Wildlife Crime: A Crime of Hegemonic Masculinity?

Ragnhild Sollund

doi:10.3390/socsci9060093

Abstract

Scholarship within green criminology focusing on crimes and harms against nonhuman animals has been increasing. Little attention, however, has been directed at the gendered aspects of these crimes. For example, why is it that the great majority of offenders involved in wildlife trade and the illegal killing of endangered predators are male? The aim of this article is to fill the gap in the literature, relying on confiscation reports from Norwegian Customs of nonhuman animals—most of whom are listed in CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora)—as well as an analysis of verdicts in cases in Norwegian courts of “theriocides” (animal murders) of large predators. This article will assess the number of men and women involved in these crimes and harms, and will present some trends of theriociders. This article will employ ecofeminist and masculinities theories to better understand the gendered dynamics involved in wildlife trafficking and the theriocides of large carnivores.

Highlights

Approach: Green Criminology, Ecofeminism and During the past decade, an increasing amount of green criminology scholarship has focused on crimes and harms against nonhuman animals, “free born nonhuman animals1 —or so-called “wildlife.” These studies encompass legal and illegal hunting (Nurse 2015; Sollund 2015, 2017b), and “wildlife” trafficking (WLT), with a particular concern for species that are threatened with extinction (e.g., Goyes and Sollund 2016; Leberatto 2016; Maher and Sollund 2016; Schneider 2012; Sollund 2011, 2012a, 2012b, 2013a, 2013b, 2016, 2019; Van Uhm 2016; White 2018; Wyatt 2011, 2013)
This article has demonstrated that men are highly overrepresented in WLT and hunting-related crimes, but categorizing crime as a masculine activity may be a simplification
Criticizes the concept of hegemonic masculinity through its typical use in accounting for violence and crime: “Hegemonic masculinity came to be associated solely with negative characteristics that depict men as unemotional, independent, nonnurturing, aggressive, and dispassionate—which are seen as the causes of criminal behaviour.”

Summary

Introduction

Introduction and Theoretical ApproachGreen Criminology, Ecofeminism and Hegemonic MasculinityDuring the past decade, an increasing amount of green criminology scholarship has focused on crimes and harms against nonhuman animals, “free born nonhuman animals1 —or so-called “wildlife.” These studies encompass legal and illegal hunting (Nurse 2015; Sollund 2015, 2017b), and “wildlife” trafficking (WLT), with a particular concern for species that are threatened with extinction (e.g., Goyes and Sollund 2016; Leberatto 2016; Maher and Sollund 2016; Schneider 2012; Sollund 2011, 2012a, 2012b, 2013a, 2013b, 2016, 2019; Van Uhm 2016; White 2018; Wyatt 2011, 2013).Less attention has been paid to the offenders, apart from categorizations according to their role in such crimes (e.g., Nurse 2015; Wyatt 2013), Nurse (2015) and Sollund (2019) underline that men are more likely to commit “wildlife” crimes than women. Green criminology evolved, in part, from ecofeminist insights and should incorporate the perspectives of this approach, this theoretical line of scholarship has not been explored to the extent that it might (for exceptions, see, e.g., Lane 1998; Lynch and Stretsky 2003; Sollund 2008, 2012a, 2019; Taylor and Fitzgerald 2018). This is a regrettable void which I aim to reduce, since androcentric, Eurocentric, racist and speciesist ideologies have been and still are institutionalised and, as such, are ingrained into the. This said, for simplicity, I retain these terms in this article, but keep “wildlife” in apostrophes to illustrate the shortcomings of such wording

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Conclusion