Zemiology, and the study of social harm
Hotel in Mallorca, Spain. Image by Alexandra Strohbehn
Traditional criminology is bound by the parameters of criminal law. We are trained to study actions that the state has explicitly defined as illegal. But what happens when devastating, widespread damage inflicted upon a society is completely legal? What happens when state-mandated definitions of "crime" blind us to some of the greatest sources of harm?
This ideological blind spot brings us to zemiology, the study of social harm.
Moving beyond strict legalistic definitions of crime, zemiology fundamentally challenges the premise of criminology. It asks a radical question: instead of focusing almost exclusively on interpersonal acts defined as criminal by the state, should we not be studying acts that cause actual, measurable harm to human life and the environment, regardless of their legal status?
Beyond the boundaries of crime
To understand zemiology, we must recognize the limitations of traditional criminology. Crime is not an objective fact of nature; it is a social construct that changes across borders and political regimes. Because the state dictates what constitutes a crime, traditional criminology often inadvertently acts as a subordinate to state power. If a government decides that a highly destructive action is not illegal, traditional criminology largely ignores it.
In 2004, a group of critical criminologists challenged this paradigm in their seminal work, Beyond Criminology: Taking Harm Seriously (Hillyard et al., 2004). They argued that by obsessing over "crime," researchers and the public were constantly distracted from far more serious, systemic issues.
The criminal justice system overwhelmingly focuses on interpersonal, individualistic acts of deviance such as theft, assault, and burglary. While these acts undoubtedly cause acute distress, they pale in comparison to the massive, structural harms perpetrated by corporations, institutions, and states. Zemiology shifts the focus from the individual offender to the powerful institutions that shape our world.
Crime vs Harm
Criminal law serves an ideological function: it creates a specific image of the criminal in the public imagination, usually poor and marginalized.
Imagine an individual who robs a convenience store of $500. The state responds with rapid mobilization, an arrest, and the full punitive force of the penal system. Now, consider a multinational corporation that engages in systemic wage theft, intentionally bypasses fatal safety regulations to cut costs, or legally dumps toxins into a local water supply (Tombs and Whyte, 2015).
Under the traditional criminal justice lens, these massive actions are almost never prosecuted as crimes. They are categorized as regulatory infractions or civil disputes. The corporations might pay a fine, but the architects of this harm almost never see the inside of a prison cell. Zemiology points this out: the individual causing minor financial harm is criminalized and imprisoned, while the institution causing millions of dollars of damage is shielded by corporate law.
The typology of harm
Zemiologists typically categorize social harm into four categories (Pemberton, 2015):
Physical harm: goes beyond interpersonal violence to include workplace injuries, occupational diseases caused by corporate negligence, lack of healthcare, and the physical toll of poverty.
Financial and economic harm: encompasses corporate fraud, wage theft, exploitative lending, and the devastating impacts of government austerity measures that strip resources from vulnerable populations.
Psychological and emotional harm: involves the mental trauma inflicted by systemic discrimination, toxic work environments, and the chronic anxiety produced by economic insecurity.
Environmental harm: focuses on deforestation, pollution, and climate change. Acts that threaten the survival of communities but are frequently sanctioned by state permits.
Case study: global mass tourism
To understand how zemiology unpacks legalized harm across these dimensions, we can look at an industry almost universally celebrated as a force for good: global mass tourism.
For decades, powerful supranational entities, such as the IMF and the World Bank, and intergovernmental institutions such as the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) have championed international travel as a cornerstone of economic modernization. These organizations frequently frame the industry as a vital catalyst for sustainable development across the Global South. Proponents routinely justify the sector's rapid global expansion by highlighting its theoretical capacity to deliver widespread socio-economic empowerment, environmental conservation, and cultural preservation.
Institutional narratives, particularly those from the UNWTO, suggest that tourism systematically dismantles poverty by generating diverse labour opportunities, advancing gender parity, and safeguarding delicate ecosystems. Buoyed by these endorsements, international tourism has evolved into a global economic titan, estimating to rise from 1.3 million in 2017 to 1.8 billion by 2030 (UNWTO, 2019a). Developing nations, in particular, are frequently pressured by international bodies to centre their economic strategies around capturing a share of this market.
Where is the harm?
Relying purely on the rhetoric of economic advancement obscures a different reality. The expansion of this industry is criticized for the direct erosion of environments, stimulating violence and the militarization of territories, the erasure of cultures and indigenous rights (Salazar, 2012; Devine and Ojeda, 2017; Tourism Concern, 2018). When analysed through a zemiological lens, mass tourism ceases to look like a benevolent development tool and instead reveals itself as a highly engineered system of structural harm.
