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Enhancing green criminological critique of consumerism using psychoanalytic concepts

Theoretical scientific article | Article scientifique théorique

Published onSep 09, 2022
Enhancing green criminological critique of consumerism using psychoanalytic concepts
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Enhancing green criminological critique of consumerism using psychoanalytic concepts


Résumé : Il a été suggéré que la criminologie verte pourrait être enrichie par une critique combinée du néolibéralisme économique et de la vie sociale axée sur la consommation. Cet article présente cette critique. Cet article reprend leur proposition de critique. Il se concentre sur deux formes de consommation contemporaine rarement prises en compte : la consommation de contenu et la consommation d'expériences. S'inspirant de l'économie politique, de la criminologie verte et de la perspective des préjudices sociaux, l'article soutient que le néolibéralisme économique et la vie sociale axée sur la consommation se croisent de manière à modifier considérablement la façon dont la nature est socialement construite et à lui causer directement des dommages réels. Cette position est avancée en considérant comment les concepts psychanalytiques d’inter-passivité et de désaveu fétichiste englobent les formes émergentes de comportement de consommation nuisible à l'environnement. La conclusion propose des projets de recherche futurs pour évaluer empiriquement la signification de ces concepts dans une société plus large en utilisant des méthodes de big data.

Mots-clés : Criminologie verte, Culture de la consommation, Psychanalyse, Critique


Abstract: It has been suggested that green criminology could be enriched by a combined critique of economic neoliberalism and consumption-driven social life. This article articulates that critique. It centers two seldom-considered forms of contemporary consumption: the consumption of content and the consumption of experiences. Drawing from political economy, green criminology, and the social harms perspective, the argument is made that economic neoliberalism and consumption-driven social life intersect in ways that significantly change how nature is socially constructed and directly cause real damage to it. This position is advanced by considering how the psychoanalytic concepts of inter- passivity and fetishistic disavowal encapsulate emerging forms of environmentally harmful consumer behavior. The conclusion proposes future research projects to empirically assess the significance of these concepts in larger society using big data methods.

Keywords : Green Criminology, Consumer Culture, Psychoanalysis, Critique


Implications pratiques: Cet article intéressera les criminologues critiques dont les méthodologies intègrent des concepts psychanalytiques. Les critiques de la culture de consommation contemporaine seront mis au défi d'élargir leurs horizons pour prendre en compte le paysage numérique actuel en pleine évolution. Les projets de recherche proposés dans cet article offrent aux criminologues verts une nouvelle orientation pour faire progresser leur recherche empirique dans le domaine numérique. Les recherches futures devraient appliquer ces suggestions pour mieux comprendre le rôle de la consommation de contenu et de la consommation d'expérience dans la production de dommages environnementaux.


Practical implication: This article will be of interest to critical criminologists whose methodologies integrate psychoanalytic concepts. Critics of contemporary consumer culture will be challenged to consider today’s evolving digital landscape. The research projects proposed in this article offer green criminologists novel direction to advance their empirical research into the digital domain. Future research should apply these suggestions to better understand the role of content consumption and experience consumption in producing environmental harms.


Introduction

Ruggiero and South (2013a) have suggested that “the dual critique of economic neoliberalism and of consumption-driven social life could be a powerful future direction for green criminology” (p. 370). Advancing the dual critique proposed by Ruggiero and South requires understanding the ideas implicit in their recommendation. This section explores the concepts contained in the above quotation. It begins with a brief overview of green criminology and the social harms approach. Next it considers economic neoliberalism. A novel tact is taken based on these considerations. It will be shown that two non-material forms of consumption – that of content and that of experiences – are key components of consumption-driven social life.

