To capture perspectives on illegal hunting, fifteen researchers from various countries participated in an illegal hunting workshop in Copenhagen 16-17th June 2014. A primary contribution of the research workshop was to bring together criminologists, sociologists, anthropologists and geographers, each equipped with their own research perspective, to engage in a critical and interdisciplinary discussion on how to apprehend and constructively address the challenges of illegal hunting in contemporary society. A majority of those that attended were primarily based in the Nordic and the UK context, which motivated a strong focus on the illegal hunting that currently takes places in these countries. Similar trends of illegal hunting were identified across Europe, many of which traced from EU legislation on the reintroduction of large carnivores or other controversial wildlife conservation projects. In the workshop, proceedings took the form of individual presentations, plenary discussions and group work. Common themes that emerged from these presentations were: illegal hunting as communicating socio-political resistance; the targeting of specific species based on its symbolism or environmental history; illegal hunting as symptom of class struggles; the role of rewilding and domestication of nature on wildlife regulation; corruption, complicity and conflicts of loyalty in enforcement, and discrepancies and discontinuities in legality. These themes were framed in an understanding of illegal hunting as a complex, multifaceted expression that transgresses livelihood based motivation. Critical discussions conceptualised illegal hunting as a crime of dissent. This meant situating crimes as everyday forms of resistance against the regulatory regime. In so doing, the relationship between hunters and public authorities was highlighted as a potential source of disenfranchisement. In this interactionist perspective, illegal hunting tells us not just about the rationales of the offenders. It also elucidates the broader context in which non-compliance with regulation serves as symptoms of democratic and legitimacy deficits on the state level. Erratic transitions in legislation and a subsequent discord between legal, cultural and moral norms in society were identified as factors that contribute to the conflict. Crucially, the research workshop and the report contribute with three perspectives. First, it emphasizes the need to uncover the grey areas of complicity in wildlife crime. Previously corruption, bribery and selective law enforcement have been associated with wildlife trafficking in the global south, but this understanding is too blunt for the complicity that exists in many other contexts. Here conflicts of loyalty exist across several strata of society and differ in degrees. In highlighting this fact, we show a more opaque and contingent climate of complicity around illegal hunting in Northern Europe and elsewhere. Second, as crimes of dissent seeking to publicise injustices, illegal hunting and its associated resistance tactics are counterproductive by constituting a ‘dialogue of the dead’. With this is mean that such communication is prone to distortion, misunderstanding and exaggeration and does no favors to hunters. There is consequently a need to move to a clarity of messages, as in institutionalised diogue processes. Third, hunting regulation cannot be seen in isolation to the broader differences in society in terms of values, economic factors and development. Research questions for future scholarship concluded the workshop and are summarized in the report. In terms of illuminating the junctures at which additional research is needed, these questions may provide important guidance. Above all, the report is intended as help for policy-makers, wildlife managers and law enforcement in better understanding and responding to the complexities of illegal hunting. We hope this will lead to more long-term preventative measures that address the core of the issue rather than proximate causes. The workshop was organized by the Environmental Communication Division of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. The event constituted a part of the FORMAS funded research project Confronting challenges to political legitimacy of the natural resource management regulatory regime in Sweden - the case of illegal hunting in Sweden whose members include Erica von Essen, Dr. Hans Peter Hansen and Dr. Helena Nordström Källström from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Professor Tarla R. Peterson from Texas A&M University and Dr. Nils Peterson from North Carolina State University.
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| 5. |
- Von Essen, Erica
(författare)
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Wild-But-Not-Too-Wild Animals : Challenging Goldilocks Standards in Rewilding
- 2016
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Ingår i: Between the species. - 1945-8487. ; 19, s. 80-108
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Rewilding is positioned as ‘post'-conservation through its emphasis on unleashing the autonomy of natural processes. In this paper, we argue that the autonomy of nature rhetoric in rewilding is challenged by human interventions. Instead of joining critique toward the ‘managed wilderness' approach of rewilding, however, we examine the injustices this entails for keystone species. Reintroduction case studies demonstrate how arbitrary standards for wildness are imposed on these animals as they do their assigned duty to rehabilitate ecosystems. These ‘Goldilocks' standards are predicated on aesthetic values that sanction interventions inconsistent with the premise of animal sovereignty. These include culling, relocations and sterilizations of animals that demonstrate the kind of autonomy championed in rewilding rhetoric. Drawing from Donaldson and Kymlicka's framework for political animal categories, we conclude by arguing that rewilding needs to re-position itself in one of two ways. Either it should align itself more closely to mainstream conservation and embrace full animal sovereignty without Goldilocks conditions, or it should commit to taking full responsibility for reintroduced animals, including supplementary feeding and care.
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| 8. |
- Joosse, Sofie, et al.
(författare)
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Critical, Engaged and Change-oriented Scholarship in Environmental Communication. Six Methodological Dilemmas to Think with
- 2020
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Ingår i: Environmental Communication. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1752-4032 .- 1752-4040. ; 14, s. 758-771
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- While calls for critical, engaged and change-oriented scholarship in environmental communication (EC) abound, few articles discuss what this may practically entail. With this article, we aim to contribute to a discussion in EC about the methodological implications of such scholarship. Based on our combined experience in EC research and drawing from a variety of academic fields, we describe six methodological dilemmas that we encounter in our research practice and that we believe are inherent to such scholarship. These dilemmas are (1) grasping communication; (2) representing others; (3) involving people in research; (4) co-producing knowledge; (5) engaging critically; and (6) relating to conflict. This article does not offer solutions to these complex dilemmas. Rather, our dilemma descriptions are meant to help researchers think through methodological issues in critical, engaged and change-oriented EC research. The article also helps to translate the dilemmas to the reality of research projects through a set of questions, aimed to support a sensitivity to, and understanding of, the dilemmas in context.
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| 10. |
- Theodorakea, Ilektra Theodora, et al.
(författare)
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Who Let the Wolves Out? Narratives, rumors and social representations of the wolf in Greece
- 2016
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Ingår i: Environmental Sociology. - : Informa UK Limited. - 2325-1042. ; 2, s. 29-40
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- As a way of coping with uncertainty and threats to their livelihoods following wolf reintroduction, livestock breeders in Greece deploy incriminating rumors about the wolf and the premises and actors around its reintroduction. In this paper, we identify the social representations with which livestock breeders make sense of and constitute the wolf as a social object. Through Moscovici’s social representations framework, we show how enduring and contemporary (corresponding to core and peripheral) attributions formalize into coherent narratives and become designated as rumors by their unverified, third-party nature. To this end, the two rumors that dominate in Greece as well as the rest of Europe are that of wolves being secretly released by NGOs and wolves as genetically impure hybrids. These become counter-narratives to the dominant truth and function as the currency of the voiceless in wolf conservation. The paper situates these rumors in a global context of contemporary conspiracy theories on the wolf currently reproduced by disenfranchised hunters, breeders and rural residents. It suggests the affinities across these rumors point to generalizable drivers to rumor creation, including the perception of inaccessible official channels for communication.
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