The financial injury inflicted by this system is the imposition of Northern neoliberal economic models on the Global South. Rather than enriching host nations, Eshun and Tagoe-Darko (2015) argue that the industry relies on a mechanism known as leakage. They illustrate that vast percentages of the revenue generated in developing nations are transported to the Global North, since most of the airlines, hotels, and tour operators are foreign-owned. For example, Eshun and Tagoe-Darko point out that 60 percent of Kenya’s tourism industry is owned by corporations in the Global North, while no more than 5 percent from tourist revenue goes to the local communities.
The wealth and income from tourism is expropriated for the growth of the Global North. Even initiatives branded as "eco-tourism" are often heavily manipulated by foreign aid organizations, functioning less as genuine local empowerment and more for continued Western financial dominance.
This dynamic of systemic harm is further amplified by the physical policing and annexation of local environments. Jennifer Devine's (2017) analysis of the Guatemalan tourism sector perfectly illustrates this, highlighting how the industry demands heavy militarization to project an illusion of safety for affluent travellers seeking "untamed" wilderness. Devine posits that tourism relies initially on the spatial colonization of a region, which paves the way for the ultimate commodification of both the landscape and indigenous populations. Rather than organic cultural exchange, the host destination and its inhabitants are packaged as consumable commodities. Enforcing these tourist zones often necessitates state-backed violence and armed security, effectively dispossessing local communities to maintain a highly controlled “paradise” for international guests.
These structural inequities are perhaps most visible in the all-inclusive resort model. Martin Mowforth and Ian Munt (2015) dissect how these self-contained vacation packages trigger a cascade of localized damage. On an ecological level, these compounds routinely discharge untreated wastewater into marine environments, generate immense physical pollution, and disrupt fragile animal habitats. Financially, the all-inclusive structure essentially quarantines tourist spending, deliberately bypassing local economies and driving regional restaurants, transport services, and independent lodgings out of business.
The labour conditions underpinning these resorts are equally exploitative. For instance, Mowforth and Munt note that while nearly nine out of ten international visitors to Kenya stay in all-inclusive enclaves, the majority of the surrounding population survives on extreme poverty wages. Hospitality workers are frequently denied unionization rights, forced into unpaid overtime, and systematically deprived of standard tipping opportunities because guests prepay for their experiences.
Ultimately, the consolidation of these mega-resorts under the ownership of Global North corporations thoroughly debunks the myth of sustainable development in the Global South. While legally classified as standard global commerce, a zemiological perspective exposes this wealth extraction for what it truly is: an institutionalized mechanism that degrades local ecosystems and systematically entrenches global wealth disparity.
Conclusion
Adopting a zemiological perspective does not mean we stop caring about interpersonal crime. A mugging or a burglary is still a deeply harmful event. But zemiology demands that we widen our lens. It challenges us to look at the total sum of suffering in our society and trace it back to its true structural roots, rather than just the actions the state has decided to criminalize.
If our ultimate goal as researchers and citizens is to build a more just society, we cannot afford to only study the harms that happen in the shadows. We must also rigorously study the catastrophic harms that happen in broad daylight, fully endorsed by the law.
Therefore, when looking at massive, legalized industries like global mass tourism, ask yourself: who truly benefits from this system? Who is this "development" actually for, and by whom is it designed? And on a personal level, when you are planning your next trip, what things will you take into consideration?
References
Devine, J. and Ojeda, D. (2017) “Violence and dispossession in tourism development: a critical geographical approach,” Journal of sustainable tourism, 25(5), pp. 605–617. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2017.1293401.
Devine, J.A. (2017) “Colonizing space and commodifying place: tourism’s violent geographies,” Journal of sustainable tourism, 25(5), pp. 634–650. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2016.1226849.
Eshun, G. and Tagoe-Darko, E. (2015) “Ecotourism development in Ghana: A postcolonial analysis,” Development southern Africa (Sandton, South Africa), 32(3), pp. 392–406. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/0376835X.2015.1020218.
Hillyard, P. (2004) Beyond Criminology: Taking Harm Seriously. 1st ed. Edited by Paddy Hillyard et al. London: Pluto Press. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt18fscmm.
Mowforth, M. and Munt, I. (2015) Tourism and Sustainability: Development, globalisation and new tourism in the Third World. Fourth edition. Edited by I. Munt. London: Routledge. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315795348.
Pemberton, S. (2015) Harmful Societies: Understanding Social Harm. Bristol: Policy Press.
Salazar, N.B. (2012) “Tourism Imaginaries: A Conceptual Approach,” Annals of tourism research, 39(2), pp. 863–882. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2011.10.004.
Tombs, S. and Whyte, D. (2015) The corporate criminal : why corporations must be abolished. 1st ed. Taylor and Francis. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203869406.
Tourism Concern (2018) ‘How we work’. Available at: https://www.tourismconcern.org.uk/how-we-work/
UNWTO (2019a) Why tourism? Available at: http://www2.unwto.org/content/why-tourism