Green Criminology and Social Harm

Green criminology is a versatile perspective that permits the examination of a wide range of legal and illegal phenomena. South (2014) describes green criminology as “the study of crime, harm and injustice related to the environment and to species other than humans” (p. 8). While some green criminologists focus on crimes as they are legally defined, many adopt the more expansive category of ‘social harms’ in their analysis. “Social harms” are legal or acceptable behaviors that nonetheless harm the environment (Hillyard et. al., 2004). For example, toxic industries that serve as cornerstones of the economy (Ruggiero & South, 2013b). This expanded scope of analysis permits a more diverse application of theory; In addition to intra-disciplinary (within-criminology) theoretical engagement, green criminologists also undertake extra-disciplinary (outside-criminology) theoretical engagement (Brisman, 2014). For example, by drawing on disciples such as critical animal studies (Taylor & Fitzgerald, 2018) and psychoanalysis (Spencer & Fitzgerald, 2013).

Environmental issues are the focus of green criminological analysis. Like other critical criminological perspectives, green criminology takes a distinct value position (Potter, 2013). However, many regard “taking account of the environment” not as “taking sides” but rather as being “on everybody’s side” (p. 138). Indeed, scholars who adopt this perspective emphasize the inexorable connection between human well-being and the health of the non-human environment (e.g., Agnew, 2011). Like these scholars, the present article adopts a green perspective. It centers harms done to the environment and seeks to produce suggestions capable of meaningfully advancing green criminological praxis. Many green criminologists acknowledge that the practical side of the perspective is challenged by society’s present economic relations.

Economic Neoliberalism

Economic neoliberalism is characterized by an expansion of market logic into ever-wider circles of human and non-human life. Social life, for example, is increasingly commodified by online social media technologies (Zuboff, 2019; Stinson, 2017). The same holds true for nature. Green criminologists have documented the expansion of commodification into areas such as forestry (Halsey & White, 1998), deep water drilling (Ruggiero & South, 2013a), and bio-genetics (Isla, 2018). The regulatory mechanisms that govern the conduct of these extractive industries also operate according to market logic (Fitzgerald & Spencer, 2020). This ubiquity of the profit motive is what Harvey (2008) refers to as “the commodification of everything” (p. 165). It is the critical component of neoliberal economics that fuels its insatiable demand for growth (Lynch et. al., 2013).

The economic ‘commodification of everything’ has its counterpart in consumer culture. To keep the “treadmill of production” (Long et. al., 2012) running and the economy growing, consumers must buy the materials and products that manufacturers produce. Continual growth necessitates consumption beyond ‘needs’ into the domain of ‘wants’ (Ruggiero & South, 2013a). It cultivates what Veblen (2007 [1889]) long ago termed “conspicuous consumption”: the amassing of physical goods merely to demonstrate one’s capacity to do so. The contemporary consumer is cut out for these arrangements. In his risk society thesis, Beck (1992) argues that late modern subjects are characterized by their reflexivity. That is, by their ability to reflect on their conditions of their existence and take actions to change them. Moreover, he argues that this ability has become an obligation (Irwin, 2001). In the absence of the strong social proscriptions that characterized modern society, individuals living in late modernity must choose for themselves how best to live their lives. Beck (1992) refers to this ‘freedom’ as “individualization” (p. 56). In the neoliberal risk society, the reflexive ‘individualized’ consumer becomes a ready buyer for best practices in life; Everyone is in the market for a stable identity and the certainty that they are living it out in a socially acceptable way.

Consumption-driven Social Life

Economic neoliberalism is the driving force of contemporary consumption-driven social life. Consumption has become a core method for managing the “abyss of possibilities” (Zizek, 2009, p. 89) opened by economic neoliberalism. That is, for managing the decision anxiety one feels when presented with endless potential identities they can adopt (Irwin, 2001). For example, scholars have observed how physical goods act as status items to secure one’s identity (Bauman, 2007). At present, problems associated with the over consumption of physical goods are well documented by green criminologists studying the ‘treadmill of production’ (Ruggiero & South, 2013a). Non-material forms of consumption have received comparatively less attention. Two such forms – the consumption of content and the consumption of experiences – have become salient features of contemporary social life.

