Call for papers
Special Issue in International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy
Green Criminological Dialogues: Voices from Oceania
Guest editors: Antje Deckert (Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand), David R. Goyes (University of Oslo, Norway), and Nigel South (University of Essex, UK).
Background
Most academic publications in the field of green criminology—concerned with all environmental crimes including water, forestry, and maritime ones—were authored by scholars from Europe, USA, and Australia. Nevertheless, the call for the ‘southernizing’ of criminology (Carrington et al. 2016), the appearance of a distinctive Southern green criminology (Goyes 2019), and the recognition that the intersection of vulnerabilities on the grounds of nationality, racialization, ethnicity, gender, and class renders some voices unheard despite the significant knowledge contributions they make in their everyday lives (George et al. 2020), shed light on the need to recognise the wide range of work on environmental crimes and harms engaged in by academics and activists in the global south and/or writing in languages other than English (Goyes and South 2017).
Since 2014, an international group of critical criminologists have made efforts to establish a dialogue between green criminology as developed in northern locations and the environmental knowledge existent and incepted in the global south. So far, several successful projects have been developed in this process, including the publication of three books (in English, Portuguese, and Spanish) and of three special issues (‘Voices from Africa’ [2024], ‘Voices from Asia’ [2022], and ‘Voices from the Americas’ [2019]) in the International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy (IJCJSD). Now, we want to engage in a dialogue with original thinkers from Oceania.
Approximately 10 million people inhabit the Pacific Islands. Isolated from the rest of the world by a vast ocean, they face myriad threats to their existence caused by a long history of northern colonialism (RamÃrez 2021). Climate change, to which nations in the global north have contributed 92% of all excess emissions (Hickel 2020), threatens their survival, as their countries are being flooded by rising ocean levels. In the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the easternmost country in Micronesia, a dome containing waste from the US nuclear programme is on the verge of collapse (Rust 2019). Human and non-human inhabitants of the Cook Islands are threatened by pressure to mine seabed metallic nodules, rich in metals and minerals that are needed to make batteries (Readfearn 2022). The Autonomous Region of Bougainville has a long history of suffering green crimes and harms. Colonialism and neo-colonialism keep threatening the lives and territories of Indigenous Peoples (Cunneen and Tauri, 2016). While Australian authors have been prominent contributors to green criminology, the experiences of the most marginalised and victimised—usually Indigenous people—still are at the periphery of the Oceanic contributions to criminology.
This special edition is therefore a consolidating step in furthering the above-mentioned dialogue between the north and the south, now with a focus on Oceanic green criminology. This special edition will mainly comprise articles by Oceanic authors and will seek to have geographical and gender representativity.
Expressions of interest
Date for completion of first drafts is October 2024, but if you are interested, please send us an abstract of between 120 and 200 words as soon as possible, but no later than 15 May 2024, to antje.deckert@aut.ac.nz, d.r.goyes@jus.uio.no and n.south@essex.ac.uk. We plan to publish the special issue in March 2026.
Selection criteria
In selecting the contributions, we aim for geographic, ethnic, and gender diversity. Additional criteria are the quality of the ideas (not necessarily measured under Western standards) and the innovativeness of the views presented (contrasted to Western standards).
Final word length of original research articles, including tables, figures and references, will be 7,000-8,000 words.
We also envision including two book reviews about environmental degradation in Oceania (review length: 900‒1200 words), one activist intervention (length: 2000‒4000 words), and two creative forms of knowledge expression such as poems and storytelling (length: 2000‒4000 words).
Method of peer review
All articles and review essays will undergo double-blind peer review in accordance with the Journal policies by at least two reviewers. The guest editors will recruit reviewers from the International Editorial Board and our professional networks. Submissions reviewed, accepted and finalised for the special issue will be sent to the Journal Manager and to the Chief Editor(s) who will conduct a final review for suitability.
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Timeline
Submissions | Deadline |
Potential contributors send abstracts | 15 May 2024 |
Selected authors receive an invitation | 1 June 2024 |
Online meeting with selected contributors to discuss the spirit of the collection | 20 June 2024 |
First drafts from contributors to editors | 15 October 2024 |
Articles with comments from editors to contributors | 15 December 2024 |
Revised articles from authors to editors | 15 February 2024 |
Articles from editors to peer reviewers | 1 March 2025 |
Articles from peer reviewers to editors/authors | 15 May 2025 |
Revised articles from authors to editors | 15 August 2025 |
Last round of comments from editors and revisions from authors | 1 September-1 December 2025 |
Articles to IJCJSD | 15 December 2025 |
Special Issue published | 1 March 2026 |