The social perception of environmental victimization. A visual and sensory methodological proposal

Abstract

This article proposes a visual and sensory methodology useful to the study of environmental victimization from the perspective of people exposed to environmental harm and crime. Given the scarcity of tools with which to approach these dynamic and elusive phenomena, I focus first on the methodological and theoretical positioning that sees the encounter between green, cultural, visual, narrative and critical criminologies. Second, I discuss photo elicitation, a technique for a green criminology “with” images, where visual images are used as a heuristic tool in order to explore more thoroughly the social perception of environmental victimization. Third, I discuss the importance of sensory techniques for a green criminology open to the complex and situational dimension of environmental harm, with some examples involving a special form of mobile methodology called itinerant soliloquy. The conclusion notes the potential of a visual and sensory mode of research to social and environmental harms in sensitizing scholars, practitioners and policy-makers to the need to change some taken-for-granted views that inform our relationship with the environment.