Slaughtering the Bison, Controlling Native Americans: A State Crime and Green Criminology Synthesis

Abstract

We demonstrate the usefulness and importance of achieving descriptive and explanatory synthesis between the fields of state crime and green criminology when analyzing events that embody both state and “green” crime elements. Utilizing the case of the nineteenth century North American bison slaughter (1865–1890), we present an analysis that attends to the state and green crime elements present in this singular event and show that the bison slaughter exemplifies the type of case that benefits from a synthesis of the state and green criminology perspectives. That is, we can best understand the bison slaughter and other similar events when drawing jointly upon the resources offered by the state and green criminology fields. We conclude this paper with an explanation of the bison slaughter that utilizes a political–economic framework and the complementary concepts of structural contradictions and hegemony, showing, among other things, that political economy is one vital approach that meets the explanatory goals of both state crime and green criminology, aiding our understanding of cases like the bison slaughter. As the world moves forward into a future defined by various ecological, political and economic insecurities, scholars from both disciplines will increasingly encounter events that are impossible to fully understand without engaging with each other. This paper is thus an attempt to motivate the sowing of cross-disciplinary seeds of heightened collaboration between state crime scholars and green criminologists.