Editorial. Introduction to the special issue: Toward global green criminological dialogues. Voices from the Americas and Europe

Abstract

In the preface to his book Epistemologies of the South (2016: viii), de Sousa Santos writes that ‘three basic ideas’ have guided the writing of the book. First, a recognition that ‘the understanding of the world by far exceeds the Western understanding of the world’. Second, the proposition that ‘there is no global social justice’ – and we would add ‘global environmental justice’ – ‘without global cognitive justice’. And third, the argument that ‘emancipatory transformations in the world may follow grammars and scripts other than those developed by Western-centric critical theory’. It should go without saying that we agree – and here (and elsewhere Goyes, Mol, Brisman, & South, 2017; Mol, Goyes, South, & Brisman, 2017)), in the spirit of these ‘three basic ideas’, we attempt to open dialogues, broaden out our use of sources of understanding, pursue cognitive justice alongside social justice and eco-justice, and present the powerful arguments and visions of those who may be following non-western-centric grammars and scripts.