Hardback
Research Methods in Environmental Law
A Handbook
9781784712563 Edward Elgar Publishing
This timely Handbook brings innovative, free-thinking and radical approaches to research methods in environmental law. With a comprehensive approach it brings together key concepts such as sustainability, climate change, activism, education and Actor-Network Theory. It considers how the Anthropocene subjects environmental law to critique, and to the needs of the variety of bodies, human and non-human, that require its protection. This much-needed book provides a theoretically informed analysis of methodological approaches in the discipline, such as constitutional analysis, rights-based approaches, spatial/geographical analysis, immersive methodologies and autoethnography, which will aid in the practical critique and re-imagining of Environmental Law.
More Information
Critical Acclaim
Contributors
Contents
More Information
This timely Handbook brings together a collection of innovative interdisciplinary approaches to explore the use of research methods in environmental law. With chapters on topics ranging from sustainability, climate change and activism to education, actor-network theory and non-human ontologies, this Handbook provides a theoretically informed analysis of methodological approaches to this important field.
Taking into consideration issues such as non-human agency, the Anthropocene, and spatial and material turns in law this book builds on key concepts in the subject. The book also considers how environmental law must adapt to the new and urgent needs of a variety of bodies, both human and non-human, that require its protection. It argues that traditional ways of conceiving environmental law, and of accounting for problems brought about through anthropocentric means, have led to the reinstatement of the problem of environmental degradation without imagining different avenues to resolve it.
This Handbook is a key addition to the existing literature and provides an invaluable contribution to practical critique and to the reimagining of environmental law. It will be a crucial compendium for graduate students and researchers in the field of environmental law wishing to explore critical approaches.
Taking into consideration issues such as non-human agency, the Anthropocene, and spatial and material turns in law this book builds on key concepts in the subject. The book also considers how environmental law must adapt to the new and urgent needs of a variety of bodies, both human and non-human, that require its protection. It argues that traditional ways of conceiving environmental law, and of accounting for problems brought about through anthropocentric means, have led to the reinstatement of the problem of environmental degradation without imagining different avenues to resolve it.
This Handbook is a key addition to the existing literature and provides an invaluable contribution to practical critique and to the reimagining of environmental law. It will be a crucial compendium for graduate students and researchers in the field of environmental law wishing to explore critical approaches.
Critical Acclaim
‘The editors have tackled a difficult subject and are to be applauded for fashioning a volume that will surely stand the test of time as a landmark for environmental law scholars in the years to come.’
– Benjamin J Richardson, Journal of Human Rights and the Environment
‘The book is a thought-provoking journey of different, often experimental, innovative ideas that stretch the boundaries of environmental law research and scholarship. The volume contributes towards efforts to drive more inter-disciplinary approaches in environmental law, while critically reflecting on theoretical and methodological understandings. The diversity in disciplinary backgrounds of the authors provide a rich array of perspectives. The inter-disciplinary lens of the book is particularly topical. The section on materiality, for example, is very useful for environmental law
scholars considering how to incorporate the surge of work on ‘nature-society’ relations in the humanities and social sciences.’
– Law Environment and Development Journal
‘This collection takes a bold step towards re-situating the legal enterprise alongside those bodies whose movement it strives to direct, thereby revitalising the sense of law’s immanence to what has elsewhere been dubbed “the lawscape”, i.e. the entangled continuum of law and bodies.’
– Luigi Russi, Griffith Law Review
– Benjamin J Richardson, Journal of Human Rights and the Environment
‘The book is a thought-provoking journey of different, often experimental, innovative ideas that stretch the boundaries of environmental law research and scholarship. The volume contributes towards efforts to drive more inter-disciplinary approaches in environmental law, while critically reflecting on theoretical and methodological understandings. The diversity in disciplinary backgrounds of the authors provide a rich array of perspectives. The inter-disciplinary lens of the book is particularly topical. The section on materiality, for example, is very useful for environmental law
scholars considering how to incorporate the surge of work on ‘nature-society’ relations in the humanities and social sciences.’
– Law Environment and Development Journal
‘This collection takes a bold step towards re-situating the legal enterprise alongside those bodies whose movement it strives to direct, thereby revitalising the sense of law’s immanence to what has elsewhere been dubbed “the lawscape”, i.e. the entangled continuum of law and bodies.’
– Luigi Russi, Griffith Law Review
Contributors
Contributors: R. Bartel, I. Braverman, V. Brooks, P. Burdon, E. Cloatre, L. Finchett-Maddock, J. Gillespie, A. Grear, J. Holder, A. Kotsakis, L.J. Kotze, B. Lange, D. Mandic, J. Martel, D. McGillivray, K. Morrow, E. Mussawir, U. Natarajan, M. Nikolić, Y. Otomo, J. Paterson, A. Pavoni, A. Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, I.-J. Sand, F. Venter, B. Woodard
Contents
Contents:
