scholarly journals Discourses of Race & Racism Within Environmental Justice Studies: An Eco-racial Intervention

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Perlita R. Dicochea
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
The United States ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Social Force ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
Environmental Racism ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
Justice Studies

<p>The social force of racism in relation to natural resources plays a prominent role in the development of environmental justice (EJ) studies within the United States. I contend that the dominant paradigm of environmental racism (ER) may encourage superficial applications of race and racism and colorblind approaches to EJ. I argue that race and racism are at times essentialized, which has in part to do with essentialized notions of the environment. The goal of this eco-racial intervention is to encourage more explicit engagement with the dynamic ways that society creates meaning around and makes use of race and natural resources in relation to each other, processes that may include and operate beyond conventional and critical approaches to ER. Spirited by critical ER and racial formation theory, I propose the construct ‘eco-racial justice project’ as part of an alternative framework for evaluating racialization within efforts to achieve environmental justice.</p>

Whose Epidemiology, Whose Health?

1998 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Wing
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
Social History ◽  
Swine Production ◽  
Environmental Racism ◽  
Production Of Knowledge ◽  
External Context ◽  
The Social ◽  
Causes Of Disease ◽  
History Of ◽  
Methodological Approaches

Simplistic claims about the objectivity of science have been challenged from a variety of perspectives. Evaluation of the external context of production of knowledge and the methodological approaches to posing questions and assembling evidence shows that there is no pure “science”; rather, all scientific knowledge is shaped by the social history of its production. Examples are given of how quantitative concepts in modern epidemiology influence the recognition of the causes of disease. The author uses the phenomenon of intensive swine production by vertically integrated agribusiness to illustrate how broad problems such as environmental racism, agricultural determinants of nutrition, loss of natural resources, and conditions conducive to emergence of new diseases are hidden by epidemiological approaches that fit into corporate policy perspectives. It is critically important to ask who produces epidemiological knowledge, and whose health is promoted by that knowledge.

scholarly journals The Intersection of Race, Immigration Status, and Environmental Justice

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (14) ◽  
pp. 3942 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Pellow ◽  
Jasmine Vazin
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Justice ◽  
The United States ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
State Governments ◽  
Environmental Injustice ◽  
Institutional Practices ◽  
Environmental Racism ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
Communities Of Color ◽  
Immigrant Detention

Environmental injustice occurs when marginalized groups face disproportionate environmental impacts from a range of threats. Environmental racism is a particular form of environmental injustice and frequently includes the implementation of policies, regulations, or institutional practices that target communities of color for undesirable waste sites, zoning, and industry. One example of how the United States federal and state governments are currently practicing environmental racism is in the form of building and maintaining toxic prisons and immigrant detention prisons, where people of color and undocumented persons are the majority of inmates and detainees who suffer disproportionate health risk and harms. This article discusses the historical and contemporary conditions that have shaped the present political landscape of racial and immigration conflicts and considers those dynamics in the context of the literature on environmental justice. Case studies are then presented to highlight specific locations and instances that exemplify environmental injustice and racism in the carceral sector. The article concludes with an analysis of the current political drivers and motivations contributing to these risks and injustices, and ends with a discussion of the scale and depth of analysis required to alleviate these impacts in the future, which might contribute to greater sustainability among the communities affected.

Teaching Race (Bioculturally) Matters: A Visual Approach for College Biology Courses

2017 ◽  
Vol 79 (7) ◽  
pp. 516-524 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amelia R. Hubbard
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
Science Courses ◽  
College Biology ◽  
Sensitive Topics ◽  
Regional University ◽  
The Social ◽  
Visual Approach ◽  
Upper Level ◽  
Biological Race

Race and racism are considered standard subject matter in introductory college courses in the social sciences, but remain relatively absent in biological science courses (Donovan, 2015; Morning, 2011). Given a resurgence of biologically deterministic racial science (e.g., Risch et al., 2002; Shiao et al., 2012) and ongoing racial tensions in the United States, it is imperative that biology professors actively engage students in introductory and upper-level courses. This paper presents a tested approach used in an introductory natural science course (for undergraduate, non-science majors) at a mid-sized regional university. A biocultural focus is advocated for teaching about the fallacies (i.e., biological race concept) and realities of race (i.e., racism) (e.g., see Gravlee, 2009; Thompson, 2006). Further, an emphasis is placed on using a visual approach for relaying these complex and sensitive topics.

