The Lancet Commission on pollution and health

During recent years social scientists have come to reaffirm that understanding almost any facet of social life requires a simultaneous understanding of how economic institutions work and how they are influenced by values and norms. Sociology, and especially economic sociology, is well equipped to be of assistance in this endeavor. Neil Smelser and Richard Swedberg bring together leading sociologists, economists, and political scientists in The Handbook of Economic Sociology, the first comprehensive view of this vital and growing field. "This excellent volume is a compilation of some of the best writing in this field over the past decade, including basic works like Oliver Williamson's transaction cost theory of the firm, and [is] a helpful comparison of economic sociology to mainstream economics." —Francis Fukuyama, Foreign Affairs "This is the first comprehensive theoretical and empirical account of the burgeoning field of economic sociology. The scholarship is consistently strong. . .. The book will be greeted warmly and read by serious scholars throughout the social sciences." —Robert K. Merton "This is a bold, ambitious, almost daunting project. ... It will surely become the standard reference book for the field—the sort of text every scholar will have to know-, consult, and cite." —Viviana Zelizer

Handbook of Economic Sociology

The term "access" is frequently used by property and natural resource analysts without adequate definition. In this paper we develop a concept of access and examine a broad set of factors that differentiate access from property. We define access as "the ability to derive benefits from things," broadening from property's clas- sical definition as "the right to benefit from things." Access, following this definition, is more akin to "a bundle of powers" than to property's notion of a "bundle of rights." This formulation includes a wider range of social relationships that constrain or enable benefits from resource use than property relations alone. Using this fram- ing, we suggest a method of access analysis for identifying the constellations of means, relations, and processes that enable various actors to derive benefits from re- sources. Our intent is to enable scholars, planners, and policy makers to empirically "map" dynamic processes and relationships of access.

A Theory of Access.

Sociological studies sensitive to the issue of place are rarely labeled thus, and at the same time there are far too many of them to fit in this review. It may be a good thing that this research is seldom gathered up as a “sociology of place,” for that could ghettoize the subject as something of interest only to geographers, architects, or environmental historians. The point of this review is to indicate that sociologists have a stake in place no matter what they analyze, or how: The works cited below emplace inequality, difference, power, politics, interaction, community, social movements, deviance, crime, life course, science, identity, memory, history. After a prologue of definitions and methodological ruminations, I ask: How do places come to be the way they are, and how do places matter for social practices and historical change?

A Space for Place in Sociology

Poor children confront widespread environmental inequities. Compared with their economically advantaged counterparts, they are exposed to more family turmoil, violence, separation from their families, instability, and chaotic households. Poor children experience less social support, and their parents are less responsive and more authoritarian. Low-income children are read to relatively infrequently, watch more TV, and have less access to books and computers. Low-income parents are less involved in their children's school activities. The air and water poor children consume are more polluted. Their homes are more crowded, noisier, and of lower quality. Low-income neighborhoods are more dangerous, offer poorer municipal services, and suffer greater physical deterioration. Predominantly low-income schools and day care are inferior. The accumulation of multiple environmental risks rather than singular risk exposure may be an especially pathogenic aspect of childhood poverty.