PART I: MATERIALITY
1. Foregrounding Vulnerability: Materiality’s Porous Affectability as a Methodological Platform
Anna Grear
2. How to Think About ‘Nature-society’ Interactions in Environmental Law ‘in Action’?
Betina Lange
3. Abstracting Method: Taking Legal Abstractions Seriously
Andrea Pavoni
4. Actor-network Theory and the Empirical Critique of Environmental Law: Unpacking the Bioprospecting Debates
Emilie Cloatre
5. Speculative Entropy: Dynamism, Hyperchaos and the Fourth Dimension in Environmental Law Practice
Lucy Finchett-Maddock
6. Critical Environmental Law as Method in the Anthropocene
Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos
PART II: SPATIALITY AND JURISDICTION
7. Place-thinking: The Hidden Geography of Environmental Law
Robyn Bartel
8. Bringing Environmental Justice to the Centre of Environmental Law Research: Developing Collective Case Study Methodology
Jane Holder and Donald McGillivray
9. Third Word Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) and the Environment
Usha Natarajan
10. The Methodology of Environmental Constitutional Comparison
Francois Venter and Louis J. Kotzé
11. Engaged Enquiry in Environmental Law: Understanding People/place Connections Through a Geographically Informed Human Rights Lens
Josephine Gillespie
PART III: ECOLOGY, ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL ACTIVISM
12. Ecofeminist Approaches to the Construction of Knowledge and Coalition Building – Offering a Way Forward for International Environmental Law and Policy
Karren Morrow
13. Environmentalism and an Anarchist Research Method
Peter Burdon and James Martel
14. On the Relation between Scholarship and Action in Environmental Law: Method, Theory, Change
Andreas Kotsakis
15. A Systems Theory Perspective on the Principle of Precaution Employing Critical Discourse Analysis
John Paterson
16. Environmental Law In The Age Of The Anthropocene: How To Normatively Communicate On Environmental Change And Risks?
Inger Johanne Sand
17. The Nested Eye: Naturalism, Perspectivalism, and Environmental Law
Ben Woodard
PART IV: MORE-THAN-HUMAN
18. Thinking about Law and the Question of the Animal
Edward Mussawir and Yoriko Otomo
19. The Life and Law of Corals: Breathing Meditations
Irus Braverman
20. All That Is Air Melts Into City: Minoritarian Apparatuses For A More-Than-Human World
Mirko Nikolić
21. Listening to the World: Sounding out the Surroundings of Environmental Law with Michel Serres
Danilo Mandic
22. F#cking Research Ethics Through Radical Method: Autoethnography and The Field of Environmental Law
Victoria Brooks
Index
PART I: MATERIALITY
1. Foregrounding Vulnerability: Materiality’s Porous Affectability as a Methodological Platform
Anna Grear
2. How to Think About ‘Nature-society’ Interactions in Environmental Law ‘in Action’?
Betina Lange
3. Abstracting Method: Taking Legal Abstractions Seriously
Andrea Pavoni
4. Actor-network Theory and the Empirical Critique of Environmental Law: Unpacking the Bioprospecting Debates
Emilie Cloatre
5. Speculative Entropy: Dynamism, Hyperchaos and the Fourth Dimension in Environmental Law Practice
Lucy Finchett-Maddock
6. Critical Environmental Law as Method in the Anthropocene
Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos
PART II: SPATIALITY AND JURISDICTION
7. Place-thinking: The Hidden Geography of Environmental Law
Robyn Bartel
8. Bringing Environmental Justice to the Centre of Environmental Law Research: Developing Collective Case Study Methodology
Jane Holder and Donald McGillivray
9. Third Word Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) and the Environment
Usha Natarajan
10. The Methodology of Environmental Constitutional Comparison
Francois Venter and Louis J. Kotzé
11. Engaged Enquiry in Environmental Law: Understanding People/place Connections Through a Geographically Informed Human Rights Lens
Josephine Gillespie
PART III: ECOLOGY, ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL ACTIVISM
12. Ecofeminist Approaches to the Construction of Knowledge and Coalition Building – Offering a Way Forward for International Environmental Law and Policy
Karren Morrow
13. Environmentalism and an Anarchist Research Method
Peter Burdon and James Martel
14. On the Relation between Scholarship and Action in Environmental Law: Method, Theory, Change
Andreas Kotsakis
15. A Systems Theory Perspective on the Principle of Precaution Employing Critical Discourse Analysis
John Paterson
16. Environmental Law In The Age Of The Anthropocene: How To Normatively Communicate On Environmental Change And Risks?
Inger Johanne Sand
17. The Nested Eye: Naturalism, Perspectivalism, and Environmental Law
Ben Woodard
PART IV: MORE-THAN-HUMAN
18. Thinking about Law and the Question of the Animal
Edward Mussawir and Yoriko Otomo
19. The Life and Law of Corals: Breathing Meditations
Irus Braverman
20. All That Is Air Melts Into City: Minoritarian Apparatuses For A More-Than-Human World
Mirko Nikolić
21. Listening to the World: Sounding out the Surroundings of Environmental Law with Michel Serres
Danilo Mandic
22. F#cking Research Ethics Through Radical Method: Autoethnography and The Field of Environmental Law
Victoria Brooks
Index
