Day 2

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10217/183718

This digital collection includes papers given during the Environmental Justice in the Anthropocene Symposium held in 2017, Day 2 tracks: Track 1: Thinking the Anthropocene: Conceptual Issues in Environmental Justice; Track 2: Law, Rights and Environmental Justice; Track 3: Critical Perspectives on Distributive and Procedural Environmental Justice; Track 4: Climate Justice; Track 5: Water Security and Justice; Track 6: Green Cities, Inclusion, and the Justice of Recognition; Track 7: Alternatives to Development; Track 8: Teaching and Learning Environmental Justice; Track 9: Environmental Justice in China; Track 10: Indigenous People and Environmental Justice; Track 11: Moving Past Rhetoric: Incorporating Social Justice Theory and Praxis That Honors, Empowers, and Transforms Research with Underrepresented/Marginalized Communities; Track 12: Planning for Boulder's Just Transition; Track 13: Intersecting and Hidden Inequalities; Track 14: Environmental and Social Justice in Turbulent Times.

Browse

Now showing 1 - 13 of 13

Open Access
01 Program: Environmental justice in the Anthropocene symposium
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017) Colorado State University. School of Global Environmental Sustainability, author
"We have planned a diverse, international Symposium on Environmental Justice in the Anthropocene. In this program, you will find logistical information about the symposium, the School of Global Environmental Sustainability (SoGES) Environmental Justice and Sustainability in the Anthropocene Global Challenge Research Team (GCRT), Colorado State University, and Fort Collins."
Open Access
02 Agenda: Environmental justice in the Anthropocene symposium
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017) Colorado State University. School of Global Environmental Sustainability, author
Final agenda for the "Environmental Justice in the Anthropocene Symposium" held on April 24-25, 2017, Colorado State University, Fort Collins Colorado.
Open Access
Ecopopulism and environmental justice in eastern and south Europe
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017-07-25) Antal, Attila, author
I am dealing in this paper with the question of environmental and climate (in)justices in Eastern and South Europe (ESE). At first, I will refer the theoretical pillars of environmental justice and my statement is that there is an expanding sphere concerning environmentalism which has grounded the theory of climate justice. The environmental justice has been expanded to climate justice, because it increasingly addressed that the environmental and social conditions provide for individual and community needs and functioning and justice depends on the environmental conditions. It has been put forward here that populism could bring closer the importance of environmental and climate related disasters to the people's everyday lives and experience. In the next part of this paper the connection of climate justice and social problems in ESE has been analyzed. The investigation elaborated here is based on a very important initiative called Environmental Justice Organizations, Liabilities and Trade (EJOLT) and its Environmental Justice Atlas. I will focus on two main environmental and climate injustice caused challenges: the first one is the situation of the Roma communities in ESE, and the second one is the emerging case of fuel or energy poverty. It has been raised here that an elitist populist regime, for instance in Hungary, how can damage the case of environmental and climate justice with instituted biopower. I will conclude this paper that we need to (re)enhance the social nature of environmental problems and this will strengthen the environmental consciousness in ESE. The relating discourse of environmental and climate justice in ESE is need to be based on environmental identities constructed on ethnical and social solidarity. Finally, we should have a look on the biopolitical structure of modern State.
Open Access
Institutions of environmental democracy and environmental justice: the case of Chile
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017-07-25) Baver, S., author
Open Access
One earth, one species history and one future: planet justice and indigenous resistance in the Anthropocene
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017-07-25) Pandit, Saptaparni, author; Purakayastha, Anindya Sekhar, author
Open Access
Environmental justice dialogues and the struggle for human dignity in the deciduous forest of Bangladesh
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017-07-25) Ahmed, Farid, author; Low, Nicholas P., author
The paper presents environmental justice dialogues in the Madhupur Garo community in Bangladesh. The Garo community, which identifies itself as adivasi meaning 'indigenous', has occupied the deciduous forest of Madhupur in Bangladesh for centuries, developing a symbiotic relationship with nature. An environmental justice movement, called the "Eco-park Movement" has long been protesting a government development plan to establishing an "eco-park'' in the Madhupur deciduous forest. The eco-park plan has interfered with the Garo's right to life and livelihood as well as threatening them with possible eviction from their traditional land. From their protest movement, the concept of environmental justice has acquired a meaning with emphasis on human dignity. The Garo community not only defines environmental injustice as a lack of access to the decision-making process, information and judiciary but includes other elements: obstruction to fair access to environmental resources for livelihood, threat to the economy, health, trade, education, security, privacy and right to life. Finally, the Garo connect all these environmental human rights issues with rights to self-determination and human dignity.
Open Access
The social impact of green urban renewal in two European capital cities: Copenhagen and Vienna in comparison
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017-07-25) Cucca, Roberta, author
