Selfie Safaris: The Violence of Contemporary Camera Hunting & Trophy Shot Selfies

• In Event: Cultural Criminology Continues

Abstract

In the late 1800s ‘camera hunting’ emerged and gained popularity as an ethical alternative to hunting with a gun. Just over a century later, backdropped by the neoliberalization of wildlife tourism and the proliferation of selfie culture, the desire to shoot non-human animals with a camera remains popular, but the practices associated with modern day manifestations of camera hunting are rarely harmless. As manufactured opportunities for taking pictures of non-human animals have become a staple of the tourist industry, the interplay between tourism, wildlife, and photography is fraught with welfare concerns. One kind in particular, selfies with non-human animals, have become extremely marketable – and harmful. Using a green criminological lens and deviant leisure perspective, this paper identifies and explores forms of violence against non-human animals that are tied to what is termed here as selfie safaris, a concept that is divided into two categories: Canned camera hunting, or wildlife tourist attractions that offer paid experiences with captive non-human animals for the purpose of taking a selfie with them and non-canned camera hunting, tourism that involves hunting non-captive non-human animals with cameras ‘in the wild.’ This paper draws attention to yet another form of violence against animals, its commodification and normalization.

Author

• Corina Medley, Kansas State University