The consumption of content drives online social life. In an individualizing neoliberal society, personal “identity is a sentence to lifelong hard labour” (Bauman, 2007, p. 111). Individuals are free to choose any identity they wish, but “making a choice is obligatory” (pp. 84-85). Moreover, this identity must be drawn from a pre-selected range of normative identities, on pain of social exclusion (p. 111); Individuals “are free to choose – on the condition that [they] make the right choice” (Zizek, 2009, p. lxii). The ever-expansive market is poised to help consumers make a sound decision. It supplies consumer items to solidify a normative identity and services like social media to publicize that solidity in hopes of validation. For Bauman (2007), it is this “urge of selection and the effort to make choice publicly recognizable that constitutes the self-definition” (p. 110) of contemporary individuals. Through social media, this publicization takes the form of ‘content’ – photos, videos, text posts, etc., which communicate individual identity to the social world. Self-realization is therefore a social exercise that greatly benefits from both the consumption and production of online content.

These social and technological forces contribute to a second growing trend in consumption: the consumption of experiences. Deviant leisure scholars argue that society is seeing a shift from physical consumption to an “experience economy” (Usborne, 2017; Smith, 2019). They “go so far as to position experiences over products or items as the true marker of luxury today, in a discernible shift to immaterial luxury” (p. 309). Smith (2019) argues that this shift is driven by the social need to distinguish oneself with prestigious experiences such as vacations and high-profile event attendance. Consuming experiences is a social marker of success in a society organized around a neoliberal economy. The consumption of content and the consumption of experiences thus form two distinct yet related components of consumption-driven social life. Both appear inseparable from economic neoliberalism, intersecting with it in significant ways. These intersections pose challenges not only for the contemporary subject, but also the environment on which they depend.

(Dual) Critique

The forms of consumption outlined above are normative under neoliberalism. Consuming online content is widely celebrated as liberating and the consumption of experiences is both regarded with envy and cosigned by neoliberal economics. This critique aims to problematize these by asking how, if at all, intersections of consumption-driven social life and neoliberal economics cause or contribute to environmental harms. It develops a constructivist and a realist argument to answer this question. Both suggest that real harms are done to the environment by this intersection. A discussion about how psychoanalytic concepts can expand on this critique and suggestions for future empirical research projects follows. Figure 1 illustrates how these ideas fit together to structure the present article.

Figure 1

Conceptual Map of the Present Article

Note. This figure is an original creation by the author.

Social Media, the Consumption of Content and Social Constructivism

Social media is a common lens through which individuals view and interact with nature. Indeed, many today view the world through a “Facebook Eye” (Silverman, 2015, p. 60; Jurgenson, 2012) or through the lens of Instagram. The natural world is no exception. Arts et. al. (2021) studied how the Instagram lens mediates people’s interactions with nature. They found that producing nature content for Instagram “was part of establishing and performing [participants’] identity.” (p. 9) – nature content was produced for others to consume. The production of this content was “shaped by participants' norms of what an Instagrammable landscape looked like.” (p. 11). In other words, it was tailored for approval by fitting in with content they had consumed in the past.

The problem Arts et. al. (2021) identify is that these representations are homogenized to fit within a small spectrum of acceptable representations. These tend to be either anthropocentric – centered on human exploits in nature – or centered on beauty. The damage that threatens these landscapes is conspicuously absent. Environmental harms do not seem to fit within the construction of what is “Instagrammable” (p. 10), that is, within the normative social construct of nature in a consumption-driven social space. Moreover, this widely used lens into nature is fundamentally incapable of capturing non-visible harms such as airborne toxins emitted by coal fired power plants (Lynch & Barrett, 2015), high mercury concentrations in fish (Fitzgerald & Baralt, 2010), or incremental changes to the earth’s climate (Agnew, 2011). It thus has the effect of narrowing nature to a small band of possible representations, excluding the vast, gradual problems that threaten the beauty people love to consume.

