Competing Narrations Around Visual Representations of Environmental Conflicts and Protests

Against the backdrop of green cultural criminology and drawing on a radical interactionist perspective, in this contribution we suggest the importance of considering the ephemeral, ambiguous, and ever-changing borders of meanings around images shared online, especially in the context of socio-environmental conflicts. In particular, we address the multiple and competing discourses that emerge from a video shared online depicting a conflict between an activist and a police officer, as reflected in the comments and interpretations by environmental activists in an online community. We conclude by suggesting that a green cultural criminology informed by radical interactionism can lead to a more comprehensive understanding of the complexity of socio-environmental conflicts and protests.