Culture, Spaces, Power: From Environmental Justice to Urban Political Ecologies

2016 ◽  
pp. 143-157
Author(s):  
Damian F. White ◽  
Alan P. Rudy ◽  
Brian J. Gareau
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Political Ecologies

scholarly journals Situating Sustainability in the Luxury City

2018 ◽  
pp. 180-195 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Justice ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
San Francisco Bay ◽  
San Francisco Bay Area ◽  
Global Cities ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Bay Area ◽  
Political Ecologies

This chapter seeks to situate sustainability within particular epistemological fields and communities in order to understand the growing contentiousness between rival versions of the concept. Focusing on the famously green yet increasingly unaffordable 'luxury city' of San Francisco Bay Area, it explores how these epistemological formations are quite literally 'situated' geographically, shaped by and shaping of the places, communities, social relations and political ecologies in which they emerge. It argues that as investments into greening are increasingly designed to serve powerful economic actors in aspiring global cities and regions like San Francisco, prevailing, historically and culturally rooted understandings of sustainability are often reframed and redefined in a more instrumentalist, market-oriented direction. The latter approach comes into conflict with classic understandings of the “3 E’s” of sustainability—in which economic concerns are balanced with and equal to those of equity and ecology. And they pose fundamental questions about what and how environmental justice politics are to be practiced today. The chapter aims to contribute to such emergent politics and scholarship by advancing a critical approach to "sustainability" that takes seriously the role of power, place, and history in shaping our use of the term.

scholarly journals Between crises and insurgencies: the political ecology in defense of shared living

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanessa Lucena Empinotti ◽  
Sue A. S. Iamamoto ◽  
Isabella Lamas ◽  
Felipe Milanez
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Environmental Destruction ◽  
Scientific Analysis ◽  
Current Context ◽  
Environmental Relations ◽  
Political Ecologies

Abstract This article offers a review of the recent trajectories of political ecologies as communities of practice and movements for environmental justice, as well as a paradigm of scientific analysis. In this introduction to the 2021 special issue “Decolonial Insurgencies and Emancipatory Horizons: contributions from Political Ecology” of the Ambiente & Sociedade journal, we present a reflection on the contemporary socio-environmental reality, characterized by crises, environmental destruction, and climate emergency, focusing on the role of political ecology as a privileged space to critically discuss the socio-environmental relations that constitute new forms of violent appropriation of nature. Facing the tension of the current context marked by the rise of phenomena such as authoritarianism, climate change denial, and inequality, we highlight the construction of counter-narratives and alternatives that mobilize other horizons of emancipation and living projects through insurgencies and movements that emerge from the protagonism of marginalized populations and struggles for environmental justice.

scholarly journals Mapping the frontiers and front lines of global environmental justice: the EJAtlas

2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leah Temper ◽  
Daniela Del Bene ◽  
Joan Martinez-Alier
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
The Social ◽  
Mapping Process ◽  
Political Ecologies ◽  
Governance Processes

This article highlights the need for collaborative research on ecological conflicts within a global perspective. As the social metabolism of our industrial economy increases, intensifying extractive activities and the production of waste, the related social and environmental impacts generate conflicts and resistance across the world. This expansion of global capitalism leads to greater disconnection between the diverse geographies of injustice along commodity chains. Yet, at the same time, through the globalization of governance processes and Environmental Justice (EJ) movements, local political ecologies are becoming increasingly transnational and interconnected. We first make the case for the need for new approaches to understanding such interlinked conflicts through collaborative and engaged research between academia and civil society. We then present a large-scale research project aimed at understanding the determinants of resource extraction and waste disposal conflicts globally through a collaborative mapping initiative: The EJAtlas, the Global Atlas of Environmental Justice. This article introduces the EJAtlas mapping process and its methodology, describes the process of co-design and development of the atlas, and assesses the initial outcomes and contribution of the tool for activism, advocacy and scientific knowledge. We explain how the atlas can enrich EJ studies by going beyond the isolated case study approach to offer a wider systematic evidence-based enquiry into the politics, power relations and socio-metabolic processes surrounding environmental justice struggles locally and globally.Key words: environmental justice, maps, ecological distribution conflicts, activist knowledge, political ecology

Reimagining ‘justice’ in environmental justice: Radical ecologies, decolonial thought, and the Black Radical Tradition