This trend of selective representation can have a real impact on the environment. Social constructivism is a theory that suggests that concepts such as “nature” are co-constructed by humans through social interaction. Since these constructed concepts inform society’s real relations to the environment (Barry, 1999), this massively popular way of engaging with nature could enable environmental harms by minimizing their presence in the collective imaginary (Arts et. al., 2021). The issue is one of framing. What is seen receives popular attention that which is elided does not. One could retort that trends are not deterministic, that some users may have entirely non-anthropocentric content that foregrounds damage done to nature and its non-human inhabitants. However, these representations will always be limited by the visual medium and pitted against a wave of trendy human-centric content. In this way, the content-consumption driven social life of today poses potential harm to the environment. However, regardless of which type of content achieves hegemony, the social media platform itself imperils the environment by converging with neoliberal economics.

From Constructivism to Realism: Intersections with the Economy

At the heart of this constructivist concern lies a very material problem. Online content consumption is a new frontier for profit (Zuboff, 2019). Social media platforms operate on an ad-based revenue system that turns users’ content consumption into corporate cash. For green criminologists, this means that online representations of nature can drive the treadmill of production. Content consumption represents a new avenue of expansion for an economy that has ‘developed’ the planet to near-death.

If the above connection is too abstract, Stinson (2017) locates concrete intersections of markets and online renderings of the outdoors. Google, for example, solicits shots from daring pathfinders to fill out their photospheres on Google Maps. Outdoor apparel companies like Woods Canada drum up engagement by asking users to send in videos of themselves in nature for a chance at prizes. And tourist-oriented government organizations such as Parks Canada seek out eager hikers with promotions that implore them to “take that selfie and share it!” (p. 181). However, while each of these examples highlights a blend of nature, online content, and expanding markets, they do not involve the consumption of content. Something else is being consumed by the daring pathfinder and the eager hiker.

Consuming Real Experiences

The consumption of experience is a crucial antecedent to content consumption. Deviant Leisure scholars argue that experiences are consumed to produce content that will distinguish individuals in the social sphere (Smith & Raymen, 2018). For example, someone posting a photo of themselves on a tropical beach. The desired effect of this content is easily discernable by any person who has encountered such a post by a friend or relative in the dead of winter. However, even the ‘responsible tourist’ who has ‘left only footprints and taken only photos’ of their enviable exploits has imperiled the environment in a very real way. Indeed, their carbon footprint towers over us all.

Air travel is the backbone of the experience economy (Smith, 2019). Air travel accounted for roughly 2.77% of global CO2 emissions in 2019.1 In that year, the industry produced 920 million tonnes of CO2, up 30% from 2013. Passenger travel accounted for 85% of this output (International Energy Agency, 2020; Graver et. al., 2020). Greenhouse gases such as CO2 are prime drivers of global climate change (Brisman, 2015). Air travel thus represents a growing, non-negligible source of environmental harm. Though it is difficult to resolve what contribution experience consumers make to these statistics, it can be reasoned without precise figures that they buoy a dangerous industry.

The real harms of experience consumption can be more readily grasped at the local level. Perhaps the best example is Mt. Everest. Decades of mountaineering have created “the world’s highest junkyard” (White, 2019, p. 295) along the approach to the iconic Himalayan summit (Bishop & Naumann, 1996). Trash from experience consumers is also piling up in more sunny destinations such as the Maldives. To manage the waste generated by luxury destination tourists, the republic built Thilafushi – an artificial “garbage island” designed to store and process visitor refuse (Smith, 2019, p. 317). Sites of experience consumption can just as easily come to your hometown. White (2019) suggests that mega events such as the World Cup and the Olympics are the quintessential experience destination. The site development, transportation, and waste disposal surrounding these events are notorious for leaving local environments in disarray (Mol, 2010; Death, 2011). The consumption of experiences thus poses a real threat to nature. Like content consumption, this aspect of consumption-driven social life intersects with neoliberal economics to produce real harms to the environment. Whether this intersection is approached from a constructivist or a realist angle, it is demonstrably injurious to the environment.

