INTRODUCTION ‑ BEYOND BOUNDARIES: Foundations and frameworks in critical wildlife crime studies

Wildlife crime has grown exponentially as an area of research, policy, and practitioner interest. The overlap between a range of concerns, disciplines, and challenges highlights the urgency of researching wildlife crime in a way that takes seriously its broader social-ecological dynamics, intersections, and impacts on both humans and nonhumans. It is for this reason that in this introductory chapter we set the parameters for researching, understanding, and addressing wildlife crime through a multidisciplinary approach that integrates insights from criminology, political ecology, political science, sociology, and the humanities, among others. We argue researching wildlife crime must also incorporate a broad lens that includes the role of communities in mitigating wildlife crime, and the potential of environmental and restorative justice frameworks as an alternative to punitive and enforcement-first responses. This chapter thus foregrounds the pillars of what we understand as a critical approach to wildlife crime. This includes (1) an overview of key concepts of crime, wildlife, and wildlife crime; (2) understanding what critical approaches offer and how they differ from other perspectives and approaches to wildlife crime; and (3) outlining some of the disciplinary and theoretical perspectives that inform our understanding of critical approaches to wildlife crime and that weave through this handbook. © 2026 selection and editorial matter, Francis Massé, Annette Hübschle, Laura Gutiérrez, Rebecca W.Y. Wong, and Tanya Wyatt; individual chapters, the contributors.