The need for more sustainable cities is a key point of the EU Urban Agenda. Although the attention to social inclusion, especially in the most deprived urban areas, is an important pillar of this strategy, a clear evaluation of the social impacts of sustainability programs in EU Cities is however still missing. This paper aims to fill this gap, by analyzing, in comparative perspective, the social impacts of green renewal in Europe. By selecting as case studies Vienna and Copenhagen and implementing a mixed method approach to empirical investigation (quantitative data gathering; interviews with key informants in cities; ethnographic research in areas of the cities affected by green urban renewal and programs for sustainability; comparative analysis of data and information) the research identifies intended and unintended impacts of these strategies in terms of social and spatial inequality among social groups. The main communalities between Vienna and Copenhagen are the strong promotion of strategies of green urban renewal as asset for attractivity and demographic growth (inner-districts green renewal, waterfront redevelopment, new eco-districts). The most important differences are related to the affordability of the housing market resulting from the implementation of such strategies, a factor that plays a huge role in fostering or containing social and spatial inequalities in contemporary Green European cities.
Open Access
Tribal consultation and collaborative governance: environmental and cultural justice through the lens of the National Environmental Policy Act (1969) and the National Historic Preservation Act (1966)
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017-07-25) Rowe, Matthew J., author; Finley, Judson Byrd, author; Baldwin, Elizabeth, author; DeMinck, Rashail, author
Open Access
Intersectional oral histories: method and praxis in environmental justice research
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017-07-25) Larkins, Michelle L., author
The compatibility of intersectional theory and environmental justice research seems self-evident. Central to the framework of intersectionality, is the concept that subjective identities create interlocking categories through which the inequalities of power are experienced—individually and socio-structurally within communities. Foremost among many environmental justice scholars is the acknowledgement that new theoretical orientations and qualitative investigative methods are needed to address the emerging spatial and contextual heterogeneity of environmental justice research (Schlosberg, 2013; Szasz and Meuser, 1997). In my own work, I am interested in problematizing the feminization of the EJ movement/framework—a feminization I argue can impact the distribution of resources (power). I do this by examining how hegemonic conceptions of masculinity and femininity shape women's engagement in community action. In this paper, I explore the construction and negotiation of identity of women actors who are involved in environmental and food justice projects from two separate Rocky Mountain West communities; the first a small community near Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the second, three contiguous and primarily Latino neighborhoods outside of Denver, Colorado. Using the oral histories of women (n=11) involved in these projects, and a framework of intersectionality, I demonstrate how gender interlocks with other identities (such as femininity, citizenship, and place) to mediate environmental realities, experiences of injustice, and claims for recognition and restoration (Whyte, 2014). My intent in drawing on this research approach is to incorporate embodied human reality and to establish settings where individuals are able to name their experiences/feelings and simultaneously reflect on meaning (Anderson et al, 1990). I will illustrate how this type of approach is well suited to social praxis, citizen science engagement with communities who can incorporate these narratives into their own work, and can help EJ scholars move toward transdisciplinarity.
Open Access
Brazilian environmental justice in crisis: traditional peoples, environmental governance, and the limits of socioeconomic inclusion
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017-07-25) Azenha, Gustavo S., author
Through exploring the ongoing and intensified struggles between traditional peoples over land and natural resources in Brazil, I analyze the limitations of current forms of environmental decision-making and socioeconomic inclusion, and the contradictory impulses of sustainable development in which these are embedded. I examine the conjoined evolution of policies for economic development, the environment, and traditional rights since the 1980s in Brazil, exploring the shifting terrain of environmental justice struggles during different political economic phases, including democratization in the 1980s, the rise of neoliberalism in the 1990s, the postneoliberal turn of the early 2000s, and the current re-entrenchment of neoliberalism accompanying Brazil's political and economic crisis. Since the 1980s, there has been an overall trend towards strengthening socioenvironmental movements, policies, and governance, but in the last few years, there has been an erosion of traditional peoples' influence in environmental policies and an undermining of traditional land and resource rights. These trends occur alongside what have been seemingly contradictory efforts at promoting poverty alleviation and socioeconomic inclusion under the guise of sustainable development. I argue that these efforts are based on narrow conceptions of inclusion and citizenship that are modest in scope, focused on the short-term, and overlook critical structural matters. The promotion of socioeconomic inclusion has insufficiently safeguarded established rights and has limited participation in policymaking in important ways, yielding forms of sustainable development in which environmental and social concerns are superficial and echo historical exclusionary, assimilationist, and developmentalist efforts to promote "progress". With the strong conservative backlash of the current political and economic crisis, even these deficient efforts at socioeconomic inclusion are being scaled back, at the same time that environmental policies and traditional rights are being deeply eroded, posing serious challenges for cultivating a just and sustainable future. Because of the inseparable links between nature and state-making in Brazil, and the important role Brazil plays in international environmental governance, my analysis of contested ecologies in Brazil brings insights into the broader contradictions and limitations of global sustainable development efforts and the persistent challenges to cultivating more inclusive forms of environmental governance.