Discussion

This discussion draws on psychoanalytic concepts to theorize the ideas put forward in the critique. It reasons that the critique presents “a powerful future direction for green criminology” (Ruggiero & South, 2013a, p. 370) because it supplies two novel concepts that succinctly capture social issues of green criminological concern. This discussion first advances the notion that the consumption of experiences involves ‘fetishistic disavowal’. It then argues that online content consumption cultivates ‘inter-passivity’. The significance of these concepts for green criminologists is explicated as a conclusion.

Fetishistic Disavowal and the Consumption of Experiences

The mega events discussed above are frequently the target of green washing. Greenwashing is a public relations strategy that foregrounds and overstates the eco-friendly aspects of a product or service. For example, Beijing’s 2008 “green Olympics” (Mol, 2010) or the “Green Goal” initiative of the 2010 FIFA World Cup (Death, 2011). While these sites of experience consumption undoubtedly cause environmental harm, it is reasonable to assert that not all who attend them are ambivalent or even adversarial to environmentalist causes. If attendees share a concern for the damage these events cause, then how can their decision to take part in them be explained?

One approach is to assert that some are simply dupes of neoliberal ideology. They accept these greenwashing campaigns uncritically because neoliberal values have become their operative logic; One believes that mega-events can be conducted in an environmentally neutral way. Here neoliberal ideology becomes a way of “knowing without knowing” (Joy, 2010, p. 71). It works to “normalize and justify” experience consumption, acting as “cultural blinders” (Fitzgerald, 2015, p. 111) to the harms it causes. This line of reasoning clashes with the position of Deviant Leisure scholars. Like Beck, they assert that today’s consumer is a thoroughly reflexive individual capable of perceiving this ideological illusion (Smith, 2019).

Despite their perspicacity, consumers of experiences do not reform their behavior. According to Deviant Leisure scholars (Smith & Raymen, 2018), they deploy what Žižek (1989) terms “fetishistic disavowal” (p. 12). For Žižek, the elementary expression of fetishistic disavowal is: “I know very well, but still…” (p. 12). In the case of the ecological crisis, the expression becomes:

I know very well (that things are deadly serious, and what is at stake is our very survival), but just the same (I don’t really believe it, I’m not prepared to integrate it into my symbolic universe, and that is why I continue to act as if ecology is of no lasting consequence for my everyday life) (Žižek, 1992, pp. 34, 35).

It is not that the consumer has transcended neoliberal ideology. The ideological illusion is instead operative at the level of action, rather than at the level of knowledge. In other words, it is not that the consumer knows their behavior to be harmful “without knowing it” (Joy, 2010, p. 71). They ‘know very well’ that it is harmful. But they act as if they do not know. Deviant leisure scholars draw on Žižek to assert that, with the present scientific consensus on climate change (see IPCC, 2021, p. 76), today’s reflexive consumer is crucially aware that their luxury vacation experience harms the environment. However, their actions betray this knowledge (Smith, 2019); “They know very well how things really are, but they are doing it as if they did not know” (Žižek, 1989, p. 30).

The incongruency between intention and action captured by fetishistic disavowal is crucial for green criminologists. Contemporary scholars have brought the critical criminological toolkit to bear on the harmful exploits of multinational corporations (e.g., Spencer & Fitzgerald, 2013). However, companies such as Volkswagen and British Petroleum continue operations. Is it the case that their customers are unaware or, at worst, apathetic about their transgressions? It seems more likely, based on widespread news coverage and the generally pro-environmentalist sentiments of the public, that a degree of fetishistic disavowal is at play. This psychoanalytic concept may thus point to a major driver of the treadmill of production. Scholars seeking meaningful praxis of neo-Marxist green criminology would be keen to assess and rectify the discord captured by this concept.

