Abstract

Aiming at promoting an interdisciplinary dialogue between the sociological and the criminological field on the environmental questions of today, this contribution outlines a provisional map of a constantly changing territory: an area of research and theoretical elaboration known as «green criminology». During this exploration due attention will be paid to the traditions representing the places of origin and the development paths of this theoretical perspective which, for the first time in socio-criminological thinking, takes care of ecological issues. The listening to and the gather¬ing of the thoughts of the principal actors in this field will enable one to probe the vast and conflictive category of environmental crimes and harms, examining how their contents connote a landscape in great part unknown. By elaborating the current debate over environmental harms and crimes, this article bears witness to the widening of the paradigms and of the approaches relating to this scenario; it also contributes to a new insight into the challenges of tackling some decisive issues forming the background of the plurality of perspective theories which deal with the ecological problem of contemporary society.