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 76-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Pulido ◽  
Juan De Lara
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
Racial Groups ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Racial Capitalism ◽  
Racial Solidarity ◽  
Political Ecologies ◽  
Border Thinking

In this article, we rethink the spatial and racial politics of the environmental justice movement in the United States by linking it to abolitionist theories that have emerged from the Black Radical Tradition, to critical theories of urban ecology, and to decolonial epistemologies rooted in the geopolitics of Las Americas. More specifically, we argue that environmental justice organizing among multi-racial groups is an extension of the Black Radical Tradition's epistemic legacy and historical commitment to racial justice. The article is divided into two parts. First, we review how this remapping of environmental justice through the lens of the Black Radical Tradition and decolonial border thinking reshapes our understanding of anti-racist organizing. Part of our remapping includes an examination of African American and Latinx social movement organizing to reveal how such geographies of interracial solidarity can reframe abolitionist politics to take nature and space seriously. In the second part of the article, we present a series of maps that illustrate the geography, temporality, and inter-racial solidarity between Chicanx social movement organizations and the Black Radical Tradition. Our mapping includes identifying sites of interracial convergence that have explicitly and implicitly deployed abolitionist imaginaries to combat the production of racialized capitalist space. We use environmental justice to argue for a model of abolitionist social movement organizing that invites interracial convergence by imagining urban political ecologies that are free of the death-dealing spaces necessary for racial capitalism to thrive.

Towards narrative political ecologies

2021 ◽  
pp. 251484862110106
Author(s):  
Leila M. Harris
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Feminist Scholarship ◽  
Narrative Story ◽  
Transformative Potential ◽  
Humanities And Social Sciences ◽  
Political Ecologies

Work on narrative, story, and storytelling has been on the rise across the humanities and social sciences. Building on significant work on these themes from Indigenous, Black, and Feminist scholarship, and other varied traditions, this piece explores and elaborates the potential regarding the elicitation, sharing, and analysis of stories for nature-society studies. Specifically, the piece examines core contributions along these lines to date, as well as the methodological, analytical, political, and transformative potential of story and storytelling to enrich, broaden, and deepen work in nature-society, political ecology, and environmental justice. All told, focus on story and storytelling, offers a number of relevant and rich openings to understand and engage complex, unequal, and dynamic socio-natures. While these elements have been present in nature-society work from some traditions and lines of inquiry, the time is ripe to broaden and deepen these engagements to more fully imagine, and respond to, key nature-society challenges.

Chronicles from the Environmental Justice Frontline

2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Timmons Roberts ◽  
Melissa M. Toffolon-Weiss
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Justice

Environmental Justice and Building Capacity Through Photovoice

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura P. Kohn-Wood ◽  
Michael S. Spencer ◽  
Rachel D. Dombrowski ◽  
Omari W. Keeles ◽  
Daniel K. Birichi
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Building Capacity

Dismantling White Privilege: The Black Lives Matter Movement and Environmental Justice in Canada

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheryl Teelucksingh
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Environmental Justice ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
The United States ◽  
Conceptual Tool ◽  
Public Monuments ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
Jim Crow Era

On August 12, 2017, in Charlottesville, Virginia, alt-right/White supremacy groups and Black Lives Matter (BLM) supporters came face-to-face regarding what to do about public monuments that celebrate key figures from slavery and the Jim Crow era. White supremacists and White nationalists did not hide their racist ideologies as they demanded that their privileged place in history not be erased. The BLM movement, which challenges state-sanctioned anti-Black racism, was ready to confront themes of White discontent and reverse racism, critiques of political correctness, and the assumption that racialized people should know their place and be content to be the subordinate other.It is easy to frame the events in Charlottesville as indicative of US-specific race problems. However, a sense that White spaces should prevail and an ongoing history of anti-Black racism are not unique to the United States. The rise of Canadian activism under the BLM banner also signals a movement to change Canadian forms of institutional racism in policing, education, and the labor market. This article responds to perceptions that the BLM movement has given insufficient attention to environmental concerns (Pellow 2016; Halpern 2017). Drawing on critical race theory as a conceptual tool, this article focuses on the Canadian context as part of the author’s argument in favor of greater collaboration between BLM and the environmental justice (EJ) movement in Canada. This article also engages with the common stereotype that Blacks in Canada have it better than Blacks in the United States.

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