Despite this promising outlook, the potential relevance of fetishistic disavowal is challenged by extant literature. Simpson et. al.’s (2013) finding that corporate managers were far less likely to violate environmental regulations when they perceived that their decision would harm humans, animals, or the environment challenges the relevance of this concept. However, the inhibiting force of knowledge may be a consequence of setting. Perhaps the observed effect is less significant for the average individual, whose daily consumption habits represent small harms when compared to corporate actions that violate environmental law. Fetishistic disavowal may depend on the gravity of the behavior. To this point, knowing where the line is drawn between taking responsibility for one’s actions and engaging is disavowal could be a powerful realist direction for green criminological research. Indeed, attaining more precise knowledge of the consuming public is a boon for green criminologists. This is particularly the case for the next psychoanalytic concept.

Inter-passivity and the Consumption of Content

Content consumption poses the basic challenge of transferability. Contemporary activist efforts strive to facilitate the transition from engagement with online environmentalist content to in-person real-world activism (Perz et. al., 2018). However, the above critique suggests that online representations of nature come with limitations. Not only does the social media space cause a flattening of nature and an elision of harm, it also constrains conservation efforts.

The source of this constraint is social media’s capacity to enable inter-passive relationships. “Inter-passive” is a portmanteau of “interactive” and “passive”. It involves delegating interactivity to someone or something else; Someone or something else interacts on a person’s behalf (Žižek, 1997). On social media, the user can delegate their Green consciousness to their online alter-ego. Their profile becomes the one who joins conservation groups and reposts environmentalist content while they continue their usual consumption patterns. Inter-passivity is thus the obverse of fetishistic disavowal. Fetishistic disavowal involves harmful consumer activity, while inter-passivity poses the problem of consumer inactivity.

Inter-passive relationships pose a challenge for green criminologists seeking meaningful environmental change. The importance of this concept is owed to a political climate consistent with Beck’s “unbinding of politics” (Irwin, 2001, p. 60). Current pushes for real change are principally driven by “pragmatic alliances in the individual struggle for existence” (p. 60). These informal collectives fill the void left by impotent state institutions. Examples of such non-traditional tactics include the shutdown of asbestos production facilities in Italy by a class-action lawsuit (Ruggiero & South 2013b), and the deceleration of runaway hog production in North Carolina by grassroots activism (Edward & Ladd, 2000; Ladd & Edward, 2002). The key to success in both cases has been the mobilization of the public. Inter-passive relationships present a roadblock to this mobilization. They allow individuals to engage with initiatives online in lieu of contributing the in-person presence that current initiatives require; They shunt a portion of powerful human resources away from the real-world realm of class action suits and collective action groups and into a digital domain where environmentalist ‘involvement’ becomes little more than a cosmetic badge for one’s profile. As activism, like much of the world, becomes integrated into the online sphere, understanding the role of inter-passive relationships becomes increasingly important for green criminologists. Those who seek public action for their causes would benefit from further investigation of this concept. Conveniently, the same evolving digital landscape that nurtures inter-passive relationships also offers the tools to assess how, if at all, they work against meaningful environmental activism.

Future Directions and Conclusions

The psychoanalytic concepts discussed above can only benefit green criminology if their significance is demonstrated empirically. This concluding section suggests possible research projects for assessing what role, if any, fetishistic disavowal and inter-passivity play in areas of green criminological concern. To do so, it reappropriates technology that has thus far been cast in a negative light. It suggests that the same technology that currently poses challenges to green criminological praxis can be repurposed to effect real change.

Enlisting Big Data

The big data tools that currently commodify social media interactions can be repurposed to aid conservation efforts. ‘Big data’ presents an opportunity for conservationists and activists aiming to increase the efficacy of their initiatives. Toivonen et. al. (2019) outline a research methodology that combines big data analytics with social network analysis. Big data analytics allow for automated content analysis at scale that seeks to understanding people’s values and sentiments. Social network analysis determines how these values and sentiments are shared in networks of friends and family. In tandem, they offer a tool for furthering conservation efforts by suppling precise information to those looking to publicize their initiatives.