Environment of childhood poverty

* List of Tables and Illustrations * Preface * Acknowledgments * List of Acronyms * 1. Environmentalism and Social Justice * Race Versus Class in Spatial Location * The Theoretical Basis of Environmental Conflict * Translating Concern into Action * Environmentalism and Civil Rights * A Note on the Research Approach * 2. Race, Class, and the Politics of Place * Consequences of Uneven Development * Endangered Environs * Growing Black Militancy * Waste-Facility Siting Disparities * 3. Dispute Resolution and Toxics: Case Studies * Defining and Defending Against a Threat * Houston's Northwood Manor Neighborhood * West Dallas (Texas) * Institute (West Virginia) * Alsen (Louisiana) * Emelle-Sumter County (Alabama) * Summary of Disputes and Resolutions * 4. The Environmental Justice Movement: Survey Results * Rating of Environmental Problems * Siting Conflict and the Question of Equity * Economic Versus Environmental Trade-Offs * Environmental Activism * 5. Environmental Racism Revisited * The Role of Racism * Unequal Protection * Environmental Apartheid * Louisiana as "Paradise" Lost * From American Dream to Nightmare * 6. Environmental Justice as a Working Model * Waiting for Government Action * Impetus for Changing the System * Executive Order 12898 * Remedying Past Inequities * A Model Environmental Justice Framework * Winning at the Grass Roots * Relocation from "Mount Dioxin," * Citizens Against Nuclear Trash Chalk Up Major Victory * Corporate Welfare and Environmental Racism: The Case of Shintech * Conclusion * 7. Action Strategies for the Twenty-First Century * Lessons Learned * Mobilizing the Grass Roots * Toward the Politics of Inclusion * Conclusion * Notes * Selected Bibliography * Appendix: Resources and Contacts * Index

Dumping In Dixie: Race, Class, And Environmental Quality

By reading, you can know the knowledge and things more, not only about what you get from people to people. Book will be more trusted. As this confronting environmental racism voices from the grassroots, it will really give you the good idea to be successful. It is not only for you to be success in certain life you can be successful in everything. The success can be started by knowing the basic knowledge and do actions.

Confronting environmental racism : voices from the grassroots

Introduction: Joined-Up Thinking: Bringing Together Sustainability, Environmental Justice and Equity * Part 1 - Some Theories and Concepts: Environmental Space, Equity and the Ecological Debt * Neo-Liberalism, Globalization and the Struggle for Ecological Democracy: Linking Sustainability and Environmental Justice * Inequality and Community and the Challenge to Modernization: Evidence from the Nuclear Oases * Part 2 - Challenges: Social Justice and Environmental Sustainability: Ne'er the Twain Shall Meet * Part 3 - Cities, Communities and Social and Environmental Justice: When Consumption Does Violence: Can there be Sustainability and Environmental Justice in a Resource-Limited World? * Race, Politics and Pollution: Environmental Justice in the Mississippi River Chemical Corridor * Identity, Place and Communities of Resistance * Environmental Justice in State Policy Decisions * Part 4 - Selected Regional Perspectives on Sustainability and Environmental Justice: Sustainability and Equity: Reflection of a Local Government Practitioner in Southern Africa * Mining Conflicts, Environmental Justice and Valuation * Women and Environmental Justice in South Asia * Maori Kaupapa and the Inseparability of Social and Environmental Justice: An Analysis of Bioprospecting and a People's Resistance to Biocultural Assimilation * Political Economy of Petroleum Resources Development, Environmental Injustice and Selective Victimization: A Case Study of the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria * Environmental Protection, Economic Growth and Environmental Justice: Are They Compatible in Central and Eastern Europe? * the Campaign for Environmental Justice in Scotland as a Response to Poverty in a Northern Nation * Conclusion: Towards Just Sustainabilities: Perspectives and Possibilities * Index

Just Sustainabilities : Development in an Unequal World

This paper presents data on the siting of solid waste facilities in one of the nation's fastest growing cities, Houston, Texas. The findings reveal that solid waste sites were not randomly scattered over the Houston landscape but were likely to be found in predominantly black neighborhoods and near black schools. Institutionalized discrimination in the housing market, lack of zoning, and decisions by public officials over the past fifty years are major factors that have contributed to Houston's black neighborhoods becoming the “dumping ground” for the area's solid waste.

Solid Waste Sites and the Black Houston Community

Essays contributed by participants in the 1991 First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit chronicle the struggles of communities of color from all over the U.S. and the actions needed to restore their safety and health. Editor Robert Bullard served on the Clinton Administration's environmental transition team.

Robert D. Bullard

Papers

Dumping In Dixie: Race, Class, And Environmental Quality

Confronting environmental racism : voices from the grassroots

Just Sustainabilities : Development in an Unequal World

Solid Waste Sites and the Black Houston Community

Unequal protection : environmental justice and communities of color