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Citizen Science: A Study of People, Expertise and Sustainable Development

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

https://journals.librarypublishing.arizona.edu/jpe/article/1932/galley/2191/download/

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

In their own battles and strategy meetings since the early 1980s, EJOs (environmental justice organizations) and their networks have introduced several concepts to political ecology that have also been taken up by academics and policy makers. In this paper, we explain the contexts in which such notions have arisen, providing definitions of a wide array of concepts and slogans related to environmental inequities and sustainability, and explore the connections and relations between them. These concepts include: environmental justice, ecological debt, popular epidemiology, environmental racism, climate justice, environmentalism of the poor, water justice, biopiracy, food sovereignty, "green deserts", "peasant agriculture cools downs the Earth", land grabbing, Ogonization and Yasunization, resource caps, corporate accountability, ecocide, and indigenous territorial rights, among others. We examine how activists have coined these notions and built demands around them, and how academic research has in turn further applied them and supplied other related concepts, working in a mutually reinforcing way with EJOs. We argue that these processes and dynamics build an activist-led and co-produced social sustainability science, furthering both academic scholarship and activism on environmental justice. Keywords: Political ecology, environmental justice organizations, environmentalism of the poor, ecological debt, activist knowledge

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Between activism and science: Grassroots concepts for sustainability coined by Environmental Justice Organizations

The environmental movement may be “the most comprehensive and influential movement of our time” (Castells 1997: 67), representing for the ‘post-industrial’ age what the workers’ movement was for the industrial period. Yet while strike statistics have been collected for many countries since the late nineteenth century (van der Velden 2007),1 until the present no administrative body tracks the occurrence and frequency of mobilizations or protests related to environmental issues at the global scale, in the way that the World Labour Organization tracks the occurrence of strike action.2 Thus until the present it has been impossible to properly document the prevalence and incidence of contentious activity related to environmental issues or to track the ebb and flow of protest activity. Such an exercise is necessary because if the twentieth century has been the one of workers struggles, the twenty-first century could well be the one of environmentalists. This Special Feature presents the results from such an exercise—The Global Atlas of Environmental Justice— a unique global inventory of cases of socio-environmental conflicts built through a collaborative process between academics and activist groups which includes both qualitative and quantitative data on thousands of conflictive projects as well as on the social response. This Special Feature applies the lenses of political ecology and ecological economics to unpack and understand these socio-environmental conflicts, otherwise known as ‘ecological distribution conflicts’, (hereafter EDCs, Martinez-Alier 1995, 2002). The contributions in this special feature explore the why, what, how and who of these contentious processes within a new comparative political ecology. The articles in this special issue underline the need for a politicization of socio-environmental debates, whereby political refers to the struggle over the kinds of worlds the people want to create and the types of ecologies they want to live in. We put the focus on who gains and who loses in ecological processes arguing that these issues need to be at the center of sustainability science. Secondly, we demonstrate how environmental justice groups and movements coming out of those conflicts play a fundamental role in redefining and promoting sustainability. We contend that protests are not disruptions to smooth governance that need to be managed and resolved, but that they express grievances as well as aspirations and demands and in this way may serve as potent forces that can lead to the transformation towards sustainability of our economies, societies and ecologies.

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The Global Environmental Justice Atlas (EJAtlas): ecological distribution conflicts as forces for sustainability

Street science: Community knowledge and environmental health justice

This article discusses the role of populations affected by environmental injustice situations in the production of knowledge about environmental health stemming from inequalities and discrimination in the distribution of risks and benefits of economic development. Special attention is given to the epistemological and political limits to producing knowledge and alternatives that enable advances in building more just and sustainable societies are highlighted. Based on a broader view of health, the limits of scientific approaches are called into question by acknowledging the importance of local knowledge are discussed, either to analyze environmental risks or their effects on health, including epidemiological studies. These limits are linked primarily to the concealment of conflicts and uncertainties, the lack of contextualization of exposure to risk and effects on health, as well as the difficulties of dialogue with the communities. The article also presents contributions and advances presented by environmental justice movements. The conclusion is that a constructivist, procedural and democratic perspective of confronting forms of knowledge and practices can guide the scientific production to benefit of environmental justice.

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Environmental risk, health and justice: the protagonism of affected populations in the production of knowledge

The phenomenon of globalization and the increase in neo-extractivism in the global periphery intensify the search for new territories and natural resources for the economy, resulting in significant impacts on ecosystems and on the lives of vulnerable populations. It is considered that the environmental crisis imposes new challenges and requires an updating of the theoretical and methodological foundations of collective health and the social determinants of health. The scope of this paper is to present theoretical contributions to the construction of a critical socio-environmental approach from a review of the literature structured around previous work on the mapping of environmental conflicts, and conducting empirical studies in conflicting areas. The contributions of sociology, political ecology, postcolonial studies and geography is summarized for the discussion of the socio-environmental determinants of health, as well as experiences that integrate emancipatory knowledge, political subjects, resistances and alternatives for society.

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Saúde coletiva, território e conflitos ambientais: bases para um enfoque socioambiental crítico

The article discusses conceptual and methodological issues related to environmental risks and health problems, in the context of environmental injustice and conflicts. In doing so, we use the conceptual frameworks of political ecology and what we call political epistemology. We propose a comprehensive vision of health that relates not only to illness and death, but also to life, nature, culture and fundamental human rights. We summarize this as health and dignity, echoing the voices of countless people who have been fighting for the right to life and the commons, and against the impacts of mining, agribusiness and the oil industry. Therefore our concept of health is intrinsically related to the capacity of affected communities and their democratic allies to face environmental conflicts (the exploitation of natural resources and the workforce with the systematic violation of rights related to work, land, environment and health). Mobilizations for environmental justice also struggle for the autonomy of communities, their cultures, and the right to maintain indigenous or peasant livelihoods. The way knowledge is produced plays a fundamental role in environmental justice mobilizations since issues of power are related to epistemological disputes and counter-hegemonic alternatives. Political epistemology is an alternative way of confronting crucial questions related to knowledge production, uncertainties and the manipulations of those who generate environmental injustices. Finally, we point to some strategies for strengthening the shared production of knowledge and the mobilization of communities that organize to confront environmental injustices. Key words: political epistemology, political ecology of health, health and dignity

https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/JPE/article/download/20786/20378

Health as dignity: political ecology, epistemology and challenges to environmental justice movements

Este trabalho discute as contradicoes existentes na implementacao de projetos de energia “limpa”, a partir de quatro casos do contexto brasileiro: agrocombustiveis via cana‑de‑acucar, hidreletricas, parques eolicos e, por fim, energia nuclear. Todos geram inumeros impactos sociais, ambientais e a saude que caracterizam o que denominamos provocativamente “injusticas da sustentabilidade”. Assumimos que os conflitos ambientais existentes nos casos sao inevitaveis em sociedades de mercado, cuja visao hegemonica de desenvolvimento economico das corporacoes e, frequentemente, orgaos de governo e confrontada por populacoes atingidas e movimentos sociais. Portanto, consideramos estrategico reconhecer as injusticas ambientais como forma de articular as bases materiais da sustentabilidade com questoes economicas, sociais, culturais e filosoficas acerca da nocao de progresso.

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Renan Finamore

Papers

Environmental risk, health and justice: the protagonism of affected populations in the production of knowledge

Saúde coletiva, território e conflitos ambientais: bases para um enfoque socioambiental crítico

Health as dignity: political ecology, epistemology and challenges to environmental justice movements

Injustiças da sustentabilidade: Conflitos ambientais relacionados à produção de energia “limpa” no Brasil