Green Abolition: Cross-Fertilizing Environmental and Indigenous Justice

• In Event: Green Criminology VII: Issues of Indigeneity

Abstract

Existing legal frameworks for civil and criminal liability strain to accommodate the diffuse and intersectional impacts of fossil fuels on society. Here, the abolitionist horizons opened by the Black Lives Matter uprisings of 2020 offer us an opportunity to interrogate the limits of the Western, (neo)liberal, frameworks of liability, rights, and punishment as tactics for societal change. Our paper looks at the intersections of climate and abolitionist organizing for new imaginations of accountability, building on existing studies of "green criminology" (Lynch 1990, Beirne & South 2007) and "abolition ecology" (Heynen 2016).

First, we examine a case of abolitionist approaches within environmental justice movements. We draw upon content analysis and interviews to explore the efforts of a queer liberation group to address interpersonal conflict following a climate justice protest. Second, we examine how frontline and Indigenous environmental justice struggles have seeded visions of what we call "green abolition": incorporating healing justice (Page and Woodland 2023), somatic and embodiment work (Haines 2019), and relationships to land and ancestors (Simpson 2017) into visions of non-punitive transformative justice after community harm. We look at how these "green abolitionist" frames are actualized by Indigenous feminists organizing for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives.

Authors

• Jeff Feng, Northwestern University

• Melanie Brazzell, Harvard University