The utility of the approach Toivonen et. al. (2019) outline lies in the precision delivery of a message. For example, suppose a conservation group is seeking to drum up popular opposition to a bill that would further imperil old growth forests in Australia (see Halsey and White, 1998). They may employ a researcher (perhaps a green criminologists) to design a program that uses social media data to identify their audience. Such a program may use location data and image recognition software to flag all posts in or near an old growth forest (Toivonen et. al., 2019), as well as use content analysis to identify text-posts with relevant key terms. It may then catalogue all those who liked or commented on these posts. What results is a dataset of individuals with at least a cursory interest in old growth forests. Based on this interest, conservationists can focus their publicity efforts on this group. By enhancing the precision of their message, the conservationists can reasonably expect higher engagement with their content than if they would have engaged individuals with no awareness of old growth forests. Rather than using big data to drive the treadmill of production, the tools that Toivenon et. al. (2019) present can be repurposed to increase the efficacy of campaigns that seek to challenge it.

Investigating Psychoanalytic Concepts

These big data methods can be used to assess the relevance of inter-passivity and fetishistic disavowal. Fundamentally, inter-passivity refers to a gap between knowledge and action, while fetishistic disavowal refers to an incongruency between knowledge and action. Big data methods can determine the existence of either one in the population. The hypothesis of both concept’s relevance can be tested, by comparing online activity to a respondent’s self-reported real-world activities.2 In the case of fetishistic disavowal, finding that a significant number of respondents expressed environmentalist sentiments online but engaged in environmentally harmful behaviors in person would point to the relevance of the concept. Demonstrating inter-passivity would follow a similar course. Results that show a significant number of respondents engaged with environmentalist content online, including joining groups, liking posts, and commenting on pages, but did not participate in any activist work in person, would suggest that content consumption through social media is enabling inter-passive relationships.

Both studies would contribute to a growing conversation surrounding representations of nature in online spaces. Büscher (2016) sparked scholarly interest in this topic with his concept of “Nature 2.0”. However, the attention this area has received (see Carmody et. al., 2017) has thus far failed to meaningfully address the crucial question of green criminological concern. Does the intersection of nature with the online world help or harm nature? The former is possible with innovative research methods. But, at present, the critique of consumption-driven social life and neoliberal economics offered here suggests the latter. Indeed, whether the action of a consumer is one of delegation or disavowal, the present article has made one thing certain. Both behaviors drive a wedge between knowledge and the selfless actions that our planet requires for survival. For green criminologist aiming toward real change, an empirical assessment of these psychoanalytic concepts may prove a fruitful and novel avenue for empirical research.

This article has accomplished “the dual critique of economic neoliberalism and of consumption-driven social life” suggested by Ruggiero and South (2013a, p. 370). The critique it levelled suggested that the intersection of both phenomena harms the environment in real ways. The ideas that surfaced from this critique were developed further using psychoanalytic theory. Fetishistic disavowal and inter-passivity were shown to be succinct and capable concepts for capturing social issues of green criminological concern. It was suggested that cutting-edge research methods can assess the salience of these concepts. If found to be significant, these ideas could enhance the efficacy of green criminological praxis. In sum, the ideas produced by the present critique offer “a powerful future direction for green criminology” (p. 370).

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Notes

1. This figure was obtained by dividing the estimate of total CO2 emissions for all aviation globally made by Graver, Rutherford and Zheng (2020) with the International Energy Agency’s (2020) figure of global CO2 emissions by all sources for the same year.

2. The privacy issues inherent in this approach are partially addressed by Toivonen et. al. (2019). Their concluding considerations suggest that a combination of requesting consent for data usage and the anonymization of said data can make for ethical research, even if the two are linked.

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