Open Access
Towards a framework for the intersection of environmental justice and climate change
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017-07-25) Eisenhauer, Emily, author; Julius, Susan, author
In 1994, the Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice (EJIWG) was established by Executive Order 12898 to advance environmental justice principles. In 2011 the EJIWG identified climate change as an important area of focus for increased reporting and for joint development of programs with impacted communities. To achieve these goals, a working group came together to develop a framework that articulates the intersection of EJ and climate change, provides a basis for using common terminology to support federal actions, supports the engagement of communities often left out of climate change conversations, and identifies needs and gaps to inform targeted education, communication, and implementation actions. A list of key terms was compiled from across the climate change science and climate justice research and community based work, as well as from community planning. Key questions that guided the development of the framework were: who is most vulnerable to climate change, and how? How does climate change interact with existing environmental justice disparities? How can disparities arising from the added effects of climate change be reduced, and how can opportunities arising from actions to mitigation and adapt to climate change be leveraged to reduce vulnerability? The framework draws on long- and well-established federal environmental justice programs that seek to reduce disparities in environmental impacts, and integrates more recent actions to address the impacts of climate change. It serves the goals of the EJIWG by illustrating how climate change and environmental justice issues interact to contribute to vulnerability, and how adverse outcomes can be minimized and beneficial outcomes maximized. Meaningful involvement of affected communities is a key factor in leading to these desired outcomes through maximizing co-benefits and utilizing equitable development.
Open Access
Contested suburban mobilities: towards a sustainable urbanism of justice and difference
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017-07-25) Zhou, Shimeng, author
Mainstream understandings of sustainability are dominated by post-political discourses that tend to favour technological solutions while overlooking social justice. This paper draws attention to the different and often uneven ways in which sustainable urban environments, and their associated practices of citizenship and mobility, are produced and contested. By combining critical approaches to sustainable urbanism, ecological citizenship and mobility with social practice theory, this paper highlights the social justice dimensions of 'green' transitions through the case of a cycling-promoting initiative within a sustainable regeneration project ('Sustainable Järva') in Järva, an ethnically diverse suburb outside Stockholm, Sweden. The results reveal divergent understandings of suburban regeneration and ecological citizenship among different groups, and the deeply political nature of cycling. In 'Sustainable Järva', the practices of ecological citizenship promoted have overlapped with norms and values linked to a 'Swedish' identity associated with environmental responsibility, familiarity with nature, and active outdoor mobility, thus normatively reproducing power structures of class and race in the public opinion on desired forms of ecological citizenship and mobility. The results challenge post-political understandings of 'sustainability', affirming that just transitions to sustainable futures that ensure both the 'green' and the 'just' require environmentally progressive ontologies of sustainability, urbanism, ecological citizenship and mobility, promoting ecologically sound transitions while accommodating difference, and addressing the joint environmental and social justice implications for diverse communities.
Open Access
Adaptation in the Anthropocene: issues of justice in national adaptation programmes of action
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017-07-25) White, Abbie, author
Adaptation is and will continue to be an opportunity to tackle the effects of climate change with the potential to address or exacerbate issues of justice. Adaptation activities and governance can support or derail just transitions and just futures. This is of particular importance for vulnerable communities, who contribute less to the drivers of climate change, but are burdened with more of the effects. In recognition of global inequalities and the specific vulnerabilities of least developed countries (LDCs), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) developed National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs). NAPAs are a way for LDCs to determine and communicate their urgent adaptation needs and provide an avenue for adaptation activities to be funded. This paper analyses the considerations of justice that are inscribed in NAPA reports submitted to the UNFCCC. In doing so, it will examine issues of distributive justice and procedural justice embedded in the NAPA reports and preparation process. While the broad idea of NAPAs addresses issues of inequality and justice at a global scale, by applying to LDCs, this paper questions whether these rhetorical commitments to justice are actualised in the reports and whether a commitment to justice is carried through to the most vulnerable communities within countries. NAPAs can be seen as a governance tool that in theory can address issues of justice. Fair and transparent governance, planning and implementation of adaptation measures is necessary to avoid exacerbating existing inequalities and the creation of new injustices within and between current and future generations. This paper aims to contribute to this symposium by providing insights into the justice considerations in NAPAs.

Browse

Recent Submissions