This introductory article of a special issue on naming and shaming addresses the origins of the concept and its transformation during the last decades. The main conclusion of the article is that contemporary forms of naming & shaming come closer to humiliation and public lynching, rather than redemption and self-reflection.

Naming-and-shaming campaigns, in which civil society groups publicly call upon corporations to end harmful behavior via social media, are a powerful mechanism for social control of corporations. This article investigates naming and shaming in modern, global markets through a case study of Shell - one of the most stigmatized corporations of our time. First, the perspective of organizational sociology is used to answer the question why Shell is receiving such significant attention. Next, the article addresses how shaming manifests itself in global markets. The example of Shell illustrates reintegrative shaming, aiming to end harmful activities, as well as stigmatizing shaming that undermines a corporation’s license to operate.
Finally, this article discusses the potential consequences of naming and shaming for corporate reputations. In the case of Shell, Goffman’s concept of courtesy stigma appears to form the greatest reputational risk, as stigmatization of Shells business partners will create status anxiety and will limit opportunities to develop business.

#MeToo is a social movement that started on social media and spread from the US all over the world in 2017. The social movement behind #MeToo is characterised by publicly naming and shaming those who exhibit everyday misconduct in the workplace. This is done by spreading naming and shaming stories via Twitter messages. A question that arises here is whether naming and shaming is a suitable and successful tool for a political movement that aims to bring about social change with regard to sexual violence. Has #MeToo changed the social perspective on sexual violence and social norms of behaviour for sexual encounters? To answer these questions, first a historical sketch of the feminist movements against sexual violence will be provided. What is characteristic of these movements and what are possible parallels with the #MeToo movement? From a feminist perspective, are there any dilemmas that a judicial response to sexual violence entails? In order to provide background to these insights, the characteristics of the #MeToo movement, and the associated dilemmas surrounding naming and shaming, will be discussed next. Finally, it will be discussed if #MeToo has led to social changes.

The article discusses the connection between Bauhaus, a modern art and architecture school founded in 1919, and National Socialism. The central question is to what extent modern ideas about art and culture, architecture and modern life went hand in hand with the emerging and assertive National Socialist ideas. In the review of an art and architecture collection, activities of famous Bauhaus figures are traced in order to discuss the Bauhaus myth. Accordingly, it must be concluded that neutrality of art and architecture does not exist and Bauhaus modernity was not incompatible with National Socialism.

Art crime, related to the existence of hidden art, appears in the legal and illegal art market. In the criminal ‘artopolis’ especially iconoclasm, forgeries and looting are longstanding phenomena. Today they are subject to the debate on art restitution.

During the conflict in Syria and Iraq, Islamic State demolished and looted countless cultural heritage sites and the statues therein, as well as archaeological sites and museums. These acts of iconoclasm, broadly shown in propaganda videos, were aimed at erasing the cultural identity of the population. Additionally, the destruction and looting were also a means to obtain antiquities that could be sold in order to bring in revenues. This article tries to explain the iconoclasm and illicit antiquities trade constructed by Islamic State and how they were related.

In 1938, Nico (or Niko) Gunzburg founded the Institute of Criminology at Ghent University.
Because he was a professor of Jewish origin, Flemish-minded, a political liberal and a freemason, he became the victim, in 1940 and in 1941, of looting by the ‘Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg für die besetzten Gebiete’. Personal books, documents, art and archives concerning his lodge ‘Marnix van Sint Aldegonde’ were stolen from his house and transported to nazi-Germany. After the Second World War, almost the entire collection was found in the Moscow-Archive and subject to restitution.

The Russian avant-garde world serves as an empirical example of the embeddedness of criminal actors (fraudsters, smugglers, thieves) in the legal art market of curators, collectors and museum directors. The article discusses various dilemmas regarding the interpretation of criminal activities in the art world. Is the smuggling of ‘forbidden art’ from the Soviet Union a patriotic act or a crime? Why do world-famous museums exhibit forgeries? What are the financial and judicial consequences of a lack of consensus between art experts?

This article analyses political discourses in the light of the vocabulary and suggestions contained in the parliamentary resolutions proposed in 2019 dealing with the restitution. It appears that the discourses are committed but the developed suggestions are mild. This apparent contradiction can be explained through Hanna Pitkin’s work on political representation. Using this analysis, two reflections are proposed in the conclusion: one on the Belgian case with regards to the European context and the other on the current expectations of society.

This paper looks at a selection of famous forgeries of archaeological objects – the James Ossuary, the Shroud of Turin, the Piltdown Man Skull and the Archaeoraptor Fossil – to consider how these artefacts were falsified for personal benefit, whether in terms of fame or finance. The Shroud of Turin was identified as a forgery as early as 1389, and yet the value in terms of income from pilgrims was such that it continued to be displayed and venerated. The James Ossuary was forged for profit and notoriety, to gain renown and then to sell. The Piltdown Man Skull was one of many alleged forgeries by a man who sought renown by finding the ‘missing link’ that proved the Darwinian theory of evolution from ape to homo erectus. The same motivation drove the scientists who tried to pass off the Archaeoraptor Fossil as the ‘missing link’ that proved the relation of dinosaurs and birds.

This essay discusses green criminology in relation to the development of non-anthropocentric research perspectives in history and cultural anthropology. Green criminological concepts of ‘environmental harm’ and ‘ecocide’ turn doing harm to nature and ecosystems, even when legal, into object of criminological research. Historical research exploring a wider time frame deepens and enriches criminological understanding of, e.g., wildlife trafficking and climate change. According active agency to animals and other non-human actors and attempts to create a new language transcending human-nature dichotomies, as undertaken in transspecies or multispecies history, anthropology, and narratology, offer substantial contributions to green criminologies of everyday life.

The current poor conservation status of Dutch nature is a result of human activities and is therefore characteristic of the era of the Anthropocene in which we now live. As a result of climate change, desiccation and a surplus of nitrogen and other environmental problems, the survival of many habitats and plants in the EU and in the Netherlands is at stake. Recent scientific research shows that many habitats and plants are in an unfavorable conservation status. Biodiversity is under great pressure. In almost all cases, the declining biodiversity can primarily be traced back to human activities and the consequences of these activities for nature. The EU Habitats Directive and the Dutch Nature Conservation Act provide a legal system that obliges the protection of all wild habitats and plants. Although the objective of both regulations suggests otherwise, the protection of nature in the application of provisions from the Dutch Nature Conservation Act is not an intrinsic objective. The extent to which habitats and plants are protected is linked to human – often economic – interests. It is this ambivalence in existing laws and regulations – the human perspective – that makes it possible to ‘disable’ rules that are precisely intended to preserve habitat types and plants relatively easily. As a result, environmental problems caused by humans are not or not completely resolved. Remarkably enough, the design and application of current national and international nature conservation law contributes to the undisturbed continuation of the Anthropocene era in which we live.

This article focuses on the ways in which animal activists that are affiliated with the Dutch branch of Anonymous for the Voiceless – a rapidly growing animal rights organization – shape their movement and actions in the context of the Anthropocene. Drawing on qualitative data, the results show that there are tensions between the way in which the organization presents itself to its audiences and the internal dynamics within the movement. In their frontstage performance, they highlight the open and non-coercive nature of their movement, which they describe as new activism. However, this performance contrasts with the abolitionist vision and internal dynamics within the movement, which is characterized by a clear hierarchy, strict rules for a vegan lifestyle and far-reaching consequences when not complying with those rules.