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34 J. Env't L. 1 (2022)

handle is hein.journals/jenv34 and id is 1 raw text is: Journal of Environmental Law, 2022, 34, 1-24 https://doi.org/10.1093/jel/eqabO43 Advance Access Publication Date: 18 December 2021 Original article The Role of Narrative in Environmental Law: The Nature of Tales and Tales of Nature Chris Hilson * ABSTRACT While narrative is a much-used term in environmental law scholarship, it is often used rather indiscriminately and interchangeably with other terms such as framing and dis- course. The current article sets out to examine the various ways in which narrative fea- tures in the existing literature with a view to encouraging more critical and reflective usage. It also advocates for narrative, both to connect with the marginalised and to in- ject passion and emotion into environmental law - elements that can easily be lost in a discipline heavy with legislation and case law turning on fine aspects of legal doctrine. However, in the end it argues the need for a careful balance, with narrative and emo- tion playing a part, but not stealing the show. KEYWORDS: narrative, storytelling, emotion, social movements, law and literature 'This time I am the polar bear. I live here (and not in a zoo) and my environment is chang- ing. What you call the ice (not a signifier I recognise) is what I call home and it's disappear- ing, fast. You have stolen my children's future with your flights and your coal. All your legal talk of rights and duties, loss and damage, and attribution-where has it got me? How dare you!' 1. INTRODUCTION The aim of the current article is to explore the role that narrative plays in environ- mental law. It is in part a novel survey of the literature in environmental law where narrative approaches have been used, to try to unpick different senses of the term and contexts in which it can be found (the 'nature of tales' part of the article title). There is also some consideration of how nature itself-which is unable to tell its own story'-fares in narrative approaches and whether it is, ultimately, an anthropo- centric enterprise ('tales of nature'). * Chris Hilson, Professor of Law, School of Law, University of Reading, UK. (c.j.hilsonareading.ac.uk) 1 At least not conventionally in oral or written form (despite the opening fictional quote's attempt at this, with apologies to Greta Thunberg). Which is not to say that nature cannot be regarded as telling some- thing like a story in its own way: see eg the work of Michel Serres discussed in Saskia Vermeylen, 'Materiality and the Ontological Turn in the Anthropocene: Establishing a Dialogue between Law, Anthropology and Eco-Philosophy' in Louis Kotze (ed), Environmental Law and Governance for the Anthropocene (Hart Publishing 2017) 137, 157. © The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creative- commons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. . 1