scholarly journals The hotel’s responsibilities in actualizing environtmental justice: the study of CSR practice on 5-star hotel environmental conservation

2018 ◽  
Vol 74 ◽  
pp. 01006
Author(s):  
Dicky Sumarsono ◽  
Bani Sudardi ◽  
Warto Warto ◽  
Wakit Abdullah
Keyword(s):  
Social Responsibility ◽  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Hospitality Industry ◽  
Community Empowerment ◽  
Environmental Conservation ◽  
Environmental Preservation ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Social ◽  
A Company

The activity of a company can create jobs, generate products, and encourage the economic growth. However in the other hand, it inflicts social problem and disruption of the environmental conservation. Hotel is built using material from selected natural resources. However, it reduces the beauty and the balance of other natural resources. Thus, the hotel has asocial responsibility to preserve the environment and to embody the social justice in the hospitality business. The stakeholder theory states that a company is not an entity that only operates for its own sake, but also has to provide benefits for its stakeholder. The social responsibility in the environmental justice of the hospitality industry in Surakarta city is directed at; (1) Community empowerment rather than environmental preservation, this is intended to branding the hotel companies, (2) The implementation of CSR activities as a manifestation of the environmental justice is carried out by hotel’s public relation itself rather than by the third parties, (3) The average of social responsibility nominal exceeds 2,5% of the statutory obligation because at the same time, the social responsibility is used for the development of the company’s image.

scholarly journals Politically Unhealthy: Flint’s Fight Against Poverty, Environmental Racism, and Dirty Water

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 303-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomeka Robinson ◽  
Garrett Shum ◽  
Sabrina Singh
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Water Crisis ◽  
Social Force ◽  
Environmental Racism ◽  
The Public ◽  
Dirty Water ◽  
The Social

The social force of race in relation to natural resources plays a prominent role in which communities are disproportionately affected by pollution. Scholars have described how people of color are disproportionately victims of environmental discrimination and disparities because they lack the necessary social capital to bring attention to their plight, as demonstrated by the case of the Flint, Michigan, Water Crisis. In this article, we use a critical race theory lens to explore how the Flint Water Crisis constitutes a case study of environmental racism. More specifically, we discuss the public health implications of environmental racism on the residents of Flint and conclude with a discussion of the overall implications of environmental justice for public health and social science research.

The Rocks and Stones Themselves . . .

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 211-212
Author(s):  
Michel Gelobter
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Environmental Justice ◽  
The United States ◽  
Environmental Hazards ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Toxic Wastes

A short reflection on the emergence of the environmental justice movement from the Toxic Wastes and Race report and Michigan’s Conference on Race and the Incidence of Environmental Hazards. These events and the movement are framed in the context of the long struggle for racial justice in the United States.

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.

A Portraiture of Environmental Justice in Communities of Concern

2022 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 0-0
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Justice ◽  
The United States ◽  
Development Model ◽  
Environmental Equity ◽  
Environmental Racism ◽  
Developmental Models ◽  
Global Challenge ◽  
Important Solution ◽  
International Phenomenon

Environmental justice as a movement is an urgent step towards the realization of environmental equity. There is a necessity that makes environmental justice an important solution to climate change. The origin of the necessity was the damage that environmental racism was causing, and its realization in the United States and later as an international phenomenon. Through a theoretical approach, this article examined how communities of concern are denied environmental justice as a result of the current developmental models in practice and showed why they are vulnerable to the global challenge of climate change and environmental pollution. It identified the link between human rights and the environment. It explored a viable sustainable development model for communities of concern and concluded on how they can get past the economic challenges of implementing green industries.

Environmental Racism in the United States and the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

1996 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 277-287
Author(s):  
Neil A.F. Popović
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
The United States ◽  
Effective Protection ◽  
Environmental Racism ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Legal Responsibilities

This article examines the problem of environmental racism in the United States through the human rights lens of the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). The article describes the nature of environmental racism and probes the inadequacy of US environmental and civil right laws in dealing with the problem. The article assesses the situation with reference to the US Government's obligations under the CERD and reaches the conclusion that the lack of effective protection against environmental racism and the absence of effective remedies in US law demonstrate a failure by the US Government to live up to its international legal responsibilities. The article suggests that notwithstanding substantial legal and political obstacles, the US Government's 1994 ratification of the CERD provides a potentially powerful weapon in the pursuit of environmental justice.

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