Three Shades of Green: Anthropocentric, Biocentric, and Ecocentric Conceptualisation of Green Violence

Abstract

This dissertation aims to contribute to a better understanding of two things: First, how does the security paradigm work through the three environmental ethics worldviews of anthropocentrism, biocentrism, and ecocentrism in human-nature relationships in general and conservation issues in particular? Second, to what extend is green violence enabled by those three paradigms from the lens of security? While there have been academic publications about conservation practices, environmental ethics, and green violence, these issues have not yet been combined and conceptualised from a security lens. Therefore, the objective of this dissertation has been to examine how the security paradigm works in terms of green violence, distinguished by the three different ethical perspectives. In order to achieve this goal, this dissertation has first developed three conceptual lenses based on the three environmental ethics approaches. Based on that, green violence was analysed from a security perspective. The dissertation has come to the conclusion that green violence can be enabled by all three environmental ethics paradigms, however, to a different extend and with different effects. The anthropocentric paradigm is currently enabling green violence the most because it is the predominant paradigm which is embraced by...