CORPORATE CRIME: ECOLOGICAL DAMAGE AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

Transcription

1 CORPORATE CRIME: ECOLOGICAL DAMAGE AND SOCIAL JUSTICE FIONA HAINES PROFESSOR OF CRIMINOLOGY SCHOOL OF SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCES UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE

2 INTRODUCTION Industrial activity generates significant environmental and social damage. What role does protest play In ameliorating environmental damage And furthering social justice?

3 SOCIAL PROTEST/SCRUTINY OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND HEALTH IMPACTS OF INDUSTRY Regulatory scholarship Social scrutiny/protest against harmful business practice can, under certain conditions, improve environmental outcomes (Gunningham, Kagan and Thornton). Yet, dependency on destructive industries lead to acceptance of, or fatalism towards, damage Maruyama, 1996 Mining town literature Protest against industry pollution can lead to social backlash and ostracism Social concerns have a complex relationship to environmental concerns and to controls on business

4 CONCERNS FOR PROTEST/ACTIVISM Different focal concerns animate people to protest The Paradox of Regulation (2011) Environmental damage (Actuarial risk) Realisation of risk to ecology has a direct impact on biodiversity/threatened species Threats to the community/place/social fabric (socio-cultural risk) centred on who we are and where I belong Managing political risk as the driver of regulation Keeping the economy going Making people feel safe

5 UNDERSTANDING RESPONSE TO PROTEST Each Risk real and critical but actuarial risk dispensable in the political risk equation Protest affects political risk But what is actually heard politically? In managing socio-cultural and political risks American/progress myth central Hope allows for some form of social order Capitalist development, centrality of the market, delivering on that myth

6 FIELD OF STRUGGLE Fligstein and McAdam: Strategic Action Fields: A strategic action field is a meso-level social order where actors (who can be individual or collective) interact with knowledge of one another under a set of common understandings about the purposes of the field, the relationships in the field (including who has power and why), and the field s rules. 2011:3 Struggle for advantage: Incumbents/challengers Interact with other fields Stability enhanced by: Connection to other fields Connection to the state Changing the status quo precipitating contention Acting innovatively to violate field rules Bringing in outsiders Systemic/transformative change is rare because: Incumbent/state restores order Process of revolution followed by a weakening period of restoration of the status quo (Levy, Reinecke, Manning 2015) Social movements require maintenance Creation of a radical habitus) Crossley, 2003 Struggles emerge from within a particular context.

7 CASE STUDIES Protest: Against CSG (Australia) primary case Grievances against MNCs (India and Indonesia) what does this add? Purpose behind protest can be complex: CSG Water Land Values (Climate) MNCs extremely broad: From fairer wages and freedom of association to livelihoods and land In each case, local protest is networked to broader protest With synergies and tensions between the local and broader protest Differences in: Concern (water vs climate, compensation vs preserving the forest) And redress (claiming rights vs problem solving, local redress vs systemic change)

8 TENSIONS BETWEEN ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL: CSG Trauma and the social independent from the environmental I fell out of love with the town Loss of civility abuse you are a traitor to your forefathers Rooted in place trauma and conflict is local Regional and rural towns with strong networks Like Moses parting the Red Sea Both sides argued for their environmental credentials Pro: we farmers care for the land/gas as transition fuel/gas does no harm coal does Anti: This will wreck the water, wreck the land Different visions of how to preserve/strengthen the town: We need 2/3 big industries We need to keep local families local We came because of the beauty, the land, the air We bring prosperity and we can be part of a new future

9 TENSIONS CONT: Divergent views of industry feed into conflict same act, different interpretation Sponsorship of schools, clubs Access to land/negotiating contracts Negotiators as polite and civil vs patronising and arrogant The social impact of divestment: Jubilation we won! Betrayal We couldn t speak out during the protest, if we did we would have lost our contract then they left us stranded Social conflict around CSG resonates with social conflict around wind farms, similar social dynamic, different environmental impact

10 ENVIRONMENTAL AND THE SOCIAL: GRIEVANCES AND MNCS Agribusiness can be just as destructive as mining Palm Oil, Tea Conflict fuelled by different visions of the future the promise of the American myth similarities with CSG: The promise of development Palm Oil Anger at projects not going ahead: And differences Weda Bay blaming those who were against the mine even when the reasons for this more complex Misreading money: As livelihood vs as luxury

11 LAYERING OF (HISTORICAL) CONFLICT (Previous) destruction of the environment can have consequences for the division between environmental and social justice going into the future. CSG Loss of logging (National Park) Dairy deregulation Mining CSG Grievance Shoe industry employed as homeworkers in Tamil Nadu after leather industry poisoned the rivers Environmental concern shifted to social concern better conditions of work, not removing the industry

12 LAYERING OF IDENTITY/BELONGING: CSG Who has the right to speak? Generational belonging rural heritage Cockies vs blowies/blow-ins Being on the wrong side you are a disgrace to your heritage Strong but different attachment to place On both sides Outsiders and the construction of place Bringing the outside in Why is it wrong to care about the Barrier Reef? The ethics of commitment: Children and jobs (local) vs Planet and people (global)

13 BELONGING CONT. The ethics of material concerns: My land values vs my business prospects. can be viewed as legitimate or self interested Protestors as: Community members, people just like me We need them I can t speak (I will be shunned) The anti carbon lobby you should keep your wife under control Professional protestors, paid/leeches on business my taxes pay for them She s still a strong Christian lady development of a radical habitus?

14 BELONGING: GRIEVANCE AND MNCS Similarities: Many! Postcolonial sensitivities You NGOs you are just another colonial imposition! Replacing RSPO with ISPO We are all indigenous: Tribal and OTFD people

15 CONNECTION TO THE STATE: CSG AND COAL Whose rules are they anyway? We, the state, owns the resource and we will get it! We have the law on our side For (at the extreme): Social licence is illegitimate it should all be about law Protest is just a form of nimbyism Against: Realising whose rules they are: Police no longer protect me they protect the government and the company but I live here! When we win, they change the rules! State (in particular state government) central Need for long term struggle And the support system underneath it that can nurture it

16 CONNECTION TO THE STATE: GRIEVANCES AND MNCS Redress was non-judicial Even with internationally focussed non judicial redress mechanisms the state and its laws still central: For giving effect to redress (e.g. return of land) In determining land use In preventing international influence: Enacting stronger laws against foreign support for local NGOs (often by international NGOs and foundations)

17 THE FATE OF TRYING TO BRING THE ENVIRONMENTAL AND THE SOCIAL TOGETHER REDD+ Significant effort to bring social and environmental benefits But denied the necessary licence Winning the battle but losing the war? Odisha steel Successful in getting POSCO out but now tender to local Indian company with lower compensation and worse environmental credentials Vedanta Preserving one holy mountain and destroying the next. The tragedy of the Bylong Valley Natural sequence farming Sold to Kepco

18 CONCLUSION Understanding social justice in the context of environmental damage is important Both sides of share the same focus of concern rules around industrial activity Social concerns need separate consideration even when environmental concerns pressing Social divisions result in the same action being interpreted in opposite ways Action imbued with meaning and emotional heft by the audience Social concerns in the context of struggle lead to whose side are you on Binaries may reflect as much the social schism as the environmental Who belongs and what demonstrates that loyalty Implication for progressive social protest capable of bringing the social and environmental together The challenge of binaries: Mining bad/farming, agriculture good; local concerns good/global concerns bad, Bring together momentum for protest but can be used strategically (by many sides) to discredit the concerns of the other managed through political risk